So Carrie California has been saved. Carrie Prejean, Miss California USA, was granted a pardon by the benevolent Donald Trump, even though she has tits and hates homosexuals and stood to lose her precious crown.

Should Carrie Prejean, the beauty pageant contestant who hates gay people even more than cellulite, be executed? Some say "Yes." Others say "Free Speech." Now the decision has fallen to bouffanted ethics professor Donald Trump.

• Eliot and Silda Spitzer made their first public appearance together last night. The couple turned up at the Waldorf for the eighth annual Children's Benefit Gala and were spotted holding hands and making "lovey-dovey looks at each other." Unconditional love is a beautiful thing. [NYDN]
• The stress over the Kiefer Sutherland/Jack McCollough incident must be getting to Brooke Shields: She was spotted looking "upset, overwhelmed and stressed" at the Innocence Project gala on Wednesday night. On a related note, the desk appearance ticket Kiefer received yesterday means he will be a free man until he shows up in court on June 21. [NYDN, NYP]
• Lindsay Lohan's 15-year-old sister Ali has reportedly dropped out of high school so she can party full-time with her big sister. Good work, Dina. [P6]
• Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick are expecting girls when their surrogate gives birth in a few weeks. [OK!]

• Is Madonna leaning on her friends to hire boy-toy Jesus Luz so he can remain in the country legally? It's possible! [P6]
• Tyra Banks is expected to take the stand this week at the trial of the man accused of stalking her and threatening her staff. [NYDN, NYP]
• Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are sending their attorneys after the couple's former bodyguard to ensure he doesn't write a tell-all about life in the Brangelina home. [NYDN]
• Salma Hayek and Francois-Henri Pinault had a second wedding in Venice this weekend; guests on hand for the occasion included Anna Wintour, Ed Norton, Stella McCartney, Bono, Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Lucy Liu, Penelope Cruz, and Javier Bardem. [NYDN, People]
• Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt tied the knot this weekend, too, although the event featured fewer A-listers and many more MTV cameras. [People]

Admit it. When you read in the paper yesterday that General Growth Properties had filed for bankruptcy protection and then you noticed that the giant mall operator controlled the South Street Seaport, part of you was secretly thrilled by the news. Maybe they'll finally use all that space for something useful instead of as an overpriced tourist trap for people visiting from wherever it is the lame people pictured above are from! But then you visited the Times website today and you almost cried when you saw this:

What do Donald Trump or Anderson Cooper know about taxes? Beats us, but for some reason the pair came up at the top of the list of "celebrities Americans feel most comfortable doing their taxes." The Donald came in first with 32 percent of the vote; Coop followed behind with 27 percent. That Trump came in first may be slightly surprising considering he has trouble keeping his own finances in order. Much less surprising? Paris Hilton came in dead last.

You didn't think Donald Trump was going to let the embarrassing mess over that failed condo development in Mexico go unanswered, did you? Just a few weeks after reports surfaced that dozens of people people lost millions buying into the Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico, comes word that the Donald has filed a $50 million suit against the project's developers for breach of contract and for "muddying the Trump name." As if that's even possible! [NYDN]

• Is it finally over between Lindsay Lohan and Sam Ronson? Her mom and sister certainly hope so: The two were spotted with Sam at a police station yesterday to "look into filing a restraining order" against Lindsay, although LiLo appears to still be in denial, telling E! that they're just taking a "brief break." [Us, E!]
• Madonna was crushed to learn her adoption petition had been rejected by a judge in Malawi—"I can't believe I'm leaving my beautiful baby behind"—but baby Mercy's uncle is now supporting her appeal, for whatever that's worth. [MSNBC, Sun]
• CNN's Campbell Brown had a baby boy yesterday. [HuffPo]
• Who does Scarlett Johansson have to thank for her new bod? Gwyneth Paltrow, apparently, since she reportedly introduced Scarlett to her trainer Tracy Anderson who put her on a "rigid diet." [Sun]

Whenever real-estate bubbles pop, the words of Percy Bysshe Shelley are trotted out by lit-major columnists. Before it gets too hackneyed, here is the text of "Ozymandias" with images of Dubai and other former boomtowns.

• Who doesn't want to take over Tavern on the Green? A meeting of potential bidders today attracted Alan Stillman, Boathouse owner Dean Poll, Capitale's Seth Greenberg, and reps for Cipriani, Trump, and Meyer. [NYO]
• Minetta Tavern is attracting quite the crowd: Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow were there for dinner last night; Anna Wintour was in the house for lunch. How hard is it to nab a reservation? Not as hard as they'd like you to think. [TFB, GS]
• The good news/bad news about Zak Pelaccio's UWS Fatty Crab. [Eater]
• Ken Friedman is serving $0.99 drinks for the Rusty Knot's 1st bday. [TONY]
• A peek at Keste Pizza & Vino, which opens next week and will be offering classes on how to make authentic pizza. Just $4,000 for 10 sessions! [Eater]
• The owner of the Ollie's chain of Chinese restaurants has been ordered to pay $2.3 million in back pay to workers for violating wage laws. [NYDN]
• Word to the wise: celebrity chefs will make you fat! [NYDN]

Poor Donald. The posh tennis club above Grand Central Terminal that the Trumpster has been leasing for a song for three decades now—he pays just $4 a square foot and the rent has never been raised—isn't going to be around for much longer. Metro-North says it plans to tear the courts down to make way for a "rest area" for 1,100 conductors and train engineers. Blue-collar workers taking over a fancy tennis club owned by Donald Trump? We smell revolution! [NYDN via Curbed]

