Hedge fund manager Chase Coleman and his wife Stephanie have gone into contract on the sixth-floor, full-floor spread at 4 East 66th Street, the apartment that socialite Veronica Hearst was forced to put on the market to pay off her mounting debts. It's unclear how much the Julian Robertson protégé paid for the lavish spread since it was never formally put on the market, but rumors back in April suggested that Hearst was prepared to part with it for around $30 million. (The apartment, which Veronica inherited from her late husband, billionaire publishing heir Randolph Hearst, was also home to her daughter Fabiola Beracasa until recently.) Of course, a big bucket of cash wasn't all Coleman needed to get past the notoriously finicky co-op board, which once denied admission to billionaire financier Ron Perelman. Prospective buyers in the building that Sid and Mercedes Bass, Alan Greenberg, and Lew Sanders live in are expected to have at least $100 million in liquid assets to pass muster. We're guessing that wasn't a problem for Coleman, considering he's estimated to have taken home between $350 and $400 million in 2007. Although Chase and Stephanie will no doubt renovate the place to their tastes, you can see what it looked like when Veronica was ruling the roost after the jump.

Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos eating lunch outside at Pastis before riding off together on a white Vespa and later picking up the kids up from school ... Sarah Jessica Parker leaving her West Village townhouse in a Prius ... Vanessa Minnillo taking a walk around SoHo with her dog Wookie ... Agyness Deyn strolling through SoHo ... Guy Ritchie walking to the Mandarin Oriental ... Chloe Sevigny eating lunch at Le Pain Quotidien in West Hollywood ... Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts in Paris ... Anna Wintour checking out the Armani fashion show ... Naomi Campbell and Marcus Elias smooching on the back of a yacht in St. Tropez.

• Is the decision to keep Florent open (albeit under a different name) a sign the meatpacking retail market has peaked? Or is landlord Joanne Lucas just insane? [NYO]

Lindsay Lohan turns 22 today! You can party with her and Ms. Ronson tonight at Teddy's at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel if you're in LA, don't have anything better to do, and you're on the list, naturally.

The divorce trial of the year (week? month?) between Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook got underway today and the crack team at Fox News is all over it. "America's Newsroom" host Megyn Kelly fawned over Christie's svelte figure— she's "looking fan-freaking-tastic"—while her male counterpart Greg Jarrett classily referred to Diana Bianchi as a "homewrecker." We're not quite sure if "homewrecker" is exactly the term you should be using to describe a naive teenage girl lured into a relationship by her much older boss (who's also famously fond of cocaine and porn), but, hey it's Fox! It's always the woman's fault! Video after the jump.

Not content with inflicting her ubiquitious presence on the world with TV shows, endless cookbooks, irritating neologisms, indiscriminate endorsements, and inadvertent support of the PLO, Rachael Ray is now writing a memoir, reveals E!'s Ted Casablanca, who makes no bones about his utter disdain for Ms. Ray and her endeavors. EVOhno is what she wants to call the tale of how she went from Macy's salesgirl to loved-and-loathed multimillionairess, according to a source at her publisher, who also gripes that Ray is "really difficult to work with and misses deadlines." Hopefully in exchange for the aggravation and the fat advance that's no doubt being paid, Little Miss Yum-o will be forced to dish the real dirt about her life, prostitute-patronising husband, rumored plastic surgery and all.

Relentless social-climbing scenester Peter Davis with a woman? Unimaginable! Like an enthusiastic puppy, Davis has posted a list of the "red-hot socialites" who "make me want to say bi-bi to my homo ways." (In other words, here's a list of socials I'd like to kiss up to and a perfectly good excuse to do so.) Eleanor Ylvisaker is first on Davis's list. Charlotte Ronson comes in second. ("Then I could try and get with her brother Mark," Davis writes.) Fourth on the list? Tinsley Mortimer. "Sure, she's my sister-in-law, but we aren't blood relatives." Actually, she's your half-sister-in-law, missy. [Paper]

Leona Helmsley gave it all to the dogs—or between $5 to $8 billion of it anyway. According to the Times today, the Queen of Mean specified that nearly her entire fortune should go toward the care and welfare of dogs. (You'll also recall that she left $12 million to her dog, Trouble; a judge later reduced it to $2 million.) Helmsley's family has been consumed with selling off her real estate holdings and has yet to speak out about the mammoth gift; they only just recently hired a philanthropic advisory service to help them decide how to allocate the dough. But according to the Times, even if Leona's trust is only valued at $5 billion (and it's expected to substantially higher), that is still "10 times the combined assets of all 7,381 animal-related nonprofit groups" who reported to the IRS in 2005. Leona's will didn't specify which specific dog-related causes the money should go to, which means her family may use the money to finance veterinary schools animal shelters. But we've got some better ideas!

