Back in August, the Enquirer unleashed a BOMBSHELL EXCLUSIVE: "John Edwards is moving the mother of his love child into his North Carolina neighborhood and will help raise their baby." After failing—or is it passing?—a secret paternity test, Edwards had resolved to bring Rielle and baby Frances to Wilmington (the Edwards' also own an estate in Chapel Hill, N.C.)

So what are we to make of today's BOMBSHELL EXCLUSIVE?

John Edwards is paying for his mistress and their love child to live in a gorgeous million- dollar home that's a short distance from his family's luxury mansion!

Well, there is one slight difference between the two stories. Back in August, Edwards' "cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth exploded in a rage when he told her...that he's moving his mistress and baby to Wilmington, near his plush $2.6 million waterfront mansion." This time, she's taking a more laid-back approach: "[W]e have learned that in a dramatic change of heart, Edwards' cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth has reluctantly agreed to go along with Rielle and the baby moving close to the Edwards' $2.6 million waterfront home."

So there you have it: The first time around, the Enquirer seriously underestimated Elizabeth Edwards' ability to stop her husband from paying for his mistress and illegitimate daughter to live down the beach. As for Elizabeth's change of heart, who knows? It could be that her health has taken a turn for the worse, putting her in a more conciliatory mood. Or it could be that she finally became convinced that giving Hunter everything she wants is the only way to get her to stop telling the National Enquirer everything, all the time. If it was the latter, we now know that she was wrong.

The National Enquirer reports in their new issue that Edwards, who just last week decided to acknowledge that he is indeed the man who knocked up Rielle Hunter, is helping the withered party girl and their baby move to Wilmington, North Carolina so that he can help raise the child and be an active part of her life. Friends of Elizabeth Edwards told The Enquirer that she flipped out when she found out about Hunter's move to their neighborhood.

"She's always figured the child may be John's, but the positive DNA result really floored her. And as if that wasn't bad enough, John told Elizabeth he needed to be in his daughter's life - and that Rielle was moving to North Carolina.

"He told Elizabeth he was tired of all the lies, and that's why he was ready to publicly admit Frances is his baby.

"That's when Elizabeth exploded! In a fit of rage, she grabbed a suitcase and started packing her things . . ."

Seriously, what more could John Edwards possibly do to make his wife's life any more miserable? Maybe instead of using the toilet he can just start defecating all over the family home whenever the urge strikes him?

Citing anonymous sources, WRAL says that Edwards will confirm he's the father of the 18-month-old at some point before the federal grand jury investigating whether or not he used campaign funds to pay off Hunter to keep quiet about the affair completes its work.

Coincidentally, the National Enquirer reported today that it has the results of a DNA test proving Edwards' paternity. Once again, the Enquirer deserves a tip of the hat for the work they did on this story, especially in the early going when the old media did everything they could to cover up how just much of a piece of shit John Edwards really is.

• Friends of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie say that the couple is planning to get married in New Orleans, perhaps at the end of the summer. Pitt and Jolie have resisted getting married in the past, but feel motivated to show the world that they're really in love and aren't breaking up any time soon by getting hitched, a move sure to kill the relationship once and for all. [UK Mirror]
  
  
• Brooke Shields has reached a settlement with the National Enquirer after reporters for the tabloid did one of the most bizarre things in history of "journalism"—-They showed up at a New Jersey nursing home that cares for Shields' dementia-addled mother and checked her out of the facility, claiming to be "friends" of hers. [Daily News]
  
  
• Mariah Carey is getting fat but her people claim that it's all good because she loves food and isn't afraid to pack on a few pounds to enhance her "curves." In other news, Mariah Carey recently got married, a social condition that often leads to weight gain by all parties involved. [New York Post]
  
  
• Britney Spears' LSU football-loving dad has banned booze from backstage during her concert tour in a desperate attempt to keep her sober, but that hasn't stopped Britney from hitting the London club scene during her time there. [Sun]
  
  
• Pete Doherty was on a British Airways flight to Switzerland and needed a fix, so he got out of his seat in coach, marched on down to the plane's bathroom and shot himself up. He was arrested when the plane landed. It's possible that his little act, which we suppose gives new meaning to the term "mile high club," may get him banned from the airline for life. [Dlisted]
  
