♦ Condé Nast is denying rumors that Si Newhouse plans to replace Anna Wintour at Vogue. "The silliest rumor I ever heard," says a rep. [NYO, WSJ, WWD]
♦ Julia Restoin Roitfeld's response to the suggestion her mom might be taking over for Anna: "She loves Paris too much—she'd never leave." [The Cut]
♦ Zac Posen is working on a new diffusion line. [FWD]
♦ Londoners will get their first taste of Posh Spice's new fashion line tomorrow. [Times UK]
♦ Love Saves the Day, the iconic store in the East Village, is closing. [Racked]
♦ Will fashion shows survive the recession? Some may not. [WSJ]
♦ Bridal designer Gabriella Risatti is making copies of Carrie's Vivienne Westwood wedding dress from the Sex and the City for $15,000. [NYP]

Somali pirates have moved from attacking cargo ships to targeting the idle rich, at least if the assault on a cruise ship this past weekend is any indication. The boat's captain was able to use "evasive maneuvers" to dodge the armed bandits. But let this serve as a warning to the moguls out there in possession of very expensive, very large boats: If you've yet to add heat-seeking missiles to your boat's arsenal and you're planning to hit the seas for the holidays, now would be a good time to do so. [AP, previously]

♦ Sue Torres is leaving her post Los Dados to spend more time at Sueños, her restaurant in Chelsea. [NYT]
♦ Photos of David Burke's Fishtail, which opened last night. [Eater]
♦ Anita Lo plans to close Bar Q for a few days so she can reopen it with a more finger-food-friendly menu. [GS]
♦ Susanne Bartsch is moving the weekly party she used to throw at Happy Valley to Greenhouse and calling it Vandam. [GS]
♦ The Upper West Side's Neptune Room is now closed. [Eater]
♦ You can celebrate Britney's birthday at Tenjune tonight, if you wish. [DBTH]

It's hard to imagine a tougher real estate client than Alex Rodriguez and Madonna. But some poor broker is now helping the duo hunt for a "love nest" on the Upper East Side, at least according to today's Post. Naturally, not just any apartment will do. The couple is looking to spend between $30 and $60 million on a townhouse between Park and Fifth Avenues (between East 60th Street and the 80s) and, ideally, they'd like a place with a garage so they can drive right in without having to push their way past a gaggle of photographers. Sadly, there aren't very many townhouses with garages on the market at the moment. But if A-Rod and Madge can concede on that one point, we rounded up their five best options, which you can review for yourself below.

Next Monday is Wendi Deng's birthday, just in case you're looking for something fun to add to your datebook or you happen to be a close, personal friend and you've yet to pick up a suitable gift. So what does the notoriously demanding third wife of Rupert Murdoch have planned for the big event? "According to a source with knowledge of the planning, the Murdochs have booked the top floor of the Gramercy Park Hotel, where their guests will include Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg, Billy Joel, and Arianna Huffington. A portion of the six-figure budget went towards booking the Chinese pianist Lang Lang to play a 20-minute set." [Portfolio]

Simon Doonan's terrifically useful advice for surviving the recession and looking your very best? Take whatever money you still have left and give it to him! No matter how bad things get, Doonan says, you should be sure to continue shopping and keep up your "fierce and meaningful allegiance to, for example, Barneys and Jonathan Adler." Also: "Snag yourself a personal shopper who can streamline the process." And where do you find one of those? Easy! "Call Pat Drake at Barneys—she used to be a Rockette!—or email her at pdrake@barneys.com, and she will get you hooked up." And if you have any cash left over, you can always meet up with Jonathan for a $10,000 lunch. [NYO]

♦ No official confirmation yet, but media insiders say David Gregory has been tapped to take over as host of Meet the Press. [Politico]
♦ It's rumored Carine Roitfeld is replacing Anna Wintour at Vogue. [Gawker]
♦ A former employee of Charles Kushner is accusing him of funneling cash from his real estate empire to prop up Jared Kushner's Observer. [Daily Intel]
♦ Harvey Weinstein owes Cindy Adams $10,000. [NYP]
♦ Condé Nast has shuttered its social networking site Flip.com. [Gawker]
♦ CBS is producing a new hidden camera show with Ashton Kutcher. [NYT]
♦ Katie Couric has a new haircut, in case you haven't noticed. [HuffPo]
♦ Arianna Huffington's how-to book for aspiring bloggers. [Jossip]
♦ Ever fantasized about having lunch with Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel? You can—for $2,500. [NYO]

