• Hearthrobs Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner greeted a frenzy of fans at the Hollywod premiere of “Twilight: New Moon.” Hattie Kauffman reports.

• Robert Pattinson, left, shares a laugh with David Letterman on the “Late Show” on Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009. 

Robert Pattinson won’t confirm if he’s dating his “Twilight” co-star, Kristen Stewart, but there’s one thing he will get very candid about: biting.

The British actor made his first appearance on the “Late Show with David Letterman” Wednesday night, talking about the fans who have asked him to bare his (non-vampire) fangs.

One time, he told Letterman, someone handed a baby to the actor and asked him to bite it. Another incident happened at a recent premiere, when a 230-pound man asked Pattinson to bite him - and he did.

“The surprising thing was that I kind of liked it,” the actor joked with the “Late Show” host. “I’ve been out to dinner with him a couple of times since.”

When asked if he enjoyed the biting, Pattinson deadpanned, “It depends on your mood, really. And it depends what you want to get out of it. There’s variations of biting.”

“That’s not healthy, with the swine flu,” Letterman warned him, eliciting laughter from the audience.

The actor says he can’t explain why he elicits such a strong reaction from his female fans - “I don’t know, maybe it’s kind of a scent or something” - but he noted that devotion sometimes pays off. In 2007, when he was in Spain shooting the film “Little Ashes,” a girl stood outside his apartment every day for about three weeks. Finally, because he was “chronically bored,” he asked her out to dinner.

“I kind of complained about everything in my life for about two hours, and then she gave me the bill at the end,” he said. “I had to pay for it, and then [she] was never back outside my apartment ever again.”

“New Moon,” the second installment in the “Twilight” franchise, opens in theaters on Friday, Nov. 20, and Entertainment Weekly is reporting that thousands of showings of the film have already sold out. But along with the film anticipation and Team Edward/Team Jacob declarations, rumors have swirled about whether Pattinson, who plays the vampire Edward Cullen in the films, is dating his co-star, Kristen Stewart.

Letterman held up a copy of the December issue of Harper’s Bazaar magazine with the two stars on the cover and asked Pattinson, “You’re dating her. Am I right about that?”

“I’ve been so, kind of, cryptically avoiding this question throughout the entire press tour,” the actor responded.

When he wouldn’t elaborate, Letterman joked, “Oh, bite me. What do I care?”

Plus: Palin jolts Oprah’s ratings; keeping tabs on TomKat

With so many celebrities willing to attend the opening of an envelope if a paycheck is involved, a recent decision by Brad Pitt is especially impressive.

Pitt declined an invitation to the Oct. 31 Grand Prix Ball Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, and the $5 million payday that came with it, according to Life & Style magazine. Instead, Pitt was photographed trick-or-treating with his kids in L.A.“He’s spending more time with the family and doing less of these appearances, even though it’s a huge sum of cash,” according to a source who spoke to the magazine.

James Magee, a rep for Global Event Management, confirms that the actor was expected at the affair.

“We were told he would be attending as the guest of the Tourism Development & Investment Company,” Magee told Life & Style. “But he was a no-show, and nobody seemed to know why.”

The ball, which helped raise money for the clean-water charity Fresh2o, was the culmination of a three-day event celebrating Formula 1 racing. Beyoncé, Aerosmith (sans Steve Tyler) and Timbaland all performed.

Palin gives Oprah a ratings jolt
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s book, “Going Rogue,” was a best-seller before it even came out, so it did stand to reason that interest in the former vice presidential candidate would spill over into her appearance on Monday’s “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

It did more than that: Winfrey’s sit-down with Palin was the highest rated “Oprah” show in two years, since the entire Osmond family appeared in 2007.

And it’s a good thing Palin delivered: by the looks of it, she’ll have to suffice as Oprah’s favorite thing this year. According to reps for the show, there are “no plans this season” for “Oprah’s Favorite Things,” the much-loved holiday gifting episode.

Keeping tabs on TomKat
People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” franchise is unbeatable on the newsstands, regardless of the choice the editors make. (But quick question: Aren’t there sexier-looking photos of  out there? The one chosen for the cover doesn’t exactly drive home the decision.)

So really, the fight for your celebrity magazine dollars this week is about what the other publications thought was newsworthy. The most popular choice: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. The two celebrated their third anniversary on Wednesday; in a slow news week, they’re the obvious hook.

But happy stories don’t really sell, so despite the many sources who insist the couple is happy and boring, two mags, Star and Us Weekly, come up with the opposite. Star claims on the cover that Holmes has a $15 million tell-all in the works, and Us runs the headline: “Her secret deal: Katie’s regrets.” Given the fact that from the outside looking in, this celebrity relationship still seems confounding, the stories are just believable enough — both ought to do well.