Today the Times details the pervy nightmare endured by Martha Nyakim Gatkuoth, a 25-year-old former hostess at Tavern on the Green and the lead complainant in a federal discrimination lawsuit against the restaurant that was settled last month for $2.2 million. Among the indignities Gatkuoth says she had to put up with: regular boob and butt-grabbings by the restaurant's director of operations; docked pay when she refused to perform sexual favors on said director; and frequent racial epithets (she's an Ethiopian immigrant). Of course, restaurants have long had a rep as ridiculously brutal places to work—see Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential or Bill Buford's Heat—but the proliferation of suits also has some (like, uh, the restaurateurs who are getting sued) wondering if it's all part of a shakedown to extract cash. (Presumably, a multi-million dollar settlement is cushier than collecting 18% tips every night for the next decade; when you factor in having to deal with the press—and lawyers!—perhaps not so much.) A sampling of sexual harassment suits at high-profile restaurants—including both the absolutely horrific and not-so-serious—below.

"The fugitive hedge fund swindler Samuel Israel III surrendered to law enforcement officials on Wednesday, ending a manhunt that began shortly after he faked his suicide on the day that he was to report to prison... He was talking to his mother on the phone when he walked into a local jail and surrendered to the United States Marshals task force, a spokeswoman for the marshals said." [NYT]

One evening Village Voice editor Tony Ortega was innocently strolling along in Tribeca when he just happened to "stumble" across film producer Harvey Weinstein's paper recycling bin, "strictly by accident." Of course it was, Tony! Not quite sure how you accidentally stumble across a bin, but you say you'd been drinking so we'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Especially since the trash you discovered—and are sharing with your readers—is such fun, and gave you an opportunity that not even (as you discover) the likes of Nicole Kidman can rely upon: a telephone conversation with gruff old Harv himself.

• It's thanks to dishes like the "superb" rabbit terrine that the Times' Frank Bruni awards two stars to Bar Milano, even though the Murray Hill northern Italian restaurant "bungles its pasta dishes," has "awful acoustics," and is "slickness incarnate." [NYT]

Tortured troubadour Rufus Wainwright is a fan of the Bush twins, especially Barbara. "The thing about the Bushes," he says, "is even though they’re the spawn of Satan they are extremely charming and congenial. I liked Barbara, she's a fag hag." [Metro]

• Reps for Madonna and Alex Rodriguez claim the two are "just friends." They just happen to be the kind of friends who have secret rendezvouses at their apartments until midnight. The day after having a baby. [NYP]

The Observer has a good deal of coverage on the life and times of Clay Felker today, including remembrances from Milton Glaser, Gloria Steinem, Gay Talese, Andrew Tobias, Steve Brill, Binky Urban, Ken Auletta, Peter Kaplan, and Tom Wolfe, who says "Clay was the greatest idea man of any editor I've ever known." [Observer]

• Microsoft is in talks with Time Warner, News Corp., and several other potential partners to launch a new bid to take over Yahoo. [WSJ]
  

• What on earth is going on? Anna Wintour wore the same Carolina Herrera dress three times in two weeks: At Milan fashion week, at Wimbledon, and at the Karl Lagerfeld show in Paris. The floral shift had been altered to fit her famous stick insect figure. As if that's any excuse. [Telegraph]
  

• Folk singer Natalie Merchant has picked up an apartment near Sutton Place for $705,000. The one-bedroom condop at 211 East 53rd Street is on the small side, but that won't be a big issue for Natalie since she spends most of her time at her homes in Hawaii and upstate New York.

"Angelina Jolie has checked into a hospital in the South of France in anticipation of giving birth to twins..." [People]

• Next up for Keith McNally: He'll try to bring his magic touch to the corner of the Bowery and Houston, in what's now a restaurant supply store. [Eater]