Caroline Kennedy is denying the suggestion that she abandoned her bid to take over Hillary Clinton's vacant Senate seat because her children encouraged her to drop out. On the Today show this morning, Kennedy told Matt Lauer that her kids had nothing to do with it. "Anybody who knows my children and knows me knows that that is absolute nonsense," she said. You may want to take that denial with a grain of salt, though, especially given how Kennedy went on to sum up what will go down as one of the most mismanaged campaigns in state history: "All in all, it was a great experience for me." [NYT]

In flusher times, Google geeks set the agenda for company sales executives; distracting sidelines were encouraged. The recession — assisted by a new sales chief who apparently doesn't mind his diabolical reputation — foreclosed on such coddling.

Some more good news has emerged from the otherwise bleak economy. The MTA reports that subway ridership was down for the third consecutive month in March as the city's unemployment rate continued to rise and fewer people had to use the subway to commute to work. This means finding a seat on the 4 train during rush hour has never been easier. Unfortunately, it also means the MTA is now predicting another budget shortfall, which means the agency could be forced to raise fares again. You never can win, can you? [NYP]

After all that trash talk, American Apparel has agreed to give Woody Allen $5 million for putting his picture on their skeevy billboard. Pussies!

Religion on Earth just slightly trumped religion in space this weekend, though that should not, we repeat not, encourage any Scientologists that they're gaining traction.

This morning on the F train, I did a little urban anthropology which included a quantitative analysis of commuter reading material. Conclusions: Invest in iPhones. Dump your Kindle stock. Paid print content is terminally ill.

Maureen Dowd will get off penalty-free for (she says) accidentally plagiarizing a paragraph of Josh Marshall's material. Fine by us! Can the New York Times stop pretending the internet is ripping it off, now?

Today, Barack Obama is hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House for what will be a very tense and important diplomatic meeting. Some clowns in Chicago decided to help out!

If you missed Morley Safer's interview with Vogue editor Anna Wintour on 60 Minutes last night (and you didn't set your DVR so you can watch it later), the video is here. Can't be bothered to watch the whole thing? NYMag.com's The Cut has a recap as well as a few outtakes from the interview. Or, if you're more the still image/caption sort, Gawker has some screencaps here.

Last week we identified Luisa from Rio as the probable lucky future journalist who's the $13,000 high bidder on a (priceless) Huffington Post internship in a charity auction. Then she emailed us! Meet her:

[Embattled gossip targets Kate and Jon Gosselin of "Jon & Kate Plus Eight" film their show in Pennsylvania yesterday; image via INF]

Last week we made a joke that Jamie Foxx should play Frank Sinatra in Martin Scorsese's upcoming biopic about the singer. Well, now Brit tabloids are making the same joke, except they call it "reporting."

Brad Pitt getting into a car in Soho ... Kate Hudson watching the game at Yankees Stadium ... Hugh Jackman walking in the West Village with son Oscar ... Tim Robbins riding a bike in the Village ... Gisele Bundchen getting out of a taxi ... Madonna walking into the Kabbalah Center with sons David and Rocco ... Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt arriving at JFK ... Naomi Watts playing in the park with son Sasha ... Michelle Williams getting coffee with daughter Matilda and a friend ... Jennifer Love Hewitt talking on her cell phone in the meatpacking district, and later shopping in Soho with boyfriend Jamie Kennedy ... Rihanna going to Da Silvano for lunch ... Chace Crawford hanging out on the set of Twelve ... and Justin Timberlake running to his car in Tribeca.

Today we have a blind item bonanza, with stories about Pakistani political officials, cheating TV stars, drugged out actors, and a very fertile guest star.

Learning Annex instructor Donald Trump has finally explained—under oath!—how he comes up with his own mysterious "net worth": first he does a "mental projection," then he's a billionaire, simple as that!

• Albert Hammond Jr.'s East Village apartment has gone back on the market. Hammond originally listed the two-bedroom pad at 141 East 3rd Street for $1.199 million last August, and went into contract to sell it before the buyer dropped out. He later re-listed it for $999,000, but then took it off the market altogether in January. It's now back—and cheaper than ever. Hammond's apartment can be yours for $899,000. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
• Warhol muse Jane Holzer has finally closed on the sale of her apartment at 23 East 74th Street. The five-bedroom home, which hit the market last June for $22.5 million, had been reduced to $16.9 million by the time it went into contract in March. The deal has now closed: Apparel mogul Jason Rabin and his wife Nicole picked up the apartment for $14.1 million. [Cityfile]
• Gossip Girl co–executive producer Joshua Safran has put his third-floor loft at 77 White Street on the market for $2.295 million. [NYM, Warburg]

John Mayer went out on Saturday night and raised the bar on celebrity cheesedickery, David Cross and Amber Tamblyn are making out in public all over East Village, and Fergie admits to being bi-sexual.

The intimate details of Woody Allen's love life will not be made public, after all. The filmmaker filed a $10 million suit against American Apparel a few months ago, claiming the apparel company had tarnished his rep by featuring him on billboards in New York and LA without his permission; American Apparel vowed to fight the suit and threatened to delve into Allen's personal life at trial in an effort to prove his image had already been marred by scandal. Now the whole mess is about to disappear: This morning American Apparel agreed to pay Allen $5 million to settle the dispute, which Allen claims is the "the largest reported amount ever paid under the New York right to privacy law." [Reuters, AP]

Tina Fey turns 39 today. Film producer Marty Bregman is turning 78. New York Times columnist Clyde Haberman is 64. Singer-songwriter Jack Johnson is turning 34. Former Yankee Reggie Jackson turns 63. Country music singer George Strait is 57. Hong Kong movie star Chow Yun-Fat is turning 54. Reality TV guru Mike Darnell is 47. Retired French tennis star Yannick Noah turns 49. And child actor Spencer Breslin, the older brother of Abigail Breslin, is turning 17 today.

In February, the New York Times reported that Newsweek would soon be unveiling a design specifically intended to "appeal to its best-educated, most avid consumers of news." That new design is being unveiled today.