Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• Comcast and GE have reportedly agreed that Jeff Zucker will remain the CEO of NBC Universal as part of their proposed $30 billion joint venture. Well done, gentlemen. Good to see things get started on the right foot. [Reuters]
• In related news, Zucker's totally brilliant plan to move Jay Leno to 10pm is paying off beautifully. Leno sank to a brand new ratings low last night. [NYT]
• Anita Dunn, the White House communications director who started the administration's war with Fox News last month, is stepping down. [WP]
• Hey, it's not all bad news for Condé Nast. Self is doing pretty well. [WWD]
• The creators of Will & Grace are working on a Twitter-inspired show. [THR]
• The nominations for the 2010 People's Choice Awards were announced today, just in case you happen to be care about that sort of thing. [LAT]
• Aerosmith is looking for new lead singer, in case you're job-hunting. [LAT]
• George Lopez and Wanda Sykes' debuts this week scored solid ratings. [NYT]
• Simon Cowell made $75 million last year, earning him the top spot on Forbes' list of primetime's top-earning men. Ryan Seacrest exploded in tears when he heard he came in No. 3 with $38 million. Or so we'd like to think. [Forbes]

• All is not well at ABC. The hoped-for comeback of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? didn't happen and ratings have been so low, the network is now occasionally falling behind Univision. Yes, Univision. [NYT, B&C]
• The owners of Uptown magazine are in talks to acquire Vibe, which shut down in June. What they plan to do with it is anybody's guess. [AdAge]
• Tina Brown's Daily Beast is on the move: She's planning to launch a U.K. version of the Barry Diller-funded website within months. [Telegraph]
• Not every magazine in America is struggling, apparently! [Newsweek]
• Is MTV planning to leave Times Square? Quite possibly. [NYP] More

• The latest ad campaign for Chanel handbags, shot by Karl Lagerfeld himself, features a very Holly Golightly-looking Lily Allen. [Pipeline, Cut]
• A new front-runner has emerged to possibly take over struggling Christian Lacroix. This time it's Italian retail giant Borletti. [WWD, AFP]
• More trouble for American Apparel and its founder Dov Charney? An anonymous store manager reports Charney has been busy firing employees "he deems unattractive." [Gawker]
• Amber Valletta is the latest supermodel to launch a clothing line. [Cut]More

• Kate Moss is teaming up with Topshop boss Philip Green and Simon Cowell to launch an entertainment conglomerate that will "rival Disney." At least that's what one British newspaper is reporting. [Daily Mail]
• Sad: Escada may be forced to file for bankruptcy in the near future. [Vogue UK, Fashionista]
• Sadder: Jon Gosselin may be teaming up with Christian Audigier to launch a kids' clothing line. [E!] 
• Saddest: The rumor floating around Moscow is that Pop editor/It girl Dasha Zhukova and her billionaire boyfriend, Roman Abramovich, have gone their separate ways. [FWD] More

• Lindsay Lohan will officially celebrate her birthday tomorrow. But it looks like she'll have some extra spending money in her pocket if she decides to buy herself a present. Lohan collected $70,000 to appear at an all-day birthday party in her honor at the MGM Grand last Saturday. [P6]
• A semi-private funeral was held yesterday for Farrah Fawcett. The public wasn't permitted to attend, but a gaggle of photographers was more than welcome. [Us]
• Day 6 of the Michael Jackson mess: No one seems to know who really gave birth to Jackson's kids, no one is totally sure about the final funeral arrangements, and it still isn't clear what drugs he was taking exactly, or who gave them to him. And so on it goes. [Mirror, Sun, TMZ, Us, TMZ]
• On a more positive note, David Gest says Jackson was just another "manly man" who loved women, chowing down at McDonalds, and pursuing his "passion for classic literature." That's nice to hear, isn't it? [Sun] More

• Just in case Mercy won't have enough culture shock to deal with when she arrives in NYC, Madonna reportedly wants to turn her newly-acquired Upper East Side townhouse into a "replica" of her countryside estate in England. She's having her staffers "troll the Upper East Side boutiques for candelabras, side tables, and period chaises." And poor Mercy will be looking to hop a flight back to Africa pretty soon. [Mirror]
• Break out the tissues: It seems Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo have split up. [Us]
• Oprah is taking 100 employees and their families on an all-expenses paid 10-day cruise around the Mediterranean to celebrate her birthday. [NYDN]
• Justin Timberlake got kinda drunk at Avenue the other night. He still had the sense to "shoo" Lindsay Lohan away, but he may have gotten cozy with a woman who was not Jessica Biel, depending on who you believe. [P6] More

• You didn't think Eliot Spitzer was planning to stay out of the spotlight forever, did you? Rumor has it the disgraced ex-governor is hoping to get his old job back as attorney general once Andrew Cuomo runs for governor in 2010. [P6]
• Mel Gibson and his wife Robyn have filed for divorce after 28 years of marriage, reportedly because Mel has been involved with a Russian singer named Oksana Kolesnikova. [NYP, OK!]
• Madonna's PR offensive continues: Not only is she hoping to win hearts and minds in Malawi by releasing pics of herself holding baby Mercy in her arms, she also has had her former nanny talking up her parenting skills to any reporter willing to listen. [DM, MSNBC]
• Uh oh! Rumor has it Gwyneth Paltrow is planning to spawn again. [Sun]More

