Bono's beautiful day

Bono's early-morning talk to the Mortgage Bankers Association must have made him hungry. After yesterday's appearance, the U2 frontman called up Radius chef/co-owner Michael Schlow and asked if he could bring a small group to the Financial District restaurant for lunch. We're told that after preparing the meal, Schlow, who's known Bono for about 10 years, sat down and joined the group for awhile. Bet that was a tasty conversation.

Sox fans are a lot of things - passionate, smart, and loud - but sexy? While that isn't a word we'd use to describe Red Sox Nation, it does apply to Chris Piela, one of nine finalists in People magazine's "Sexiest Fan Alive" contest. A Boston native who recently moved to Georgia, Piela (inset) was nominated by his wife. "He's a little embarrassed, but when I told him he could win tickets to the World Series, he was OK with it," Kristine Piela told us yesterday. Chris, who's currently leading the online poll, is an insurance exec described by his wife as "amazingly good-looking, extremely fit, a wonderful husband and, even more importantly, the best father." (Voting concludes Oct. 26 at PeopleSexiestFan.com.) Asked which song sums up his feelings for the Sox, Piela said "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" by Elton John. Of course.

Adam Halberg is out as chef of the Beehive, and it looks like Coriander Bistro's Kevin Crawley and Becca Newell of Aquitaine Bis will be taking over as co-executive chefs. Halberg was at Via Matta before he opened the Beehive earlier this year.

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams stopped by the Museum of Science this week, where some of her spacewalk stuff is on display. The Needham native also recorded a podcast, which will be available soon on mos.org.

Actor Andy Garcia took a break from "Pink Panther 2" to receive an award yesterday from the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations for his work with at-risk youth and cancer research. After being feted at the Brattle Theatre, Garcia screened his directorial debut, "The Lost City," in which he stars opposite Bill Murray and Dustin Hoffman. . . . Speaking of Garcia, he caught a late dinner Monday at Abe & Louie's, as did Kate Hudson, who dined at a nearby table.

Family man Mark Wahlberg is obviously enjoying autumn in LA. The Dorchester-bred actor took his girlfriend, Rhea Durham, and their children, Ella Rae and Michael, to Mr. Bones Pumpkin Patch in Beverly Hills the other day. As he walked back to his black SUV, Wahlberg gently chided photographers for staking him out. "Don't you have anyone better to shoot?" he said. "Isn't Britney around?"

Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler's daughter Liv (above), Everett's own Ellen Pompeo, and our boy Ben Affleck are among the Hollywood stars and starlets photographed by supermodel Helena Christensen in an effort to fight global AIDS and poverty in Africa. Of the ONE Campaign, Affleck says: "All it takes is doing something really small: just lending one's voice to a larger movement, one that says, 'We care about this.' "

J.K. Rowling (above) made a rare US appearance, reading at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood in front of scores of wand-clutching would-be wizards and witches. Seated on a gold throne with plush red cushions, Rowling read Monday from the seventh and final of her novels on Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." She then took a dozen preselected questions from the dressed up and dazzled kids and teens. (AP)

Sports Illustrated's cover is the kiss of death, right? Not so fast. Our boy Tom Brady's on the cover of the new SI, and things seem to be going pretty well for No. 12. Looking like a football player rather than a fashion plate, Brady's now been on the front of SI eight times.

No one will ever confuse Bill Belichick for a stand-up comedian, so the team's looking elsewhere for levity. The Pats have recruited cutups Norm Laviolette and Chet Harding of the Improv Asylum to help increase the humor quotient of John Hannah's game-day show "Hannah's Huddle." (The Hall of Famer known as "Hog" hosts the talk show at the Gillette Clubhouse with Pats alums such as Steve Grogan, Stanley Morgan, and Steve Nelson.) Word is Norm and Chet will warm up the crowd with their kooky brand of improv comedy.

After receiving an Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio-Television News Directors Asscociation for their 2006 documentary "Hidden Wounds" in New York Monday, NECN president Phil Balboni and news VP Charlie Kravetz got some disturbing news from NBC news anchor Brian Williams. The Framingham native confessed he's a Yankees fan.

Worcester's Caitlin McCarthy was one of six winners in the Atlanta Film Festival's inaugural screenplay competition. Based on the life of Vera Laska, McCarthy's professor at Regis College, "Vera" is about a young woman who fought with the Czech Resistance and was held by the Nazis during World War II. Czech actress Lucie Vondrácková is set to play Laska, a longtime Weston resident who died in 2005.

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