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Credit crunch claims top US black businessman
ONE OF WALL STREET'S most extraordinary success stories looks set to come to a sad end with the chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch expected to lose his job.
Stan O'Neal (below), one of the most senior African Americans in business, progressed from picking cotton on his grandfather's farm in Wedowee, Alabama, to become the second-highest paid investment banker on Wall Street last year with a salary of $46.4m - second only to Lloyd C Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, who pocketed $54.3m.
But O'Neal's world started to crumble this week when 
Merrill's adventures in the subprime mortgage market caught up with him. First, O'Neal had to post a $2.3bn quarterly loss, the biggest in Merrill's history and six times what had been forecast only three weeks earlier. Then he infuriated senior colleagues by approaching another bank, Wachovia, about a possible $140bn merger without consulting them.
"Pushing for the sale of the company is the nail in the coffin," Charles Geisst, a finance professor and author of 100 Years of Wall Street, told Bloomberg. "It's another case of a Wall Street CEO who got away with too much after being given too much leeway."
If Merrill Lynch drop O'Neal, analysts believe he can expect a payday of $159m, made up of retirement benefits and stock options, based on yesterday's share price.
O'Neal still makes a point of visiting his extended family in Alabama. Twice a year, he and his wife Nancy Garvey take their twins to visit Roanoke where he was born - because the Wedowee hospital didn't serve African Americans.
Clinton celebrates her 60th with cake and campaign
PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL Hillary Clinton celebrated her 60th birthday with a star-studded fundraiser for her presidential campaign. Leading the tributes to the New York senator were comedian Billy Crystal and British crooner Elvis Costello, who sang Happy Birthday, Mrs President.
The party, held at New York's historic Beacon Theater, raised more than $1.5m for Clinton's presidential bid. Guests paid as much as £1,200 each to attend. Clinton campaigners have also used her 60th to promote her online campaign, posting a video message on her website.
Former President Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea came on stage to thank supporters. Bill Clinton noted that his wife was "still looking, I think, very beautiful at 60" and said she was in the presidential contest for the right reasons. "Not so much for the old rockers, but for the new ones. Not so much for today, but for tomorrow."
Newer rockers performing at the event included Bob Dylan's son Jakob, who performed with his band the Wallflowers. Hillary noted his presence when talking about her own presidential bid, saying that no matter how much her family connections had boosted her candidacy, she will ultimately win or lose on her own.
In pics: Hillary's birthday bash 
Blair signs his book deal - but can he actually write it?
AFTER weeks of haggling, Tony Blair finally has a deal to write his memoirs. But is he up to it? Friends are already questioning whether he has the temperament or the ability to buckle down and write a book.
The deal was struck by his US lawyer, Robert Barnett, with the giant publishing (continued below ad)
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(continued from above ad) group Random House, which will publish the book under its Hutchinson imprint in the UK. In America it will published by Sonny Mehta at Alfred A Knopf.
Random House UK is run by Gail Rebuck, whose husband Lord (Philip) Gould was Blair's private pollster during his decade as Prime Minister.
Rebuck will not say what she's paying, but publishing insiders believe it's £5m - a million less than the record fee secured by Barnett for Bill Clinton's memoirs. One observer said that if Blair had been able to write the book sooner - he's insisting on delivering it in 2009, nicely delayed beyond Gordon Brown's first general election - he might have earned more.
The deal raises two big questions: first, will he spill the beans on his difficult relationship with Brown - to which the answer is generally thought to be no, well, maybe a little... "It will be frank but not disloyal," say friends.
And, second, when and how will he write it? He is (relatively) busy in his role as Middle East peace envoy and he is now being mooted as the first permanent European President. Most important, Rebuck swears there will be no ghost-writer. And yet Blair did not keep a diary during his Downing Street years and, as one friend delicately put it: "He is a talker not a writer."
C4 launches investigation into nasty nanny's credentials
IS BRITISH television's toughest nanny - variously described as a 'child care guru' and 'maternity expert' - actually a fraud?
Channel 4 has launched an investigation into the qualifications of Claire Verity, who has made a name for herself on Bringing Up Baby advocating a 1950s-style approach to parenting. Her private clients have included Sting, Claudia Schiffer and Mick Jagger.
The inquiry comes after C4 received indications from various bodies who were understood to have awarded Verity her diplomas that they had no records of her attendance.
