Peter Chernin stepped down as Rupert Murdoch's #2 man at News Corp yesterday; now the stories hit, complete with the attendant flackery. Would a News Corp-owned paper report it differently? Let's see!

So you stop off at your money manager's office atop some gleaming Midtown office building and you find him in a vast office filled with priceless art work, sitting behind an antique desk dressed in a $10,000 custom-made suit, and fingering photos of a new beachfront estate in East Hampton he's had his eye on. Should that be a warning sign you've invested your money with the next Bernie Madoff? That's what the Wall Street Journal's Wealth Report wonders today, pointing out that the recent crop of fraudsters all seemed to very much enjoy parading around their riches:

[Tina Fey at JFK after flying in from Los Angeles; image via INF]

Long-form trend alert: Lots of former print media people are launching websites. There was another one today! It's time for us to rate five of these—and their chances of survival—honestly. This is important:

The Post is dropping gossip columnist Liz Smith. The reason? The economy, naturally. "Like so many other newspapers around the nation, we are buffeted by unprecedented economic gales," Col Allan, the Post's editor, explained in a letter to Smith earlier this month when he informed her that the paper had decided not to renew her $125,000-a-year contract. But if you're thinking the 86-year-old gossip is planning to retire her quill pen, think again! Smith says she'll continue turning out a column five days a week for syndication to other newspapers, she'll be penning a twice-a-week column for Daily Variety, and she's also signed on as a contributing editor of Parade magazine. Oh, and she'll be contributing to wowOwow, the website for elderly women that she co-founded last year, where, she says, she's looking forward to posting scoops "free from the constraints of newspaper deadlines." [NYT]

The DKNY ad at the corner of Broadway and Houston has been around for years. But it won't be there for much longer. Hollister, which is owned by Abercrombie & Fitch, is taking over the space and is now planning to kill off the image of Lady Liberty and the Twin Towers—with the help of 15,000 square feet of dark gray paint, no less. Dark days indeed! [Curbed]

Steve Jobs won't attend Apple's shareholder meeting. He may have stopped using his computer altogether. No surprise, since the Apple CEO is on medical leave. But people just can't stop talking about him.

Are you employed? Do you have at least a $20 bill in your wallet? Then please go out and buy something. Anything will do. Yes, this includes you, too, Brian Williams. [CNN Money]

The kids from The City went to another city, Miami, and went club bumpin' and desperately tried not to cheat on each other for five minutes. They were sort of unsuccessful!

Jerelle Kraus, former art editor of the NYT's Op-Ed page, has a new book out, and she's telling all of the paper's sexy art secrets! Here, three images the Times killed for being too erotic:

• More on Peter Chernin's departure from News Corp. and the likely possibility that Rupert Murdoch will hand over the reigns to his son, James. [WSJ, NYT]
• Rupert Murdoch has issued an apology for the Post's chimp cartoon. [NYP]
• Kathy Griffin scored a $2 mil. advance from Ballantine for a memoir. [NYO]
• The FT is cutting costs by giving employees three-day weekends. [E&P]
• The recession is wreaking havoc on pilot season in Hollywood. [Variety]
• Your amusing and totally frightening stat of the day: The average television viewer watches 151 hours of TV each month, a new record. [B&C]
• Oscar picks for 2010, just in case you wanna get a head start. [NYO]

We knew that celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz had some serious financial problems. But we didn't know they were so bad that she had to sign over all of her photos to a pawn shop:

In Kings, NBC's bizarre-looking show about modern-day royalty in alternate-reality New York, the prince, whose life is saved by a lowly commoner, can't inherit his father's kingdom. Because he's a big old gay person.

Heroic bong-fighting Sheriff Leon Lott, who made Richland County, South Carolina safe from Olympic champion Michael Phelps and his criminal associates, had a little fun down at the ol' Rotary Club yesterday!

Citigroup is on the brink of disaster and may have to turn over as much as 40 percent of the bank to the government in an effort to stay solvent. So what's Chuck Prince, who served as Citi's chairman and CEO until late 2007, been up to recently? Not so much. Chuck has been spending most of his time in recent months on the golf course. Unfortunately, this has required him to make the commute from Manhattan—he sold his Connecticut mansion last fall for $5.2 million. Fortunately, his generous exit package from Citi includes an office, assistant, and full-time car and driver, so he can still recline in the backseat and read all about Citi's implosion in the Journal as he heads out to the club. All that time golfing has yet to do much for his handicap, however. But since he's relatively young and it's unlikely he'll ever land another job on Wall Street, he should have plenty of time to practice. Prince's score history is after the jump.

[Actress Tilda Swinton arriving in London after attending the Oscars; image via Splash]

Sean Delonas' New York Post cartoon said, essentially, "Screw you, monkeys." The Post itself said, "Screw you if you didn't like it." But Rupert Murdoch—their boss—is suddenly being polite! Did Rev. Al win?

Can you pick out the socialite based on the perfect (or not-so-perfect) smile she flashes for photographers thousands of times a year? Answers below!

Today we have several stories from the Oscars, tales of bitchery and druggery and asshole actor behavior. We also have a terrible misogynist, an aviation exec gone bad, and a plastic surgery.

"Pawnshop" is such a loaded word: It almost immediately conjures up an image of a seedy, fluorescent-lit room with a clerk standing behind bulletproof glass and display cabinets full of tacky gold jewelry. Fortunately, if you happen to be rich, possess a reasonably large collection of art, and you're desperate for cash, you can call up Art Capital Group, which doesn't look anything like a pawnshop since it's located in the former Sotheby's building on Madison Avenue, and "looks at first glance like an art gallery," reports the Times. But bring Art Capital your collection and they'll do the same thing every other pawnshop does: They'll extend you a loan using your art works as collateral, and if you fail to pay back what you owe, you'll have to say goodbye to them forever.