FINANCE
• Some Wall Streeters hope that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s plan for overhauling the U.S. financial system is an April Fools’ joke. [NYP]
• Lehman Brothers raised $3 billion in an effort to quiet whispers that the firm was going under. [DealBook/NYT]
• UBS’s chairman, Marcel Ospel, is stepping down as the bank writes down another $19 billion owing to, go figure, real-estate and credit issues. [Bloomberg]
MEDIA
• People are paying attention to politics: CNN viewership is up 90 percent in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic. [NYT]
• Al Gore’s “We” campaign will spend $300 million on a public-relations effort to put global-warming news front and center. [VF]
• MAD magazine creator Al Jaffee still has his finger on the pulse. [NYT]
LAW
• If the Legislature doesn’t include raises for judges in the new budget, the judges may sue. [Law Journal]
• The Supreme Court granted certiorari in CBC Distribution v. Major League Baseball Advanced Media, otherwise known as the “Fantasy Baseball” suit that Justices Stevens, Alito, and Breyer recused themselves owing to their participation in a league. [NY Personal Injury Attorney Blog]
• Related: Happy birthday, Samuel Alito! The justice turns 58 today. [SCOTUSblog]
REAL ESTATE
• Laura Blankfein, the wife of Goldman Sachs head honcho Lloyd, decided to add on a $701,000 maid’s apartment to their spread at 15 Central Park West. [NYO]
• World Trade Center redevelopment continues with the opening of the new PATH station downtown. [Curbed]
• Meanwhile, the Freedom Tower’s glass is getting tested to see if it can weather the weather. [NYP]
Update: It’s not April Fools’ Day if you’re not taken in by a bad trick. AbovetheLaw.com blogger David Lat tells us that the Fantasy Baseball Supreme Court item was a ruse. Blast!
