• Bernie Madoff will appear in court this morning to plead guilty to 11 counts. Then it wil be up to the judge to decide if he gets locked up immediately or is allowed him to remain free on bail pending sentencing. [DB]
• Meanwhile, the investigation into Madoff's Ponzi scheme is now focusing on the accounting firms that may have helped him carry out the scheme. [NYT]
• Base salaries on Wall Street may double as bonuses drop. [BN]
• Andrew Cuomo says Merrill Lynch misled Congress over the timing of its plans to award billions of dollars in bonuses last December. [NYT, WSJ]
• BofA is putting a private bank it inherited from Merrill up for sale. [Reuters]
• Texas billionaire Allen Stanford took the Fifth yesterday. [AP]
• Carl Icahn has abandoned his bid to take over Lionsgate. [BN]
• GE has lost its triple-A credit rating from Standard and Poor's. [DB]
• Foreclosure filings in the U.S. jumped 30% in February. [BN]

What is the world coming to? Not only are Goldman Sachs employees visiting NYC no longer permitted to stay at the Ritz or Carlyle, the company is forcing them to stay at the Embassy Suites Hotel in lower Manhattan. Really. But it comes with a few perks: "The nightly manager's happy hour features free beer and popcorn. Flash a room key and earn a seat at the complimentary all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet and a 10% discount at the Chevy's Mexican-style restaurant next-door." [WSJ]

Forbes's somewhat suspicious list of the world's billionaires is now online. You can look through the complete list here, but as you can probably imagine, it wasn't a very good year for members of the ten-figure club. The 2009 list includes 793 people—it's down 30 percent from last year—and a handful of notable New Yorkers (like Sandy Weill and Hank Greenberg) saw their names vanish. NYC's richest man, according to the mag? That would be Michael Bloomberg, who saw his net worth jump 39 percent from $11.5 billion to $16 billion. So did the mayor have such a fantastic year? No, Forbes had just been underestimating his stake in Bloomberg LP in years past, although they didn't bother to mention that. [Forbes, NYP]

Bad couple day: Robert Pattinson's Tina Fey lust would be inappropriate, except she started it; there's a conspiracy against the Rihanna-Chris Brown reunion; and John Mayer maybe dumped Jennifer Aniston.

Kutiman's video series has generated awe and praise in the week since it debuted. One fan even issued a preemptive warning to entertainment executives who might be contemplating lawsuits:

Did you hear? Digg founder Kevin Rose was on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Wednesday. As was Rose's forgettable Diggnation cohost — what's his name? Ah, yes — Alex Albrecht, who we hear wants out.

At fashion shows the world over, buyers and journalists are sending their regrets. There are fewer million- and billion-aire customers to invite. Time to pack the house with freeloaders and other undesirables!

CNBC's Jim Cramer was spotted at a Brooklyn bistro the night before his much-anticipated chat with nemesis Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. The stalker sighting, complete with an "adoring fan:"

Joshua Trujillo's 145-year-old newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, will probably stop printing. But the photographer hadn't yet taken his dream shot of the neon globe atop the newspaper's headquarters. So he inflated a kayak.

HarperCollins will pay $3.2 million for two books from pilot Chesley Sullenberger, according to a story in the Daily Beast. And go figure: the Zen-calm "Hero of the Hudson" is a poet.

Following Star's tabloid scoop on the breakup of Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, the more respectable press sprung into action, discovering the split happened weeks ago. People is off to Alaska to learn more.

Every year, instead of heading to the beaches, geeks flock to Austin, Texas, to engage in a rite of spring called "South By Southwest." There's a conference, but who goes to that?

Andy Warhol famously said everyone would be famous for 15 minutes; if Peter Brant has his way, everyone will work for Warhol's old magazine Interview for 15 hours. For free.

The accountants have taken over the Googleplex, once a hotbed of amiably unprofitable innovation. The notion that ads would pay the way for everything has been dropped — and "fee" is replacing "free."

• The recession ain't stopping Marc Jacobs: He's opening seven new boutiques this year. [WWD]
• Alexander McQueen stunned crowds at Paris Fashion Week with a collection that "oozed with imagination," but was "plenty unsettling," too. [IHT, WWD]
• Reviews from some of the other shows in Paris the past couple of days. [NYT, WSJ, Vogue UK]
• Détente! Anti-fur crusader (and PETA honcho) Dan Mathews was spotted shaking hands with none other than Anna Wintour. [NYP]
• Apparently the economy is forcing women to rush over to consignment shops to sell their "beloved Louis Vuittons at pennies on the dollar." [NYP]
• J. Crew is thinking of opening a bridal salon. [Racked]
• You can credit Twilight for boosting sales at Hot Topic. [NYM]
• Neiman Marcus reported that sales dropped 21% last quarter. [Reuters]
• A peek at a new collection by Kimberly Ovitz, daughter of Michael. [Pipeline]
• At John Galliano's show in Paris, "toxic" fake snow had editors like Hamish Bowles, Grace Coddington, and Glenda Bailey most unhappy. [Fashionologie]

Mark Zuckerberg owns 27 percent of Facebook. That's great, right? Except Facebook is not worth $15 billion anymore (if it ever was). That means he's no longer a paper billionaire, says Forbes.

How long should a dead Timesman have to wait before getting an obituary in his own damn paper?

What's Twitter good for? Knowing that your life of quiet desperation is shared by the rich, powerful, or merely well-read, for starters. Steve Case, Sasha Frere-Jones, and Rob Corddry deserve twitty pity:

[Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and First Lady Michelle Obama at the International Women of Courage Award Ceremony in Washington today; image via AP]

• It's two stars for 10 Downing and chef Jason Neroni in today's Times. [NYT]
• Chef Michael Citarella is out at Freemans. [TONY, TONY]
• It's confirmed: Michael Psilakis and Donatella Arpaia are expanding and opening a restaurant at the Viceroy in Miami. [NYP]
• Capitale's Seth Greenberg may make a bid for Tavern on the Green. [NYO]
• The Biltmore Room is reopening in April as The Gates. [BB]
• Matthew Schaefer is taking over the Mermaid Inn's East Village location. [GS]
• The old Florent space, which became R&L, is no more. [Eater]
• One rather unusual item on Silvano Marchetto's menu at Scuderia: limited edition hand-painted sneakers that are made to order and cost $895. [GS]