MEDIA
• Everyone rolled their eyes when People paid $14 million for the pictures of Brangelina's new little twins. Now the tabloid is getting the last laugh: It sold 2.6 million copies of the issue, making it the biggest seller in seven years, and the fourth best-selling issue of all time. [WWD]
• Harbinger Capital just increased its share in Cablevision to 8.1 percent. Meanwhile, the activist hedge fund, which also has a big stake in the New York Times Company, is betting that the Times' stock has bottomed out. [NYP, DealBook/NYT]
• Magazine Web traffic is "surging," says Magazine Publishers of America, noting the industry's 8.5 percent year-over-year increase in online numbers. But that figure is pretty much a disaster when you compare it to growth of newspaper Websites. [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
• Hearst folds Town & Country Travel magazine. [WWD]

FINANCE
• Score one for Lehman Brothers! The bank just poached veteran banking executive Julian Cheong from Goldman Sachs. Cheong will be the co-head of Lehman's financial institutions group in Asia. Meanwhile, the head of Lehman Brothers' mortgage unit, Ted Janulis, is leaving the firm. He's retiring. [WSJ, NYT]
• Plus, Merrill Lynch snapped up Citigroup's lead mortgage trader, Jim De Mar, and former Bear Stearns warhorse Mike Nierenberg is also expected to join Merrill. [DealBreaker]
• Warren Buffett and Blackstone co-founder Pete Peterson call on the U.S. to deal with its debt load. [DealBook/NYT]

REAL ESTATE
• Federal investigators issued a 915-page report that concluded that fires in the 47-story office tower at 7 World Trade Center are what caused the building to crumble on 9/11, not explosives. [NYT]
• The New York City Housing Authority delayed an elevator overhaul at 24 public-housing projects last year because of cuts in federal aid. One of the projects included the Brooklyn elevator where a 5-year-old boy died this week when he fell ten stories down an elevator shaft. [NYT]
• Ever wondered what the Brooklyn Navy Yard really is? It's a 300-acre, 40-building site now inhabited by more than 200 tenants, including designers, artists, film-storage companies, and architects. [NYDN]

LAW
• The auction-rate securities mess drags on, and on, and on: Yesterday Merrill Lynch reached a settlement with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that will keep the bank out of court. As part of the deal, Merrill will pay a $125 million fine and will buy back securities from all investors whose net worth is under $4 million. [NYP]
• New York lawyer Herald Price Fahringer, who is known for defending Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, is in hot water for not knowing how to manage his calendar. A federal judge called him out for not disclosing scheduling conflicts regarding two criminal cases of his that are set to go to trial this fall. [WSJ]
• How is it possible that 50 percent of law-school graduates are women, yet only 17 percent of partners in private firms are female? [Law.com]