MEDIA
• National Geographic took home three National Magazine Awards last night, while Vanity Fair, also a front-runner, received two. [NYP]
• Oh, it’s on! Lenny Dykstra, a former Mets outfielder who founded the new magazine Players Club, which is targeted at affluent athletes, is embroiled in a legal battle with the glossy’s publisher, Doubledown Media. But is Dykstra going to buckle? “I don’t buckle,” he says. “I go to war.” [NYP]
• Fox News appears to have warmed to the Democratic Party. [NYT]
FINANCE
• Today’s Wall Street weather report: Things are looking sunny. [NYT]
• Wall Street watches as Warren Buffett prepares for his annual shareholders’ meeting, in Omaha, Nebraska. Meanwhile, the billionaire’s empire is under scrutiny in an antitrust probe. [DealBook/NYT, NYP]
• Stephen Schwartzman probably wasn’t thrilled to hear this news: Merrill Lynch analysts downgraded the private-equity firm’s stock from “buy” to “neutral.” [DealBook/NYT]
LAW
• John Randolph Hearst’s $20 million fraud-and-legal-malpractice case has been reinstated. The lawsuit claims that his wife book advantage of his ill health by transferring $20 million of his property into her name and that his lawyer, Leonard Ackerman, aided in the fraud. [Law.com]
• Rudy Giuliani is trying to make a name for his law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani. [Law.com]
• Skadden Arps clocked a 38 percent increase in pro bono hours last year. [NYT]
REAL ESTATE
• Andre Balazs sells off the Hotel QT, but his Standard NY makes headway. [HotelChatter]
• Renzo Piano’s design for a downtown Whitney Museum has met with community approval. [NYS]
• Meanwhile, the Sports Museum of America opens in lower Manhattan next week. [Downtown Express]