NO-SHOW Spears(Photo: Getty Images)

• Morning sickness?: The unpregnant Britney Spears skips out on her custody deposition, calling in sick to K-Fed‘s lawyer.

• Music to their ears: Viacom does an about-face, putting off the elimination of MTV permalancer health benefits and pledging to offer many of them staffer status with all of the trimmings. Hold out for more music videos in the programming lineup!

• Collateral damage: Franklin Foer‘s 7,000-word retraction of Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp‘s uncorroborated dispatches gets mixed reviews—especially from the former TNR staffer who married the dude.

• Total protest live: Striking writers disrupt scabby Carson Daly‘s Last Call taping by planting themselves in the audience and heckling his hackiness.

• Depp chart: A possibly false rumor has Johnny Depp lined up to star in a new film version of Pee-wee’s Playhouse—hopefully with all the creepy sexual innuendo we were too young to get the first time around.

• Collection plate: Mitt Romney threw $10,000 at a nonprofit group affiliated with the National Review before receiving the mag’s endorsement.