The throng of Wal-Mart shoppers had been building all night, filling sidewalks and stretching across a vast parking lot at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, N.Y. At 3:30 a.m., the Nassau County police had to be called in for crowd control, and an officer with a bullhorn pleaded for order.
Tension grew as the 5 a.m. opening neared. Someone taped up a crude poster: “Blitz Line Starts Here.”
By 4:55, with no police officers in sight, the crowd of more than 2,000 had become a rabble, and could be held back no longer. Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault. Six to 10 workers inside tried to push back, but it was hopeless.
Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him. Others who had stood alongside Mr. Damour trying to hold the doors were also hurled back and run over, witnesses said.
Some workers who saw what was happening fought their way through the surge to get to Mr. Damour, but he had been fatally injured, the police said. Emergency workers tried to revive Mr. Damour, a temporary worker hired for the holiday season, at the scene, but he was pronounced dead an hour later at Franklin Hospital Medical Center in Valley Stream.
Four other people, including a 28-year-old woman who was described as eight months pregnant, were treated at the hospital for minor injuries.
Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, who is in charge of the investigation for the Nassau police, said the store lacked adequate security. He called the scene “utter chaos” and said the “crowd was out of control.” As for those who had run over the victim, criminal charges were possible, the lieutenant said. “I’ve heard other people call this an accident, but it is not,” he said. “Certainly it was a foreseeable act.”
But even with videos from the store’s surveillance cameras and the accounts of witnesses, Lieutenant Fleming and other officials acknowledged that it would be difficult to identify those responsible, let alone to prove culpability.
Some shoppers who had seen the stampede said they were shocked. One of them, Kimberly Cribbs of Queens, said the crowd had acted like “savages.” Shoppers behaved badly even as the store was being cleared, she recalled.
“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ ” Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.”
Wal-Mart security officials and the police cleared the store, swept up the shattered glass and locked the doors until 1 p.m., when it reopened to a steady stream of calmer shoppers who passed through the missing doors and battered door jambs, apparently unaware that anything had happened.
Ugly shopping scenes, a few involving injuries, have become commonplace during the bargain-hunting ritual known as Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. The nation’s largest retail group, the National Retail Federation, said it had never heard of a worker being killed on Black Friday.
Wal-Mart declined to provide details of the stampede, but said in a statement that it had tried to prepare by adding staff members. Still, it was unclear how many security workers it had at the Valley Stream store for the opening on Friday. The Green Acres Mall provides its own security to supplement the staffs of some large stores, but it did not appear that Wal-Mart was one of them.
A Wal-Mart spokesman, Dan Folgleman, called it a “tragic situation,” and said the victim had been hired from a temporary staffing agency and assigned to maintenance work. Wal-Mart, in a statement issued at its headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., said: “The safety and security of our customers and associates is our top priority. Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families at this tragic time."
Wal-Mart has successfully resisted unionization of its employees. New York State’s largest grocery union, Local 1500 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, called the death of Mr. Damour “avoidable” and demanded investigations.
“Where were the safety barriers?” said Bruce Both, the union president. “Where was security? How did store management not see dangerous numbers of customers barreling down on the store in such an unsafe manner? This is not just tragic; it rises to a level of blatant irresponsibility by Wal-Mart.”
While other Wal-Mart stores dot the suburbs around the city, the outlet at Valley Stream, less than two miles from New York City’s southeastern border, draws customers from Queens, Brooklyn and the densely populated suburbs of Nassau County. And it was not the only store in the Green Acres Mall that attracted large crowds.
Witnesses said the crowd outside Wal-Mart began gathering at 9 p.m. on Thursday. The night was not bitterly cold, and the early mood was relaxed. By the early morning hours, the throngs had grown, and officers of the Fifth Precinct of the Nassau County Police Department, who patrol Valley Stream, were out in force, checking on crowds at the mall.
Mr. Damour, who lived in Queens, went into the store sometime during the night to stock shelves and perform maintenance work.
On Friday night, Mr. Damour’s father, Ogera Charles, 67, said his son had spent Thursday evening having Thanksgiving dinner at a half sister’s house in Queens before going directly to work. Mr. Charles said his son, known as Jimmy, was raised in Queens by his mother and worked at various stores in the area after graduating from high school.
