The cruel blows of the recession have made a certain elite group even more elite: There are now only 49 Russian billionaires, half as many as there were a year ago, according to the annual ranking of Russia's wealthiest published today by Finans magazine. Last year's number one, aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska, tumbled to number eight after losing $35 billion, and was replaced in the top spot by Mikhail Prokhorov, the nickel mogul (and Snob magazine backer), who is reportedly worth $14.1 billion. Roman Abramovich, despite seeing $9 billion disappear in the past year, still comes in at number two with an estimated net worth of $13.9 billion. He was also voted Russia's most interesting billionaire, an honor he clearly owes to his fiancée, everyone's favorite art patron Dasha Zhukova.

Hero South Carolina Sheriff Leon Lott got nearly an ounce of weed off the streets when he arrested eight kids who may have seen Michael Phelps hit a bong. And where's the gratitude? Nowhere!

It looks like financier Steve Rattner's long-held dream of going to Washington has been dashed once again. In 2000, Rattner was on Al Gore's short list for Treasury secretary; more recently, he made a big bet on Hillary Clinton's candidacy, only turning his fundraising prowess to assist Barack Obama's campaign after Clinton dropped out of the race. But now it seems the one job in the Obama administration that Rattner was in the running for—as the nation's "car czar"—is no more. Obama has indicated he no longer plans to appoint a single person to oversee the auto industry, leaving the task to several of his key advisors. No word on whether Rattner's little scandal last week had anything to do with the president's decision, but feel free to let your conspiracy theories run wild. [NYT]

• Sting has put his four-bedroom duplex at 88 Central Park West on the market for with Prudential Douglas Elliman's Claudine DeNiro for $26 million. Update: The listing has gone to Halstead's Mark Friedman, not Claudine DeNiro as per the Times. You can see more details of $19 million listing here. [NYT]
• Icelandic mogul Jon Asgeir Johannesson and his wife, Ingibjorg Palmadottir, have put the top two floors of their penthouse at 50 Gramercy Park North on the market for $25 million. [NYT, Corcoran]
• JPMorgan exec Adam Ansaldi has sold his three-bedroom apartment at 4 East 88th Street to Laurence Mascera, a managing director at Broadpoint Capital, for $3.299 million. [Cityfile]
• Condé Nast is selling off a company-owned apartment at the Promenade at 530 East 76th Street. The five-bedroom condo, which was typically occupied by Jonathan Newhouse when he visited New York, went into contract in late January. It had been listed in December for $4.995 million. [NYT, PDE]

Click through for more pics of some of the famous faces in the front row at Fashion Week over the weekend.

Feel free to wish Agyness Deyn a happy birthday if you see her at Fashion Week: The model is turning 26. Carl Icahn turns 73 today. Ice-T is 51. Tennis legend John McEnroe is 50. Sean McManus, the president of CBC News and CBS Sports, is 54. Times science reporter Natalie Angier is 51. TV host Steve Kmetko is turning 56. And photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders is turning 57.

• Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson skipped out of a Valentine's Day appearance at the Hard Rock in Florida, supposedly because both had come down with the flu. But they didn't appear too sick the night before when the pair were spotted in a screaming match outside the Charlotte Ronson after-party on the Lower East Side. [People, NYP, NYDN]
• Chris Brown now says he's "sorry and saddened" over the incident with Rihanna. [LAT]
• Salma Hayek and Francois-Henri Pinault got married on Saturday. [People]
• Amy Sacco says she's planning to do a reality show for Bravo. [NYDN]
• Dina Lohan owes $11,485 in back taxes on her Long Island home. [P6]
• Jesus Luz's mother says her son has been "kidnapped" by Madonna. Also, in case you're wondering, Madge is the same age as his grandmother. [NYP, DM]

[via NeatoRama]

So it turns out Ian McEwan totally had his friend Salman Rushdie's back twenty years ago, after Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Rushdie for Satanic Verses. No wonder McEwan is so anti-Islamist.

Julia Restoin-Roitfeld has a problem, the Gothamite daughter of Carine Roitfeld said in a Page Six Magazine video: being "over-the-top sexy." She fixes this with punky outfit flourishes.

"The new [Project Runway] season will air later this year."

Oh look, Peaches Geldof just happened to bathe topless and to hold various awkward poses while a photographer snapped very clear pictures of her tattoos. The trainwreck hipster heiress must need money.

Sure, Caitlin Kelly was desperate when the freelance writer took a shopgirl job 18 months ago. But you know? It beats the endless, stupid drama of the newsroom in many ways.

We feel your pain, hysterical Cathay Pacific passenger lady. In a way, everyone, somewhere inside, has missed a Hong Kong to San Francisco flight, and felt like staging an impromptu Chinese opera.

In today's Anna Wintour image rehabilitation news, the Vogue editor is reportedly filmed at yet another charity ball and gives the WSJ an interview. But she called the reporter huge. Whoops!

It's truly a weekend for embarrassing apologies: Now Alex Rodriguez is sorry for calling that Sports Illustrated reporter a stalky burglar. His apology was buried even better than Chris Brown's.

Lindsay Lohan's Valentine's Day got off to an awesome start at 1 AM Saturday: A fight on the streets of Nolita, trailed by paparazzi and a reporter for the New York Post.

International trade is what powers the modern, global economy! But Google's bean-counters have taken a horrid protectionist turn by insisting on domestic beer for the search engine's Friday "TGIF" events.

Without admitting anything specific, Chris Brown apologized for "what transpired" with Rihanna, the girlfriend he allegedly attacked right before the Grammys. Savvy timing, jerk.

Lawyers for ConnectU are bragging about winning a $65 million settlement for their clients from Facebook. But what did Divya Narendra and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss really get from Mark Zuckerberg? Almost nothing.