The Wendy's fast-food chain, having been wrongly accused, now faces the task of rebuilding an image tainted by a woman's claim last month that she found a severed finger in her beef chili.

In a showdown that featured inside-the-Beltway lobbying and bare-knuckle boardroom negotiating, Donald J. Trump and President Bush effectively squared off yesterday in pursuit of the same parcel of real estate - a piece of the NBC-TV prime-time lineup. And it was the president who blinked first.

The city now has the power to crack down on 1,000 illegal billboards that have spread like weeds along busy roadways in recent years, under a law signed yesterday by Mayor Bloomberg.

Clear Channel lit a fire under its long-stagnant stock Friday, setting a plan to spin off one unit, sell shares in another and return cash to shareholders through dividends. The San Antonio, Texas, radio broadcaster said it would sell 10% of its Clear Channel Outdoor unit in an IPO and spin off its entire Clear Channel Entertainment unit to shareholders. The company also plans to pay a $3 special dividend and boost its regular quarterly payout by 50%.

Sirius Satellite Radio saw its quarterly loss balloon to nearly $200 million yesterday, partly due to the gobs of money the company is shelling out for high-profile programming.

L'Oreal USA said it has moved Maybelline's approximately $75 million planning and buying business to Publicis Groupe's ZenithOptimedia. The Maybelline assignment had been with Interpublic Group's Initiative.

Viacom is set to hire Michael Dolan, a former advertising executive, as its new chief financial officer, the company said. Mr. Dolan would succeed Richard J. Bressler, who left the company this year.

The editorial staff of the New York Daily News should get ready for their close ups. The daily tab will be the subject of a new reality program (all typing, all day) produced by Bravo and Hearst Entertainment appropriately called, "The Daily News." Six one-hour episodes are slated to air on Bravo in late 2005 or early 2006.

For the past week, Wenner Media's Us Weekly has been crowing about scoring the first, exclusive photos of Angelina Jolie (and son Maddox) and Brad Pitt vacationing on a beach in Kenya. Wenner insiders were full of glee, banking on 1 million-plus newsstand sales. But that didn't deter the intrepid Star from reporting the story--or from putting the happy couple on its cover. Except, unlike Us Weekly, the photo was a composite of Brad and Angelina.

Last week, in a move that got national attention, NBC blinked and acknowledged that Today needed its own wake-up call. NBC-Universal president Jeff Zucker fired executive producer Tom Touchet, who had run Today for two years, and replaced him with a morning-show novice, NBC sports producer Jim Bell. Bell is Today's fourth producer in five years.