Some strange casting decisions plague us today, while others intrigue us. Also, MTV ponders a terrible idea, AMC picks up an interesting show, and everyone watched Jon & Kate Plus Hate.

Mark Sanford wasn't nude-hiking the Appalachian Trail. He was chilling in Argentina. He's just a regular-folks governor who jets to Buenos Aires for a week without telling his wife, abandoning his kids on Father's Day while his staff lies preposterously.

Remember the 2006 classic Justin Timberlake/ Emile Hirsch vehicle Alpha Dog, which captured America's heart? Yes, well. It was based on an actual drug-related murder case. The trial is going on now. The suspect says he's (mostly) innocent!

Heidi Klum walking along the Hudson with her mom and kids ... Sir Richard Branson and son Sam sitting in front of their hotel in midtown ... Naomi Watts grabbing breakfast in the East Village ... Harrison Ford arriving on the set of Morning Glory in midtown ... Bethenny Frankel feeding apples to a horse across the street from Central Park ... Kara DioGuardi crossing the street en route to an appearance on Live With Regis and Kelly ... and Olivia Palermo posing for photographers after an appearance on the MTV show It's On with Alexa Chung.

Publicity-seeking club owner—and self-described "New York nightlife king"—JE Englebert would like everyone to know he's standing up for Perez Hilton in the wake of his little will.i.am altercation the other evening. So he's organizing a "rally" to convey his concern for the First Amendment and Hilton's right to be a total jackass. Just what this rally entails isn't described in the press release (below), but he is inviting Hilton to Suzie Wong for a "VIP party" at which he plans to serve "pea soup." So that's nice. We really shouldn't be indulging Englebert, of course. But we'll take the bait and you can have a look at Englebert's typo-riddled press release for yourself after the jump.

[No boys needed a ride as Jennifer Aniston creak-creak-creeeeaked slowly down the Jersey turnpike, her hope fading like the summer sun behind her; image via INF]

Today we have a TV star whose husband has been stepping out on her, a celebrity chef who likes his food, his wiiiiiine and his women, and a young couple with an unexpected pregnancy.

• There's a shortage of banking industry CEOs—decent ones, at least—which explains why Vikram Pandit is still in charge at Citigroup and Ken Lewis is still running the show at Bank of America. "The best players won't risk their careers going to a troubled enterprise," explains one recruiting expert. [WSJ]
• Andrew Cuomo has been investigating pension fund corruption for the past few months. Now his own ties to just such an entity are raising questions. [BN]
• Wanna invest in a hedge fund? You're in luck. A number of them are looking to diversify their investor bases and are now targeting the middle class. [NYP]
• Stocks rose this morning ahead of a report by the Fed this afternoon. [CNN]
• Good news for JPMorgan Chase: It's "the world's strongest bank." [DB]
• Good news for Barclays: Its name will grace a Brooklyn subway station. [NYT]
• Jeffry Picower was once considered one of Bernie Madoff's victims. Not so much any longer, now that it appears he withdrew as much as $5 billion from his various Madoff accounts between 1995 and 2008. [ProPublica]

• Kevin Wendle, the serial entrepreneur who co-founded CNET and iFILM, among other companies, has lowered the price of his apartment at 812 Fifth Avenue for the second time since listing it for $14.85 million in January. The 17th-floor apartment, which Wendle purchased for $6.4 million in 2006, is now listed for $9.95 million with Corcoran's Deborah Grubman and Carol Cohen. [Cityfile, Curbed, Corcoran]
• Steve Wynn is about to put his apartment at 817 Fifth Avenue back on the market for $25 million, six years after he failed to sell it for $15 million. The 3,900-square-foot spread, which suffered water damage a few years back, now comes with onyx floors and a leather-lined private elevator vestibule. [NYO]
• Two weeks after it was reported that he was "quietly" shopping his Beresford apartment, Bob Weinstein's 6,500-square-foot duplex has officially hit the market. The six-bedroom apartment with grand stairway, paneled library, two terraces, and three fireplaces is listed with Brown Harris Stevens broker Ileen Schoenfeld for $29.75 million. [NYO, BHS, previously]

Socialite Fabiola Beracasa turns 33 today. Model Petra Nemcova is turning 30. Former New York Governor George Pataki is 64. Former labor secretary Robert Reich turns 63. Actress Minka Kelly is 29. Beyonce's kid sister, Solange Knowles, is 23. Longtime newspaper columnist and author Pete Hamill is turning 74. Actress Sherry Stringfield is 42. Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood is 62. And The Office's Mindy Kaling turns 30 today.

Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minillo bite the dust, Jon Gosselin's new girlfriend will be on the next season of J&K+8, Lindsay Lohan tries to pick up Justin Timberlake in a club and Megan Fox almost burns down a Louisiana town.

• 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]

"After months of bitter struggle that included a threat to shut down The Boston Globe, the New York Times Company and the paper's largest union reached a tentative contract settlement on Tuesday night." [NYT]

There have been a few new developments 24 hours in regards to the uprising in Iran. Here's a brief recap.

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker says that Mark Sanford's vanishing act is a "brilliant" political maneuver.

Last night the Brooklyn Cyclones, a minor league affiliate of the New York Mets, transformed into the "Baracklyn Cyclones" to honor Barack Obama in "a night of patriotic partying at the ballpark." Some Cyclone fans were not pleased.

After months of jostling between the New York Times and the largest union representing employees of the Boston Globe, the two sides reached a tentative settlement around 11Ppm last night, perhaps paving the way for the Globe to be sold.

Here we were thinking all along that Mark Sanford's just been getting raped by mountain people as he hiked the Appalachian trail naked, but authorities have found his SUV abandoned at an airport where Sanford was seen boarding a plane.

Fox News has been going the extra mile to break things down for its most simple-minded viewers. Last night Glenn Beck made crude drawings on a chalkboard, and tonight he and Bill O'Reilly used Barbie dolls to explain ACORN.

Yesterday our Hamilton Nolan blamed BK's financial woes on their "edgy" ad agency. Now tonight our pal Copyranter sent us their newest advertisement, a reeking of desperation creation he called the "most overtly blow-jobby ad I've ever seen."