• HarperCollins is launching a new imprint which will focus on "pop culture, sports, style and content derived from the Internet." Clever! [NYT]
• Sony Pictures is cutting 300 employees, or 4% of its workforce. [LAT]
• YouTube and Universal are in talks to build a "hub" for music videos. [WSJ]
• Jon Stewart went to town on CNBC last night, in case you missed it. [Portfolio]
• For some reason, NBC has decided to bring back Heroes next season. [THR]
• In the first two months of this year, 7,453 jobs were lost at media companies. You know, just in case you're keeping track or whatever. [THR]

We hear that JupiterMediaWebMediaBrands, the company that bought Mediabistro for $23 million in 2007, has laid off 60(?) people [UPDATED below]. Most were tech workers and various parent company staffers. The lone Mediabistro casualty:

Not every company is looking to take advantage of people who have been hit hard by the economic downturn. Archstone-Smith, the real estate conglomerate that controls 13 apartment buildings around town, says it will now allow tenants to walk away from their leases if they lose their jobs. JetBlue says it will refund fares to "some customers" who were laid off after buying tickets. And even Hyundai claims it will buy back vehicles from customers who lose their jobs. It's not clear how you're supposed to prove you've been laid off, but your unemployment check stubs and perhaps a few damp tissues soaked with your own tears should do the trick. [Bloomberg]

• Merrill Lynch's top 10 earners in 2008—a list that Andrew Cuomo will be interested to take a look at—is out. Each made more than $10 million in cash and stock in 2008 as the bank racked up losses of $27.6 billion. [WSJ]
• The private sector lost nearly 700,000 jobs in February. [CNN]
• A UBS exec will address the Swiss bank scandal on Capitol Hill today. [NYT]
• Ben Bernanke yesterday: "If there is a single episode in this entire 18 months that has made me more angry, I can't think of one other than AIG." [BN]
• Bill Ackman's hedge fund dropped in February, Ken Griffin gained. [BN, NYP]
• More than 8.3 million mortgages are underwater, according to a report. [BN]
• Bernie Madoff has agreed to give up rights to his investment firm and company art collection. A hearing scheduled for today to look into conflicts of interest on the part of his lawyer, Ira Sorkin, has been postponed. [AP]

That's not a "major" layoff, as one Valleywag tipster maintained this morning. As Eric Savitz points out in Tech Trader Daily, Apple would have to file through the WARN Act if it was going to conduct major cuts. But the WARN Act does not generally apply to layoffs of fewer than 500 employees.

One tipster tells us there are "major layoffs" at Apple. Another writes that "all sales teams have mandatory meetings today" and that "HR booked conference rooms in Cupertino." Is Apple cutting salespeople loose?

In your blizzardy Monday media column: rumored layoffs at Men's Health, David Simon is righteously angry again, Ladies Home Journal's integrity—its most valuable asset, next to yarn—is questioned, and more!

Staff at Elle publisher Hachette Filipacchi U.S. thought their spendthrift French owners might sell last summer. CEO Jack Kliger was out, the landscape bleak. They should have been so lucky.

You know that saying, "You can't squeeze blood from a stone"? Well, apparently, you can. The Tribune Company has had yet another round of layoffs.

In the magazine industry, Condé Nast has suffered the most this year. And within Condé Nast, Portfolio is at absolute rock bottom. It's getting damned hard to see how the magazine survives.

The Post is dropping gossip columnist Liz Smith. The reason? The economy, naturally. "Like so many other newspapers around the nation, we are buffeted by unprecedented economic gales," Col Allan, the Post's editor, explained in a letter to Smith earlier this month when he informed her that the paper had decided not to renew her $125,000-a-year contract. But if you're thinking the 86-year-old gossip is planning to retire her quill pen, think again! Smith says she'll continue turning out a column five days a week for syndication to other newspapers, she'll be penning a twice-a-week column for Daily Variety, and she's also signed on as a contributing editor of Parade magazine. Oh, and she'll be contributing to wowOwow, the website for elderly women that she co-founded last year, where, she says, she's looking forward to posting scoops "free from the constraints of newspaper deadlines." [NYT]

Oh the Brits, with their breezy resolve and false good cheer in the face of obstacles! The FT needs some staff to take a pay cut. I mean, extra summer vacation time!

It sucks to find out you're getting laid off. It sucks a lot worse to find out you're getting laid off because a lawyer yakked about it at high volume on a commuter train.

Mayor Bloomberg announced today that the city plans to invest $45 million to "retrain investment bankers, traders and others who have lost jobs on Wall Street." What will they retrain these people to do, exactly? Here are a few ideas. [NYT]

In your gloomy Wednesday media column: More rumored Viacom layoffs today, Newsweek staffers are mad at the boss, Playboy might have to sell Playboy, and more!:

Like Napoleon marching into an abandoned Moscow, Larry Page and Sergey Brin have led Google's advance into traditional advertising only to find nothing to loot. Now begins Google's long imperial retreat, starting with 40 layoffs.

It's been a brutal day in the legal world. More than a dozen firms announced sweeping layoffs today, according to Above the Law. To wit: As many as 200 people at DLA Piper may be out of jobs; Bryan Cave reportedly handed out pink slips to 58 attorneys today; Dechert confirmed that it dropped 19 attorneys across the U.S.; Goodwin Procter sacked 74 people; Epstein Becker and Green dismissed 23 attorneys and 30 staff members; Cadwalader dropped 16 people in London; Cozen O'Connor laid off 61; Faegre & Benson gave notice to 29 attorneys; and as many as 200-300 people could be out of a job at Holland & Knight this afternoon. And this is just since eleven o'clock this morning. (Tomorrow is Friday the 13th, so it may very well get worse.) If you notice lots of men in rumpled suits walking around Grand Central Station in a daze, now you know why.

• Eight bank CEOs will appear in front of the House this morning to defend their use of billions in bailout money. Expect serious fireworks. [Reuters, BN, WSJ]
• Four top execs at Merrill Lynch took home $121 million in bonuses just before the firm was sold to Bank of America. [WSJ, BN, NYDN]
• More on the lukewarm reception to Tim Geithner yesterday. [NYT, BN]
• Credit Suisse reported a fourth-quarter loss of $5.2 billion. [BN]
• Both Goldman and Morgan Stanley have suggested that they want to give the government back the billions they took in bailout funds. [NYT]
• RBS is cutting 2,300 jobs. [Reuters]

Today is a major layoff day at publishing house HarperCollins. Below, two internal memos [Updated: three], and the rumors we've heard so far:

Layoffs are underway at publisher HarperCollins. Please send us details.