LAW
• The battle between 50 Cent and his baby mama, Shaniqua Tompkins, rages on: Tompkins was ordered by State Supreme Court yesterday to pay the rapper $4,500 in back rent on his Dix Hills Mansion, which she was living in until a couple of weeks ago, when it burned down under mysterious circumstances. [Law.com]
• Since the new iPhone is compatible with Microsoft Exchange servers, maybe Skadden will no longer frown upon lawyers spending their technology allowances on the device? [Above the Law]
• California attorneys are heading to Manhattan. People here like to sue each other a lot more, is why. [Law.com]
MEDIA
• Brian Williams is in Afghanistan all of a sudden. [DailyNightly]
• The Wall Street Journal’s front-page staff might be being dissolved into the rest of the newspaper. [Gawker]
• New York’s John Heilemann and Time’s Mark Halperin will collaborate on a book about the current presidential campaign pitting John McCain against Barack Obama. Snaps for Heilemann! [NYP]
REAL ESTATE
• “No way Columbia is going to steal this property right out from underneath me,” Anne Whitman said back in 2006 when the university tried to buy her storage company on Broadway between 129th and 130th Streets. “Remember that man who stood in front of the tank at Tiananmen Square? That’s me.” Yeah, she folded. [NYT]
• Colonnade Row, on Lafayette Street, was the 1830s version of 15 Central Park West. [Ephemeral New York]
• The percentage of mortgage delinquencies in New York City almost doubled in the first quarter of 2008. [Crain’s NY]
FINANCE
• Can Lehman Brothers, Wall Street’s smallest investment bank, stay independent? [Business Week]
• Investors withdrew nearly $6 billion from hedge funds in April, which was the first time in more than two years that outflows outpaced inflows. [DealBook/NYT]
• Merrill Lynch chief John Thain thinks broker-dealer access to the Federal Reserve discount window is a good long-term plan. “I think it should stay available to the banks and investment banks — the primary dealers. It’s important that it does stay available,” he said. [DealBook/NYT]
