Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• It's official: Oprah says she plans to call it quits in September 2011. [ABC]
• Layoffs: The BusinessWeek cuts continue (and include a handful of the mag's more notable names); meanwhile the AP body count now stands at 90.
• Sarah Palin sold 300,000 copies of her book the first day, alas. [TDB]
• Condé Nast and Adobe are teaming up to bring Wired to electronic reading devices. Digital versions of Vogue, VF, and the NYer will follow. [WSJ]
• Vogue's design director is exiting the magazine after a four-year run. [WWD]
• In other Anna news, her de facto stepdaughter, Alexis Bryan Morgan, is leaving the Condé Nast family to take Nina Garcia's old job at Elle. [NYM]
• Cable mogul John Malone isn't happy about the idea of Comcast and NBC teaming up. Meanwhile NBC chief Jeff Zucker is staying mum about the deal.
• Another rumored Playboy bidder is denying interest in an acquisition. [NYT]
• Does Bonnie Fuller's new website stand a chance? [NYP]

Anna Goes Pizza-Less | Staffers at Vogue did not celebrate Anna Wintour's 60th birthday earlier this week. According to Voguette Lauren Santo Domingo, Anna was in Washington getting "knighted" by President Obama. (She was actually appointed to the White House Committee on the Arts and Humanities along with 24 other media people, but why quibble?) Which is too bad since—shockingly—she says staff birthdays at Vogue are typically celebrated with "pizza parties and cupcake parties." [The Cut]

• The cuts continue at Time Inc. Fortune Small Business was shuttered today. And as many as 500 employees may lose their jobs when all is said and done. Meanwhile, parent company Time Warner reported a drop in revenues and earnings in the third quarter, as expected. [NYT, WWD, AdAge, NYP]
• Profits were up at News Corp. thanks to its film, cable, and book units. [BN]
• The publisher of Marie Claire has jumped over to Vogue. [NYO]
• Fox News came out on top in the ratings with its election night coverage. CNN performed miserably, dropping down to fourth place. [NYT, Politico]
• WNET is giving employees off between Christmas and New Year's. It's not to be nice; it's designed to cut costs since the days off are unpaid. [Crain's]
• A theory as to why Tom McGeveran quit the Observer. [Daily Intel]
• Highlights from last weekend's Tribeca Film Festival, Doha edition. [Vulture] More

Happy Birthday | Today is a very special occasion for the Queen Bee of fashion. Vogue's Anna Wintour turns 60 today. Others celebrating on this third day of November: Model Gemma Ward is 22. Roseanne Barr turns 57. Former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis is 76. Playwright Terrence McNally is turning 70. Dennis Miller turns 56. Film director Hal Hartley is 50. Theater producer Tom Viertel is 68. Writer Joe Queenan turns 59. Phil Simms, the former Giants quarterback and now TV commentator, is turning 54. Famed AIDS researcher David Ho is 57. Kate Capshaw, the actress and wife of Steven Spielberg, is 56. And '80s action star Dolph Lundgren is 52 today.

• In a new interview, embattled restaurateur Giuseppe Cipriani says he has no plans to return to NYC anytime soon since he's convinced he'll be arrested if he does. He's also convinced that his problems stem from going up against Roland Betts, the co-founder of Chelsea Piers and one of George Bush's oldest friends and who, Cipriani suggests, set out to destroy him. [P6, VF]
• He may have been mayor for eight years, but Rudy Giuliani was reportedly bounced from the prime Yankees seats next to the team's dugout for game one of the World Series because Michelle Obama was in town and the White House didn't want them sitting together. [P6]
• Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie took their older kids trick-or-treating, and one child even appeared to be in a "store-bought costume." Hopefully, Angie will take the time to sit down at her sewing machine next year. [Us]
• Fame-obsessed father Jon Gosselin thinks he's simply "misunderstood." In a public forum last night with his new BF, fame-obsessed rabbi Schmuley Boteach, Gosselin announced, "I'm not a fame seeker." Then he announced he planned to "privately" apologize to his ex-wife and said that he and girlfriend Hailey Glassman haven't broken up, they're just on a break. [People, Us]More

Fashion's Night Out Will Now Be an Annual Tradition | Fashion's Night Out, last month's "largest single shopping event in the city's history," may not have actually involved all that much shopping. But it did get people to actually step into stores (which was a nice change of pace), and did provide the city's beleaguered retail industry with a psychic boost. So perhaps it's no surprise that the city and FNO czar Anna Wintour announced today that the event will return once again next year. If you're particularly excited by this news, head over to the official Fashion's Night Out website. The site now sports a clock so you can count down the days, minutes and seconds to September 9, 2010. [WWD, previously]

With Halloween just a few days away, we thought we'd call up a handful of notable New Yorkers and find out what they're planning to dress up as this year. We'll be running these for the next couple of days. In this first installment, here's what a spokesperson for Vogue had to say when we called and asked what Anna Wintour was planning for October 31: "She has no plans to get in costume this year for Halloween." Oh, well. Fortunately, we'll have some more inspiring answers for you in just a bit. (MF)