Mr. Charles said he had not seen his son in three months, and heard about his death about 7 a.m. Friday, when a friend of Mr. Damour’s called him at home. He arrived at Franklin Hospital Medical Center an hour later to identify the body. Mr. Charles said he was angry that no one from Wal-Mart had contacted him or had explained how his son had died. Maria Damour, Mr. Damour’s mother, was in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, but was on her way back to the United States, Mr. Charles said.
About the time that Mr. Damour was killed, a shopper at a Wal-Mart in Farmingdale, 15 miles east of Valley Stream, said she was trampled by a crowd of overeager customers, the Suffolk County police reported. The woman sustained a cut on her leg, but finished her shopping before filing the police report, an officer said.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/business/29walmart.html?_r=1
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Forces fight through siege hotels
Commandos are fighting room-by-room through two luxury hotels in Mumbai, nearly 24 hours after a series of devastating attacks across the city.
Indian officials said the Taj Mahal hotel had nearly been cleared of gunmen and trapped guests were being freed.
Security forces have freed some of the people trapped in two hotels
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh vowed to track down the attackers. At least 110 people have been killed.
Another 300 people were injured when gunmen targeted at least seven sites in Mumbai late on Wednesday.
A security official said one gunman remained in the Taj Mahal hotel and that the military was in control of the situation.
Commandos were continuing their sweep of another hotel, the Oberoi-Trident, where a number of guests were trapped in their rooms or being held hostage, said JK Dutt, of the National Security Guards.
A home ministry official said earlier there might be 20-30 people being held hostage at the Oberoi-Trident. Owners said some 200 people were trapped in the hotel.
India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh: "Whatever measures are necessary"
But Maj Gen Hooda said he did not think there were any hostages there, and 39 people had been rescued.
"When the search was carried out from room to room these were the people, they had locked themselves into the rooms," he said.
At a third stand-off, at a Jewish centre, seven hostages had been released, a security official said.
One militant reportedly phoned local TV from the centre offering to negotiate over the release of hostages.
Israel's embassy in New Delhi had earlier said at least 10 Israeli nationals were trapped or being held hostage in Mumbai.
In other developments:
· The Indian navy said it was searching ships off the west coast following reports that gunmen had arrived in Mumbai by boat
· The UK Foreign Office said a British national, Andreas Liveras had died; a German, a Japanese man and an Italian are also among the dead
· The Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba, which has been blamed for past bombings in India, denied any role in the attacks
In a televised address, Mr Singh said the government "will take whatever measures are necessary to ensure the safety and security of our citizens".
He said the attackers were based "outside the country" and that India would not tolerate "neighbours" who provide a haven to militants targeting it.
He described the attacks as "well-planned and well-orchestrated... intended to create a sense of panic by choosing high profile targets and indiscriminately killing foreigners".
Flames and black smoke billow from the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, Mumbai, on 27/11/08
India has complained in the past that attacks on its soil have been carried out by groups based in Pakistan, although relations between the two countries have improved in recent years and Pakistani leaders were swift to condemn the latest attacks.
Maj Gen Hooda said authorities had intercepted conversations between some of the attackers speaking in Punjabi, an apparent reference to Pakistan-based militants.
Earlier reports said the attackers spoke Hindi, indicating they were from India.
But Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, in New Delhi for talks, said no-one should be blamed until investigations were finished.
"Our experience in the past tells us that we should not jump to conclusions," he told Dawn television.
Amid international condemnation of the attacks, US President George W Bush telephoned Mr Singh to offer his condolences and support.
Claim of responsibility
In the attacks late on Wednesday night gunmen, using grenades and automatic weapons, targeted at least seven sites including the city's main commuter train station, a hospital and a restaurant popular with tourists.
Police say 14 police officers, 81 Indian nationals and six foreigners have been killed.
Four suspected terrorists have also been killed and nine arrested, they add.
At the height of the stand-off at the Taj Mahal hotel, gunfire and explosions could be heard from inside.
Earlier eyewitness reports from the hotels suggested the attackers were singling out British and American passport holders.