So bookstores are struggling, editors aren't allowed to acquire new projects or even eat a decent lunch, and it's never been a worse time for aspiring authors with dreams of literary stardom. (Unless they're Jewish comedians or former child-star drug addicts, that is.) But wait! Is it possible that Barack Obama will singlehandedly turn the tide and redeem literary culture? The President-elect was recently photographed with a copy of Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott's Collected Poems, much to the delight of Farrar, Straus and Giroux president Jonathan Galassi, who, after picking up his own poetry prize at the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction Awards last night, said: "Obama is a big reader, and he's an author, so people are paying attention to what he reads. He could have a lot of influence on books and what's read." Indeed. Now, if Michelle could just be seen reading, say, a Joan Didion novel, another angel will get its wings and a few more editorial assistants will still have their jobs come Christmas.

In news that should come as no surprise to anyone who has turned on the TV or opened a newspaper in the past six months, Merriam-Webster has named "bailout" the most popular word of 2008, based on the word's "highest intensity of lookups" over the course of the year. Here's hoping 2009's word is something a little bit more cheerful and not, say, "depression" or "apocalypse." [Reuters]

You'd think that for an 18-year-old with unlimited financial resources, a foolproof fake ID would be a must. Apparently not. Robby Cohen, the son of airport concession mogul Robert Cohen and the nephew of the late Claudia Cohen (which also makes him the former nephew of billionaire Ron Perelman) headed down to Florida for Thanksgiving weekend where he was busted in Palm Beach on Sunday after the police caught him ordering a rum and coke at the restaurant Nick & Johnny.

One doesn't think of New Yorkers as particularly gullible or naive, but when it comes to food, we're totally clueless and assume that anything labeled low-fat is automatically low-calorie—at least according to marketing guru Pierre Chandon, who's turned his attention to discovering why Americans, despite being so rich and well-informed, are still such fatties. The Times took his questionnaires out into the field and discovered that "health halos"—ideas about which foods are virtuous based on health campaigns and restaurant advertising—meant that even the know-it-alls in Park Slope embarrassed themselves when it came to guessing calorie content.

Michelle Williams walking with daughter Matilda ... Uma Thurman arriving at JFK ... Sarah Jessica Parker walking with son James in the West Village ... Naomi Watts carrying her dog and a bunch of bags ... Liev Schreiber rolling luggage down the sidewalk in NoHo ... Anne Hathaway outside the The Daily Show studios ... America Ferrera and Ana Ortiz holding coffee cups on the set of Ugly Betty ... Kim Kardashian shopping on Fifth Avenue and later leaving Citrine on West 21st Street and heading to Marquee.

It looks like no executive perk is off-limits as an ailing Citigroup slashes costs, lays off employees, and tries to beef up its balance sheet. The banking giant has put two of its corporate jets on the market in recent weeks via a Maryland-based airplane broker called AvPro, we've learned. Both are Dassult Falcon 900 jets (click here for a larger pic) and are owned by Citigroup Corp Aviation in White Plans. Naturally, both also come with top-of-the-line everything, including mahogany woodwork, luxurious leather seating, gold accents, and very spacious bathrooms. Citi's airplane broker didn't put a price tag on either jet—the model begins at $35 million if purchased new—but we're guessing Citi won't be driving a hard bargain. (The full specs are below, just in case you're in the market for a new plane.) And don't feel bad for the likes of Bob Rubin and Vikram Pandit. Citi has several other planes in its fleet, and those have yet to be put up for sale (as far as we can tell) so there's no need to fear that senior execs will be forced to fly commercial in the near future.

