• The Sci Fi Channel is now called Syfy. It's pronounced the same way, except it's less science fiction-y, which is why it was changed to begin with. [THR]
• Justin Timberlake has tapped lit agent David Vigliano to sell publishers on the notion that Timberlake is just the person to write a book about golf. [NYO]
• After a heated, two-year battle, big record labels and online radio stations have finally agreed on new royalty rates for streaming music online. [NYT]
• Who says embattled media companies are doing their best to spend money more wisely? The soundstage for Jay Leno's new primetime show will be "specially fitted to accommodate his passion: expensive cars." [THR]
• "Online predators" have hit Twitter. Paging Dateline's Chris Hansen! [LAT]
• A new study finds that kids are spending more time online. Surprise! [AP]
• Equally shocking: Breaking the Jackson story has boosted TMZ's traffic. [AP]

Where is Ruth Madoff? As of today, she could be anywhere in the world: "Federal prosecutors allowed Ruth Madoff to get her passport back today, in what people involved in the case said was 'a clear sign' she will not be prosecuted as an accomplice in her husband's $65 billion Ponzi scheme." If you spot her shopping at the Hermès in Beijing—or attempting to mix in with the locals in Hanoi—please let us know. [ABC News via Dealbreaker]

Brooke Astor's son, Anthony Marshall, could just be under the weather. Or he could be hoping to delay the inevitable as his trial groans along. But for the third time in less than a month, Marshall called in sick today and said he had to visit his doctor's office instead of appear in court. Last time around, the 85-year-old explained his absence by saying he'd had an accident on his treadmill. And while his lawyer didn't disclose what today's ailment was, let's hope neither a a trapeze nor hang glider were involved, or else this trial has no chance of coming to a close before the end of 2009. [NYDN]

Remember back in February when Mayor Bloomberg announced a program to "retrain" laid-off Wall Streeters for careers in other professions? No word yet on how former Bear Stearns brokers and Lehman mortgage traders have adjusted to their new careers as "repossession collection specialists"—a booming profession, we should point out—but the early signs must be encouraging, since Bloomberg now says he plans to do the same thing with unemployed media professionals, too:

Judge Denny Chin sure has an interesting caseload. Last week, the federal judge appointed to the bench by Bill Clinton was in the papers after sentencing Bernie Madoff to 150 years in prison. So what great legal matters is he tending to this week? He's hearing opening arguments in a $60 million libel lawsuit filed by Howard K. Stern against former talk show host Rita Cosby, who alleged in her 2007 bestselling book that Stern and Anna Nicole Smith's former boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, "engaged in gay sex" while Anna Nicole stood by and allegedly videotaped it. [NYP]

If you're currently job hunting and you figured that if all else fails you could always end up working for the city, you may need to come up with a new backup plan. The stalemate in Albany has led Mayor Bloomberg to resort to "drastic measures" and impose a city-wide hiring freeze. The move has already led to the postponement of tomorrow's graduation of 250 NYPD recruits, and a long list of other hires will now be put off, including the recruitment of 150 firefighters and 34 emergency 911 operators. It also means 151 traffic agents won't get hired anytime soon, although we're guessing car owners won't be complaining very much about that. [WCBS]

Kiefer Sutherland eating dinner with girlfriend Siobhan Bonnouvrier at Wallse on West 11th ... Mickey Rourke leaving a West Village townhouse ... Calista Flockhart standing with son Liam outside FAO Schwarz on Fifth Avenue ... Kate Hudson cheering for Alex Rodriguez at a Yankees game ... Blake Lively and Penn Badgley crossing East 54th Street ... Jennifer Aniston sitting in a car with Gerard Butler on the set of The Bounty in Queens ... Andy Roddick and Brooklyn Decker shopping at the Apple store in SoHo ... and Robert Pattinson shooting scenes for Remember Me outside Regis High School on the Upper East Side.

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).

• 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]

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.

