Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone turns 86 today. WNBC's Sue Simmons is turning 66. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is 86. ABC News anchor Cynthia McFadden is turning 53. Actor Paul Bettany is 38. TV Chef Jamie Oliver is 34. Fashion designer Behnaz Sarafpour turns 40. The rapper Jadakiss is turning 34. André Benjamin (otherwise known as André 3000) is 35. Actor Richard Schiff (The West Wing) is 54. Lou Gossett Jr. turns 73. And Todd Bridges, your second-favorite adopted child from the '80s sitcom Diff'rent Strokes, turns 44 today.

• Are Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick planning to leave the West Village behind? That's what Britain's Daily Mirror is reporting today, although the story seems to be based on the fact a moving truck happened to be parked outside the couple's townhouse yesterday (maybe Broderick was just rid of some old furniture?), so you may want to take the news with a grain of salt. [DM]
• Mariah Carey had some issues with her stylist in Cannes last week. But she walked away with "millions of free diamonds" when she stopped off in Turkey this past weekend, so hopefully that made up for the inconvenience. [P6]
• Kanye West says he doesn't read books or have any respect for books. But he's just written one that he'd really like you to buy and read. [Reuters]
• Mike Tyson's 4-year-old daughter, Exodus Tyson, died yesterday following her treadmill accident on Monday. [Us]

The city's plan to turn parts of Times and Herald Squares into "pedestrian zones" went into effect yesterday. How did it go? Traffic wasn't disrupted very much, although officials pointed out that there were fewer cars on the street yesterday after the holiday weekend. Some groups—like cabbies and tour bus operators—were pretty displeased, although that was to be expected. And the crummy lounge chairs that now dot the city's most famous thoroughfare didn't do much to impress tourists passing through Times Square. When a woman from Germany was asked whether she thought "the lounge chairs were a bit, well, cheap for a major public space in New York City," she acknowledged that real wooden chairs and benches would have probably been too expensive. "But we do have them in Germany," she added. So NYC isn't Frankfurt just yet. But just give it some time. [NYT, AMNY]

Lily Allen trashes Susan Boyle on Twitter, Jon and Kate face the "dark side of reality," Kelly Bensimon is annoying the shit out of people all over the place, Katherine Heigl got fired from another project for being a diva, and Tori Spelling looks horrendous in a bikini.

• Following a similar move by Morgan Stanley last week, Citigroup and Bank of America are raising base salaries for bankers. It's designed to make up for the new limits on annual bonuses (and won't make up for the difference, by any means), so don't expect shouts of joy at either bank today. [WSJ]
• Bank of America has scraped together another $5.9 billion, which means it's now 76 percent of the way toward filling its $33.9 billion capital hole. [WSJ]
• New York State Controller Thomas DiNapoli is cutting ties with 10 hedge fund managers as part of the state's pension corruption investigation. [DB]

Erich Muller, a rightwing Chicago shockjock known as "Mancow," recently agreed to be waterboarded to prove to all the big liberals that it's totally harmless and lasted all of six seconds. He appeared on Keith Olbermann's show to discuss how horribly misguided his views on waterboarding were previously.

Remember Roland Burris, the crazy old coot appointed by disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to fill Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat? Things have been kind of quiet on the Burris front for a while now, at least since he was busted lying under oath, but that's all about to change.

Laura Lucero of Los Angeles marches in a pro-gay marriage rally in Hollywood last night after the California Supreme Court upheld a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Well won't you lookee here! Now the truth has been revealed about why Barack Obama loves Sonia Sotomayor so dang much—-She's a pinko socialist just like he is, as evidenced by her quoting a six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America in the 1976 Princeton yearbook.

"North Korea defied international condemnation of its latest nuclear test by firing three short-range missiles off its coast on Tuesday and major powers considered tougher action against the isolated communist state...Pyongyang said the United States was the aggressor, its usual justification for making nuclear arms." [Reuters]

Rep. Anthony Weiner is officially dropping out of the race for mayor, a move he hinted at a couple of months ago when he announced plans to suspend his campaign. The move leaves Comptroller William Thompson in the unenviable position of having to go head to head with Michael Bloomberg (and his $80 million war chest) this fall. It also means the election will likely turn out to be a lot less entertaining. "Mr. Weiner is among the few political figures in the city who seem to rattle the supremely confident Mr. Bloomberg, and appears almost to relish antagonizing the mayor. His exit, in some ways, is a victory for Bloomberg campaign aides, who sought to knock him out of the race." [City Hall News, NYT]

Today's big story was Barack Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the retirement of David Souter. Predictably, America's punditry had plenty to say about this. We've sampled some of the prominent voices on the left and the right and compiled them for you.

Mike Tyson's 4-year-old daughter, Exodus, was pronounced dead today in a Phoenix, Arizona hospital after an accident in the family home over the weekend.

• Mayor Bloomberg has declared Thursday to be "Burberry Day" in honor of the lighting of the Burberry logo atop the company's new HQ at 444 Madison Avenue. [FWD]
• It looks like the Gianni Versace CEO Giancarlo Di Risio will be departing the company after going head to head with Donatella Versace. [WSJ]
• Italian officials have accused Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana of tax evasion, and have threatened the duo with a $1+ billion fine. [Cut]
• You may want to think twice before you try and squeeze into a pair of skinny jeans. They've been known to cause a nerve condition called "meralgia paresthetica," otherwise known as "tingling thigh syndrome." [MSNBC]

A Harvard man snapped a picture of the King of Sweden; a TV newsman tracked down a conservative he hates and a reporter was helped by his follower. The Twitterati felt stalked today!

"In doorman buildings, average apartment rents are down 6.9% over the last year. For non-doorman buildings the drop was 3.6%. The largest rent reductions took place in Midtown East, where rents for two-bedroom units in doorman buildings plummeted 21.3% from the same month a year ago, and in Murray Hill, where non-doorman one-bedroom units fell 20.7%." [Crain's]

Glenn Beck had an amazing transformation today on Fox News: In the morning, the conservative shouting head was saying Sonia Sotomayor was just your typical, politically correct Supreme Court nominee from a liberal president. By the evening, Beck had decided she was actually a dangerous racist.

[Lawn chairs dot a stretch of Broadway in Times Square today. Sections of the thoroughfare there and in nearby Herald Square just became pedestrian walkways; image via Getty]

Xerox chief Ursula Burns becomes the first black female Fortune 500 CEO ever. Late pass.

Twitter has reportedly been valued by investors at $1 billion. Oprah's on board. And the company's founders are set to headline the high-profile D conference tonight. So it's odd they seem to see their own product as a repository for jokes about cleavage, bird shit and killing Jason Calacanis.