• Matt Lauer's "deer incident" won't keep him down for long. He's reportedly in "good spirits" after undergoing surgery yesterday to repair a separated shoulder and will be back to work in a few days. [Star]
• How did Bruce Willis meet his new wife, Emma Heming? He picked her out during a casting call, just like any normal person. [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan is sick of "people telling lies" about her since she's "really a good person" who just wants to put in a honest day's work. Got that? Good. [People, Us]
• Barbara Walters is planning to quit ABC in the near future so she can "spend more time with her boyfriend, Dr. Robert Butler." Or at least that's what "industry insiders" are telling the Enquirer. [NE]
• The cutbacks at Condé Nast continue: Editors like David Remnick and Ruth Reichl have been forced to take the subway! [NYP]More

• Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson got into yet another public spat while heading home to LA after spending New Year's in Miami. Lindsay eventually got so upset a flight attendant suggested LiLo disembark. [TMZ]
• George Soros reportedly spent New Year's partying with "two young brunettes" on Paul Allen's yacht, Octopus, off St. Barts. Now at least we know where son Alex gets it from. [P6]
• Queen Latifah was robbed of $10,000 worth of jewelry while on vacation in Trinidad and Tobago over Christmas. [Us]
• Kathy Griffin made a dick joke during CNN's live NYE broadcast with Anderson Cooper. The video is here, in case you care. [NYP]  More

• Both Katie Holmes and Nicole Kidman have active cases of herpes, reports Page Six, something you should probably keep in mind in the event either woman tries to plant a kiss on you. [P6]
• William H. Macy will take over for Jeremy Piven in Speed-the-Plow now that the Pivster has overdosed on sushi and will need to take time off to cleanse his sacred temple from mercury. [NYP]
• Marci Klein, SNL producer and daughter of Calvin, is calling it quits with her husband of eight years, Scott Murphy. [P6]More

♦  A "crazed" Madonna fan stormed the set of Guy Ritchie's new movie this weekend and threatened to kill him with a 12-inch knife before the 16-year-old was arrested. [Mirror, Daily Star]
♦  Is Ashley Olsen planning to marry boyfriend Justin Bartha in a secret wedding on the French Riviera? That's what the National Enquirer claims! Also: She supposedly wants Karl Lagerfeld to design her dress. [Daily Express]
♦  Joaquin Phoenix was acting "odd" and wobbly at an event in San Francisco last week, and now his friends are worried he's back to drinking and doing drugs. [P6]
♦  Beth Ostrosky and Ryan Reynolds both finished the NYC Marathon yesterday, along with about 35,000 other people. [NYDN] More

♦  Madonna and Guy Ritchie's divorce wasn't a huge revelation after months of rumors. But now it turns out the couple hadn't even been on speaking terms for months, and had been communicating through their assistants. Also: Guy may lose custody of his sons if Madonna decides to leave London and settle in NYC full-time. [Us, People]
♦  The namecalling has started: Madonna called Guy "emotionally retarded" at her Boston concert on Wednesday night, and now Guy's father is calling Madonna "beastly." [The Sun, Telegraph]
♦  Peter Cook and Diana Bianchi aren't happy about the leak of their sex tape. Who's to blame? Peter is blaming Diana. Diana, meanwhile, says it couldn't have been her since she didn't even know he was taping them having sex in his Southampton office. [P6, ET]
♦  Did Tea Leoni have a fling with Billy Bob Thorton while she was still with David Duchovny? [Extra, E!]
More

♦  Is Lauren Bush supporting Barack Obama? Maybe. The niece of the president praised the Democratic nominee in a recent interview and she decided against using her family name for her new clothing line, Lauren Pierce, taking her grandmother's maiden name instead. [P6]
♦  Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson are either engaged or splitting up, depending on what you read. [Daily Mail, MSN]
♦  Marc Jacobs is supposedly jealous that his ex, Jason Preston, is dating someone else, even though he has a new boyfriend of his own, too. [P6]
♦  He can't afford a plane, but Diddy did get to upgrade to a new Rolls-Royce last week. [P6]
♦  In a new memoir, Maureen McCormick (Marcia Brady from The Brady Bunch) says she used to trade sex for coke. [NYDN] More

Happy Birthday | The View's Joy Behar turns 66 today. Maybe she and her fellow co-hosts will take a break from bickering for long enough to eat some cake. Others celebrating: American Idol's Simon Cowell is 49. Taylor Hicks is 32. Toni Braxton is turning 40. John Mellencamp is 57. Rachel McAdams is turning 32. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma is 53. Vladimir Putin is 56. South African icon Desmond Tutu is 77. And Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel is 49.