Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• Yesterday, Broadway actress Pia Glenn slammed Salman Rushdie, saying her ex-boyfriend was "dysfunctional" and was still obsessed with his ex-wife, Padma Lakshmi. Today, it's Rushdie's turn to hit back. Not has he "long ago turned the page and moved on" from Lakshmi, he says, he would also like you to know that Glenn is "a large, radioactive bucket of stress," "an accomplished liar," and also happens to be "broke and unemployed." So we're guessing a reconciliation is totally out of the question here? [P6]
• Expect to see an angry video by Tricia Walsh-Smith posted to YouTube any minute now. A state appeals court rejected the rage-filled divorcée's motion to undo her pre-nup to theater mogul Philip Smith yesterday. [P6]
• A California teenager has been charged with burglarizing Lindsay Lohan and Audrina Patridge's homes and making off with $170,000. [People, NYDN]
• Is Ali Wise's PR career over now that four women have accused her of voicemail hacking? That's what the Post suggests today, with a source telling the paper that "Wise is now radioactive in the industry." Then again, if there's anything we can learn from Lizzie Grubman's not-so-pretty past, it's that people who work in PR tend to be a very forgiving bunch. [NYP]  More

• NBC plans to deliver its programming to gas stations. So if you don't tune into Jay Leno voluntarily, you may be forced to do so while you pump gas. [MC]
• Mad Men has been renewed for a fourth season, not surprisingly. [NYT]
• Freedom Communications, the company that publishes the Orange County Register, among other newspapers, has filed for bankruptcy protection [E&P]
• Magazines are having trouble selling copies on newsstands, so now they're going to focus on getting you to sign up for subscriptions. [NYT]
• Don't be surprised when you see Tony Bourdain whip out his Chase Visa card to pay for meals on his Travel Channel show. It's now part of his job. [AdAge]
• The show goes on for Plum TV, the "resort and luxury lifestyle TV network." The company just raised another $5 million from investors. [PC]
• Rachel Maddow says she had swine flu! But she went to the doctor, got "the special swine flu drugs," and is all better now, thankfully. [HP] More

• According to Epicurious, the best burger in NYC is at DuMont's. [Epicurious]
• Mike Satsky and Brian Gefter, owners of the now-shuttered Stereo, plan to open a new spot called Provocateur in the Gansevoort Hotel this fall. [P6]
• The long-delayed, brunch-only spot Permanent Brunch opens Monday. [GS]
• A roundup of recent restaurant closings around town. [Eater]
• A roundup of where various celebs supposedly dined this week. [GS]
• That video of Gwyneth Paltrow cooking roast chicken? Until recently, she claimed she was a vegan and hadn't eaten meat in 15 years. [NYDN]More

Rachel Maddow's Secret Formula | We always figured it took something really special for Rachel Maddow to be able to put up with Keith Olbermann every evening. Now we have the answer, courtesy of author/Mac pitchman John Hodgman: A bit of La Fée absinthe mixed with Red Bull, apparently. [Twitpic via BYOT]

If you regularly tune in to Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, you may remember that Olbermann was mysteriously absent from the show for three days at the end of April. But Olbermann didn't just "have the night off," as David Shuster, his fill-in, said on the air three evenings in a row. According to a source inside MSNBC, it was a bizarre temper tantrum on Olbermann's part that led him to storm off the set in protest. Even stranger: The drama was all Ben Affleck's fault.More

• More trouble at Condé Nast: Ad pages at Vogue are down 31 percent this year and Vanity Fair experienced a 52 percent drop in May alone. The silver lining: Graydon Carter's lavish expense account remains unaffected. [NYP]
• The Sun really may be returning after all. As a website, that is. Seth Lipsky says "there's a business plan for the site in the formative stages." [Politico]
• This certainly isn't a good sign: It seems NBC is exploring the possibility of leasing out part of its headquarters in Washington D.C. [NYO]
• More desperate: NBC will air another season of Celebrity Apprentice. [THR]
• The Portfolio names/logos that never were (and more on its closing). [NYO]
• Al Roker will co-host a Weather Channel show called Wake Up With Al from 6 to 7 a.m. Because waking up with Al is what you've always dreamed of. [NYT]
• Oprah Winfrey's Twitter usage is way down. So much for that! [AdAge] More

