It seems like every day brings with it another apartment, boat, or car that the government is now auctioning off because its owner is either behind bars or about to head to prison any minute now. Today is no exception! The 112-foot yacht that belongs to accused fraudster "Sir" Allen Stanford is now up for sale. It's supposedly in excellent condition and features a new interior made of mahogany. Although if you do buy the yacht, keep in mind that you probably won't be able to use it to cruise to Antigua. That could get dangerous! [Luxist]

• Matt Lauer has picked up some new real estate in the Hamptons. The Today show co-host paid $2.15 million for a 1,500-square-foot waterfront cottage in Southampton. The 0.7-acre estate features a boat dock and a wraparound deck overlooking a pond connected to Little Peconic Bay. [WSJ]
• Luigi Zunino didn't come through. Three months after it was reported that the Italian exec was having difficulty closing on the three-unit spread at the Plaza he put a $9 million deposit on last year, the 10,026-square-foot apartment is now back on the market. It's currently listed for $39 million. [NYO, Stribling]
• Retired Pfizer exec Gary Jortner and his wife Cindy, have picked up a new apartment at 15 CPW, just a few floors up from the smaller apartment they listed for $3.195 million earlier this month. The couple paid $5.9 million for developer Gerardo Capo's apartment on the building's 12th floor. [Cityfile]

Barbara Walters turns 80 years old today. Let's hope the View girls all remembered to get her a present. Others celebrating today: Will Smith is 41. Designer Thakoon Panichgul is turning 35. Catherine Zeta-Jones is 40. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is 66. Heather Locklear is turning 48. Actress Aida Turturro is 47. Filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar is turning 58. Tate Donovan is 46. Cheryl Tiegs is 62. And Bridget Marquardt of the Girls Next Door is turning 36. A handful of weekend birthdays below.

• Gossip Girl's Kelly Rutherford got a temporary restraining order against her ex-husband, Daniel Giersch, saying that he harassed both her and her nanny, which, to add insult to injury, caused her nanny to quit. [TMZ, People]
• Randy Quaid, the actor who played Cousin Eddie in the National Lampoon's Vacation movies, may be more like his character than anyone thought. He was arrested near the Mexico border with his wife on charges that he bolted on a $10,000 hotel bill. The two have already posted bail, but not before hamming it up for their mug shots and scribbling a handwritten note to TMZ. Clark W. Griswold would be proud. [AP, TMZ, P6]
• She's been married to Keith Urban since June 2006, but Nicole Kidman is still known as "the lady who used to be married to Tom Cruise" by at least two Starbucks baristas, and she's not happy about it. [P6]

• Michelle Obama had lunch at Gramercy Tavern today; chaos ensued. [BB]
• The Jane Hotel drama continues: Apparently an article about the hotel/club's outraged neighbors was supposed to run in the Times last weekend, but the Jane's co-owner Richard Born managed to get the paper to quash it. [Curbed]
• Trader Joe's may be opening a location on Sixth Avenue and 21st St. [NYO]
• The competition between Greenhouse and Provocateur is heating up. [P6]
• Dean Poll sure is off to a great start: Union workers say they're planning to hold a rally outside Tavern on the Green on Friday afternoon. [Crain's]
• The lawsuit filed by ex-Masa employees for getting shafted out of the 20% service charge added to diners' tabs? A judge says it can move forward. [Eater]
• Guinness is celebrating its 250th birthday today. Cheers. [Serious Eats]

Photo: Flickr

• Twitter is close to raising $100 million in new funding. And despite the fact it makes no money, the deal will value the company at $1 billion. [WSJ, CNN]
• A new survey finds that 86% of the public thinks the news media tries to influence public opinion. One reason to discount the data: Fox News came in as the country's most-trusted and least-trusted news source. And Bill O'Reilly ranked as "the most-trusted news anchor on cable TV." [THR, Poynter]
• MTV reports that it plans to go ahead with the drug-intervention reality series featuring DJ AM that was shot just before he died. [THR]
• Michael Moore's new documentary is off to a strong start, alas. [LAT]
• Tim Knight, Newsday's publisher, has handed in his resignation. [NYT]
• Corynne Steindler of "Page Six" is joining Bonnie Fuller's new website. [NYO]
• NBC Nightly News' audience is growing, believe it or not. [HP]
• Yahoo is spending $100 million to remind you it still exists. [BrandChannel]
• CBS has a brand new viewer today. Chief exec Les Moonves and CBS Early Show anchor Julie Chen had a son named Charlie this morning. [ET]

"Mayor Michael Bloomberg is trying to raise awareness about how white rooftops can make buildings cooler and more efficient, but the city hasn't painted hundreds of its own buildings." That isn't the only building that needs a paint job, clearly! [AP]

Here's a question for you: How much do you think this brand new garbage bin is costing the town of Greenwich? If you guessed $675, you've probably been to Beverly Hills recently, since that's one of the only other places that has purchased the "hunter green and gold-lettered" receptacle. The total tab for the 34 new bins is going to come out to about $25,000; the good news is that an anonymous donor has stepped in to cover the costs. And Greenwich will be now cleaner than ever. Which is great to hear because as we all know—and as one local official points out—"it's important to have the proper receptacles so that the trash hits the bin and not the sidewalk." [GT]

Is real estate mogul Kent Swig headed down the same path as Hassan Nemazee, the banker who stands accused of providing banks with false information to obtain nearly $300 million in loans? The Real Deal reported on Monday that Swig, who is facing a series of lawsuits over several real estate deals that have gone bust, may be forced to file for personal bankruptcy if a $28 million judgment against him is enforced.

