Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

Happy Birthday | Maggie Gyllenhaal turns 32 today. CSI star Marg Helgenberger is turning 51. Singer Diana Krall is 45. Actress Martha Plimpton is 39. Retired pitcher Dwight Gooden turns 45. Olympic figure skater Oksana Baiul is turning 32. Actress Lisa Bonet is 42. Dean McDermott, the husband of Tori Spelling and co-star of the couple's reality TV show, is 43. Nobel prize-winning novelist José Saramago is 87. And the New York Post is celebrating its 208th birthday today, apparently.

Former Post Editor Fires Back | Sandra Guzman, the New York Post editor who was dismissed shortly after she spoke out against that controversial cartoon depicting President Obama as a chimpanzee, is taking aim at her former employer. She just filed a federal lawsuit against the Post, parent company News Corp, and the Post's editor-in-chief, Col Allan.  If you're looking for some extraordinarily salacious reading material to keep you occupied this afternoon, well, here you have it. [HuffPo]

• Another magazine has gone under: Hachette announced today that it's closing Metropolitan Home to "focus its resources" on Elle Décor. [AdAge]
• New York's profile of star Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin reveals he's one of the paper's highest-paid staffers and is beloved by the titans of Wall Street, but is not quite as popular with some of his Times colleagues. [NYM]
• Circulation is down—and losses are up—at the New York Post. [NYT]
• GE and Comcast have agreed on a valuation for NBC, which brings the parties one step closer to handing over control of the network to Comcast. [Reuters]
• Condé Nast may be trimming expenses and cutting jobs here at home, but the mag giant is busy expanding its presence in China. [NYP]
• Curb Your Enthusiasm is coming to basic cable. TV Land and TV Guide have picked up reruns of the show and will begin airing them next year. [LAT]
• Google has acquired the mobile ad company AdMob for $750 million. [NYT]
• Last night's Mad Men scored AMC its highest-rated finale ever, although considering it's AMC we're talking about, that isn't saying much. [B&C]
• A Christmas Carol was No. 1 at the weekend box office, although its $31 million gross was weak given it cost $200 million to produce. Meanwhile, Precious' $1.8 million take on 18 screens set a limited-release record. [LAT]

The Post reports that Mikhail Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire close to sealing a deal to buy the Nets, stopped off at Nello's on Wednesday and dropped $19,000 on lunch. What did he spend all that cash on? Miraculously, a crack reporter at the paper managed to obtain the bill: More

• David Letterman appears to be through discussing the little sex scandal he now finds himself in. The subject doesn't come up on tonight's show. [NYP]
• Gourmet may have gone down, but the editor of Saveur says the mag is doing well (and that she's been flooded with resumes, not surprisingly). Meanwhile, while Condé Nast is laying off staff at Brides, a brand new bridal magazine is now preparing to launch. The dream lives on, clearly. [Forbes, NYO, Gawker]
• Related: Condé Nast's digital division is facing issues, as well. [NYO]
• The remaining bidders for BusinessWeek, now that Mort Zuckerman and a private equity firm have dropped out: Bloomberg LP and ZelnickMedia. [NYT]
• Barbra Streisand has scored her ninth No. 1 album, beating out Mariah's new record. It makes her the second-oldest living artist to top the charts. [Reuters]
• Famed fashion and celeb photographer Irving Penn has died at age 92. [AP] More

• Despite all the talk of the impending demise of the TV industry, ratings for last night's Emmy Awards weren't too shabby. The three-hour show was seen by 13.3 million people, which is up 8 percent from last year. [THR]
• Bloomberg LP has officially submitted its bid to buy BusinessWeek. [BW]
• Michael Musto of the Village Voice is hearing rumors that Conde Nast is planning to shutter five of its titles as it looks to slash costs. [VV]
• A group of activists affiliated with The Yes Men handed out copies of a New York Post parody this morning as part of an effort to draw attention to climate change; a number of them were later detained by the NYPD. [DF]
• Despite low ratings and lousy reviews early on, Katie Couric is expected to anchor the CBS Evening News until her contract expires in 2011. [NYT]
• Barack Obama made appearances on just about every Sunday morning talk show yesterday. With the exception of those on Fox News, that is. [LAT, [HP]
• Obama's media tour will continue tonight when he sits down alongside David Letterman on his late-night show, a first for a sitting U.S. president. [NYT]More

The New York Post has had a field day this week with the (quite possibly false) rumor that Eliot Spitzer is supposedly thinking about jumping back into politics. That Tuesday cover story led to a Wednesday cover featuring a response from Ashley Dupre's mom; then, yesterday, Ashley herself responded to the Spitzer story before going on to suggest that she really isn't all that different than many women in Manhattan, and that the line between a prostitute and an ordinary gold-digger is a thin one. Dupre's remarks generated a third Post cover yesterday, and although a response to Dupre's comments from a handful of random women today didn't justify the cover of the paper today (despite the fact the Post it's now describing it as a "citywide catfight), it did give the paper an excuse to post one more photo gallery of Dupre in a skimpy bikini. Think the Daily News is feeling a little left out? You bet it is! More