If the reports are true, our security correspondent Frank Gardner says it implies an Islamist motive - attacks inspired or co-ordinated by al-Qaeda.
A claim of responsibility has been made by a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen. Our correspondent says it could be a hoax or assumed name for another group.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7753177.stm
Indian officials said the Taj Mahal hotel had nearly been cleared of gunmen and trapped guests were being freed.
Security forces have freed some of the people trapped in two hotelsIndian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh vowed to track down the attackers. At least 110 people have been killed.
Another 300 people were injured when gunmen targeted at least seven sites in Mumbai late on Wednesday.
A security official said one gunman remained in the Taj Mahal hotel and that the military was in control of the situation.
Commandos were continuing their sweep of another hotel, the Oberoi-Trident, where a number of guests were trapped in their rooms or being held hostage, said JK Dutt, of the National Security Guards.
A home ministry official said earlier there might be 20-30 people being held hostage at the Oberoi-Trident. Owners said some 200 people were trapped in the hotel.
India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh: "Whatever measures are necessary"
But Maj Gen Hooda said he did not think there were any hostages there, and 39 people had been rescued.
"When the search was carried out from room to room these were the people, they had locked themselves into the rooms," he said.
At a third stand-off, at a Jewish centre, seven hostages had been released, a security official said.
One militant reportedly phoned local TV from the centre offering to negotiate over the release of hostages.
Israel's embassy in New Delhi had earlier said at least 10 Israeli nationals were trapped or being held hostage in Mumbai.
In other developments:
· The Indian navy said it was searching ships off the west coast following reports that gunmen had arrived in Mumbai by boat
· The UK Foreign Office said a British national, Andreas Liveras had died; a German, a Japanese man and an Italian are also among the dead
· The Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba, which has been blamed for past bombings in India, denied any role in the attacks
In a televised address, Mr Singh said the government "will take whatever measures are necessary to ensure the safety and security of our citizens".
He said the attackers were based "outside the country" and that India would not tolerate "neighbours" who provide a haven to militants targeting it.
He described the attacks as "well-planned and well-orchestrated... intended to create a sense of panic by choosing high profile targets and indiscriminately killing foreigners".
Flames and black smoke billow from the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, Mumbai, on 27/11/08
India has complained in the past that attacks on its soil have been carried out by groups based in Pakistan, although relations between the two countries have improved in recent years and Pakistani leaders were swift to condemn the latest attacks.
Maj Gen Hooda said authorities had intercepted conversations between some of the attackers speaking in Punjabi, an apparent reference to Pakistan-based militants.
Earlier reports said the attackers spoke Hindi, indicating they were from India.
But Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, in New Delhi for talks, said no-one should be blamed until investigations were finished.
"Our experience in the past tells us that we should not jump to conclusions," he told Dawn television.
Amid international condemnation of the attacks, US President George W Bush telephoned Mr Singh to offer his condolences and support.
Claim of responsibility
In the attacks late on Wednesday night gunmen, using grenades and automatic weapons, targeted at least seven sites including the city's main commuter train station, a hospital and a restaurant popular with tourists.
Police say 14 police officers, 81 Indian nationals and six foreigners have been killed.
Four suspected terrorists have also been killed and nine arrested, they add.
At the height of the stand-off at the Taj Mahal hotel, gunfire and explosions could be heard from inside.
Earlier eyewitness reports from the hotels suggested the attackers were singling out British and American passport holders.
If the reports are true, our security correspondent Frank Gardner says it implies an Islamist motive - attacks inspired or co-ordinated by al-Qaeda.
A claim of responsibility has been made by a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen. Our correspondent says it could be a hoax or assumed name for another group.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7753177.stm
101 killed as gunmen rampage in India city
MUMBAI, India – Teams of gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, a crowded train station and a Jewish center, killing at least 101 people and holding Westerners hostage in coordinated attacks on India's commercial center that were blamed on Muslim militants. Dozens of people were still trapped or held captive Thursday.
Police and gunmen were exchanging occasional gunfire at two luxury hotels and dozens of people were believed held hostage or trapped inside the besieged buildings. Pradeep Indulkar, a senior official at the Maharashtra state Home Ministry said 101 people were killed and 314 injured.
