Barack Obama's people might throw East Coast media elite parties at the Four Seasons, but they totally make up for it with that penny-pinching cabinet member from Kansas.

• Bruce Wasserstein has been keeping busy. In between splitting up with his third wife and marrying his fourth, he found the time to have a baby with a recent Columbia Business School grad, with whom he's now sharing custody of a 10-month-old girl. [P6]
• The LAPD have launched an investigation into who leaked a confidential photo of a battered and bruised Rihanna to TMZ. [TMZ, E!]
• Whitney Port said this week that Olivia Palermo can be "very difficult to worth with," and that she occasionally wants to "slap her." Join the club. [AH]
• Madonna is reportedly planning to use the Vanity Fair Oscar party on Sunday to introduce Jesus Luz to the world as her new boyfriend. [OK!]
• Portia De Rossi is reportedly preparing to undergo IVF so she and Ellen DeGeneres can have a baby. [SFGate]

The New York Post has "apologized" for its infamous shot-monkey cartoon about as defiantly as you might expect. The tabloid is basically sorry you all took its innocent drawing wrong.

The Internet won the election for Obama, right? President Change's team of online experts are trying to cash in on their expertise. Here are the contenders for the title of "Obama's Web guru."

Rick Santelli and a bunch of traders are furious! They are outraged at Barack Obama's crazy mortgage plan which will maybe stave off a couple foreclosures. [Update: New video with the best of Rick's rage!]

• President Obama is unveiling a $75 billion plan today to help struggling homeowners. A press conference is scheduled for 12:15pm. [WSJ, NYT, CNN]
• The Dow fell 3.8% yesterday to close at its lowest point since November. How today goes hinges on the response to Obama's housing rescue plan. [CNN]
• More on the life and times of Allen Stanford, the Texas financier who may have presided over an $8 billion fraud. [BN, NYT, WSJ]
• GM says it needs another $16 billion to stay in business. Oh, but it's still going to slash 47,000 jobs and close five plants anyway. [WSJ, NYT]
• GE's Jeff Immelt is waiving his $11.7 million bonus. [FT]
• Home construction fell a seventh straight month during January. [WSJ]
• Former CNBC anchor Ron Insana is leaving SAC Capital. [DB]
• More on Jon Winkelried's retirement from Goldman Sachs. [WSJ]

Obama chose the perfect face for his "signing the stimulus" party: a blonde, clean-cut young yuppie fellow who owns a small business. A small hippie business.

It's not just angry rightwingers who mix up "Obama" and "Osama." Yahoo News has joined CNN and the Associated Press in confusing the most powerful man in the world with his terrorist enemy.

President Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus bill this afternoon. "Today does not mark the end of our economic troubles. But it does mark the beginning of the end," he said before signing the bill into law. Of course, this could also just be the beginning of the end of life as we know it, but at least we're all in agreement that we're in the same place, right? [CNN]

White House photographer Pete Souza takes lovely pictures of President Obama making Hope happen, but sometimes his gorgeous compositions look like stifling, paranoid scenes of a man trapped in a nightmare.

• Ad pages for monthly magazines in March dropped by 26 percent. [Crains]
• Sirius XM has reached a deal with Liberty Media to avoid bankruptcy. [NYT]
• What Bristol Palin had to say in her interview with Greta Van Susteren. [ABC]
• Not surprisingly, local news stations covered A-Rod's press conference today in lieu of President Obama's signing of the stimulus bill. [THR]
• A look at Politico and "the brave new world of post-print journalism." [TNR]
• Barbara Walters at a breakfast this morning with 60 Minutes's Steve Kroft and Ken Auletta: "I think the only programs that will still be there as they are now in 10 years are the morning shows." How convenient. [Portfolio]
• Thanks to the popularity of Slumdog Millionaire, ABC is thinking about reviving Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? during primetime. [NYT]

Want a date with the Obamas? The New New Camelot has a Zulu queen as its gatekeeper. Meet Desirée Rogers, the White House social networker who sat next to Anna Wintour at Fashion Week.

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]

Unfortunately the White House Correspondents Association event should be as clubby as ever, the press corps eagerly sucking up to the administration it's supposed to be hounding so it can keep doling out tickets to a black-tie event involving the president.

President Change's message of fresh hope sounds like just about every new-and-improved TV commercial. No surprise, marketers are jumping on the Barack bandwagon. But now the feds have cracked down on Obama-branded schwag.

Now we get the "Obama won and is back on top" pieces, right? Because the stimulus looks like it'll sail through the joint committee. But the bill is—oh no!—smaller.

If you're in desperate need of a laugh today (or you're just looking for something to offend your politically correct sensibilities), have a look at this video clip from a wacky Japanese game show. It features a couple of actors dressed up as Barack and Michelle Obama. Performing magic tricks. Consider it a little palate cleanser before you sit down to watch more dispiriting news about the economy on cable television tonight.

[A White House military staffer carries a portrait of President Obama at Andrews Air Force base; image via AP]

No one has seen ailing Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro in public since 2006, when he handed over power to his brother Raul. But from his sickbed, he's penning weird musings about Rahm Emanuel's surname.