Coke and meth use has declined as supplies dry up, leading to higher prices and decreased purity, says a government report. Yet strangely, Peter Davis's use of cocaine snorting as metaphor is on the increase! [MSNBC]

Last night, word emerged that The Sun, the right-leaning daily founded by Ira Stoll and Seth Lipsky in 2002, may end up shutting down at the end of the month if the company doesn't find additional investors willing to step in. The Sun has had financial problems since day one and it never made much headway in the circulation department. This time, though, it looks like it could be the end of the line: The paper even posted an account of its problems on its website. (Perhaps in the hope that another super-conservative, Jewish billionaire will turn up with his checkbook.) So why are the Sun's current backers—including Bruce Kovner, Tom Tisch, and Michael Steinhardt, left—giving up? They've got plenty of other stuff to worry about, that's why.

Bernie Kerik, the disgraced former NYC police commissioner, turns 52 today, although we imagine that this year there will be no celebratory hugs from his former boss. Today is also Beyonce's birthday: the singer, actress, and wife of Jay-Z is 27. Celebrity DJ Mark Ronson turns 33 today. One of the many contenders for mayor in 2009, Anthony Weiner, is 44. Mike Piazza is 40. Damon Wayans is 48. And Shar Jackson, the woman gave birth to Kevin Federline's kids before he found Britney to do the job, is 32.

Mere mortals who don't work in the industry, but who have an American Express platinum card or a serious shopping addiction to their favorite designer, can attend Fashion Week shows along with the buyers, media, and assorted celebrities and hangers on. By purchasing pricy packages through Amex, you'll get to see the show and be taken backstage to meet, say, Phillip Lim, Diane von Furstenberg, or Tory Burch, who are no doubt thrilled at the prospect of interrupting their frantic activities to make chit chat with starstruck fans from New Jersey.

• Star Jones has a new man! Meet Herb Wilson, the executive chef at Manhattan's Soho and Tribeca Grand hotels. [People]

• Steve Feinberg's investments in Chrysler and GMAC haven't gone as expected and now his Cerberus Capital is on the defensive. [NYT]

Have you heard of Marina Deripaska and her older brother Pyotr? Probably not, since they're only five and seven years old, but rest assured we'll be hearing a lot more about them in the future considering they stand to inherit $20 billion each from their father Oleg, an aluminium magnate who is currently the richest man in Russia. Other miniature megabuckses listed on a magazine's "minigarch" league table include, naturally, Roman Abramovich's children by his second wife Irina. But because there are five of them, they'll have to somehow scrape by on an inheritance of barely a billion each, unless Roman gets his act together and makes some more money.

• Designers must be clawing each others' eyes out to get Gossip Girl cast members at their shows. Well, score one for Rock and Republic, which has confirmed Chace Crawford will be in attendance. Maybe he'll turn up with Amanda Hearst, whom he was allegedly trying to "cozy up" with this past weekend. [Fashionista]

Not everyone wants floor-to-ceiling windows and dazzling views of the city: A group of elderly tenants of a high-rise on West 66th Street have won a court order to block their landlord from replacing their walls with windows. "Resident Donald Stone says that if he wanted to see Central Park, he'd 'take a walk.'" [NYDN]

Just in case the reports of Wall Streeters not making millions this year has softened your resentment of ostentatious master-of-the-universe types and their role in the recession, a profile of London hedge fund manager "Mark" will ensure that any sympathy you might have had vanishes instantly. Meet the bespoke suit-wearing, modern art-buying, A-list-schmoozing thirty-something who's only worth £30 mil. and now has to figure out how to achieve his plan of earning £50 mil. more by 2010. [Independent]

Cameron Diaz and Paul Sculfor walking around the West Village ... Liv Tyler shopping in SoHo ... Christina Aguilera and husband Jordan Bratman leaving Buddakan last night and then turning up at Macy's this morning to promote her new perfume ... Agyness Deyn on the run from the paparazzi in SoHo ... Ivanka Trump leaving the Trump International Hotel ... Julianna Marguiles walking around downtown ... and members of the New Kids on the Block (remember them?) at a party at Marquee.

A bit of bad press today for John Catsimatidis, the billionaire mogul who controls Gristede's supermarket chain and is mulling a bid for mayor in 2009. A federal judge has ruled that the company neglected to pay overtime and may now be forced to cough up as much as $25 million to settle the claims by more than 400 employees. One other thing that Catsimatidis hasn't been willing to spend his hard-earned cash on: the $7.95 annual fee to renew the domain for the newspaper he owns, The Hellenic Times. Be careful! If you click on the links at the bottom of the page, you'll be directed to sites with names like "Monsters of Cock" and a neverending series of pornographic pop-ups.

• Frank Bruni of the Times heads to Elizabeth and bestows a single star on the restaurant that has seen two chefs come and go in recent months: "It has its problems, annoyances and confusions. Just four months old, it has already changed plenty, and it still doesn’t seem entirely sure of what it wants to be." [NYT]

The rich have more stressful lives than the poor, declares NYU sociologist Dalton Conley in a Times op-ed; what nonsense, responds Slate's Timothy Noah, who points out that working longer hours doesn't equal more stress, because it usually involves "meetings" which are "dull," but not stressful. Hey, we never imagined chewing over story ideas with Jacob Weisberg and Meghan O'Rourke was a barrel of laughs, but they've got feelings too, Timothy. [NYT/Slate]

• Barack Obama, who had a secret sit-down with Roger Ailes three months ago, will appear on The O'Reilly Factor on Thursday night. [WaPo, The Caucus]

If looking in the mirror at your fat thighs isn't sufficient motivation to go on a diet, perhaps helping to feed the needy will be the spur you need? Weight Watchers has come up with a plan whereby for every pound you lose, they'll donate money to charities such as Action Against Hunger. So the extent of your vanity will literally dictate whether or not a third-world child will starve, which is warped in a way we can't even begin to parse. [Reuters]

Page Six reports today that Sony Music chief Rolf Schmidt-Holtz is negotiating a new contract worth about $50 million. It's not exactly music to the ears of the numerous Sony execs who have been shown the door in recent years; we're guessing it was one of Rolf's many victims who is quoted as saying that the German publishing exec-turned-music exec "wouldn't know a hit if it fell into his glass of Schnapps." [Page Six]

Rafaello Follieri, the 30-year-old Italian who's currently languishing in an eight-foot cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan, made the biggest mistake of his life not when he lied, cheated, and spent millions of dollars of other people's money on private jets and suites at the Ritz, but when he hooked up with Anne Hathaway, according to Michael Shnayerson's in-depth article in Vanity Fair. While the doomed smooth-talker displayed an incredible knack for deception—the apotheosis of which came in September 2006 with his appearance onstage at the Global Initiative gathering with Bill Clinton, who congratulated Follieri on his "good works" and thanked him for a completely imaginary $50 million pledge—his business dealings may only have caught the attention of the feds because of Hathaway.

Meet the "bright young things" on the social scene who will be gracing the photo galleries of New York Social Diary when David Patrick Columbia is about 120 or so. [Gawker]

The city's more upscale restaurants have been busy adjusting to the economic downturn, not surprisingly. So what does this mean for you, the casual diner? Frank Bruni sheds a little light on how restaurants are coping: They're overbooking more than usual since they can't afford no-shows, and increasingly demanding credit cards, so that those who do reserve actually show up. More and more "value meals," which consist of cheaper plates during happy hour and late at night, have materialized. And they're replacing pricier items on the menu (giant lobsters, strip steaks) with cheaper alternatives (tiny lobsters, hanger steaks).