Michael Dell conferring with Nestlé board chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe at the World Economic Forum in Davos today. [Photo: Swiss Image]

It may be cold and dreary today, but it's all warm and fuzzy inside the Plaza! Okay, maybe not, but Russian financier Andrei Vavilov and El-Ad Properties have settled their respective lawsuits. (Vavilov, as you may recall, paid $53.5 million for a triplex in the building and then filed suit to get his $10.7 million deposit back; El-Ad countersued shortly thereafter.) Terms of the settlement are confidential, but Vavilov's lawyer says his client is "very pleased with the outcome." Nice to hear someone has something to be happy about today! [City Room]

In a move that will no doubt make Fox super excited, Simpsons actress Nancy Cartwright is using her Bart voice to shill for an upcoming Scientology event at Hollywood & Highland.

The raft of rumors we received this morning have been confirmed: Conde Nast is folding Domino magazine. It won't be the last to go.

Give Benicio Del Toro some credit: He's been on the Che World Tour since last May's Cannes premiere, and there are only so many ways to deflect inquiries about his character's mass-murder pastime.

• Fourth-quarter profits at the New York Times Co. were down nearly 50 percent compared to a year ago; the company also announced that it has retained Goldman Sachs to sell its 17 percent stake in the Red Sox. [NYT]
• More on Condé Nast's decision to close Domino. [NYT]
• Because there isn't enough choice with the 364 different iterations of HBO you already have, another premium cable channel is headed your way. [WSJ]
• How al-Arabiya got the first post-inauguration interview with Obama. [Time]
• Hurry up! There are only two spots left for the Super Bowl on Sunday. You can make the $2.4 million check payable to NBC. [THR]

NYT Co. ending monthly financial updates. Less bad news!

A year after Fox inflated and mercilessly dashed a few hundred Americans' hopes of a big-screen A-Team adaptation, behold the promise of a new start — with surprisingly, almost bafflingly influential connections.

Congratulations to Self magazine, for Conde Nast CEO Charles Townsend naming its publisher the company's Publisher of the Year! But when you look at the numbers, you see just how sad this award really is:

[Submit your own Gawker Stalker sightings to stalker@gawker.com] Jan. 27 @ 8pm The big dude who plays huggable Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes on Lost was with some blonde beauty last night at Stand Burger.

We always thought of NBC's Andrea Mitchell as a prime example of the utter failure of television news departments to police glaring conflicts of interest, but apparently she is a gay icon!

[Vogue editrix Anna Wintour at Paris Fashion Week; image via Bauer-Griffin]

Armin Amiri's Socialista was shuttered last month, the result of a crackdown by the Department of Health, a hang-up over the club's liquor license, and, according to Amiri, a lack of enthusiasm on the part of his investors, who include Harvey Weinstein and Sting. The good news? Socialista's closing will give Amiri more time to focus on his acting career! He says he's already landed a part in a new movie called The Imperialists Are Still Alive. Given the amount of money that was invested in Socialista and eventually lost, we're going to go ahead and assume The Weinstein Company won't be producing. [NYO]

Fame has always had its downsides. But Internet fame, like the kind TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington has accumulated, provides all the downsides and very few advantages. Now he wants to go into hiding.

Last month we predicted ten companies and industries that would actually come out as recession winners (crazy, right?). It's time to check on how our predictions are doing! (Hint: f'in awesome):

One place you may not want to stick your parents on their next trip to town: The Hotel Carter off Times Square, which TripAdvisor.com has named the dirtiest hotel in America for the third time in the last four years. What did the hotel do to earn the distinction? The leaking ceiling, stained sheets, and bedbugs didn't earn it any points. Then there was that time a couple of years ago when a housekeeper found a woman's corpse stuffed under a bed. But who cares about an occasional dead body when the rooms there are only $130 a night? [NYDN, TripAdvisor]

Growing up rich is hard, what with all the money and the drugs and the famous lineages and pressure. Take, for example, Rob Sedgwick, the brother of Closer star Kyra and Warhol muse Edie's cousin.

Citigroup created a storm of controversy earlier this week when it was revealed that the ailing bank planned to go ahead with the purchase of a $50 million corporate jet. It looks like the public reaction—which included a condemnation from President Obama and members of Congress—and the bank's decision to abandon the deal are being heard loud and clear across corporate America. We can report that Starbucks, which faced harsh criticism two weeks ago after it was revealed that the coffee giant had purchased a $45 million Gulfstream 550, is now looking to sell the plane, less than a month after taking delivery of the aircraft.

Feeling depressed because the recession and the internet are both killing the book publishing industry, and hurting your hopes for the big literary contract you deserve? Just self-publish! Every other jerk is.

Today in the New York Times opinion section: Maureen Dowd reads the Post and pretends to be outraged at perk-addicted rich people, Thomas Friedman just makes up some nonsense.