• Morgan Stanley reported a larger-than-expected loss for the first quarter this morning. The bank reported it lost $177 million, down from the $1.41 billion profit it collected during the same period in 2008. [WSJ, NYT, BN]
• David Kellermann, the chief financial officer of Freddie Mac, was found dead in his Virginia home, the result of an apparent suicide. [WaPo, BN]
• Things have gone from bad to worse for Steve Rattner: New York City's comptroller is investigating whether Quadrangle "intentionally misled or deceived" city pension funds by failing to disclose finder's fees. [WSJ]

• Spring sales normally begin around Memorial Day. They're starting much earlier this year, although retailers would prefer if you called them "promotions," okay? [NYM]
• The ridiculously delayed sixth season of Project Runway—which Lifetime CEO Andrea Wong is ridiculously describing as "fashionably late"—will debut on August 20. [THR]
• What does Kate Moss do with her old Topshop dresses? She hands them off to her poor assistant, naturally! [Grazia]
• The shoot for Prada's fall ad campaign took Steven Meisel four days to complete and required the presence of a live horse. [FWD]
• Arnold Scaasi, best known for dressing Abigail Fillmore for her first public appearance as first lady in 1850, is the latest designer to complain about Michelle Obama's wardrobe. [WWD, Vogue UK]
• Is Rachel Zoe looking for an assistant on Craigslist? Possibly! [CL via Racked]

Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, the Somali man accused of hijacking an American cargo ship and holding its captain hostage, arrived in New York last night, the footage of which you've probably seen 273 times on the news by now. He was all smiles when he landed on American shores, but his mood was a bit different when he appeared in court this afternoon: After telling a judge via an interpreter that he had no money to pay for a lawyer, he started to cry when his lawyers brought up his family back home in Somalia. Cry not, evil pirate! You've arrived in just the right place at just the right time.

• The top restaurant in New York City, according to San Pellegrino's list of the World's 50 Best Restaurants: for 2009: Per Se, naturally. [Serious Eats]
• A look at the Gates, the new venue in the former Biltmore Room space. [GS]
• Be advised: Morton's is now charging $2.50 to add ice to your drink. [IC]
• It's been two years since the banh mi trend surfaced, apparently. [GS, Eater]
• Yet another victim of the recession: hot-dog cart vendors. [NYDN]
• Andre Balazs isn't saying much about the restaurant opening in the Standard Hotel, although he's willing to admit he's naming it after his daughters. [GS]
• Sorry, sex fiends: The Casbar, a sex club in the Brooklyn that was featured in the New York Times in February, has been shut down. [DBTH]

The rise in the number of obese people isn't just having unappealing aesthetic effects on the landscape of America. It's also imperiling our nation, since fat people are responsible for global warming! "Scientists warned that the increase in big-eaters means more food production—a major cause of CO2 gas emissions warming the planet. Overweight people are also more likely to drive, adding to environmental damage." In other words, every time this kid puts another French fry in his mouth, an ice cap melts and polar bear dies. Depressing news, huh? Try making yourself feel better by downing a pint of chocolate chip ice cream. [NYP]

What do you do when your career on Wall Street has come to an ignominious end and you need to keep busy lest you end up spending the rest of your days playing bridge or golf? Take a job in academia! Greg Fleming, the former president of Merrill Lynch, is now a member of the Yale Law School faculty: This semester, he's teaching a class that will explain the "economic events of the past year," which should also help Fleming shed some light on what exactly he was doing as the man in charge of risk management at Merrill Lynch the past few years. Fleming isn't the only one.

If you dial up 311 and tell them you can't quit smoking, they'll connect you to the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo. Sit through the 15-minute survey on the phone, and you're entitled to a free, two-week supply of Nicorette gum. Don't smoke? In need of cash? Get the gum anyway and make a profit at the expense of New York taxpayers by selling the boxes on Ebay. [NYO]

• The New York Times Company reported a first-quarter loss of $74.5 million today, as advertising revenue plunged by more than 28 percent. [NYT]
• Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's Wenda Harris Millard is stepping down as the company's co-CEO and president. [Crain's]
• One magazine that hasn't been crippled by the recession: Hearst's Food Network Magazine, which is now ramping up circulation. [AdAge]
• What's former Condé Nast star James Truman up to these days? Among other things, he's working on the in-room magazine for Ritz-Carlton. [Portfolio]
• Washingtonian magazine has a shirtless pic of Obama on the cover. [WM]

Good news for those of you who have friends visiting from out of town who also happen to be obsessed with Gossip Girl. On Location Tours, the company responsible for taking tourists from Des Moines to see Carrie Bradshaw's apartment from Sex and the City and the stomping grounds of the cast of The Sopranos, is now accepting reservations for its Gossip Girls tour.

