• In his next-to-last review for the Times, Frank Bruni upgrades Danny Meyer's Eleven Madison Park from three stars to four, making it Bruni's sixth four-star review in five years and making Daniel Humm, Eleven Madison Park's 32-year-old chef, an extraordinarily happy man, suffice it to say. [NYT]
• Related: Over on Diner's Journal, Bruni explains the big decision. [NYT/DJ]
• Other reviews this week: Time Out's Jay Cheshes gives Aureole four out of five stars; Restaurant Girl comes away from the Standard Grill very impressed; the Post's Steve Cuozzo is thrilled with the Standard Grill, too; and Bloomberg News's Ryan Sutton gives two stars out of four to SHO Shaun Hergatt.
• As rumored a few months back, the Sant Ambroeus team is taking over the former Lever House space and turning it into Casa Lever. [NYT]
• Todd English has signed on to oversee the kitchen at the Great Jones Hotel, a 13-story hotel that is currently under construction. [Eater]

Tory Burch must be in a good mood today. Sally Spanburgh reports that Burch's proposed plan to tear down her house in Southampton—the one she bought from her ex-husband earlier this year for $22.5 million—has been approved. Small sacrifices were involved, however. Town officials gave her the green light after her architect agreed to lower the height of the house he's planning to build in its place by three and a half feet, so it won't block her neighbor's view of the ocean. [SVR, previously]

• Vibe is rising from the dead. A group of investors led by former cable exec Leo Hindery and its luxury magazine publisher Uptown Media have acquired the magazine. They plan to resurrect the website in a few weeks. [WSJ]
• Laura Ling is shopping a book proposal with her sister, Lisa Ling. [WSJ]
• Twitter was the victim of another denial-of-service attack yesterday. [NYT]
• Facebook is testing out something called "Facebook Lite," which may or may not be a Twitter competitor, depending whom you ask. [ABC News, Guardian]
• CBS had planned to change up this year's Emmy Awards. But then everyone complained, so now it plans to go back to the way it was. [THR]
• A launch party for a new magazine? Could it be? Really? [AdAge]

Rupert Murdoch is currently using his 183-foot sailboat. Or at least he was a few weeks ago when the Rosehearty was spotted in Auke Bay, Alaska and the "rumor on the dock" was that mogul's special on-board guest was none other Mel Gibson. But if you're planning ahead, you may want to take note that you can now rent Murdoch's "aluminum masterpiece" by the week. It's not cheap—it will run you €220,000, or $310,000, a week. Then again, no one ever said a "stunning interior by famous French designer Christian Liagre" came cheap, and you can bring nine friends with you, so maybe you can split up the costs? While you try and make the numbers work, you can take the grand tour of Murdoch's floating palace after the jump.

Here's a question you've undoubtedly wrestled with for ages now: If you sleep with your doorman or super and the rest of the building finds out about it, will he end up losing his job? "I've had several instances where building staff were involved with residents and in each instance the building employee was terminated," says a real estate lawyer. The good news is that he stands to make a decent amount of money if—and when—he threatens to slap the co-op with an embarrassing wrongful termination lawsuit, especially "if it's a Park Avenue building and the super has had sex with the wife of the board president." [BrickUnderground via Curbed]

We've all heard about those nasty pirates off the coast of Somalia, who have been attacking cargo ships and the occasional cruise ship over the past few months. (If you're interested in a fantastic account of one such attack, check out this article by William Langewiesche from the April issue of Vanity Fair.) Is it possible the piracy trend now moving north to, say, European waters? That's what some are wondering now that a cargo ship seems to have mysteriously vanished off the coast of Sweden. It's possible it wasn't a pirate attack and was connected to a commercial dispute of some sort. Although if it was an attack by pirates, the view from the beaches of Saint-Tropez are about to get a little bit more interesting, no? [AP, related]

If you were thinking the recent spate of Ponzi schemes has convinced investors to do a bit more due diligence before handing over their cash, think again: A group of a dozen hedge funds have filed a lawsuit against a California businessman named Todd Ault, who they accuse of taking the $4.2 million they gave him for a stock trading venture and instead investing it in a "swingers ranch" in the Catskills. We're thinking Ault's MySpace page should have been a tip off, but feel free to decide for yourself. [NYDN]

