He's alive!

People

"Mad About You" nice guy Paul Reiser was killed and resurrected this week. E!Online reports that because of some skulduggery, Reiser's Wikipedia entry was altered to say the actor had died: "On December 27th, 2008 Reiser was discovered dead in the Squallahassee River where he reportedly enjoyed fly fishing," the entry read. "No foul play was suspected." The entry caused a flurry of blogger activity. The alteration was deleted Wednesday. No word on finding the evildoer(s). Previous Wiki wickedness includes a recent plot masterminded by Stephen Colbert to add this to Conan O'Brien's entry: "In 1987, O'Brien was arrested for assaulting a sea turtle with a canoe paddle."

Lessons

Madoff statue returned

Thieves calling themselves "The Educators" returned a statue stolen from disgraced investment guru Bernard Madoff's Florida estate. The Palm Beach Post reported that the $10,000 copper sculpture of two lifeguards sitting on a raised stand turned up Wednesday near the Palm Beach Country Club, to which Madoff belongs. A note attached read: "Bernie the Swindler, Lesson: Return stolen property to rightful owners. Signed by — The Educators." The statue was reported missing about a week after Madoff, 70, was arrested on charges he allegedly bilked investors out of more than $50 billion.

Traffic

Eggs over not-so-easy

Michigan state troopers and road crews had to scramble when a tractor-trailer crashed and spilled its load of eggs on a Detroit-area freeway late Wednesday. Trooper Jim Smiley said eastbound Interstate 94 in Washtenaw County's Ypsilanti Township reopened Thursday after being shut down for six hours. Smiley said the driver fell asleep and his rig hit a guardrail and a bridge-support beam that tore the trailer open and spilled hundreds of cartons of eggs along a 300-foot stretch of I-94.

Passages

Helen Suzman, 91, the South African anti-apartheid activist who won international acclaim as one of the few white lawmakers to fight against the injustices of racist rule, died Thursday in Johannesburg.

Paul Hofmann, 96, an Austrian who informed on his Nazi commanders in occupied Rome and later became a New York Times correspondent and author, died in Rome on Tuesday.

Donald Westlake, 75, one of the most successful mystery writers in the United States and an Academy Award nominee for "The Grifters" screenplay, died after collapsing on the way to a New Year's Eve dinner while on vacation in Mexico. He wrote more than 100 books, under his own name and several pseudonyms, including Richard Stark, Tucker Coe, Samuel Holt and Edwin West.

Bernie Hamilton, 80, an actor who played the no-nonsense police captain on the 1970s TV series "Starsky and Hutch," died Tuesday at a Los Angeles hospital.

Today in History

1492: Muhammad XII, the sultan of Granada, the last Arab stronghold in Spain, surrendered to Spanish forces.

1900: Secretary of State John Hay announced the "Open Door Policy" to facilitate trade with China.

1935: Bruno Hauptmann went on trial in Flemington, N.J., on charges of kidnapping and murdering the 20-month-old son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. (Hauptmann was found guilty and executed.)

1974: President Nixon signed legislation requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55 miles an hour. (However, federal speed limits were abolished in 1995).

Today's Birthdays

TV host Jack Hanna, 62. Actress Wendy Phillips, 57. Actress Gabrielle Carteris, 48. Director Todd Haynes, 48. Actor Cuba Gooding Jr., 41. Actor Taye Diggs, 38. Actor Dax Shepard, 34. Actress Kate Bosworth, 26.

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