Citigroup's annual meeting today was rather tumultuous, not surprisingly. Although the bank's incumbent directors were re-elected by a wide margin, a number of angry people got up to the microphone to vent their frustrations. When Citi's new chairman Dick Parsons took a moment to recognize the directors stepping down from the board—like former chairman Sir Win Bischoff and Bob Rubin—one man in the audience yelled out: "Thank God you've gone!" Gone, perhaps, but certainly not forgotten! [AP]

As you're probably aware, Madonna fell off a horse over the weekend, a little mishap she attributed to paparazzi photographers who supposedly jumped out of the bushes and frightened her horse. The police made no mention of any out-of-control photographers on the scene and Madonna seems to have a history of this sort of thing: She suffered cracked ribs and a broken collarbone when a horse ejected her in 2005.) But she has one person in her corner: Her press-loving personal trainer, Tracy Anderson, who tells People today that it was, in fact, all the fault of the paparazzi, but that her injuries won't get in the way of Madonna's two-hour daily workout routine. "She doesn't take time off," says Anderson. Clearly, neither does Anderson's publicist. [People, The Star]

A new poll indicates that New Yorkers would rather have disgraced former governor Eliot Spitzer running the show than current governor David Paterson. When given the choice to pick any of the last four governors to lead the state, just eight percent picked Paterson. It's unclear if this means that Paterson now more unpopular than ever, or if it's because Spitzer's campaign to redeem himself is finally paying off, but we'll leave that to you to decide. [NYP]

It's a challenge that few in the fashion industry would be brave enough to undertake, since the results not only lay bare one's style acumen, but cut to the very heart of the rag trade's dependence on mythically overvalued clothes. So we applaud Parsons dean of fashion Simon Collins and designer Randi Rahm's willingness to participate in the Wall Street Journal's little game that asks: Can you identify the $1,145 designer dress, pulled from the rack at Barneys, among various cheap things including Thakoon Panichgul and Behnaz Sarafpour's lines for Target, and Comme des Garçons and Roberto Cavalli's for H&M?

• Leona Helmsley's former estate in Greenwich is now available at a discount. Priced at $125 million when it first went on the market last year, the 40-acre manor-style property known as Dunnellen Hall is now just $75 million. [GT, DO&A]
• Investor Paul Cejas has put his two-bedroom, fifth-floor apartment at 834 Fifth—the building that's home to Rupert Murdoch, Woody Johnson, and socialite Carroll Petrie—on the market for $18.5 million. [NYO, BHS]
• John Legend has cut the price of his apartment at 72 East 3rd Street, which he purchased in 2005 and originally listed for $1.245 million last December. The two-bedroom condo is now priced at $1.195 million. [NYM, PDE]

Eliot Spitzer hailing a cab on the corner of 51st Street and 7th Avenue with his gym bag and tennis racquet in hand ... Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins heading into the Angelika Film Center ... Mary J. Blige arriving at LaGuardia ... Lily Allen walking around with a blanket over her head for some reason ... Terrence Howard leaving the movies ... Spike Jonze carrying Matilda Ledger on his shoulders in Brooklyn ... Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick leaving the Broadhurst Theatre on West 47th Street ... Josh Hartnett hanging out with his parents in Soho ... playwright Sam Shepard walking in the West Village ... and Jennifer Aniston standing under an umbrella on the set of The Baster.

Been going to interviews but failed to actually get a new job? It's not because there are umpteen as many unemployed people as openings, but because of your slobby attire and poor grooming, says a man who'd really like to give you a makeover. "Image consultant" David A. McKnight is offering jobless New Yorkers a bargain $300 session, during which you'll be offered the kind of profound wisdom that only members of a specially ordained group of bossy gays are licensed to sell: wear better clothes!

Michael Bloomberg has been pretty cranky recently, have you noticed? It didn't just start last week when he had a hissy fit at a press conference. The Times's Clyde Haberman thinks that the mayor has "been in a chronic bad mood for half a year, more or less since he won his battle for a change in the law to give him a shot at a third term." But what could be getting under his skin? He's the richest man in New York. He won the battle to overturn term limits. His real estate holdings have expanded. And he hasn't been forced to give up his plane like so many other moguls. Guess we'll just have to wait and wonder. Unless, of course, you happen to be his shrink and you're willing to violate doctor-patient confidentiality, in which case we'd love to talk to you. [NYT]

Tina Fey and her husband Jeff Richmond have a new Upper West Side apartment to call home. The couple picked up a co-op at 300 West End Avenue for $3.4 million, substantially less than the asking price of $4.1 million. The fourth-floor apartment features four bedrooms, eat-in kitchen, living room with wood-burning fireplace, library, private elevator landing, and a view that includes "a peek of the river." A peek at the apartment and floorplan after the jump!

Her Royal Majesty turns 83 today. Feel free to use this an excuse to take your British friends to lunch and order a celebratory cocktail. Others celebrating today: Charles Grodin is 74. Filmmaker John Cameron Mitchell is turning 46. Andie MacDowell is 51. Patti LuPone turns 60. Author Nell Freudenberger is 34. Ugly Betty's Eric Mabius is turning 38. Tony Danza is 58. Iggy Pop is turning 62. Former congressman Gary Condit is 61. The Cure's Robert Smith is 50. And Tony Romo, the NFL quarterback who has to put up with Jessica Simpson for so long now, turns 29 today.

• Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie went to the Stop & Shop in Oyster Bay with two of their kids on Saturday and were "very friendly" to employees of the store. Please try to contain your amazement. [Us]
• Lindsay Lohan must be hard up for cash, since she's reportedly in discussions to star in a topless show in Las Vegas. Even worse: She seems to think it will "really revitalize her career and give her some serious theater cred." [Fox]
• Early Show anchor Julie Chen and her boss/husband, CBS chief exec Les Moonves, are expecting their first child this October. [P6]
• Speaking of kids, Amy Winehouse's rep says that the rumors the singer is adopting a child from the Caribbean are untrue. Be thankful for that! [DE]