• Star chef Alain Ducasse weighs in on New York's best french fries. [GS]
• Daniel Boulud is planning to open an outpost in Singapore next year. [NYDN]
• More on the city's lawsuit against Tavern on the Green. [NYT, Crain's]
• Ninth Street Espresso serves NYC's best coffee, according to GQ. [GS]
• A couple of roundups of food-related events this weekend. [SE, Zagat]
• Media mogul hangout Michael's has been tweeting who comes in for lunch each day. Let it be known that Vogue editrix Anna Wintour does not approve: "It's not something I was aware of but it is probably ill-advised." [NYT]

NYMag's 'Power Dozen' | This week's issue of New York has come up with a list of the 12 most powerful people in town. (Well, the 11 most powerful behind Michael Bloomberg, that is.) They are (in no particular order): Al Sharpton, Howard Rubenstein, Sheldon Silver, Stephen Ross, Jamie Dimon, Herb Pardes, Anna Wintour, Andrew Cuomo, Mike Fishman, Chuck Schumer, and Rupert Murdoch. [NYM]

• The Condé Nast job cuts have made their way to Anna's domain on the 12th floor of 4 Times Square: Vogue laid off six staffers today. [AllThingsD]
• More bad news for Condé: some advertisers are reportedly "jumping ship" after the recent shake-up at Brides. On the plus side, The New Yorker appears to be hiring, so you can take that as good news if you'd like. [NYP, NYO]
• Remember how the New York Times Co. was planning to sell the Boston Globe? Yea, well, NYT publisher Artie Sulz has changed his mind. [AP, BG]
• Mike Bloomberg totally approves of Bloomberg LP's decision to buy BusinessWeek. Translation: The mayor backs the decisions he, himself, makes even if he contends that he wasn't actually responsible for making them. [NYT]
• Is Bloomberg LP's acquisition of BusinessWeek part of a big, new plan to compete with the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones? Sure seems like it. [NYT]
• Meanwhile, WSJ staffers gathered today to toast the news that the Journal has surpassed USA Today as the top-selling paper in the U.S. [Politico, E&P]
• CBS News is now "investigating" the David Letterman saga (and his employer CBS!) as part of a future story. That must be a bit awkward, huh? [NYO] More

The big round of cost cuts and layoffs at Condé Nast isn't just being felt at 4 Times Square. The gloominess has also made its way to Paris Fashion Week. Instead of spending their days observing the action on the runway, some Condé editors have been forced to remain in their hotel rooms to take part in a "dizzying" number of "budget-related conference calls and team meetings," reports The Daily. This could be why Vogue editor Anna Wintour hasn't "been spotted since Dior on Friday." Budget cuts could also explain why poor Anna has been forced to make do with a single snakeskin coat at Fashion Week in London, Milan and Paris. [FWD]

• London Fashion Week kicked into high gear over the weekend. Given LFW is celebrating its 25th anniversary and a handful of designers who have been absent in recent years have returned, it's shaping up to be London's biggest year yet. Further proof of LFW's resurgence: Vogue editrix Anna Wintour (seen here fumbling with her BlackBerry) is attending the shows following a two-year hiatus. [Telegraph, LAT, NYT, Guardian]
• While many top NY-based fashion editors are turning up to the shows in London, many mags are saving cash by divvying up editors between the shows in London, Milan, and Paris. Or by making them stay at cheaper hotels. [WWD]
• More highlights and reviews from LFW's first few days. [NYT, NYT, Pipeline] More

• Even President Obama has acknowledged (unofficially) that Kanye West's microphone-snatching episode at the VMAs made Kanye a "jackass." Lucky for Jay Leno—and his ratings—Kanye apologized (again) on the comedian's primetime debut last night. "It was rude, period... I'm just ashamed that my hurt caused someone else's hurt," West said. [NYDN, People, Us]
• Topper Mortimer is hooking up with Vogue editor Valerie Boster. (It's about time the dude moved on.) Meanwhile, his ex, Tinsley, is having issues with her new reality show. Producers are trying to drum up other socialites to make appearances since she's not "dynamic enough on her own." [P6]
• Jeremy Piven won't be hugging it out with the Public Theater any time soon. His lawyers have served the venue with a cease and desist over its play, "The Piven Monologues," which details his fishy bailout from "Speed the Plow." [P6]
• Patrick Swayze has died after a 20-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Stars have been paying tribute to the Dirty Dancing star via Twitter, and the old-fashioned way, in released statements. [NYDN, People, Us, Star]More

• The bad news for Condé Nast now that McKinsey has finished up its summer-long review: Editors and publishers at the company may be asked to trim their budgets by as much as 25 percent. The good news, according to one Condé insider: "This doesn't mean Anna Wintour is going to start taking the bus," nor is the company going to get all cheap "like Hachette." [Crain's]
• Jay Leno's new show debuts tonight on NBC. Will it be a success? A massive failure? Only time will tell, but the stakes "couldn't be higher." [LAT]
• Oprah's ratings are down. And Barack Obama is to blame, apparently. [AP]
• Ratings are down for Project Runway, too. Barack is not to blame. [WWD]
• According to a poll of newspaper publishers, 51 percent think they can successfully get their readers to pay for content online. Optimistic! [PC]
• As if newspapers and magazines don't have enough to worry about these days, a new survey finds that the percentage of people who think journalists are increasingly "inaccurate and biased" is on the rise. [AP]More

Below: A recap of Fashion's Night Out and the first two days of Fashion Week.More