• Union members at the Boston Globe will vote on the controversial concession package proposed by the New York Times Co. on June 8. [E&P]
• Last week's broadcast of Meet the Press earned the NBC chatfest its lowest ratings since David Gregory took over as moderator. [HuffPo]
• Supermarket tabloid smackdown: Us Weekly is standing up for integrity in journalism (and Brangelina) by waging war against In Touch. [TMZ, Gawker]
• Who says magazines are dead? The publisher of Interview is in the process of launching a quarterly design magazine called Modern. [Folio]
• Neil Patrick Harris will host the 2009 Tony Awards on June 7. [AP]
• The two American journalists who were first detained in North Korea two months will go on trial for "hostile acts" on June 4. [NYT]

New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni—the most powerful man in food, in his own way—is leaving the restaurant beat to become a writer-at-large for the NYT magazine. This memo just went out:

As expected, Frank Bruni is giving up his coveted gig as the New York Times' restaurant critic so he can hit the trail and promote his forthcoming book (and not have to do it behind a wig and sunglasses). Per the official memo: "Recognizing that the book is certain to seriously compromise his ability to be a spy in the land of food, Frank picked this as a natural time to move on. He will be turning in his restaurant-critic credentials when his memoir, "Born Round: the Secret History of a Full-Time Eater," is published in late August. After a break for book promotion and some overdue vacation, Frank will become a writer-at-large on the staff of our Sunday magazine..." The job hasn't been filled yet, by the way. Interested? Call 212-556-1234 and ask for Bill. [NYT, Gawker]

Earlier tonight I received an email from Gawker's eagle-eyed publisher Nick Denton (Seriously, nothing gets by this guy!) with an iPhone screengrab that contained an ad for naked webcam action on the Times' Twitter feed.

Every time we post a photo of A.G. Sulzberger, heir to the New York Times throne, the ladies go wild. "Is he single?" they ask, lustily. We want to know too, but for professional reasons!

• Veteran theater producer Rocco Landesman has been nominated to be the next chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. [NYT]
• Why did David Geffen try to buy a stake in the New York Times? It wasn't because he thought he'd make money, that's for certain. [Newsweek]
• After taking some heat over a $75,000 speaking fee he received last week, the Times's Tom Friedman says he now plans to return the money. [LAT]
• Sarah Palin's book deal with HarperCollins is a go. How much money was involved isn't clear but the memoir will be out in 2010, which just so happens when she'll be running for reelection in Alaska. [LAT, AP]
• Bad news, hooker fans: Craigslist is dropping its erotic services section. [WP]

Maybe some NYT editors are not aware that one A.G. Sulzberger is only um their future boss, okay??????? Because they have him writing the most inane stories in the entire paper. Today: Bus cords.

Is mustachioed hybrid-hawker Thomas Friedman licking dog food remnants from discarded cans yet? Sadly no, but he must be getting close! First his rich wife's family business went bankrupt. Now he's lost $75K. Just yesterday!

Last night on tv's Dr House, MD, House finally slept with Cuddy!! But it turned out that he didn't. SPOILER ALERT: this made the internet, and Times critic Gina Bellafante, feel very :(

• Jim Dolan's Cablevision says that Newsday is not for sale, which is good since there isn't a company on the planet that wants to buy it. [E&P]
• David Geffen made an offer to acquire the stake in the New York Times Co. controlled by Phil Falcone's Harbinger fund; Harbinger passed. [Fortune]
• The mood isn't too upbeat at the Cannes Film Festival, unsurprisingly. [THR]
• 60 Minutes' segment on Anna Wintour should air this Sunday. [Gawker]
• As of the publishing biz didn't have enough to worry about, "web pirates" are now posting copies of books on the Internet. [NYT]
• Anderson Cooper's ratings have been on the decline all year. [LAT]
• OK! appears to be dissolving into chaos. [ASSME, Gawker]

