Didn't he realize that risking life and limb to scale the New York Times building is, like, so last month? David Malone, 29, a former University of Michigan student who'd dropped out "to study Al Qaeda" and has a website called "Bin Laden's Plan," was apprehended by police early this morning after climbing to the fifth floor, unfurling a banner, then climbing a few more stories. So much for those increased security measures! [NYT]

• Federal prosecutors are investigating two ex-Credit Suisse brokers, Eric Butler and Julian Tzolov, over whether they lied to clients about their investments in auction rate securities. [WSJ]

• Longtime Vogue creative director Grace Coddington is leaving her West Village apartment for a more fashionable loft in Chelsea. The two-bedroom duplex at 313 West 22nd Street—for which Coddington paid $1.925 million—features 20-foot ceilings and French doors opening onto a landscaped terrace.

• Charlotte Ronson, you would think, is the girl who has everything. But no! She didn't like any of the luggage on the market, so she had no choice but to design her own limited-edition range. But if you're just hankering for some C-Ronson clothes (as modeled by her half-sister Annabelle, left), there's a sample sale starting tomorrow at ten. [Nylon/Missbehave]

Anna Wintour and Bee Shaffer leaving Marni on Mercer Street ... Molly Shannon on a morning jog through the West Village ... Alex Rodriguez slipping out the side entrance at Trump Park Avenue ... Adrian Grenier and new girlfriend Isabel Lucas waiting for baggage at LAX ... Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony shopping at Pucci in Italy ... Seal, sans Heidi Klum, leaving the Four Seasons in Prague ... Meryl Streep, completely covered up in a jacket, scarf, and hat, walking near the water in Sydney ... Gwyneth Paltrow getting out of an SUV in front of Gemma where she met up with Madonna for lunch ... Blake Lively and Penn Badgley stopping to take photos with fans during a stroll through SoHo ... Nas talking on a cell phone as he left Da Silvano.

Among the more engaging features of Cityfile, the new directory of notables from media and business, are the lists. Obsessives can browse through New York celebrities who own Yorkies, for instance. (Taavo Somer of Freemans and dowager-gossip Cindy Adams: you have so much in common!) But the lists will be most useful for conspiracy theorists. Have you ever suspected a cabal-of Jews and gays, Jewish gays, Iranian Jewish gays and Radar's Maer Roshan-is determined to remake America in their image? You're right! While acknowledged members of these minorities represent only 4% of the wider population (see below), they make up more than 30% of Cityfile's who's who of 2,100 New Yorkers.

• A former employee at Wakiya, the restaurant locatede in Ian Schrager's Gramercy Park Hotel, has filed a $5 million suit against the restaurant, the hotel, and Schrager's company. She claims she was assaulted by a co-worker and fired because she spoke Spanish. [NYS]

Dalton was in the news last week when it was revealed that not a single graduating senior had landed a spot at Harvard. According to Page Six magazine, at Dalton's graduation ceremony last month, "one mom was heard muttering, 'I won't send my grandchildren here, that's for sure.'" Fret not, Dalton parents! A long list of notable people have walked the halls of the posh school, even a few people (like Arden Wohl, left) who don't seem to be famous for any other reason than for wearing unusual headgear and attending lots of parties. A list of other Dalton grads after the jump.

Lou Dobbs has made his name in recent years as CNN's so-called populist, the man who rattles on every night about the war on the middle class, "broken borders," American companies that export jobs abroad, and the perils of free trade. He's used his bully pulpit on CNN to scold American auto manufacturers for sending jobs abroad, attacked foreign suppliers for flooding U.S. markets with their products, and been a leading voice to "buy American" in support of the "homeland." Given Dobbs' blustery rhetoric, you might think he'd stand by his words and support American business by driving an American-made car, wouldn't you? You'd be totally wrong! It turns out Dobbs doesn't own a single car produced by an American company.