• The New York Times Co.'s bank balance is running a bit low, but that hasn't detered the company from handing out lavish pay packages. The company's CEO, Janet Robinson, received a total compensation package valued at $5.58 million in 2008, up from $4.14 million in 2007. [NYP, HP]
• Is Rachel Maddow losing her glow? March was the lowest-rated month so far for Maddow's MSNBC show since its debut last fall. [LAT]
• The Chicago Tribune plans to cut another 20 percent of its newsroom staff as it looks to reduce expenses amid continuing declines in advertising. [CB]
• Yahoo posted a 78 percent decline in quarterly profits and said it would eliminate about 675 more jobs, or 5% of its work force. [WSJ]
• Tonight is Len Berman's last night at WNBC. [NYDN]More

Happy Birthday | MSNBC's Rachel Maddow is turning 36 today. A man Maddow probably isn't very fond of, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, is turning 59. Movie director Barry Sonnenfeld is 56. Actress/scenester Bijou Phillips is turning 29. Debbie Reynolds is 77. Actress Ali MacGraw is 71. Method Man is 38. And everyone's favorite sleazy porn king, Mr. Joe Francis, will get to celebrate his 36th birthday on of prison this year.

George Wayne, Intrepid Reporter | Leave it to the inestimable and always fabulous George Wayne of Vanity Fair to think of the one question that Rachel Maddow has never been asked before, despite the fact she's been interviewed 2,237 times over the past six months:More

It's been a rough few weeks for CNN. Ratings have falling fast, especially for primetime programs hosted by Anderson Cooper and Campbell Brown, news that came to light the same day Brown rather bizarrely confessed her apartment had been invaded by "toxic mold" in recent months. To make matters worse, this past weekend the Daily News revealed that Jeffrey Toobin, CNN's very-much-married legal analyst, has been having an affair with the daughter of former colleague Jeff Greenfield, and may have even gotten her pregnant, too. So how is CNN CEO Jon Klein responding to the bad news?  More

Simon Doonan, Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow hit the market in less than two hours! Act fast! Opportunities like this don't come around very often. Plus the money goes to a good cause, which should make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, independently of the fact you're going to actually sit down with Andy and watch him masticate. [Bailey House 21st Annual Auction]

• Martha Stewart has sold a third of her shares in her eponymous media company. But she's still as anal as ever around the office. [NYP, Gawker]
• Bill Kristol's New York Times column has come to an end. [NYT]
• Fashion and beauty magazines will see a 22 percent decline in advertising pages during the first three months of the year. [WWD]
• Doubledown Media, the publisher of Trader, is reportedly up for sale. [NYP]
• Conde Nast is reorganizing its web division. [MW] 
• Moody's has downgraded New York Times Co. debt to junk status. [NYP]
• A long Q&A between Lesley Stahl and Rachel Maddow. [Wow]
• Sundance ended yesterday without a big sale. [NYT]
• Once again, Paul Blart: Mall Cop was No. 1 at the box office. [THR]

• 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]

♦  Michael Wolff's biography of Rupert Murdoch goes on sale tomorrow, as you probably know thanks to the torrent of coverage over the past couple of days. Among the juiciest bits: Murdoch despises Bill O'Reilly, his wife Wendi Deng occasionally reads his email, and he's fond of sleeping pills. [NYT, Gawker, Politico, NYO, Portfolio]
♦  The third quarter of 2008 was a punishing one for newspapers. Ad revenue plunged 18.11 percent, the steepest decline in four decades. [E&P]
♦  Tina Brown's pick for host of Meet the Press: Rachel Maddow. [TDB]
♦  Four Christmases was No. 1 at the box office over the weekend, racking up an estimated $31.7 million in ticket sales. [THR] 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