♦ Natalie Portman has closed on the sale of her three-bedroom condo at 165 Charles Street for $6.55 million, two months after it was first reported that the apartment had gone into contract. The buyer is listed in property records at Monkway Properties Inc. [Cityfile]
♦ Alex Rodriguez has lowered the price of his Trump Park Avenue condo for the second time since first listing it for $14 million back in September. The 4,600-square-foot spread can now be yours for the bargain basement price of $10 million. [Page Six, Modlin Group]
♦ Philip Morris vice president Charles Wall paid $4.42 million for a 10th-floor apartment at 170 East End Avenue, the same building where art dealer Dominique Lévy picked up an eighth-floor spread in October. [Cityfile]

If you thought your persistent lack of joie de vivre was due to the fact that you hate your job, are addicted to one or several substances, or your parents didn't love you enough, you'll be relieved to hear everything is probably your bra's fault. (If you're a woman, that is, otherwise, still one/all of the above apply.) Not that there can be many women left in the Western world unaware that they're wearing the wrong size bra, but just in case, a journalist has followed in the footsteps of many before her to visit a lingerie store, where needless to say she's scolded by a motherly saleslady with a tape measure who informs her—of course!—that she's a 32E, not a 36C. And a good thing too, as there's so much more than perkiness and cleavage depth at stake here.

Erin Callan has had a tumultuous year, hasn't she? The former star at Lehman Bros can sit back and relax today. Not only has she landed on her feet (unlike so many of her former colleagues), it's also her 43rd birthday. Others celebrating: Stone Phillips is 54. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is turning 69. Real estate marketing queen Louise Sunshine is 68. Nelly Furtado is 30. Nate Mendel of the Foo Fighters is 40. Monica Seles is turning 35. Lucy Liu is 40. And Ms. Britney Spears—you've heard of her, haven't you?—is celebrating her 27th birthday today.

♦ Stocks are poised to move higher today after yesterday's bloodbath. [CNN]
♦ Goldman Sachs may report a loss of as much as $5 billion this quarter, the firm's first quarterly loss since it went public in 1999. [WSJ]
♦ Credit Suisse and HSBC have announced another round of job cuts. [Reuters]
♦ Highbridge Capital, founded by Glenn Dubin and Henry Swieca and owned by JPMorgan, is the latest hedge to suffer a fall. More than a third of its investors are looking to withdraw cash and the flagship fund is down 25%. [WSJ]
♦ One hedge funder doing fine: John Paulson. His firm has already cleared profits of more than $1 billion this year betting that the housing market would crumble and banks would fail. [Bloomberg]
♦ What does the head of a new Congressional panel set up to monitor the bailout have to say about Hank Paulson's strategy? That it does appear Paulson has a strategy. [NYT]

♦ Christian Siriano plans to make it work with Payless: The Project Runway winner is teaming up with the company on a line of footwear and handbags that will launch next fall. [NYP]
♦ Today was Cyber Monday, the day when online retailers kick off the holiday season with super-steep discounts. It didn't turn out to be a great day for Bloomingdale's and J. Crew: both watched their websites crash this morning. [Crain's, USA Today]
♦ In case you forgot to issue your congratulations, Anna Wintour headed off to Buckingham Palace last week to pick up whatever is it you are given when you're named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. [Vogue UK]

If you see a bunch of glum-looking tellers tomorrow at your local Washington Mutual branch, there's a good reason for that: JPMorgan announced this afternoon that it plans to slash 20 percent of the bank's work force, or 9,200 jobs, following its acquisition of the bank in September. [CNN]

It's not just dealers and artists who will be feeling the effects of a much more subdued atmosphere at this year's Art Basel. Further evidence that the annual art event is not going to be teeming with hedge fund moguls, Russian billionaires, and party scenesters as in years past: Rooms at Miami's top hotels are not at all hard to come by, judging by what's available on sites like Expedia and Orbitz. A run-of-the-mill room at Andre Balazs's Standard Hotel, for example, will cost you $426 a night if you arrive on Thursday and leave on Sunday. And there are availabilities at a number of other spots that would normally be booked months in advance, including the Delano, Sagamore, Shore Club, Four Seasons, Gansevoort, and Ritz-Carlton. If you're thinking of making a last-minute trip south, you need not worry about transportation either. Seats aboard flights from NYC to Miami are still up for sale, and although we didn't call to check, we're guessing that NetJets customers won't have any trouble booking a reservation either.