• Jon Stewart's smackdown of Jim Cramer last week generated some of the biggest ratings The Daily Show has ever seen, not surprisingly. [MediaPost]
• Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman has once again defied logic (and some of her Condé colleagues) by putting Sarah Palin on the cover of the new issue. [WWD]
• Condé Nast is expected to trim Richard Beckman's ad sales group. [AdAge]
• Liberal activists have launched a petition drive targeted at CNBC. [AP]
• ICM's Esther Newberg has sold a memoir by Paul Allen to Penguin. [Crains]
• More on Eric Siminoff's split from Lynn Nesbit and Mort Janklow. [NYO]
• Mel Karmazin sounds off on his fight to redeem Sirius and his rep. [Fortune]
• Ratings for Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice continue to slide. [AdAge]
• 60 Minutes is the "hottest show on TV." Who knew? [Newsweek]

Notice to all investors who lost their money in Donald Trump's failed condo project in Mexico: You may be broke right now, but you can take heart in the fact that Ivanka Trump is no better off. Or at least that's what she claims in an interview with CBS in which she says she's "in the same boat" with investors who saw their down payments vanish when the project went belly up. Lame excuse? A Freudian slip that suggests the Trump family is worse off than anyone imagined? You decide! [CBS News]

• Jon Stewart made fun of Jim Cramer and Cramer responded in kind. Then Stewart took another shot at the Mad Money host. And Cramer responded once again on the Today show this morning. Your turn, Jonny. [HP, MM, BI]
• Okay, so CNBC didn't see the economic collapse coming. But if we're handing out blame, we better not forget about the nation's newspapers! [NPR]
• Ratings for Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice have tumbled. [AdAge]
• More cuts at New York are rumored to be in the works. [Gawker]
• American Express has shuttered Travel + Leisure Golf. [WWD]
• Apple is launching an American Idol iPhone application. Finally! [THR]
• Equally exciting: Universal movies are coming to your Playstation. [THR]

Donald Trump can't seem to go a day without running into a financial crisis of some sort. His Chicago condo project has been in trouble for months now; a few weeks ago, his Atlantic City casino empire filed for bankruptcy; and just last week a Trump-branded apartment building in Mexico went bust, leaving buyers who put down deposits out in the cold. Today's news: The Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas is in trouble, according to the Journal, which says that three-fourths of the buyers in the condo-hotel have failed to close contracts. And there's bad news closer to home today, too: He's now in arrears for failing to pay rent on the site of his planned "catering hall-restaurant" at Jones Beach. Guess we'll have to just hope that Ivanka's jewelry line is doing a bit better so she can support her dad in his old age. [WSJ, Newsday]

Donald Trump sure has a knack for sucking publicity out of other people's pain, doesn't he? Just a few months after capitalizing on Ed McMahon's financial problems and wading into Jennifer Hudson's family tragedy, he's now inserting himself into the Rihanna-Chris Brown mess, telling Inside Edition's Deborah Norville that he'll consider Rihanna a "loser" if she ends up getting back together with Brown. Point taken, although given his epic failure in Atlantic City last month, his epic failure in Mexico last week, and his sagging ratings for the latest season for The Apprentice, it's safe to say Rihanna won't be the only name on the list. [LAT]

Business blowhard Donald Trump has created an indelible meaning for his world-famous brand: failed real-estate ventures. The latest event to cement the Trump reputation: a failed condo project in Mexico which cost buyers $32 million.

If you're looking to invest some money in real estate but you're not sure where exactly to place your bets, Ivanka Trump has some advice for you: Invest in Panama! "I have projects all over the world [and] have a unique sense of the global real estate climate and submarkets," she tells Latin Business Chronicle today. "With great conviction, Panama is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, real estate market." Who knew? Naturally, there's a reason for her extreme bullishness on the Central American nation: A 70-story Trump development is scheduled to open there next year. But she may be also thinking ahead in the event her dad's well-publicized financial troubles get even worse: She also tells the paper that she now sees the country as a great "escape." [Latin Business Chronicle via CS]

There have been very few moments in his life when Donald Trump has not been willing to go on cable television to pontificate on the state of the real estate market. But it's only been a week since Trump's casino empire went bankrupt, so this might just be one of those moments (although given the new season of The Apprentice debuts next week, it's safe to say the shilling will begin again soon enough). But what do you do if Donald won't come on and Don Jr. isn't available and Ivanka Trump can't even be bothered to throw on a cocktail dress and grace Fox Business's classy barroom set with her presence? You turn to Eric Trump, naturally! Sure, he graduated college about 15 minutes ago and wasn't even around for the boom market much less understand the causes of the current real estate crisis. But he's been very well trained, clearly. Take a long, hard look, folks. We have a sinking feeling we're going to be seeing a lot of him over the next, oh, four decades or so.

From as best as we can make out, Rodman loses it in the middle of a challenge (perhaps mounting a charity auction for Baron von Trump's wealthy nursery classmates?), towering over team-leader Black and bellowing, "Fuck this bullshit! You think you did fucking right, bro? Aw, fuck you, man. Fuck you!" as a small puddle gathers circumference beneath the country singer's feet. Rodman then stomps out of the room, a gesture of defiance sure to displease the toddler Trump at that evening's board room, who'll toss an apple juice drinkin' box at the recalcitrant contestant's head in disgust. [YouTube]