Gossip columnist Liz Smith , nearly 87, looks back with NPR. “I had a lot of gender confusion when I was younger,” she says of her affairs with women. She still goes out at least three nights a week. [ NPR ]

Worried about the deterioration of soldiers’ marriages — divorce has been on the rise in their ranks since 9/11 — the military is increasingly allowing couples to serve together. The Wall Street Journal meets three such couples in Afghanistan. All three serve in the same military police company in Kandahar, a rarity and one sign of the relative flexibility the Pentagon is showing to try to keep marriages and the mental health of its soldiers stable. Previously, says The Journal , couples serving together were seen in the same context as gay soldiers: that they “would damage unit cohesion and morale.” The compromise is to allow couples proximity but to avoid direct working relationships. Interestingly, while two of the husbands are quoted sounding protective — one wishing his wife wouldn’t leave a desk job…

Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester’s hot lingerie photo shoot in Decemeber 2009’s GQ Magazine….

The New York Times ‘ John Tierney asks : “Could adults gossiping in the office be more devious than the teenagers in Gossip Girl ?” The answer, of course, is: Yes. And a new study reveals that gossip in the workplace? Overwhelmingly negative. Dr. Tim Hallett, a sociologist at Indiana University, published the study in the latest issue of the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography along with Dr. Eder and Brent Harger of Albright College. The researchers spent two years studying the group dynamics at a Midwestern elementary school, where they found that not only were the students say cruel things about each other — the teachers, when in a group, were nasty as well. Kids being mean is one thing — the study transcribes a cafeteria conversation in which a group of eighth-grade girls talk about an overweight classmate, calling…

The former Spice Girl is reportedly on a strict diet of blueberries and sashimi to stay model thin for wearing her own fashion designs….