  
• Denise Richards has had three boob jobs so far in her life, but she doesn't think that the kids out there should ever consider having one, because the kids are beautiful and don't need to have boob jobs, or something. [UK Sun]
  
  
• So Dr. Drew stated the obvious and said that Lindsay Lohan is a trainwreck who will more than likely wind up dead before she can clean her life up, then Lohan responded by trashing Dr. Drew on her Twitter and now the Dr. Drew/Lindsay Lohan catfight you've all been waiting for is in full swing. [EOnline]
  
  
• Gordon Ramsey got pissed at an Australian journalist and called her a "lesbian pig," and now women's groups are calling Ramsey a pig. [UK Mirror]
  
  
• Ryan Phillippe and Abbie Cornish spent the weekend watching Phillippe's children with Reese Witherspoon play Little League baseball. [PITNB]

According to the National Enquirer, which Hunter has been using as her mouthpiece, the Edwards' mistress is demanding he take a test and is "working with a lawyer to take legal action."

Last August, Edwards told ABC News' Bob Woodruff that he'd be willing to take a test and make the results public to prove that he is not the father of Hunter's daughter. Hunter's lawyer responded to Edwards' offer by saying that "Rielle will not participate in DNA testing or any other invasion of her or her daughter's privacy now or in the future."

Now something—maybe it was the way Elizabeth Edwards referred to Frances Hunter as "it" on Oprah?—made her change her mind. A cynic would observe that there's a high likelihood that Edwards' offer of a test and Hunter's demurral were pre-arranged to simulate a willingness on Edwards' part to own up to the truth without having to endure the potentially unpleasant consequences.

But now that Hunter is off the reservation, Edwards is in a bit of a bind. How will he lie his way out of this one?

No doubt, Edwards' adultery is officially Real News: After the National Enquirer last week reported the Democratic politician was under grand jury investigation for possible misuse of his presidential campaign funds, a major news organization actually started looking into the story instead of ignoring it, like last time. And what do you know: It turns out the supermarket tabloid was right. Again.

Edwards mistress Rielle Hunter produced videos for the politician's presidential campaign, and received more than $100,000 for her services. Since keeping a mistress is not an acceptable use of campaign money, there is an investigation into whether the payments were legit, the Associated Press confirmed.

In one case, Hunter received $14,000 from a political action committee the same day Edwards' presidential campaign paid the committee $14,000 for "furniture purchase," making it appear the money was — perhaps! — being laundered.

The numbers might sound boring, but the AP shows how a media feeding frenzy could soon unfold:

The two-time Democratic presidential candidate acknowledged Sunday that investigators are assessing how he spent his campaign funds — a subject that could carry his extramarital affair from the tabloids to the courtroom.

A trial would mean testimony, subpoenas, evidence and lord knows how many months of proceedings. John Edwards might somehow have a 2009 that's even worse than his 2008.

According to "a pal of Levi's" who spoke to The National Enquirer Johnston is shopping a book about his relationship with Bristol Palin and her family, the Palins of Wasilla, who rule Alaska, a distant frigid socialist oil-state. He will write this book, according to Pal, to finance his battle for custody of young Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, his child with Palin.

Because, yes, a 19-year-old hockey-playing high school drop-out who just wants to go work in the damn oil fields obviously wants a long, drawn-out, expensive custody battle with the most powerful and vengeful family in Alaska so that he can raise his mistake on his own. Obviously.

Another reason this book will never happen:

A pal of Levi's told The ENQUIRER that the young father is eager to write the book to provide financial security for his son Tripp and himself, to set the record straight.

"If Levi could get a million bucks, it would be worth telling all he really knows." said the source.

Right. Who does he think he is, Miley Cyrus? Or some sort of Twittering wine jerk?

American Media is sweating yet another creditor-imposed deadline, Keith Kelly reports in the Post. CEO David Pecker has until Friday to come up with a deal with bondholders after his company default on $436 million in debt.

"It's only a matter of time before the bondholders take over," one source told Kelly.

