Thought the star system at The New York Times died with Howell Raines' editorship? Perhaps in the public eye, yes. But in the way that really matters — the pocketbook — far from it. Since 1990, it turns out, the Times has awarding favored writers a special "senior writer" status — which is to say, a we-like-you cash bonus. But there's a problem! With no one moving out of the senior-writer slots, there's no way to move new people in. And so there was a memo from Bill Keller yesterday: Senior writer terms will now last for only four years, after which you might be renewed but might not be. This way, there'll be new slots opening regularly, and the chance for new hotshots to get their bonuses.

The Supreme Court ruled today that teetering widow Anna Nicole Smith could pursue millions from the oil fortune of her late husband, J. Howard Marshall II. As a 26-year-old stripper, Smith married Marshall in 1994 when he was 89-years-old. Marshall died a year later, and Smith claimed he had promised her half of his $1.6 billion estate. Naturally, Marshall's family took issue, and the two sides have been entrenched in court ever since.

At first we thought it was just a little bit ridiculous about the Senate giving everyone a hundred bucks only because gas bills are too high. (Hey, Senate, our bar tabs are too high lately; can we get some cash to cover that?) But then we realized it's even more ridiculous: The story we read says every taxpayer will get this check, even all us New Yorkers who don't buy gas in the first place. Which, come to think of it, is a kind of ridiculousness we can entirely get behind.

Just to bang the final nail in your coffin of self-esteem issues, Money magazine has their annual list of the 50 best jobs in America. Freelancers, take note: that paycheck you've been waiting on for three months? What ultimately stands between you and your money is a new pair of glasses.

Katie Couric's deal at CBS may have her making $60,000 per day, but that doesn't mean she can throw her money around — she's got two daughters and hundreds of stilletos to provide for. Couric has no choice but to keep a strict budget, as a reader working with an uptown nanny farm learns:

The state portion of sales tax on clothes and shoes disappeared Saturday, at least on clothes or shoes that cost less than $110. Coming a year after the city removed its portion of the tax, clothes are shoes are now entirely sales tax-free in New York City. Yippee! To celebrate, we thought we'd go out and buy ourselves what we've really been needing: a fancy new cell phone. Until we realized there'd still be tax on that, because it's not clothes or shoes. Then we thought maybe we'd get something else we could really use: a good pair of jeans. Until we realized good jeans wouldn't be cheap enough to go untaxed, either. How to celebrate, then? Finally it hit us. We needed new socks. Celebratory, sales tax-free socks. Woo-hoo.

Big & Sharp blogger Kyle du Ford is, inexplicably, profoundly saddened by the demise of Cargo. But he's found a silver lining:

We've spent far too much time poring over Forbes' dangerous list of the world's billionaires — like the blinking lights of a Nintendo, the reality of our own poverty triggered seizures. But after we took our medication, we were able to narrow down the list to those claiming residence in New York. And of those 50 New York billionaires, our somewhat unconfirmed research pulls up 29 members of the tribe. Only 29?! For shame!

A once-Salon-subscribing friend o' Gawker passed along this odd solicitation, which arrived in his inbox this morning:

Though we may choose to ignore it, transit workers and the MTA have yet to reach an actual agreement. Though we believe (or pray, anyhow) that the situation won't plummet to the hellish depths of December's strike, we found the above chart rather helpful. It's not exactly news but, should things get ugly, this is the sort of information you need to appropriately direct your anger. If we hate together, we can win together.

Like manna from heaven, the image at right appeared in our mailbox this morning (click to enlarge). It appears to be a misplaced receipt for a $400 order of flowers sent to AMI editorial director Bonnie Fuller from her loving husband, Michael.

Remarkably, the folks at Bloomberg News see this as good news. Funny, that.

Last week we posted an inventory of Michael Caruso's guaranteed perks and bonuses when he was editor-in-chief of Men's Journal — guaranteed biz-class air travel, $10,000 for sticking to his budget, $10,000 for winning a National Magazine Award, and so on. For the rank-and-file, though, life is less pleasant. An MJ freelancer sends along the magazine's expense guidelines for normal folks, from which we learn that air and car-rental upgrades will never be reimbursed, yellow cabs and not car services must be used in New York, magazine and newspaper purchases can't be expensed, and — this is really our favorite part — restaurant tips will only be reimbursed up to 15 percent.

We, too, got our grubby hands on ousted Men's Journal EIC Michael Caruso's wrongful-termination lawsuit against Wenner Media, and we must say it's a delightful read. Our favorite part, though, is the inclusion of Caruso's complete employment contract, executed on November 17, 2003, between Caruso and Wenner Media SVP Robert Kent Browridge.

WWD's towering inferno, Jeff Bercovici, gets his hands on Michael Caruso wrongful-termination suit against Wenner Media for today's paper, and he fleshes out the details of what the ousted Men's Journal editor is charging — and what he's demanding.

Slate's annual list of the 60 largest charitable contributions of 2005 is out: the late Cordelia Scaife May emerges as the biggest contributor, having left her $404 million estate to charity; Bill and Melinda Gates come in second with $320 million. But what about our favorite media moguls?

The Times reported yesterday on the completion of its 94th annual Neediest Cases Fund charity drive, which from November through the start of this month raised a bit more than $7 million. The paper was particularly impressed with the donation corralled by a group of three young investment bankers — or, judging from the accompanying photo, perhaps two young investment bankers and one extra from Growing Up Gotti — who presented the Fund with $236,000 raised from fellow analysts at Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and CIBC. Explained the Times:

Or at least Fifth Avenue is. A tipster finds a small crowd on Fifth between 46th and 47th earlier this afternoon, apparently panning for gold:

You know how those run-of-the-mill beat cops — young guys, presumably rookies — standing around on, say, the West Fourth subway platform or near the Astor Place cube, just keeping an eye on things, always seem thoroughly unhappy? How sometimes you start to feel a little Bedford Fallsish and try to catch their eye as you walk past so you can say, "Mornin', officer," but they always sullenly look away? We always assumed that's because, well, they're New Yorkers, and New Yorkers are always a little bit sullen, and also because it must suck to spend hours at a time standing up, walking around, in the cold, and not really doing anything.

One of the great journalistic perks in New York is a Conde Nast expense account. Lunches, dinners, trips, cars, trinkets: It's all on Si.