There's one group of political donors that rarely receives any credit for their generosity. They don't get invited to any gala dinners or fancy cocktail parties, nor can they expect their checks to earn them any consideration when the next president is thinking about, say, who to appoint the Ambassador to Jamaica. They're the sons and daughters of the ridiculously wealthy, who kindly lend their names/identities to mom and dad so their hyper-political parents can direct even more cash to their favorite candidate. Of course, there's nothing illegal about any of this. Nor is it totally impossible that a 19-year-old college student would decide she'd rather give $4,700 to Hillary Clinton rather than, say, stock up on Juicy tracksuits. (Or Jared Kushner making his first big donation to the Democratic party when he was just 11.) Below, 2008 presidential donations by the children of some of New York's richest and powerful.

We could just about cope when British people were colonizing the West Village, infiltrating the media, and seducing our musicians, but this is much, much worse: Now they're commandeering our plastic surgeons! The WSJ reports that the weak dollar and the high price of surgery in Europe has led to an influx of patients from the UK, who combine affordable facelifts and nosejobs with shopping and vacationing:

"A major health care workers' union is running Web ads accusing Lazard kingpin Bruce Wasserstein and his firm of exploiting the elderly in pursuit of profits... When users click on the [ads], they are directed to a site, www.improveassistedliving.org, where the lead item reads, 'Gouging Grandma: Billionaire Bruce Wasserstein.'" [NYP]

Voicemail at the Upper East Side apartment of Tinsley Mortimer and her husband Topper, June 28, 2008.

Looking to spend some quality face time with Barack Obama? Got some spare cash sitting around? Good news: Barack will be spending the next couple of days in New York and he'd love your help in filling up his campaign war chest! After the jump, details on where the Democratic nominee will be raising funds in Manhattan, and exactly how much loot you'll be able to stuff into his pockets at the events if you so desire.

Can everyone, just for one quick moment, tear their minds away from picturing Chuck and Nate doing it, and remember the actual point of Gossip Girl? Yes, thank you, the clothes. The New York Times goes out into the field and gathers hard evidence of what was pretty obvious: Serena van der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf are, as far as fashion retailers are concerned, Carrie Bradshaw to the power of 100. Bloomingdales fashion director Stephanie Solomon says that the show "has had a profound influence on retail," while Teen Vogue editor Amy Astley admits that the characters' carefully styled wardrobes prompted "a pretty huge resurgence of ritzy, preppy and collegiate looks" on the runway. Even socialite designer Tory Burch has "girls coming in with magazine tear sheets of Blake Lively or Leighton Meester, from location shootings or from everyday life."

It won't be quite as cheery as usual at Herb Allen's annual media mogul retreat, which kicks off today in Sun Valley. This time last year, the credit crisis was but a blip on the radar. Oh, how things have changed over the past twelve months. Without the billions on hand to close big deals, the economic downturn has made life pretty depressing for the master-of-the-universe set. But gather they will— the tennis and hiking must go on, damnit—and aside from the handful of players who were dropped from the invite list on account of their declining influence, all the media big shots are expected. Among those who will be cruising in on their company-owned jets: Rupert Murdoch (along with son Lachlan), Warren Buffett, Viacom chief Philippe Dauman, Les Moonves, Howard Stringer, Edgar Bronfman Jr., Jeff Bewkes and Dick Parsons of Time Warner, NBC's Jeff Zucker, Universal's Ron Meyer, Paramount chief Brad Grey, and Disney's Bob Iger.

• Ashley Dupre might be leaving the beaches of New Jersey for the beaches of California to star in a new reality show. Just what the show will consist of isn't clear (or what network is going to pick it up), but there's a possibility it could be a dating show a la Tila Tequila. [E!]

Kevin Bacon turns 51 today. The man who owns half of Brooklyn, real estate developer David Walentas, will turn 71. Heroes hottie Milo Ventimiglia is 31. Actor Billy Crudup (and the ex of Mary-Louise Parker and Claire Danes) is turning 40. Hedge fund manager Dwight Anderson is 40. And New York Public Library president Paul LeClerc is 63.

• Allying itself with Carl Icahn, Microsoft says it's open to restarting talks with Yahoo if Yahoo's board is replaced. [WSJ]

• Betsey Johnson's Tribeca apartment has gone into contract for $2.495 million, nearly a year after the 1,660-square-foot, two-bedroom pad was first put on the market for $3.6 million. Betsey has already settled into a new home: In May, she closed on an apartment on the Upper East Side, in the same building as her daughter and granddaughter. [NYM]