This is apparently driving the AMI layoffs we heard about last week. Kelly heard as many as 75 were let go Friday; AMI says only eight or nine. That's quite a range

Kelly reported Country Weekly Publisher Marie Wolpert Men's Fitness' ad director Jeff Kimmel are out.

We heard the following additional people were laid off from AMI titles:

• Star Senior Reporter Cristina Everett
• Star Photo Editor Jessica Athanasiou
• Star Copywriter Catherine Adcock
• David Yama in the Star art department
• Russ Smith in the photo department at Men's Fitness
• Gina Pinna in the photo department at Men's Fitness
• Vivian Torres in production at Men's Fitness
• The online editor at Shape

Have any more names? Email us

Elsewhere in the celebrity-industrial complex, over at OK! veteran staffers are supposedly being fired to make way for laid off workers from Time Inc.'s relatively classy People.

Think about it: RadarOnline is run by the Enquirer staff. It is the Enquirer. That's how it got its scoops on the death of Travolta's son in the first place—the rescue worker's story, the friend's story, etc. This is their groove. Their stories are everywhere! But now, a news outlet can credit Radar rather than the National Enquirer, lending the reporting a somewhat more respectable air. RadarOnline's only real purpose now is to whitewash scoops for the Enquirer. This is what Alex Balk & co. were fired for. Psht.

"I couldn't believe I was watching Cindy McCain passionately kissing and hugging another man!"

That is the Ben Ratliff pull-quote on the movie poster for the documentary of sad that is the Republican party in 2008.

Also this all happened at a Moody Blues show in Tempe, Arizona. A McCain spokesperson declined to comment.

But surely there are lots of brittle-looking 50-year-old blondes in the Phoenix metro area—isn't that where they all go to spawn?

Still, this is shocking news for those who thought the marriage between cruel, borderline-emotionally abusive absentee husband and serial-cheater John McCain and lonely, DC-hating, solitary, formerly drug-addicted Cindy McCain was a strong, healthy bond.

In the wake of the Edwards' potential separation and Hunter's pending tell-all, the tabloid says it collected a dirty diaper during its original stake-out of Edwards' visit to Hunter at the Beverly Hilton. The Daily News is reporting that the Enquirer has been holding onto the baby's stinky diaper hoping to get some of Edwards' DNA for a match. To compare the sample they have "all they need is a cup he drank from," says the News source.

Of course, they'll need to get that cup before Rielle Hunter scoops the paper herself. If you really want the goods, why not match poop with poop? If Edwards is staying in a hotel, sabotage the hotel's sewage system and work from there. If you're in the shit, might as well go as deep as you can.

She hates Washington, where her husband actually lives. When he's in Arizona on his ranch, she's alone at a beach-side condo. It's easy to hate her Stepford Wife tendencies, her macabre Princess Diana aping, her constant pathological lying, and she did make this wealthy trophy wife bed she confines herself to, but there's no joy in piling on poor Cindy. It's fun to mock angry war hero McCain, and even constantly photographed blonde hipster blogger daughter Meghan, but let's all just let Cindy go back to Arizona to be lying and fragile in peace. Ok?

Obama described being counseled by Frank often and recalled drinking whiskey with him.

Since Frank Davis has been identified as the author of Sex Rebel: Black, Obama has been extremely secretive about the true nature of his experience with the self-admitted deviant.

Unfortunately for Obama, the Enquirer probably sells well among the working-class whites in Appalachia and the Rust Belt, and it looks like he's in the same issue as Elvis Presley's twin granddaughters. But child Obama should have known this would happen, using the same clairvoyant powers that would have allowed him to know Davis was a perv years before anyone else knew he was a perv. For shame!

Okay, Brad Hanson. Born in Montana, he grew up in small town Alaska, was a high school jock and is basically the exact same as Todd Palin down to the facial hair but not nearly as totally awesome, which sort of stands to reason why Palin would fall in love with him. A supporter of strip malls and self-professed enemy of "small-town charm" the Palmer football/hockey coach and property developer bonded with Todd over sports and hunting-type activities and ran a snowmobile dealership together until Todd discovered Brad and Sarah had been bonding, according to the Enquirer, over a shared interest in politics.