Verity's techniques include leaving babies to cry, limiting 'cuddling time' to 10 minutes a day, leaving them outside "to air" and letting them sleep alone in separate rooms.
Until now, C4 has stood by Verity while she has been accused of 'bullying' and even 'child abuse'. The Royal College of Paediatrics said her recommendation that babies sleep alone contradicted official guidance on reducing the risk of cot death.
Confirming the investigation, a C4 spokesman stressed that a maternity nurse does not need any formal qualification to practise.
Britney's new album 'Blackout' is certainly not a wash-out
IT MAY not help get her children back - a California judge ordered them to be removed to the custody of her ex-husband Kevin Federline - but Britney Spears is getting great advance reviews for her new album, Blackout, which is released in Britain on Monday and in the US the next day.
"The results are largely fantastic," writes Alexis Petredis in the Guardian. The single Gimme More is "futuristic and thrilling, while the sound adds a genuine sense of simmering fury to Piece of Me, which rails against Spears' various detractors".
Peter Paphides of the Times says the songs Perfect Lover and Toy Soldier are "two of the most strangely wonderful tunes to emerge on any record this year - exercises in sonic risk-taking that, until this point, have never hitched themselves to a Britney Spears record".
Blackout "is not only a very good album, it's her best work ever," writes Nekesa Mumbi Moody of the Associated Press. "It's a triumph, with not a bad song to be found on the 12 tracks."
However, despite the good reception, a group of Spears's friends are calling for the public to boycott the album until the troubled singer gets her life back together. The self-described "concerned friends and former associates" have started an online campaign on MySpace called "Be Proactive To Help".
The move mirrors that of Amy Winehouse's in-laws, who have also asked fans to stop buying the English jazz singer's albums until she gets herself off drugs and alcohol.
Billionaire businessman and combover king Donald Trump has lashed out at actress Angelina Jolie's credentials as a screen siren. "She's not a beauty, by any stretch of the imagination. She's OK... I do own Miss Universe, I do own Miss USA. I do understand beauty, and she's not."
Paul Potts, the opera-singing phone salesman who won Britain's Got Talent in June, is to appear on Oprah next month. The formerly debt-ridden 37-year-old has since made a chart-topping album, One Chance, and has now swapped his £35 Tesco suits for Armani and capped his teeth in a bid to win over America.
Singer Pete Doherty was yesterday handed a suspended jail sentence for driving offences and possessing drugs including crack cocaine and heroin. Doherty was sentenced to four months in jail, suspended for two years. The judge told him, "You have made strides and I hope you continue doing so."
Alistair McGowan has vowed to stop doing impressions after landing a role in a Hollywood movie. The TV comedian will play a Greek tour guide in Tom Hanks' rom-com, My Life in Ruins.
Prince Philip has had a secret heart condition for the past 15 years, it was revealed yesterday. The Duke of Edinburgh, 86, suffered a health-scare recently but has since resumed his full schedule.
Marketing men and expat Americans may be excited by Sunday's one-off NFL meeting between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Giants at Wembley Stadium - but what of the players themselves? The Dolphins' defensive end Jason Taylor - whose famous physique is replicated by a 26ft animatronic version in Trafalgar Square - said of the encounter: "It could be worse - I could be in Iraq". The Giants' running back Brandon Jacobs told a friend: "I'd much rather be in South Beach than fly all the way across the pond."
Giuliani laughs off mob death threats
REPUBLICAN Presidential runner Rudy Giuliani has laughed off the sensational news, carried on this page on Thursday, that in 1986 the bosses of New York's five Mafia families voted 3-2 not to have him killed.
"That was one vote I won, I guess," the former New York City mayor (pictured in 1987, above) said on the Mike Gallagher radio show.
Giuliani told Gallagher that mob plots "came with the territory" when he began prosecuting the Mafia in the 1980s. What embarrassed him, he told Gallagher, was that when he first became US attorney the mob put out a contract for $800,000 to kill him. But after five-and-a-half years in the job, when they put out another contract, it was for only $400,000.
"So I was like, my goodness, my value - if I were a company, my market cap would have been cut in half."
Details of the vote surfaced this week during the trial of Lindley DeVecchio, a former CIA man accused of leaking inside information to the Colombo crime family.