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]

• 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]

• A kitchen fire destroyed Anita Lo's Annisa over the weekend. [SE]
• A roundup of restaurants that just opened, or will be open shortly. [Eater]
• Adam Platt reviews Marea in this week's issue of New York and doesn't walk away all that impressed: "For all its impressive, even dazzling qualities, it feels less like a labor of love than like one of ambition and duty." [NYM]
• A rebuttal from Josh Ozersky: "Adam Platt is out of his mind." [TFB]
• The owners of the River Café have filed a $3 million lawsuit over damage they claim was caused by Olafur Eliasson's "Waterfalls" art project. [NYP]
• Despite a last-minute petition, Joe Jr.'s closed its doors yesterday. [GS]
• The Health Department may take away the permits of as many as 500 street food vendors after investigators found evidence of "widespread fraud." [NYP]
• Joey Chestnut took top prize at the Nathan's hot-dog eating contest. [NYDN]

Scores, the strip club on East 60th Street, closed its doors at the end of 2008 after running into some financial difficulty. (Its West Side location was shuttered last May after it got caught up in a prostitution sting operation.) But it's back in business and under new management. And it's in desperate need of publicity, clearly, since it just offered Heidi Pratt a job at the club.

Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison last week. Exactly where he'll spend the remaining years of his life, however, has yet to be decided. It will be up to the Bureau of Prisons to pick out an appropriate facility for the fraudster. But Madoff is still hoping to have a bit of a say as to where he ends up and even hired a prison "consultant" by the name of Herb Hoelter to help him find just the right place.

Mayor Bloomberg's new campaign commercial features him chatting up a bunch of cops next to a squad car. The problem? The uniforms and police car identify them as officers from the 27th Precinct, which doesn't exist in real life, but happens to be the fictional precinct depicted on Law & Order. Naturally, Bloomberg's primary challenger, Bill Thompson, is using the incident to score political points. Per a spokesman: "The make-believe police precinct in Bloomberg's ad fits perfectly with his five-borough plan and policies... All fantasies." Of course, Thompson is still clinging to the fantasy he actually has a shot at unseating Bloomberg, so it looks like everyone concerned is living in a fantasyland of some sort. [NYDN]

• It looks like Vogue is finally taking note of the recession. The July issue features a $40 Gap hat and $50 pair of J. Crew shorts. Ouch. [NYT]
• The Transformers sequel topped the box office once again this week, raking in $42.4 million to edge out Fox's 3D movie Ice Age by a smidge. [THR]
• Some retailers have been covering up the new issue of GQ featuring a semi-nude Sacha Baron Cohen. Not that GQ minds the "controversy." [NYT]
• Casey Kasem counted down the hits for the last time this weekend. [ABC]

• The buyer who paid $37 million for Gerhard Andlinger's penthouse at the Time Warner Center—setting the record as the biggest real estate deal in 2009 thus far—has been revealed. It's Andrei Vavilov, the Russian financier who agreed to buy two penthouses at the Plaza last year for $53.5 million, but ended up suing the developer after his wife wasn't pleased with the "attic-like" ceilings. (As part of a settlement, Valvilov agreed to purchase just one of the two apartments, and he's since gone into contract to sell it.) Hopefully, Vavilov's wife is happier with her husband's latest acquisition. The full-floor, five-bedroom penthouse on the 78th floor encompasses 8,300 square feet and comes with 14-foot ceilings. [NYT]

Plenty of familiar faces were in the stands at Wimbledon over the weekend, including Justin Timberlake, Ben Stiller, Kate Winslet, Scarlett Johansson, and even Henry Kissinger, who "appeared to have trouble staying awake" at yesterday's men's final pitting Andy Roddick against Roger Federer. The most awkward juxtaposition in the crowd: Ralph Lauren, who was seated next to Woody Allen and his wife Soon-Yi, and directly in front of Russell Crowe. According to British press accounts, Allen looked "grumpy" sitting in the stands wearing a "flowerpot hat." Lauren and Crowe didn't look all too happy either, although that may have been because they were forced to sit next to a man wearing a "flowerpot hat." [The First Post, AP]

Eight of the 13 entries on Forbes's new list of "America's most troubled luxury neighborhoods" are located in the tri-state area. The worst of the worst: New Vernon, New Jersey, which ranks No. 2 on the list, just ahead of Alpine, NJ. The East End makes a strong showing as well, naturally: Sagaponack and Amagansett come in at No. 4 and 5, respectively. [WSJ, Forbes]