• Marty Peretz, former owner of the New Republic, is buying back the mag with a group of investors led by former Lazard exec Laurence Grafstein. [Politico]
• The New York Times Co. has successfully raised $225 million by selling off 21 floors of its Eighth Avenue office building. [NYT]
• "Was last week the worst one in CNBC's 20-year history—or the best?" asks the Times today. Thanks in part to Jon Stewart, we're pretty sure it was its worst, but ratings are up so CNBC execs aren't complaining. [NYT]
• Carl Icahn is stepping up his effort to take control of Lionsgate. [Variety]
• McClatchy, which publishes 30 daily newspapers, says it plans to slash 1,600 jobs, or 15% of its work force, as well as cut salaries across the board. [WSJ]
• Mag covers with Barack Obama have performed well, by and large. [NYP]
• Watchmen was No. 1 at the weekend box office, grossing $55.7 million. [EW]
• The Tribeca Film Festival announced its May lineup today. [THR]

Hope you weren't relying on the T.G.I. Friday's in the financial district to feed your drug habit. The restaurant was shut down on Friday night after an investigation by the NYPD revealed that a drug dealer had set up shop at the bar where he dispensed goodies to Wall Street traders, brokers and bankers who "liked to spend their nights getting high after the market spent the day going low." Most disconcerting, though, is the revelation that up until he was arrested on Friday, the dealer enjoyed a perk that many bankers have had to do without in recent months: "He would dress up in a natty business suit as if he were a finance man himself—and even took a black, executive-style livery cab home each night." And he probably didn't even have to wait until 10pm either. [NYP]

Just how bad is the Hamptons real estate market right now? Broker Enzo Morabito of Prudential Douglas Elliman says he's putting 15 properties up for auction later this month—at discounts of up to 50 percent—in an effort to "clear out the glut of unsold homes." [NYP]

If you were an art dealer at Armory Week with expensive paintings to sell, you probably went home disappointed, like David Zwirner, whose Bernie Madoff portrait didn't find a buyer. "I went there with low expectations, said Zwirner gloomily "and they were not met." According to New York's Alexandra Peers, the works that sold at the Armory Show and its satellite fairs like Volta and Pulse were cheap (meaning under $25,000) and tended to look "homemade, handmade, self-conscious."

J. Ezra Merkin, the disgraced money manager who steered more than $2 billion to Bernie Madoff, has a new lawsuit to contend with. NYU filed suit against Merkin last month, accusing him of losing $24 million of the unversity's endowment due to his "deliberate ignorance." Now a pension plan, which says it lost $4 million investing in Merkin's various funds, is taking action, too. The full complaint appears below.

Last week, Henry Kravis's two publicly-traded investment vehicles reported losses of more than 90 percent "after writedowns on takeovers, mortgages and corporate loans." Now vehicles are plowing into his Park Avenue apartment building. Consider it yet another perfect metaphor for the times. [NYSD]

Anna Wintour has set a mythically high bar of imperious bitchitude for other fashion magazine editors to live up to, but no doubt Joanna Coles—the British editor of Marie Claire now familiar to reality TV viewers thanks to Running in Heels—would love to be talked about in the same tones of fear and awe. The quotes in this weekend's Daily Mail profile, therefore, must be music to her ears (if not actually written by her publicist). Coles, who's "said to make Wintour look like a warm-hearted pushover," apparently presides over an office "often in danger of drowning in a tidal wave of tears."

• Richard Fuld's daughter Christine and her husband Aaron Packles, a managing director at Merrill Lynch, have dropped the price of their co-op at 79 East 79th Street by more than $3 million. The five-bedroom, full-floor apartment is now listed for $9.8 million, which is just $50,000 more than they paid for the home in 2007. [NYT, ELC]
• Marc Ecko and his wife Allison—who are currently facing $2.1 million in liens in connection with the Bernardsville, New Jersey castle they've been renovating for close to three years now—are now selling the colonial home next door for $1.229 million. [NYP, CB]
• Former UBS exec Ramesh Singh has sold his 4,225-square-foot co-op at 860 Park Avenue, which he first put on the market for $13.4 million in 2007 and went into contract to sell in December '08, for $7 million. [NYT]
• Writer/director James Toback is putting his late mother's 15th-floor co-op at the Majestic on Central Park West up for auction. The 2,200-square-foot apartment, which first went on the market for $3.75 million in November, will be available for a minimum asking price of $1.999 million. [NYT]

Kimberly Guilfoyle, the Fox News host and wife of furniture heir Eric Villency, turns 40 today. ABC News anchor Charles Gibson is 66. Former congressman Vito Fossella is turning 44. Actress Brittany Snow is turning 23. Linda Fiorentino is 51. New York Times tech columnist David Pogue is 46. Neal Shapiro, the former president of NBC News and current president of WNET, is turning 51. Former HBO chief Michael J. Fuchs is 63. Artist Eric Fischl is 61. Bow Wow is turning 22. Chingy is 29. And former child actor Emmanuel Lewis turns 38 today.

