From The Daily News

And the winner is ... People.
Sources said yesterday that magazine ad-page totals for 2002, due from the Publishers Information Bureau later this week, will show People on top with 3,700 - a gain of 2.4% over 2001.

Second-ranked Forbes, at 3,505 ad pages, was down 6%.

Forbes will be followed by its two main competitors - Business Week, at 3,333, down 11.9% from 2001, and Fortune, 3,331, off 16.9%.

Ranking fifth is Vogue, whose 2,893 ad pages, though down 8.3%, was highest among the titles published by Conde Nast.

However, because Publishers Information Bureau counts ad pages that appear in special issues of magazines, InStyle's four extra editions will give it a total of 3,024.

The 12 regular issues of InStyle ran 2,799 ad pages.

In another tough year, when dozens of mags folded for lack of sufficient ad revenue, the top five titles finished at ad-page levels well below the lofty peaks they reached in 2000.

Indeed, some year-end levels resembled those of the mid-1990s.

Still, a number of other magazines, including two of the three newsweeklies, posted gains last year over 2001.

Time, at 2,351, was down 2%, but Newsweek, at 1,979, rose 7.3%, and U.S. News & World Report, 1,415, was up 3.7%.

The New Yorker's 2,235 reflected an increase of 6%. It was the biggest increase among Conde Nast's brand-name glossies.

Animal lover gives critters full support
By John Kelso, Austin American Statesman

The baby possums are easier to put up with in your brassiere than the baby squirrels, says Allison Adams of Round Rock.

"The hardest to deal with in my bra are the squirrels," said Allison, 23. "The possums are actually the easiest. They're adorable, beautiful little animals, and since they're used to being in a pouch with their mom, they're used to the feeling. The squirrels, they're not used to it. They're moving around, and every once in a while you hear them squeaking."

Seriously, the animal rescue worker really does load baby animals into her bra to warm them up as part of her work for Wildlife Rescue of Austin. Let's say someone hits a mother possum by the side of the road, and the babies are brought to Allison to be saved. If they're cold, pop, there they go, straight into Allison's bra.

"Just whenever the babies come in, it's the easiest way to warm them up," she said.

So what's the record number of baby animals in her bra at one time? "The most I've had at one time was 12," Allison said, speaking of a passel of young possums. "I was living in Killeen at the time, so it was for about an hour and a half, two hours."

Allison, who works at the Northwest Animal Clinic in Georgetown, puts baby animals in her bra regularly. She figures over the past six years she's stuck baby possums, squirrels, kittens or cottontail rabbits in her bra a total of 75 times.

Doesn't this itch? "No," she said, "they get grabby, and sometimes it's a little much. 'Cause when they're on their mom, they have to get grabby. It's instinct. So you just kind of write it off as the thing that's going to happen every now and then." I'll bet that would cause a stir over at Lakeline Mall.

A tip for those who want to put baby animals in their underwear: Don't put all of your eggs in one basket, Allison suggests. Put some on one side, some on the other. Otherwise you're going to be out of plumb.

Incidentally, Allison says she can go for quite some time with animals in her bra. Maybe one day one of them will play possum in there and refuse to leave.

"I can walk around all day long with them in there," she said. "When we're going somewhere, I mean, it's unrealistic to keep them in the car in a carrier for four or five hours. They get cold."

You mean you can drive with animals in your bra? You betcha. Sometimes when Allison is driving her GMC, she has animals in her front end, so to speak.

"It probably looks pretty funny," she admitted. "A tail hanging out here, a tail hanging out there." But she's been lucky. So far she has yet to be pulled over by the police with critters in her duds. Imagine that little conversation: "Hey, lady, step away from the possum."

By the way, Allison is engaged. So how does her fiancé feel about it? "Everybody has to ask that," she said. "Well, it's kind of a stunner when I come home and he goes to hug me, and he can't, because I have hissing possums. But I guess you get used to that."