You didn't think there was anything good that could possibly come from the spread of swine flu, did you? You were wrong! If you happen to work in one of the dozen or so office buildings owned by Trinity Real Estate, you're going to be getting free hand sanitizer starting next week. Exciting! Are you one of the lucky ones? If you work in one of these buildings, cross off Purell off your shopping list, stat. [City Room]

Joyce Purnick, New York Times columnist and the author of Mike Bloomberg: Money, Power, Politics, is once again taking questions about the mayor! Today, though, she's handed a doozy: "Does he do anything for pleasure at all?" a reader named "Coleman" asks. "From here, it looks as if his life consists entirely of power games: racking up money, giving away money, acquiring power, using power, holding power. He has done many worthwhile things, but there is something driven and seemingly empty about the process as a whole. Is there anything that he likes doing other than work?" Good question, Coleman!

Moammar Khadafy may be completely crazy. And he may be one of the world's worst dictators as far as Washington is concerned. But just because you're a vicious dictator and an international pariah doesn't mean you can't be stylish, too. (And, really: If everyone is going to despise you no matter what, you might as well feel good about yourself when you look in the mirror, right?) Fortunately, we're here to help. Since Khadafy is spending the week in New York—the fashion capital of the universe—it seemed like an opportune time to give the Libyan leader a few style pointers. At last night's reception to celebrate the opening of the Spider Silk exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, reporter Douglas Marshall took celebrity stylist Phillip Bloch aside to get a few tips on how Khadafy could reinvent himself. And because Moammar has always been known to love the ladies—he's protected at all times by a contingent of attractive, female bodyguards, for example—we asked one of the most beautiful women around, actress Heather Graham, to weigh in as well. Some honest advice to Moammar is below.

Rihanna catching a flight at JFK ... Queen Rania of Jordan leaving Harry Cipriani on Fifth Avenue ... John Legend in SoHo eating lunch outside with girlfriend Chrissy Teigene ... Jessica Szohr hanging out on the Gossip Girl set downtown ... Jude Law signing autographs outside his Broadway show ... Kirsten Dunst walking around ... Tess Kartel filming scenes for The Other Guys in Midtown while Mark Wahlberg was shooting his own scenes nearby ... America Ferrera shooting scenes for Ugly Betty ... and Jennifer Aniston leaving Monkey Bar.

Bill Thompson won the Democratic primary for mayor by a substantial margin last week and he started airing his first TV commercial. So he's probably made a dent in Mayor Bloomberg's lead, hasn't he? Not so much, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released this morning:

Photographer Annie Leibovitz may be making an effort to dig her way out of the epic financial mess that nearly left her bankrupt earlier this month. Along five other "personalities," she's been tapped by Louis Vuitton to design a monogrammed canvas backpack for the company. It's actually part of a charity project that will benefit the Red Cross, so it's entirely possible she won't earn a dime from her contribution. Then again, as Grazia notes, here's hoping her work earns her a commission of some sort! [Grazia]

• Retired Lazard Frères partner Peter Smith (and the father of publicist/girl-about-town Bettina Prentice) has listed his 17-room apartment at 640 Park, the building that was home to former Lehman chief Dick Fuld until he sold his apartment last month for $25.87 million. The full-floor residence (above) is listed with Kathy Sloane of Brown Harris Stevens for $26 million. [NYP, BHS]
• Real estate investor Adam Gordon has dropped the price of his West 76th Street townhouse. The 10,500-square-foot manse, which hit the market for $25 million last November, is now listed for $23.5 million. [Cityfile, Corcoran]

CNN's least likable anchor is celebrating his birthday today: bigot and birther enthusiast Lou Dobbs is turning 64. Former cable news personality (and now radio host) Alan Colmes is turning 59. Actress Nia Vardalos is 47. Karen Brooks Hopkins, president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, turns 58. Actor Kevin Sorbo is 51. Jessica Lucas, a member of the cast of the new Melrose Place, is turning 24. Ross Matthews, the guy better known as "Ross the Intern" from the old Tonight Show, is 30. And the WWE's Stephanie McMahon, daughter of wrestling mogul Vince McMahon, celebrates her 33rd birthday today.

• Bethenny Frankel isn't going to be happy about this one bit, but her Real Housewives of New York City co-star, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, is going to appear semi-nude in the December issue of Playboy. The 40-year-old reality TV star won't have to worry about competing with the women almost half her age who normally grace the magazine's pages: The photos were reportedly taken by her ex-husband, photographer Gilles Bensimon, "several years ago." [In Touch, P6]
• Jennifer Aniston was reportedly in tears over a scene for her flick The Bounty because it reminded her of Brad Pitt. The actress supposedly pulled it together to shoot her lines, but the source said, "privately she is still very fragile." Her rep denies it ever happened. But if it did happen, Jen probably needs a better therapist. [P6]
• Topper Mortimer and his girlfriend, Vogue editor Valerie Boster hit the New Yorkers for Children Fall Gala on Tuesday night... as did Topper's ex, Tinsley. Val was reportedly "not happy," but luckily, they all weren't seated together so there was no WASP throwdown. [P6]