Did your husband just leave you? Well, then, have a look at the "Suddenly Splitsville" package that the Marmara Manhattan, an "extended-stay" hotel on the Upper East Side, is now offering. In addition to a fully-furnished luxury apartment, you'll get a one-year subscription to Divorce magazine, "a pint of Haagen Daz [sic] ice cream to drown those sorrows in," a free pass to the 92nd Street Y "to work on that new physique," a complimentary copy of Confessions Of An Online Dating Addict, "a book about the trials and tribulations of a woman who dated online in New York City to learn all about dating on the Web," and free wireless Internet access so you "can start surfing the dating sites." You really couldn't ask for anything else, could you? [Marmara Manhattan via YM]

So much for the truce between MSNBC and Fox. Since news of a cease fire (or at least a ratcheting down of the rhetoric) appeared in the pages of the New York Times twelve days ago, whatever fragile peace the two networks negotiated has dissolved into the usual volley of insults. Bill O'Reilly is once again the worst person in the world, according to Keith Olbermann. And MSNBC's parent company, GE, is once again responsible for supporting terrorist regimes that are hell-bent on America's destruction, according to O'Reilly. Few at MSNBC and Fox News are happy the deal has unraveled—and both sides have said they're hoping to salvage it, an unlikely prospect at this point—although some of the most annoyed people around are the NBC staffers who are getting increasingly fed up with Olbermann's antics.

The Wall Street Journal reports that economists are "nearly unanimous" that President Obama should reappoint Ben Bernanke to another term as Federal Reserve chairman. Even better? "[T]he majority of the economists The Wall Street Journal surveyed during the past few days said the recession that began in December 2007 is now over." Now over! Break out that overpriced outfit you purchased during the good ol' days of 2007, reserve a table at the club you last frequented back when you had a job and you could afford to pay $400 for a bottle, and celebrate. Naturally, you can look forward to finding another job any moment now. [WSJ]

Whitney Port walking home from the gym ... Famke Janssen walking downtown ... Beyonce leaving dinner at Nello on Madison Avenue ... Rihanna going shopping at Barneys ... Mischa Barton filming scenes for The Beautiful Life in SoHo, right before Elle Macpherson showed up to shoot her scenes, too ... Ed Westwick arriving at JFK ... Alessandra Ambrosio arriving at MTV Studios in Times Square ... Kate Hudson sitting with CC Sabathia's wife, Amber, at a Yankee game ... Ashton Kutcher holding hands with Demi Moore while walking in the East Village ... Kate Gosselin leaving her hotel en route to ABC Studios ... Taylor Momsen and Connor Paolo eating lunch on the Gossip Girl set ... and Oprah leaving Phillippe with Gayle King and Alicia Keys.

• Iris Cantor, the widow of Cantor Fitzgerald founder Bernie Cantor, has gone into contract to sell her penthouse at 110 Central Park South. The four-bedroom pad, which Cantor bought for $15 million in 2006, had been listed recently for $11.9 million. [NYO]
• Pro golfer Cristie Kerr and her husband, Aviator Sports president Erik Stevens, have picked up an 11th-floor condo at One Morton Square. The couple paid $2.3 million for the three-bedroom pad. [Cityfile]
• Hedge funder Steve Eisman has unloaded his nine-room apartment at 1125 Park Avenue for $5.2 million, or $1.795 million less than what he paid for it in March 2008. Eisman can afford to take the loss. His Front Point Partners is believed to have made a fortune betting against subprime lending. [NYO]

How bad have things gotten at Condé Nast? The bottles of Pellegrino and Orangina are gone, the Fiji water has been replaced with Poland Spring, and Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter has been spotted in the cafeteria, "eyeing reasonably priced stir fry." Oh, yes, it's that bad. [NYO]

Billionaire financier George Soros turns 79 today. Nina Zagat is turning 67. Writer/comedian Michael Ian Black is 38. The tannest man in Hollywood, George Hamilton, is turning 70. Evelyn Lauder, philanthropist, social staple, and wife of Leonard, is 73. Roger Hodge, the editor of Harper's, is turning 42. NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman is 61. Legendary screenwriter William Goldman is turning 78. Casey Affleck is 34. Interiors man Jeffrey Beers is turning 53. Pete Sampras is 38. Scandal-plagued football player Plaxico Burress is turning 32. Publishing heir Robert Ziff is 43. Rebecca Gayheart is turning 38. Actress Dominique Swain is 29. And the rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot turns 46 today.