• Bank of America sold off a $7.3 billion stake in China Construction Bank as it seeks to raise cash. Good news: only $26.6 billion to go! [DB]
• Andrew Cuomo is expected to announce that Hank Morris has pleaded guilty in the pension fund probe and will be cooperating with the investigation. [WSJ]
• Citigroup has lent out the same amount it's taken from Washington ($45 billion), a sign that Vikram may have a heart, after all. [AP, Dealbreaker]
• AIG's Ed Liddy will defend his company's rep in front of a Congressional panel today. At the very least, he can report the busted insurance giant is $1.2 billion richer now that it's sold off its Tokyo headquarters. [WSJ, DB]

Hello, Pink Lady! David Geffen, the wealthy friend of Dorothy, wants to buy the New York Times. Fantastic news for the paper's gay mafia.

The New York Times and Washington Post are in informal talks about the online news business. The obvious subtext: The newspapers want Google to pay for their headlines. They're going about it all wrong.

Twitter has now replaced press releases at the New York Times. The paper is just wrapping up a "strategy" presentation to the newsroom, which is helpfully being live-twitted. Let's listen in! [UPDATED below]:

• Star Trek reeled in $76 million at the box office this weekend. [WSJ]
• Metro is selling off its collection of free (and money-losing) newspapers to Seabay Media, a company controlled by Metro's former CEO. [WaPo]
• Playboy says it's planning to make "radical changes" to the mag, and may raise prices as well as reduce the number of issues it prints every year. [Folio]
• Jon Stewart is creating a two-hour special for the History Channel. [B&C]
• Lit agent Larry Kirshbaum is shopping a memoir by Rafael Nadal. [Crain's]
• More speculation the Sulzbergers will be forced to give up the Times. [NYP]
• Speaking of the Times, a San Francisco organization paid columnist Tom Friedman $75,000 for a speech he's given before (and which is online). [SFC]
• Brit chef Jamie Oliver and Ryan Seacrest are working on a new reality show for ABC that will "give healthy makeovers to an entire city." Be afraid. [THR]

Could shady Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim become the New York Times Co.'s biggest shareholder in the next couple of years? Sure he could, easy! It all depends how greedy the (broke-ish) young Sulzberger kids are:

• Execs at CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox are supposedly "seething" that the president's three news conferences have cost them $30 million in ad revenue. [THR]
• Is the New York Times Co. heading towards bankruptcy? [E&P]
• More budget cuts at the Star Ledger and San Francisco Chronicle. [E&P, HP]
• The LA Times introduces a new weekly magazine this Sunday. [Folio]
• Star Trek is off to a fast start. The pic grossed $7 million last night alone. [EW]
• It looks like television and radio advertising is rebounding a bit. [MLM]
• Former Radar editor Maer Roshan is now the editor of TheWeek.com. [NYP]
• The Simpsons got its own series of postage stamps yesterday. [Reuters]

This New York Times front-page story is about how the Amazon Kindle can't pronounce Barack Obama's name. That's A1 news? Really? The Times really is just a fancy blog. (Or maybe just feeling defensive.)

• CBS posted a first-quarter loss as the ad recession took its toll. [THR, NYT]
• News Corp. reported a 70 percent drop in quarterly profits. [LAT, B&C]
• Profit dropped by 46 percent at Warner Music during the same period. [PC]
• Sirius XM posted a $236 million quarterly loss and also announced that its number of subscribers declined for the first time ever. [AP]
• Cablevision plans to "explore" a spinoff of Madison Square Garden. [NYT]
• News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch says he plans to charge readers to access the online content of his newspapers in the near future. [E&P]
• The new Bob Dylan album is No. 1 on the charts this week. [THR]
• Felix Dennis says The Week is for sale. For just $200 million. [Folio]

Twitter is like a real-time conversation! And just like many conversations, sometimes you want to cover your ears, Eric Eldon, Micki Maynard, Ellen McGirt and others teach us: