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♦ If you have the nerve to approach Anna Wintour at a public event and ask her an uncomfortable question, don't be the least bit surprised if tells you to get lost. [The Cut]
♦ Madonna's latest fashion faux-pas? A green Louis Vuitton dress by Marc Jacobs, which "looks as if someone poured a wheelbarrow of lawn clippings all over her," bitches fashion critic Hilary Alexander. "Just another horrific hiccup in the wardrobe of a woman of wealth, but no taste." [Telegraph]
♦ Karolina Kurkova is the world's sexiest woman, according to E!, belly button or no belly button. [Reuters]
♦ Yes, it's 30 degrees outside, so why not distract yourself by watching footage of Brazil's Clara Rio Summer event, including Natalia Vodianova and Byrdie Bell showing off on the dance floor? [Vogue UK]

General Motors now says it plans to return two of its five corporate jets following a wee bit of scandal earlier this week. But it's not as if the company simply caved in the face of bad press! "G.M. is saying that the timing is coincidental since it was already in the process of returning two of its corporate jets." Of course it was! Here's a pic of one of the company's Gulfstreams on the tarmac at LaGuardia. [Dealbook]

So much for doom-mongering and talk of post-election crashes: The Huffington Post, founded by Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer, has supposedly landed $15 million in financing from Oak Investment Partners. Or maybe not! [PaidContent]

♦ Rumor has it Robert De Niro's Ago in Tribeca will be shutting down to make way for a new project by Jean-Georges Vongerichten. [Eater]
♦ John Dory hasn't opened yet, but the restaurant's reservation line has and it's booked through December 4th. [GS]
♦ Eric Ripert's suggestions on where to find the best fish tacos in NYC. [GS]
♦ Brother Jimmy's is being sued by a woman who says she was "engulfed in flames" after a bartender's stunt went wrong. [NYP]
♦ New York waiters report customers have been tipping less since the recession began. [GS]

According to a new poll, 59 percent of New Yorkers still believe Michael Bloomberg is doing an "excellent" or "good" job as mayor. That's down from 68 percent a month ago and is below 60 percent for the first time since August 2005. [City Room]

♦ ABC has ordered up new episodes of Life on Mars, but it has no plans to shoot new ones of Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, or Eli Stone. [THR]
♦ Penguin's Ann Godoff will be publishing pollster Nate Silver's two books as part of the deal he signed for $700,000. [NYO]
♦ Michael Phelps has signed on as a pitchman for Subway. [AdAge]
♦ Ted Turner's autobiography will make its debut on the New York Times bestseller list this week at No. 8. Also: Artie Lang, Howard Stern's sidekick, has landed a six-figure book deal. [NYP]

What a busy day in Barack Obama's office! It's been less than an hour since news surfaced that Obama may have decided on a treasury secretary. Now the New York Times is reporting that Hillary Clinton has (finally) decided to accept the job of secretary of state, according to "two confidants." [NYT]

It's almost impossible to believe that anyone would dare—or want—to do the "looking over the shoulder to scan the room" trick when talking to Fabiola Beracasa at a party, but no: "People do it all the time and it's so rude," says the beloved social fixture, who gives readers of December's Allure tips on how not to disgrace yourself this party season. (The article is not online, unfortunately.) As well as always maintaining eye contact with whomever you're talking to, her other directives include magnanimously ignoring a companion's mispronounciation of a politician or designer—"correcting her will embarrass her, and you'll look like a know-it-all"—and resisting making a big exit: "When people say goodbye, it can be a buzz kill... tell one or two close friends you're leaving, then quietly kiss the host good-night and go." Oh, Fabi, as if your sudden absence wouldn't kill a party anyway, but it's a point well taken for the rest of us.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Barack Obama has picked New York Fed president Timothy Geithner to be his Treasury Secretary, at least according to "a person close to the transition process." This makes him both Obama's cutest potential cabinet member thus far, as well as the man responsible for figuring out a way to prevent us all from being homeless this time next year. [WSJ]

The Post reports that Bob and Harvey Weinstein's film company announced plans to lay off 11 percent of its staff, or 24 people, at a company meeting moments ago. The news was apparently delivered shortly after 2 p.m. But the studio would like to make it clear that this does not mean that the Weinsteins are having any financial trouble, even if they have failed to come up with a hit in ages, longtime execs are fleeing, and the company embroiled in a messy lawsuit over Project Runway. "If this was a real financial emergency for the studio, I imagine the layoffs would be greater than 24 people," a source tells the paper. [NYP]

One of the crappiest CEO gigs in America right now? That would be the job occupied by Edward Liddy, who took over as AIG's chief executive in September after the ailing insurance giant revealed it would go bankrupt without a jaw-droppingly massive bailout from the federal government. Liddy was supposed to restore order, but things haven't improved much since he arrived on the scene. AIG has since asked Washington for billions more, and the company has been on the defensive over multi-million dollar payouts to former company execs. Then there were the scandals over AIG's all-expenses-paid getaways to lavish hotels: For some strange reason, the idea that taxpayers would foot the bill so that AIG employees could have spa treatments and sip pina coladas struck many as a little bit inappropriate! The downside, of course, is that some AIG execs won't be able to put as much time in the sun this winter, and we wouldn't want any employees to turn sullen and depressed, would we? As part of our continuing effort to cheer up the CEOs who have battered by the financial crisis—so far this week we've sent presents to Lloyd Blankfein (see here) and Vikram Pandit (see here)—we picked up a bottle of "self-tanning mist" for Liddy. If Liddy can't relax in the sun, we'll bring the sun to him. We sent it to his office, though, not his home, because it's a gift we'd really like Liddy to share. Spread it around, Ed. Everyone in the executive suite has the right to pretend they just got back from Aruba. Click here for a larger pic.

