"New York Observer owner Jared Kushner, who had been among the potential buyers for Newsday, might be interested in buying the Star-Ledger if it were for sale, according to a person familiar with Mr. Kushner's thinking." [WSJ, Previously]

We just discovered this recent gem from the Times Higher Education. A certain Harvard professor is tired of babysitting teaching those "post-pubescent children of notables" who can buy and sell him! Especially Jared Kushner, son of real estate developer Charles Kusher—also known as the boy who bought the New York Observer. Professor John H. Summers recalls him as a student—which was not that long ago, as Kushner is 27. The juicy bit? Kushner's Observer takeover resulted in a pay cut for Prof Summers, who did freelance reviews there.

• Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner may be back together, possibly because Ivanka has agreed to convert to Judaism if the relationship gets serious. [Page Six]

Adorable publishing tyke Jared Kushnergot got back together with girlfriend Ivanka Trump! Really, how could he not, they have so much in common: Both are attractive, both rich due to inherited real estate wealth and both have fathers who get extremely nasty while feuding with enemies. But Kushner is a Jew and Ivanka's a shiksa, and this has been a problem for Kushner's Orthodox family. In fact, the religious divide may very well have been behind the couple's mysterious breakup in April, around the time of their one-year anniversary. To get Kushner back, Ivanka has promised that, if things get more serious, she'll convert to Judaism. So sweet! And I'm sure the socialite feels a profound, authentic connection to the religion. Totes! Well, sort of. A friend tells Page Six the conversion is "a possibility, but that's way down the line." A brief recap of the Kushner-Trump romance, for those who have not been following along at home:

Yesterday real estate scion Jared Kushner bragged in an interview with Portfolio's Lloyd Grove that his New York Observer has "the smartest readership probably in the world of any publication." That must explain why the paper published an editorial aimed squarely at its ultra-sophisticated audience—OTB regulars who weekly blow their social security checks on horse races. Let's hear it for filthy dens of misery frequented by the city's most disenfranchised!

• Over at Portfolio.com, reformed gossip Lloyd Grove lobs some softballs at "tall" and "handsome" Kushner Companies heir (and Ivanka Trump ex) Jared Kushner. Speaking from the family's new trophy property 666 Fifth Avenue, Kushner tells Grove that "Real estate is like porn for rich people." You don't say! [Portfolio]

Former Daily News gossip hack Lloyd Grove has a lengthy interview with New York Observer owner and golden-boy-about town Jared Kushner out today, in which the 27-year-old Kushner yacks and yacks about his real estate holdings, his media holdings, and how the Observer's revenues are way up this year (although it's doubtful the paper has made him money yet). He's guarded, and talks a lot like a PR person. But one thing comes through quite clearly, just by his use of examples: this is a rich, rich young man. And maybe done dating Ivanka Trump? He won't say. Still, the time to snag this wealthy media baron is now!:

Time magazine brought together members of its 100 "Most Influential People" list at Time Warner Center tonight, and thanks to phone-blogging members of the press, the celebrities' trash talking, braggadocio and false humility has already hit Twitter in a sort of first-draft of the recaps that will probably hit blogs and newspapers over the next few days. after the jump are some highlights, including quips from Robert Downey Jr., Amy Poehler and John McCain, plus fameball Julia Allison explaining why she wasn't invited.

Did the Ivanka Trump/Jared Kushner breakup affect her performance in the Kushner-owned New York Observer "Socialite Slapdown"? Trump had been inexplicably placed in the "brains" bracket, not "birth," but while she fought her way to the Sweet Sixteen, she finally and suddenly lost out to #14 seed Peter Davis. The contests seem to perhaps be based on "internet voting" but there's plenty of room for mischief in that. Recount!

Cute li'l real-estate magnate and newspaper-owner Jared Kushner broke up with oddly attractive-despite-her-family Ivanka Trump! This is according to Page Six, who note that Ivanka has gone to parties by herself, which is irrefutable proof. They've been together for almost exactly one year, which is, if you ask us, suspicious. What's Jared up to? Why is he breaking up with his hot, brand-name girlfriend? Why is he pretending he's going to buy Newsday? Is he just toying with us??

Tribune Co owner Sam Zell is looking to unload Long Island tab Newsday, because Newsday is the saddest paper in his mostly sad stable. So far, rumors have flown that New York Post and Wall Street Journal owner Rupert Murdoch is interested, but the Journal reports today that junior real-estate magnate Jared Kushner "is among those who may be contemplating bids to buy or enter into a partnership with Newsday, according to a person familiar with the situation." Apparently owning the ailing Long Island tab would help keep down the costs of printing Kushner's first foray into vanity newspaper ownership, the New York Observer. [WSJ]

All service in and out of Grand Central station and the whole Metro-North Railroad were disrupted for hours today—because of New York Observer owner Jared Kushner! A vacant building at 124th St. and Park Avenue collapsed just before noon, threatening the stability of a neighboring vacant building. Both properties are owned by Kusher Companies, according to the New York Times. Kushner's spokesman claims the company planned to demolish both buildings tomorrow, conveniently. (HOW awesome would it be if he blew it up for the insurance money!) (Not that we are even insinuating that, obv.) Of course, things fall off of buildings all the time in New York, and sometimes our manhole covers electrocute people, but rarely do buildings owned by budding media magnates actually completely fall over onto commuter trains. And this, as they say, is the least of his current building-related problems.

It's not unheard of for questionnaires to be accompanied by a dollar bill, to encourage recipients at least to open the envelope, and guilt some of them into replying. But the New York Observer is more desperate than that: the weekly newspaper, supposedly for Manhattan's elite, encloses a $5 note in its latest reader survey. (Thanks, Matt, for the pic.) The generous interpretation: the Observer's ad rates depend on proving to advertisers that the curiously pink newspaper's readers are indeed worth $1.7m apiece; and such wealthy readers need commensurately rich inducement to open an envelope. Alternatively, boy-publisher Jared Kushner, who is trying to sustain the Observer's paltry paid circulation of some 50,000, is simply applying the family's experience with bribery. Hey, it works. Kushner won his place at Harvard University after his father pledged $2.5m to the school. ENLARGE»

[journo]: funny moment on a conf call just now
[journo]: it's Eliot Spitzer and govs of NJ and OH
[journo]: pluggign hillary to reporters
[journo]: and all the questions are from NY reporters to spitzer, and he sort of grumbles
[journo]: and then azi paybarah from the observer asks yet another
[journo]: question for eliot
[journo]: and spitzer says
[journo]: "you guys are owned by a new jersey real estate guy"

Son of real estate developer Charles Kushner, owner of The New York Observer, and Ivanka Trump's husband: Jared Kushner is, suffice it to say, well-rooted in the New York social scene.

To be clear, of all the Trumps, Ivanka is our favorite, Her dad has a big face and is just really horrible. Of her two brothers, Donald Jr. is a joke and Eric, well, Eric is pretty much an unknown. Hell, he might be as great at Ivanka and probably he wouldn't have been called shameless scheming Delilah by Times-lady Ruth La Ferla. No such luck for toothsome Ivanka; today's Thursday Styles piece is lady-dismissive in a complicated way.

• "I'm very organized and controlled, and need to go to bed at night knowing what I'm going to wear the next morning," says David Beckham. Hey, that's exactly the kind of thing that makes someone sexy not sexy suddenly. [P6]

The sale of 666 Fifth Avenue, the building purchased by the Kushner Companies just back in January for $1.8 billion dollars, is now being held up as an example of the bygone crazy financing of yesterday. (Remember early 2007? Wasn't it nuts?) The Kushner family got an interest-only mortgage for $1.215 billion—that's the kind of mortgage the poor people get too! But the mortgage was based on potential projected rental income rates, not the insanely cheap leases that currently exist—and the retail space is locked in for another seven years. So the building's shortfall between its mortgage and its income is just $5 million a month. (This will really add up as the years go by.) So to keep the building, the company is using its own cash to pay back things like $200 million bridge loans! [NYT]

Aww! New York Observer publisher and Ivanka Trump-lover Jared Kushner's dad Charles, who sponsored the work visa for then-Jersey gov Jim McGreevey's supposed Israeli lover-employee, has now hired his buddy McGreevey's new boyfriend to be the Kushner family corporation's chief investment officer! [NY Post]

Last year, Jared Kushner, the New York Observer publisher and real estate mogul and lover of Ivanka Trump, was represented by publicist Steven Rubenstein—but his weekly pink paper wasn't. (Just last December, one Observer editor (uh, me!) was assigned a short profile of the Rubenstein family, and disclaimed that "Both the Kushner Companies and Jared Kushner, who is the owner and publisher of The New York Observer, are clients of Rubenstein Associates. The Observer is not.") But ever since the paper's physical and web redesigns (the paper went tabloid back in February) took place and the business side was built up, two Rubenstein account reps have been doing "proactive" work on behalf of the paper, according to Steven Rubenstein. (The paper has also recently hired their own first director of marketing, Alexandra Mitchell.) Being represented by Rubenstein is going to make their reporters' jobs fun—look for the sure-to-be-weekly disclaimer in the paper's media and real estate columns, which regularly cover Rubenstein clients.