Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• Scott Bessent, the founder of the hedge fund Bessent Capital and a protégé of billionaire George Soros, has taken a loss on the sale on his duplex co-op at One Sutton Place South. The four-bedroom, 11-room spread, which Bessent bought for $12 million in 2007 and listed for $12.5 million last October, has been sold to Joshua and Juliet Berkowitz for $9.5 million. The apartment was once home to Patricia Kennedy Lawford, the younger sister of JFK. [Cityfile]
• Brian Brille, Bank of America's former head of investment banking and its newly appointed Asia-Pacific chief, has gone into contract to sell his apartment at Trump Park Avenue. The 5,473-square-foot pad, which Brille bought for $8.6 million in 2007 and put up for sale last month, had been listed for $14.75 million by Corcoran's Carrie Chiang and Loy Carlos. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
• Radio host Alan Colmes has put his triplex penthouse in the Silk Building on East 4th Street up for dale. Colmes first listed the two-bedroom apartment for $1.995 million in March, but pulled it off the market in September. It's now listed for $1.895 million. [NYM, Corcoran]
• New Jersey Nets rookie Terrence Williams has finally found himself a home. Williams is paying $7,000-a-month to live in the same Palisades, NJ, townhouse where Vince Carter formerly lived. [NYT]

Happy Birthday | CNN's least likable anchor is celebrating his birthday today: bigot and birther enthusiast Lou Dobbs is turning 64. Former cable news personality (and now radio host) Alan Colmes is turning 59. Actress Nia Vardalos is 47. Karen Brooks Hopkins, president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, turns 58. Actor Kevin Sorbo is 51. Jessica Lucas, a member of the cast of the new Melrose Place, is turning 24. Ross Matthews, the guy better known as "Ross the Intern" from the old Tonight Show, is 30. And the WWE's Stephanie McMahon, daughter of wrestling mogul Vince McMahon, celebrates her 33rd birthday today.

• The bloodletting at CBS is underway. [THR]
• Macmillan Publishing and FSG are both trimming staff. [AP, NYO]
• Ad spending for the first nine months of this year fell 1.7 percent. [WWD]
• Katie Couric, Campbell Brown, and Rachel Maddow will appear in the next issue of Vogue. [TVN]
• Sean Hannity's Alan Colmes-less show begins January 12th. [NYT]
• The Disney Channel is taking its act to Russia next year. [NYT]
• The most amusing corrections published this year. [Regret the Error]

Alan Colmes' Goodbye | As if spending the last eight years as Sean Hannity's punching bag on Fox News wasn't humiliating enough, watch the crew of Hannity & Colmes break into laughs as Alan Colmes announces his plan to leave the program at the end of the year. Your colleagues will miss you dearly, Alan.

♦  Graydon Carter says Vanity Fair plans to go ahead with its annual Oscar party, but "the party will be a much more intimate affair than in years past; we're going to scale back the guest list considerably." [DH]
♦  No replacement is planned for Alan Colmes: Fox News plans to have Sean Hannity serve as solo host of the nightly show. [NYT]
♦  Ted Koppel is parting ways with the Discovery Channel. [NYT]
♦  Looks like OK! has been cutting back on copy editors. The cover of the new issue misspells Ashlee Simpson's name. [HuffPo]More

♦  Alan Colmes, the "liberal" who supposedly serves as co-host of Hannity & Colmes with Sean Hannity, is leaving the Fox News program at the end of the year. [HuffPo]
♦  A daily news program hosted by Christiane Amanpour is in the works at CNN. [NYT]
♦  Despite screwing up nearly everything he touches, NBC golden boy Ben Silverman may see his contract renewed in the next few weeks. [NYM]
♦  USA Today has announced plans to cut staff. [E&P]
♦  Twilight was No. 1 at the box office this weekend, raking in $70.5 mil. [LAT]
♦  Forbes is not being sold to a shady Russian billionaire. [SAI]More

♦  The Times has the skinny on "Martin Eisenstadt," the supposed McCain consultant who leaked info to the press. (He's an aspiring filmmaker, not surprisingly.) In the meantime, MSNBC's retracted its story. [NYT, AP]
♦  You might be enjoying CW's Stylista, but the ratings thus far haven't been especially encouraging. [NYO]
♦  Two new cast members, Michaela Watkins and Abby Elliott, will join Saturday Night Live beginning this weekend. [NYT]
♦  Showtime is developing an hour-long show by Stan Lee about a gay superhero. [Variety] More

Happy Birthday | It's Lou Dobbs' birthday today! CNN's resident immigrant-basher is 63. (If you're interested in hiring a mariachi band to show up at CNN's offices and sing for him, go here.) Dobbs isn't the only cable news personality who will be blowing out candles today. Hannity & Colmes' Alan Colmes is 58. Others celebrating: Brooklyn Academy of Music President Karen Brooks Hopkins is turning 57. My Big Fat Greek Wedding's Nia Vardalos turns 46. Actor Kevin Sorbo is 50. And the WWE's Stephanie McMahon, better known as the daughter of Vince McMahon, turns 32.