Rihanna is just one of the popular artists releasing albums on Nov. 23.

Ready to end the year with a bang, musical superstars Rihanna, Beyonce, Shakira, Lady Gaga and Timberland will all be releasing albums. Highly anticipated debuts from reality show contestants Adam Lambert and Susan Boyle are also set for release.

Just one problem: they’re all being released on the same day, Monday, Nov. 23.

What was orinally set to be another boring, back-to-work Monday has become the biggest day for the music industry so far this year.

The date has been chosen as the release date for some of the year’s most highly anticipated albums, leaving many scratching their heads. For starters, music is usually released on Tuesdays. The earlier date is a concession to the Thanksgiving holiday that week.

There also is speculation that the date was chosen by artists and their record companies to take maximum advantage of the holiday gift-buying season.

Whatever the reason, it’s got people talking and put some new releases on the music buyer’s radar.

Here’s a look at which artists you’ll hear from that day:

Rihanna - “Rated R”

“The Wait is Ova” according to Rihanna who will be releasing her highly anticipated fourth album “Rated R.”

Unlike her last album “Good Girl Gone Bad,” which blew her into superstardom, Rihanna will be getting much more personal with her new album.

Blast is seventh attack in less than two weeks in troubled northwest region

A woman grieves at the site of a suicide bomb blast in Peshawar, Pakistan on Thursday.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A suicide bomber killed 19 people Thursday outside a courthouse in northwestern Pakistan, the latest attack in an onslaught by Islamist militants fighting back against an army offensive in the nearby Afghan border region.

The bombing was the seventh attack in less than two weeks in and around Peshawar, the largest city in the northwest. The attacks have killed more than 80 people.

The bomber, who arrived in a taxi, was being searched by police officers at the gate of the city’s lower court when he detonated explosives on his body, government official Sahibzada Anees said.

Several damaged motorbikes were strewn about the site, and firefighters sprayed water on a charred, smoking white car.

‘Beasts … killing our children’
Dr. Saib Gul of the city’s Lady Reading Hospital said 19 people were killed in the attack and 51 had been wounded. At least three of the dead were police.

“These attacks will not deter us in our fight against these beasts who are killing our children,” said Bashir Ahmad Bilour, senior minister of the North West Frontier Province.

The army launched its offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan in mid-October. It has retaken many towns in the region, but the militants say they avoided fighting and will now begin a guerrilla campaign.

The United States has welcomed the assault, but wants the army to do more against the insurgents in the border area blamed for violence across the border in Afghanistan.

Pakistan officials flagged the offensive in South Waziristan several months before it actually began, something Bilour claimed allowed the militants to escape and plan the current wave of terror.

“Unfortunately the announcement of the operation in Waziristan prior to the actual operation caused this problem,” he said. “They (the militants) are hiding in villages surrounding Peshawar and make their way in despite security.”

Since the beginning of October, more than 300 people have been killed in bombings and militant raids on government, civilian and Western targets in the country, most of them in the northwest.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani insisted most of the militants commanders were either killed or on the run.

“They are using the weapons they have scattered here and there,” he said. “God willing, it will take some time, but I assure you things will return to normal soon.”

Suspected drone attack
The bomb explosion occurred hours after missiles fired from a suspected U.S. drone killed three suspected militants in Shana Khuwara village in North Waziristan, another region close to the Afghan border region where al-Qaida and Taliban hold sway.

The missiles hit a house owned by a local tribesman just after midnight, said two intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Ahmed Noor Wazir, who witnessed the attack, said rescuers pulled three dead bodies and four badly wounded men from the rubble of the house, which was being used by Taliban militants.

Shana Khuwara village is not far from the border with South Waziristan. Many militants are believed to have fled to North Waziristan to escape the fighting.

Glitch affected system that collects flight plans; Atlanta airport hit hard

ATLANTA - Air travelers nationwide scrambled to revise their plans Thursday after an FAA computer glitch caused widespread cancellations and delays for the second time in 15 months.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the problem, which lasted about five hours, was fixed around 10 a.m., but it was unclear how long flights would be affected.

Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union, said controllers were still entering flight plans manually in some locations even after the glitch was fixed.

Aviation officials told The Associated Press that the problem began at the computer center in Salt Lake City. The officials asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto said the problem started between 5:15 and 5:30 a.m. Airplane dispatchers had to send plans to controllers, who entered them by hand.

“It’s slowing everything down,” Takemoto said.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world’s busiest, was particularly affected. The problem also exacerbated delays caused by bad weather in the Northeast, with airports in the Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York metro areas reporting problems.

Some flights were more than two hours behind schedule. Airports around the South also reported delays and cancellations.