• Kate Hudson is dying to have A-Rod's baby, reports In Touch: "(Hudson) just turned 30 and she's ready to have her second child," an "insider" tells the magazine. "She brought up the idea to Alex and told him that they would make a beautiful baby together, and that she would assume all financial responsibility." Sounds like a great deal, clearly. [MSNBC]
• Renee Zellweger and Bradley Cooper are no longer trying to hide their relationship. To make the point crystal clear, Bradley placed a "reassuring hand on her behind" for paparazzi photographers in Barcelona. [DM]
• Michael Douglas' son, Cameron Douglas, was busted on drug charges a week ago. Now his girlfriend has been arrested, too. Kelly Sott was nabbed after she tried to smuggle heroin to him in an electric toothbrush. Whoops. [People]

Just when you thought the drama at the Brooke Astor trial had subsided a bit comes the news that "a knife-wielding woman" attacked the jury forewoman on the subway, and one of the alternate jurors riding in the same car stepped in to stop the assault and apprehend the attacker. The forewoman, who is described as a 44-year-old caterer, escaped serious injury, according to the judge, but she did "suffer some bruises and other minor injuries." The judge also said that the attack didn't appear to be connected to the trial. But how often you hear about knife-wielding female muggers on the subway? Let's hope someone has the sense to sit Charlene Marshall down for a nice long chat today. [NYT]

• Bee Shaffer says she has no plans to follow in mom Anna Wintour's footsteps. "I really don't want to work in fashion. It's just not for me. I respect her, obviously, but it's just a really weird industry." She concludes by saying that people who think fashion is life are lame and she'd much rather become a lawyer, thank you very much. [Fox News]
• Charlize Theron appears on the cover of Vogue's September issue. It also touts the fact it's 584 pages, though that's down last year's 798 pages. [Cut]
• Be careful if you spend your days walking around in flip-flops. If you're not, you could pick up a deadly germ and if you happen to cut your foot, the germ will enter your bloodstream and kill you. Enjoy the rest of summer. [NYDN]

• A few new restaurants scheduled open this week or next. [Gothamist]
• Expansions du jour: Michael Psilakis (Anthos, Kefi, Gus & Gabriel) may or may not be looking to launch a Greek food-truck. And Michael Huynh (Bar Bao, Baoguettes) is planning to open O Bao Noodles & Grill on East 53rd St. this fall.
• Bars and restaurants often continue to operate after they file for bankruptcy. That doesn't appear to be the case with Merkato 55, though. [Eater]
• Oprah's diet was destroyed during a visit to NYC last weekend. Of course, potato skins at Planet Hollywood and dessert at Serendipity 3 will do that. [P6]

Ever wish you could attend a taping of The Jerry Springer Show, but found the prospect of flying to Chicago a little daunting? You're in for a treat! The most sophisticated show on television has been relocated to lovely Stamford, Connecticut, along with other gems like Maury and The Steve Wilkos Show. You'll now be able to take in the parade of hillbillies and trannies with a simple, hour-long trip aboard MetroNorth. More importantly, Stamford officials report the city's struggling economy just got the big boost it desperately needed! Congrats, Stamford. We have no doubt a flood of classy tourists with high disposable incomes will follow shortly. [ConnPost]

We were a bit surprised to see Michael Bloomberg's name appear on Vanity Fair's best-dressed list. We weren't the only ones, of course. But while the mayor's never been known for his sartorial sense, the Observer's Jason Horowitz thinks the mayor's increasingly "goofy" wardrobe—much like his decision to join Twitter—is part of an effort to spice up a pretty unexciting reelection campaign and keep himself from dying of boredom: