• Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley have applied to refund a total of $45 billion of bailout money. The government now has to decide whether to take the cash and run the risk of upsetting less fortunate banks who can't afford to repay their bailout money. [BN, DB]
• Money management giant Blackrock has its hand in just about everything these days, which is why lots of people are asking questions. [NYT, WSJ]
• Eight months after Lehman Brothers went down and lawyers are raising questions about the "rushed sale" of its capital markets unit to Barclays. [DB]
• American Express says it plans to eliminate 4,000 jobs. [NYT]
• Builders broke ground on the fewest homes on record in April. Housing starts dropped 12.8%, although Wall Street had been predicting an increase. [BN]
• Tim Geithner says he doesn't want to institute pay caps. He just wants to curb aggressive risk-taking. Of course, if you can't take risk, you can't make a lot of money, so we're right back where we started, aren't we? [NYT]

• Gwyneth Paltrow is planning to give up her contract with Estée Lauder so she can focus on her website Goop.com, per the ever-reliable Daily Mail. More troubling: The paper says her plan is to "become an Oprah Winfrey-like lifestyle guru." [DM]
• Michelle Obama returned to NYC today. She attended the reopening of a wing at the Met (where she wore a coat by Isaac Mizrahi coat and sat next to Ralph Lauren, Iman, and Anna Wintour). Then it was over to opening night at the American Ballet Theater. [WWD, NYT]
• An excerpt from Lauren Conrad's debut novel has been posted online, in case you feel up to tackling some heavy literature. [Teen Vogue]
• Valentino, diplomat of fashion: "I saw the pictures of the Metropolitan gala evening last week and I never saw something more ugly." [Guardian]
• Speaking of Valentino, Time Out's current issue tests out self-tanners. [TONY]

• Daniel Boulud unveiled his new DBGB to the press on Saturday. A menu devoted to 14 different kinds of sausage, two dozen beers on tap, and more is coming your way in early June. [Zagat, TONY, Metromix, Eater, TFB]
• A roundup of restaurants scheduled to open this week. [TONY]
• Thomas Keller confirms Jonathan Benno is parting ways with Per Se. [GS]
• Danny Meyer confirms he's out of the race for Tavern on the Green. [NYO]
• Robert De Niro chats about his Locanda Verde, opening this week. [NYM]
• Warren 77, the new bar/restaurant by the Beatrice Inn's Matt Abramcyk, Chris Miller, and hockey star Sean Avery opened on Friday eve. [NYO, GS]
• Adam Platt gives high marks (and three stars) to Seasonal this week. [NYM]

Mayor Bloomberg introduced new health commissioner today to replace Dr. Thomas Frieden, who was picked by President Obama last week to head up the Centers for Disease Control. He's Dr. Thomas Farley, a pediatrician and epidemiologist affiliated with Tulane. Why did Bloomberg pick Farley? He's an expert on HIV and "early-intervention strategies for children with special needs." As an added bonus, city will save hundreds of dollars by not having to order new memo pads embossed with the initials "TF," which is good to hear. [NYDN]

Walter Noel's messy legal situation just got messier. Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee responsible for liquidating Bernie Madoff's investment firm and recouping funds for Madoff's victims, just filed a $3.2 billion lawsuit against Noel's firm, Fairfield Greenwich Group. So while Noel may get a chance to play golf in the Hamptons this summer, he's clearly going to have to learn how to swing a club and talk to his lawyer on his cellphone at the same time. [NYT]

Is Donald Trump really a billionaire or is it all smoke and mirrors? Details about Trump's true net worth are emerging in a New Jersey courtroom as Trump goes head to head with Tim O'Brien, the author of 2005's TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald. In his book, O'Brien had the nerve to suggest the real estate mogul was only worth between $150 and $250 million; Trump, enraged by the estimate, fired back with a $5 billion defamation lawsuit. At the time, Trump explained that the size of the suit was based on what he was actually worth, although as depositions in the case now show, Trump wasn't exactly sitting in front of an Excel spreadsheet as he tallied up his assets. (At one point, he said that he relied on "mental calculations" to come up with his figure.)

It's commencement season, which means a long list of celebrities and TV personalities will be heading to college campuses over the next few weeks to impart their wisdom on the future of America. But sharing useful advice with graduating seniors currently in a state of panic over the the bleak job market isn't easy when you're a celebrity earning millions a year, a fact made clear when Oprah appeared at Duke last weekend and told the crowd how happy she is now that she owns a private jet. Fortunately, other TV personalities have more appropriate speeches in store.

• Monthly mags continue to suffer: Ad pages have dropped by 23 percent on average, although the situation is particularly dire at Condé Nast. [NYP]
• Maureen Dowd landed in a bit of hot water after it was revealed she'd "borrowed" from blogger Josh Marshall for her op-ed column yesterday. She's since offered a (dubious) explanation and apology. [E&P, HP, Politico]
• Television networks start selling ads for the fall season today as part of upfront week, although the economy is putting a damper on things. [NYT]
• Despite few successes and many failures, NBC golden boy Ben Silverman still has a job. For how much longer, though, is anybody's guess. [NYT]
• Angels & Demons was No. 1 at the box office with a $48 million haul. [WSJ]
• If you can't find Newsweek on newsstands, that may be because the magazine has totally redesigned itself. [Newsweek, WaPo, HuffPo]

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]

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]

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.

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.

• 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]

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.

• The market is kicking off the week on a positive note. [CNN, WSJ]
• The investigation into Bernie Madoff's scheme is now focused on some of his biggest investors: Jeffry Picower, Stanley Chais, and Carl Shapiro. [WSJ]
• Bradley Ruderman, the founder of LA-based Ruderman Capital Partners, has been arrested and is charged with bilking investors out of $44 million. [DB]
• Steve Rattner is making waves again, although it has nothing to do with the unfolding pension fund scandal. It's his construction of a $15 million summer home on Martha's Vineyard that is now angering neighbors. [P6]

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• Agyness Deyn is the new face of Uniqlo. [WWD]
• It seems Zac Posen is producing a scripted television series. And it's all about horses. [NYM]
• Tommy Hilfiger is rumored to be looking for retail space in Union Square; he's checked out the former Circuit City space and the Virgin Megastore, which is closing soon, too. [Real Deal]
• Brooke Shields says she's still stunned by all the Jack McCollough-Kiefer Sutherland media attention. [USAT]
• Leigh Lezark could be Matthew Williamson's new muse. [Fashionista]
• Nanette Lepore opened her second store in New York City today. [NYM]
• Swapping clothes online: now more popular than ever! [WSJ]

• Frank Bruni explains why he's stepping down as the Times' restaurant critic; a GM details what it's like to constantly obsess about a NYT review. [NYT, Eater]
• Then again, the most coveted job in food comes with its downsides. [TFB]
• Michael White and Chris Cannon's Marea opens tonight. [GS]
• A sneak peek at Locanda Verde, which may open as soon as next week. [GS]
• A former manager at Justin Timberlake's barbecue joint, Southern Hospitality, has filed suit against the restaurant for sexual harassment. [NYDN]
• A look at Entwine, a new wine bar/lounge in the far West Village. [Gothamist]

The website selling these "Financial Crisis Cards" say the decks come with just two jokers, but we have a feeling there are a few more of them in the mix. Bring them to your next bridge game at the Palm Beach Country Club and you'll have what will certainly be an instant crowd-pleaser. Or you could buy one now and rest assured you'll have the perfect gift for when former Bear Stearns chief (and bridge champion!) Jimmy Cayne's birthday rolls around next February. [Financial Crisis Cards via Dealbreaker]