Naomi Watts carrying coffee in the East Village ... Kelly Ripa walking with her kids Lola and Joaquin on the Upper West Side ... Natalie Portman on the set of her film in Central Park ... Katie Holmes kissing Suri outside their apartment ... Uma Thurman participating in Juror Appreciation Day at the New York Supreme Court ... Tyra Banks walking outside ... Stephen Colbert and Twilight actress Kristen Stewart standing outside the Letterman show ... Sarah Jessica Parker walking son James to school in the West Village ... Leighton Meester filming scenes for Gossip Girl outside the Palace Hotel ... Keri Russell walking by herself ... and Salma Hayek sitting on a suitcase on the set of 30 Rock.

The flock of people following in Katie Couric's footsteps when she walks down the street? They're not adoring fans—they're just members of Katie's "posse." Allow Katie to introduce you to her make-up artist (Josie), wardrobe-stylist (Jackie), hairstylist (Dana), techie (Tony), and personal assistant (Lauren). The perks that come with a $15 million-a-year job are priceless, aren't they?

It looks like Wyclef Jean and Damon Dash will have lots to chat about the next time they get together. The former Fugees star's mansion in Miami Beach has gone into foreclosure and is set to be auctioned off in three weeks. (Dash's own apartment troubles were revealed in August.) Palm Beach Post gossip columnist Jose Lambiet reports that Wyclef and several partners took out a $2 million mortgage in 2004 to purchase a canal-front estate next door to Anthony Shriver, the brother of Maria Shriver Schwarzenegger. He later embarked on a massive renovation of the property, but never ended up paying off more than $177,000 in construction costs, leading to the first in a series of liens and fines and leaving the home unfinished for more than two years. (Perhaps Wyclef should have been counting his pennies and not investing in his porn collection?) Court documents now show that Wyclef and his partners owe the bank $2.4 million, and the home is scheduled to be auctioned off on December 12th. A photo of the half-finished manse after the jump!

It's being alleged that among the obvious triggers of unhappiness—money problems, illness, getting your heart broken—there's an activity common to nearly all of us. We've grown up with it, turned to it when we're feeling anxious or insecure, used it to oil the wheels of social interactions, and basically understood it to be the glue that holds our society together. Yet we're now being told that television might (it feels sacriligious to even say it!) be making us unhappy.

The situation at Citigroup turns bleaker by the minute. Shares have fallen below $4, the bank's CEO, Vikram Pandit, is busy reassuring employees that the bank will not be broken into pieces, and there have even been rumors that Pandit himself may be forced out. One sign that doesn't bode well for Pandit: The financial press has stopped spelling his name correctly. [Bloomberg, Dealbreaker]

♦ Nicolas Cage put his 48th-floor condo at the Olympic Tower on the market for $9.75 million last week, then "temporarily" took it off the market a few days later. (The 3,550-square-foot, three-bedroom space is comprised of two apartments that Cage bought for $5.5 million in 2004 and 2005.) But he's also reportedly trying to sell his other homes in California and Rhode Island. [WSJ]
♦ Real estate heiress Caroline Cumming's massive townhouse at 11 Spring Street went on the market with Corcoran's Robby Browne two months ago for $39.8 million. She's since changed brokers and lowered the price. The property is now listed with the Core Group for $36.5 million. [NYO, CORE]
♦ Margo Alexander, the former head of UBS Global Asset Management and now chair of the Acumen Fund, has paid $4.05 million for a two-bedroom, 10th-floor apartment at 15 Madison Square North. [Cityfile]

Clips of Diane Sawyer's interview with Ashley Dupre were aired earlier on Good Morning America. You'll have to wait until tonight to see the entire thing (assuming you still care about any of this), but click through if you'd like to see her explain how she had no idea that she was sleeping with the governor. ("He looked familiar. But I was 22 years old. I wasn't reading the papers, I was so involved in my life and I was so selfish and caught up in my life and I didn't know who he was.") And you can totally feel the geniune, heartfelt emotion when she talks about watching Silda Spitzer stand by her husband's side during his resignation speech: "I felt connected to her. I didn't feel connected to him. Her pain. And I just saw the pain in her eyes." The clip is after the jump.

Silda Wall Spitzer's father-in-law will appear in court today and the prostitute who destroyed her husband's career will be all over TV this weekend now that her interview with Diane Sawyer will air tonight on 20/20. What has the wife of the former governor been up to recently, you ask? She hasn't exactly been in hiding. Yesterday, David Patrick Columbia hosted a luncheon at the 21 Club with Silda and a bunch of socialites to drum up support for Silda's non-profit group, Children For Children. And despite everything that's going on, she's doing just fine. "The Spitzer family is together and riding the waves we call life," reports Columbia. [NYSD]