The Post Gives Amanda Hearst a Makeover | Does the Post have some sort of grudge against the billionaire Santo Domingo family? Last month, a photo of Lauren Santo Domingo (wife of Andrès Santo Domingo) was replaced with a pic of fellow Vogue staffer Lauren Dupont. Today, a photo of Alejandro Santo Domingo's girlfriend, Amanda Hearst, was replaced with one of her first-cousin Gillian Hearst! This time around, it doesn't seem the Post is to blame. It's Getty Images' fault. But if Hearst Corp.-owned magazines like Harper's Bazaar and Marie Claire suddenly decide to cancel their photo licensing contracts with Getty, well, now you'll know why. [NYP, previously]

• Last night's long-delayed premiere of the sixth season of Project Runway—on Lifetime, not Bravo—earned the show its highest ratings ever. [NYT, THR]
• Breathe easy: Anna Wintour's travel itinerary for the fall fashion shows in  London, Paris and Milan will not be affected by the recent round of budget cuts at Condé Nast. She'll be staying at the Ritz in Paris, as usual. [NYP]
• The cuts have claimed Condé's supply of coffee stirrers, however. [P6]
• Another member of the Sulzberger clan is joining the New York Times. [NYO]
• News Corp. has been meeting with newspaper publishers to discuss forming some sort of "consortium" to charge people for access to news online. [LAT]
• News Corp. is also in talks to sell its Dow Jones stock market index. [NYT]
• Harvey and Bob Weinstein have a lot riding on the success of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. How is the movie expected to perform at the box office this weekend? Not too bad, per early estimates. [THR]More

• Two years after he was booted from MSNBC and CBS Radio for making racist comments, Fox Business is now in talks to team up with Don Imus. [LAT]
• Is Hachette selling Elle? The company seems to be hedging. [AdAge]
• Magazine publishers are allowing advertisers to slap their ads just about any place they want these days. They're also planning to keep printing those annoying subscription cards until the end of time. [NYT, AdAge]
• ABC is planning a big programming push for the fall with seven new series set to debut, which is roughly double what NBC and CBS have planned. [USAT]
• CNBC's ratings are down big, in case you haven't heard. [Guardian]
• G.I. Joe was No. 1 at the box office this weekend, grossing an estimated $56 million. Julie and Julia came in second place with $20.1 million. [Variety] More

This is sort of unfortunate, but not really. A federal appeals court today decided the news media will not be permitted access to the wiretaps that were used to bust Emperors Club VIP, the escort agency that employed Ms. Ashley Dupre and brought Eliot Spitzer's political career to a messy end last March.More

• How's the New York Times Co. planning to lift itself out of the financial mess it's been in? Times Co. chief Janet Robinson says more cuts are on the way and the company is planning to sell off more assets. Also, there's some sort of paid membership model in the works, apparently. [WSJ, Gawker]
• Related: The paper says it will sell its stake in the Red Sox by January. [BG]
• What you missed at Walter Cronkite's funeral yesterday. [NYT, WaPo]
• Best-selling author E. Lynn Harris has died. He was 54. [NYT]
• More magazine is teaming up with Candace Bushnell on a new Web series starring 90210's Jennie Garth and Talia Balsam from Mad Men. [MW]
• After a ten-year run, today is Paula Froelich's last day at Page Six. [NYM] More

Paula Froelich Moves On | Fashion Week Daily is reporting that gossip queen (and, as of a few weeks ago, bestselling author) Paula Froelich is leaving her perch at the New York Post's Page Six "to focus on freelance writing and television projects." Godspeed! [Fashion Week Daily]

Jeffrey Epstein, the shadowy money manager who pleaded guilty in 2007 to soliciting underage teen girls for sex, is expected to leave a Florida prison in a couple of weeks. (Not that he's been spending much time behind bars in recent months: As part of a work-release program, he's been allowed to leave the jail from 10am to 10 pm, six days a week, to "work" out of his "office" in West Palm Beach.) But while Epstein has something to be cheerful about these days, one of his old acquaintances was handed a major defeat last week. Maximilia "Ava" Cordero, the transgender teenager who sued Epstein and claimed she'd been forced to engage in "bizarre and unnatural sex acts" with the billionaire in exchange for his help advancing her career as a model, just lost her libel and defamation lawsuit against the New York Post. More

• More on the decision by Condé Nast to shut down Portfolio. [NYO, Gawker]
• Newspaper circulation figures for the past six months show steep declines at most major papers, including the Times, Post, and Daily News. One bright spot: the Wall Street Journal, which experienced a tiny, 0.6% gain. [E&P]
• Phil Falcone's Harbinger, the hedge fund that battled for a piece of the New York Times Co. last year, may now be looking to unload its stake. [WSJ]
• CNN has fallen behind MSNBC and Fox News, as you may have heard. [NYT]
• PRWeek is going monthly. But it'll still be called PRWeek, so you know. [NYT]
• Obsessed starring Beyonce was No. 1 at the box office this weekend. [THR]More