The Enquirer says Sarah Palin told friends the relationship was never "consummated" but you know how they get around that in Islam.

Here's their evidence:
1. This guy they picture, Jim Burdett. He's the ex-con former brother-in-law of Brad Hanson's wife Carolyn's brother Craig Bratton, and boy is he a piece of work. Served three years in some unspecified clink for some sort of "theft," he filed for bankruptcy in 2001, he supposedly "turned his life around" and now "speaks regularly with family members" — that may change! — and says that everyone always knew Brad had had an affair but that it wasn't until recently that word went down the family pipeline that the affair had been with Sarah Palin, and that if the Enquirer came calling they had better deny that the affair had been with Sarah Palin. Just to make sure, the Enquirer strapped him to a polygraph and he passed with flying colors.
2. When the Enquirer initially called the Hanson household, Carolyn reportedly said: "I would prefer not to talk about it. It's a nonissue." Then she hung up. Then she called back. And then said, "There is absolutely no truth to this story. It is a complete rumor."
3. Than Brad got on the phone and said, hilariously: "Todd and I are still friends. We own a cabin together. I talked to him four times this week. Does that sound like there was a disagreement?" Um, I have had boyfriends I didn't talk to on the phone four times in a week unless something was SERIOUSLY UP so yeah.

Anyway, thoughts:
1. Brad owns a cabin with Todd. Todd also owns a cabin with that other guy with the sealed divorce papers, Scott Richter. The Palins are looking like the Treasury Department with all those ownership stakes in the housing market!
2. Unless it's the same house, in which case, with the affairs and divorces and procreation and prescription pill-popping and Divine Energy Policy Intervention going down, that house is more zeitgeisty than the Real World house circa 1992!
3. I hated the movie American Beauty, so why can I not get it out of my mind with this crew?
4. Sigh, speaking of, as Wonkette pointed out, Peggy Noonan sorta said it best about these scandals back on Friday. Yeah, we will bite on this, of course we will bite, but our teeth are sure getting rotten from the attention deficit drugs..

*What is it with these politicians who cheat on their spouses with people who are like the spitting image of their spouses? Like, they have a "spouse complex." Remember Vicky Iseman?

Bristol Palin smoked weed on camera, the Enquirer reports today in the latest installment of the tabloid's investigation into the Republican running mate's family values. And Bristol's boyfriend Levi could desensitize Cindy McCain under the table! (Also, cocaine.) See the full sordid story after the jump, along with our attempt to explain Whether Christians Will Care.

A lot of churches ban the use of drugs and alcohol and even coffee, which is ridiculous, but pot is a particularly thorny issue. In the late seventies the religious right was widely credited for galvanizing public sentiment against the strides the Nixon and Carter administrations made toward the decriminalization of drugs and raising the political capital to fund the endless gazillion dollar War On Drugs. Those religious rightists did all this because they were creeped out by their kids under the influence of pot.

Still, the Christians have never imposed any sort of Islamish ban on mood-altering substances, namely I would venture because "Thou Shalt Not Kill Brain Cells" is nowhere to be found in the Ten Commandments, perhaps because Moses was high on hallucinogens when God revealed them to him, and a couple thousand years later when God sent down that community organizer son of his to save us from our original sins, Jesus seemed to develop a keen understanding of the value of the "addictive personality" to the propagation of his cause. There is nothing like an addiction to drugs to keep a guy sinning, and there is nothing like compulsive sin to remind you how much you need Christ's forgiveness.

So Father forgive Levi and Bristol for they have committed the sin of premarital sex on at least one known occasion and here are maybe some clues as to the demons that led them so terribly astray:

• Bristol Palin began laughing uncontrollably after smoking weed on camera in a video shot before her mom became governor back when she was probably 15.
• Says a source: "It was just another regular night of partying for Bristol and the other wild kids in Wasilla."
• A friend says he has gotten Levi cocaine "on at least three occasions and has seen him snort it."
• Bristol Palin was known as the "makeout queen."
• Levi was "also on steroids" that he injected.
• He used to sell Oxycontin for "lots of money"!
• But not all of it. He smoked it himself "off of aluminum foil." Um, I don't think I made this up but isn't that called "cracker crack" or something?