Hey, tabloids. We got your baby photos right here. Just send over a check, cool?Photo: iStockphoto
• Some people called for editor David Remnick to be removed from his post in wake of The New Yorker’s Barack Obama cover. Meanwhile, he’s making the media rounds to explain the joke. Endless Hendrik Hertzberg dissection of the kerfluffle TK. [WWD, NYDN]
• Anchorwoman Katie Couric turned down an opportunity to hobnob with A-Rod. [NYP]
• Tabloids are willing to pay up to $12 million for pictures of the Brangelina spawns, which is way more than the paltry $4 mil the couple got for Shiloh. Is that because there’s two of them or because of inflation? And is Shiloh going to spend the rest of her life being reminded that she didn’t help people in developing nations as much as her younger brother and sister did? [NYDN]
• The Wall Street Journal cuts staff positions. [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
FINANCE
• Lehman Brothers is reportedly mulling over the idea of taking itself private.
“The idea is why sell to someone else at so cheap a price when they could buy themselves,” noted one source. [NYP]
• Citigroup chief Vikram Pandit has outlined a seven-point proposal, which he dubbed “Rules of the Road,” aimed at improving his firm’s performance. But his plan can’t cushion the blow that might come when the bank reports its quarterly earnings. [NYT]
• Psst! The SEC is serious about stopping rumor-spreading. The commission is now subpoenaing hedge-fund advisers in an attempt to get information about short-selling and options trading at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. [WSJ]
• Former Bear trader Melissa Ko formed a new hedge fund called Covepoint Capita — with nearly $1 billion in assets. [Reuters]
LAW
• Skadden, who has worked on many high-profile mergers and acquisitions this year, is doing some heavy lifting in the Anheuser-Busch-InBev takeover. [WSJ]
• NYU professors have access to some tony digs. The law school just bought a $2.745 million apartment at 505 Greenwich Street (complete with a temperature-controlled 48-bottle wine cellar) for faculty use, and it also owns a $3.32 million penthouse at One Morton Square (where Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are selling their separate penthouse). [NYO]
• The district attorney’s office subpoenaed the blog Room 8 for the IP address of a poster called Republican Dissident, then withdrew the subpoena. [NYT]
REAL ESTATE
• Representative Chuck Rangel is grouchily giving up one of his rent-stabilized apartments after a Times article ratted him out last week for having four. [NYT]
• The price for the triplex penthouse in Julian Schnabel’s Palazzo Chupi has been chopped to $29.5 million. [Curbed]
• A newly appointed engineering consultant on the World Trade Center project has a history of ethics violations. [NYT]