• Kimora Lee Simmons and Djimon Hounsou are married. Sort of. The couple reportedly traveled to Africa last summer to tie the knot in a secret ceremony, but the marriage isn't valid in the US since Kimora was still married to Russell Simmons at the time. But Djimon went shopping for an engagement ring last week, so they'll sort it all out soon enough. [NYDN]
• An escort who claims she serviced Eliot Spitzer has lots of details to share about the encounter, if you're feeling brave this morning. Among other things, she claims he liked to choke her during sex. [R&M]
• Jeffrey Toobin doesn't believe that he's the father of Casey Greenfield's baby, although she's asking for a paternity test to know for sure. [R&M]
• Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel have split up. Again. [People]

How many pilots does ABC have in the works about the meltdown on Wall Street and the "sad toll it's taken on that once-mighty warrior, the investment banker"? Two, according to AdAge: "One is an untitled project starring Kelsey Grammer, who plays a Wall Street millionaire unhorsed by the collapsing economy and forced into a 'Mr. Mom'-like role at home with the family he hardly ever saw. The other is 'Canned,' a pilot about several younger Gen X friends fired from their lofty perch at an investment bank." [AdAge]

• It's expected to be a rough week ahead for financial markets. [Reuters, WSJ]
• The world economy is on track to post its worst performance since the Great Depression, according to a report by the World Bank. [CNN]
• The financial crisis seems to be "getting ahead" of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, as if you weren't aware of that already. [NYT]
• The big beneficiaries of the AIG bailout: Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, and a handful of other banks both foreign and domestic. [WSJ]
• After canceling a trip to reward its top brokers, Citigroup gave out $3.5 million worth of gift cards to 2,000 people as a consolation prize. [NYP]
• Credit markets appear to be tightening up once again. [WSJ]
• JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs advised on Merck's $41 billion acquisition of Schering-Plough, which was announced this morning. [DB]
• Expect to see fewer foreign bankers living it up in NYC beginning this summer: Bank of America is withdrawing job offers made to foreign MBA students. [FT]

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• Pamela Anderson hit the catwalk at Vivienne Westwood's show in Paris today. Her boob popped out of her dress at the very end, which was totally an accident, you can rest assured. [SW, HP]
• Reports from various shows at Paris Fashion Week. [WSJ, NYM, T, Telegraph]
• You can credit/blame Barack Obama's inauguration in January for the recent resurgence in fur. [WSJ]
• Michelle Obama is wearing Michael Kors for her new O cover. [Fashionista]
• Ikram Goldman, Michelle's fashion guru, is in Paris for the shows. [FWD]
• Madonna is teaming up with Ed Hardy on a new clothing line. [Mirror]
• What's it like to be Bernard Arnault, France's richest man and "arguably the most influential tastemaker in the world of luxury"? Quite nice, actually. [WSJ]
• Try not to fall out of your chair—we'd hate you to get hurt—but Esquire has named Prince Charles the "best dressed man in the world." [Guardian]

Here's something funny/depressing to keep in mind: If you don't have an account at Citibank but you end up using a Citi ATM machine and you cough up the fee, you'll be paying for the equivalent of three shares of Citigroup. "To put it differently, Citi gets a capital injection from each ATM transaction that is three times as valuable as issuing new shares." [Business Insider]

John Catsimatidis isn't ruling out that possibility that we'll have two egotistical billionaires competing in the mayoral race this fall. Which explains why he isn't exactly holding back in interviews with reporters: "I'm not the same type of billionaire as Mike Bloomberg. He came from Boston; I came from the city of Manhattan. I know these people. I know these people as well as anybody in this city. I used to play stickball on 135th street." Them's fighting words! Except he has a couple of facts wrong, as the Daily News's Elizabeth Benjamin points out: "Bloomberg, for the record, did not come from means, either. He is a self-made billionaire. And he actually hails from Medford, not Boston." Better luck next time, John. [NYDN]

It's official: Rector Square, the 304-unit condo at 225 Rector Place in Battery Park City, is now in foreclosure. [Real Deal]

• Diddy prefers the fried chicken at Popeye's over KFC, just so you know. [YouTube]
• The guys from Frankies 457 Spuntino are opening a new spot on Court Street. [NYT]
• A look at Raines Law Room, the "underground cocktail lounge" that opened in the Flatiron District recently. [TFB]
• A list of spots that closed today. [Eater]
• Yelpers list their 100 favorite dishes from 2008. [Yelp]
• Eater gets to the bottom of those totally annoying "mandatory service charges" that have been showing up on diners' checks recently. [Eater]
• Robert Sietsema gets to the bottom of those totally annoying tip jars that have been around forever but are still as annoying as ever. [VV]

It's increasingly likely Bernie Madoff will plead guilty when he appears in court next Thursday. One of the disgraced financier's attorneys, Daniel Horwitz, said today that Madoff will waive a grand jury indictment when new charges are filed against him by prosecutors next week. The Journal explains:

Six weeks ago, we revealed that Starbucks had put its brand-new, $45 million Gulfstream 550 up for sale the day before announcing plans to cut 6,700 jobs and close an additional 300 stores. It looks like they're not done trimming the corporate fat. The coffee chain put another plane on the market this week—a 2004 Challenger 604 that seats ten.