It's that time of year again, time for the Allen & Co's annual media industry confab in Sun Valley, Idaho. Occasionally described as a "summer camp for billionaires," the Herb Allen-hosted event is expected to atrract more than 250 media chiefs, tech moguls, financiers, Hollywood agents, and politicians, as well as the odd sports star or two. (LeBron James will be putting in an appearance this year.) Mostly, however, it will be populated by the sort of people who make it a point to show up every year, people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Barry Diller, Sumner Redstone, and Rupert Murdoch, all of whom will undoubtedly be photographed over the coming days taking part in one of the many leisure activities arranged for attendees, like rafting, yoga, chess, bridge (a particular fave of Buffett and Gates), and biking (see Diller, left).

Police in North Carolina have shot and killed the man they believe is the serial killer responsible for five murders in South Carolina in the past week.

[Penly Benly and Bleecker Linley filming a scene for "Gossip Girls" in New York; image via Bauer-Griffin]

Today we have a secretly drunken actor, a coked-out famous guy, an actress who just about up and hit a dude, and an actress with, like, a really really bad sunburn. No joke.

• Software titan Peter Norton has gone into contract to sell his 45th-floor apartment at Trump International for the second time. Norton originally found a buyer for the 4,415-square-foot apartment back in February when it was listed for $17.9 million. The deal fell through, however, and Norton later tried listing it together with pharma mogul Richard Ullman's spread for a combined $34.7 million. But the apartment was also available on its own—for the reduced price of $16.25 million—and now Norton has managed to find a second buyer to step up. Ullman's apartment, for the record, still hasn't been spoken for. It's currently listed at $18.45 million. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
• Warren Spector, the former co-president at Bear Stearns who was dismissed by ex-CEO Jimmy Cayne back in 2007, has sold his penthouse at 40 Fifth Avenue. The buyer, retired Goldman Sachs executive Scott Pinkus, paid $8 million for the two-bedroom apartment. [Cityfile]
• Famed architect Philip Johnson's oceanfront estate in Sagaponack, known as Farney House, has gone on the market. The 5,000-square-foot home is listed for $35 million. [Curbed Hamptons, BHS]

Twilight's Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are pregnant, Angelina Jolie and David Beckham are starring in an Armani ad together, Britney's sporting a new "spare tire," Michael Bay made Megan Fox wash his Ferrari and Joyce DeWitt got a DUI.

Ringo Starr turns 69 today. Fashion designer Pierre Cardin is turning 87. Figure skating champion Michelle Kwan is 29. Retiring WNBA star Lisa Leslie is turning 37. Author Zoe Heller is 44. FIT president Joyce Brown is turning 63. Comedian Jim Gaffigan is 43. D. Woods of Danity Kane is turning 25. Interior designer Sheila Bridges is 45. Actress Paul Deviq is turning 43. Shelly Duvall is 60. And Jessica Hahn, the former church secretary famous for her affair with televangelist Jim Bakker, turns 50 today.

• Mariah Carey, Stevie Wonder, Usher, Lionel Richie, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, John Mayer, and a truck full of elephants (left) will all on hand for the Michael Jackson's memorial service in LA later today. Debbie Rowe and Elizabeth Taylor will not be there, however. [Reuters, NYDN, People, Us]
• Several ladies from the Real Housewives of New York are demanding more cash before signing up for another season of the show. In addition to "six-figure deals," they're asking for clothing, hair and makeup allowances and "a promised amount of screen time." You're shocked by this, we're sure. [NYDN]
• In other Housewives news, it looks like LuAnn de Lesseps may be reuniting with her estranged husband, and Bethenny Frankel is engaged. [P6, Us]

Television reporters set up shop outside the Jackson family home in Encino. Los Angeles is going to spontaneously combust today. Mark my words. (AP/Jason Redmond)

It's been a very rough month for Glenn O'Brien, the former editorial director of Interview who was ousted from the mag in early June and slapped with a lawsuit shortly thereafter. He is, however, still alive. You're excused, though, if you may have thought otherwise given it's O'Brien's photo that accompanies an obituary of former Beatles manager Allen Klein on the Hollywood news site, The Wrap. (It looks like a Google image search led the site to this story, although neither of the two men in the photo happens to be the deceased.) Oh, new media! [The Wrap]

The rollicking jalopy of dung that is the Sarah Palin traveling clown-show is still rolling along, so let's recap the latest—There's a new ethics complaint, career consultations with Cheney and Giuliani, and Hitler being pissed about her quitting.

Barack Obama praised Vladimir Putin's "extraordinary work" during a meeting at Putin's home near Moscow.

Have you heard about the appearance of Michael Jackson's ghost during Larry King's broadcast from Neverland last Thursday? Plenty of America's most staggering dipshits saw it, so CNN devoted an entire segment on King's show tonight to solving the mystery.

The South Carolina Republican leadership has decided to "censure" folksy sex troll Mark Sanford, essentially letting him get away with his South American fornication forays. They then proclaimed this "sad chapter" closed and called for "a time for healing."

We haven't done one of these alumni reports in a while, so why not? Today we have Defamer's former founding editor scoring a new gig and a former Gawker editor imploring her freelancing colleagues to put some pants on.

The Independent has a massive piece today on YouTube and how, despite having close to 350 million users worldwide per month, it's set to lose almost half a billion dollars this year. And it's all your fault, naturally.

In San Francisco, citizens complain to the city over Twitter. Bostonians have it even better: they got an iPhone application just for carping at City Hall. It's never been easier to funnel your complaint into a Kafkaesque black hole!

Last night we kinda took Newt Gingrich to the woodshed for a grammatical abortion of a tweet he posted to his Twitter account yesterday. Apparently Newt took note of our criticism, as did MSNBC's Contessa Brewer.

Barack Obama held a news conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev today and if you caught any of it on the news, you may have noticed that Medvedev's translator sounded suspiciously like Borat, so we put together an audio comparison.

• In the market for a $40,000 dress? Better jump on a plane to Paris. Haute Couture Week kicked off today. [AP, Vogue UK, Independent, FWD]
• The situation at Christian Lacroix, which filed for bankruptcy a few weeks back, is getting bleaker by the day: The company may be reduced from 124 employees to 12 if a buyer doesn't materialize soon. [WWD, Cut]
• The JCPenney at the Manhattan Mall opens in a mere 25 days. Don't forget to update your cousins in Omaha so they can mark their calendars. [Racked]
• Roberto Cavalli claims he never pays attention to costs ("I don't know anything about the financial crisis"), thinks Dubai is "a city for the future," and says all he really wants is to be loved. So, yes, he's human. [Times UK]
• Elle's Joe Zee is now tweeting, just so you know. [Twitter]