Among the dead were at least one Australian, Japanese and British national he said. Officials said eight militants had also been killed in the coordinated attacks on at least 10 sites that began around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Gunmen also seized the Mumbai headquarters of the ultra-orthodox Jewish outreach group Chabad Lubavitch. Indian commandos surrounded the building Thursday morning and witnesses said gunfire was heard from the building.
Police loudspeakers declared a curfew around Mumbai's landmark Taj Mahal hotel, and black-clad commandos ran into the building as fresh gunshots rang out from the area, apparently the beginning of an assault on gunmen who had taken hostages in the hotel.
Soldiers outside the hotel said forces were moving slowly, from room to room, looking for gunmen and traps. At noon, two bodies covered with white cloth were wheeled out of the entrance and put in ambulances.
A series of explosions had rocked the Taj Mahal just after midnight. Screams were heard and black smoke and flames billowed from the century-old edifice on Mumbai's waterfront. Firefighters sprayed water at the blaze and plucked people from balconies with extension ladders. By dawn, the fire was still burning.
At the nearby upscale Oberoi hotel, soldiers could be seen on the roof of neighboring buildings. A banner hung out of one window read "save us." No one could be seen inside the room from the road.
Officials at Bombay Hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a Japanese man had died there and nine Europeans had been admitted, three of them in critical condition with gunshots. All had come from the Taj Mahal, the officials said.
At least three top Indian police officers — including the chief of the anti-terror squad — were among those killed, said and A.N. Roy, a top police official.
The attackers specifically targeted Britons and Americans at the hotels and restaurant, witnesses said.
Alex Chamberlain, a British citizen who was dining at the Oberoi, told Sky News television that a gunman ushered 30 to 40 people from the restaurant into a stairway and, speaking in Hindi or Urdu, ordered everyone to put up their hands.
"They were talking about British and Americans specifically. There was an Italian guy, who, you know, they said: 'Where are you from?" and he said he's from Italy and they said 'fine' and they left him alone. And I thought: 'Fine, they're going to shoot me if they ask me anything — and thank God they didn't," he said.
Chamberlain said he managed to slip away as the patrons were forced to walk up stairs, but he thought much of the group was being held hostage.
The motive for the onslaught was not immediately clear, but Mumbai has frequently been targeted in terrorist attacks blamed on Islamic extremists, including a series of bombings in July 2006 that killed 187 people.
Mumbai, on the western coast of India overlooking the Arabian Sea, is home to splendid Victorian architecture built during the British Raj and is one of the most populated cities in the world with some 18 million crammed into shantytowns, high rises and crumbling mansions. The Taj Mahal hotel, filled with Oriental carpets, Indian artifacts and alabaster ceilings, overlooks the fabled Gateway of India that commemorated the visit of King George V and Queen Mary.
A spokesman for the Lubavitch movement in New York, Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, said attackers "stormed the Chabad house" in Mumbai.
"It seems that the terrorists commandeered a police vehicle which allowed them easy access to the area of the Chabad house and threw a grenade at a gas pump nearby," he said.
Around 10:30 a.m., three people were led from the building and escorted away by police: a woman, a child and an Indian cook, said one witness, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
He said he did not know the status of occupants of the house, which serves as an educational center and a synagogue.
Early Thursday, state Home Secretary Bipin Shrimali said four suspects had been killed in two incidents in Mumbai when they tried to flee in cars, and Roy said four more gunmen were killed at the Taj Mahal. State Home Minister R.R. Patil said nine more were arrested. They declined to provide any further details.
"We're going to catch them dead or alive," Patil told reporters. "An attack on Mumbai is an attack on the rest of the country."
An Indian media report said a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen had claimed responsibility for the attacks in e-mails to several media outlets. There was no way to verify that claim.
The state government ordered schools and colleges and the Bombay Stock Exchange closed Thursday.
Police reported hostages being held at the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, two of the best-known upscale destinations.
Gunmen who burst into the Taj "were targeting foreigners. They kept shouting: `Who has U.S. or U.K. passports?'" said Ashok Patel, a British citizen who fled from the hotel.
Authorities believed up to 15 foreigners were hostages at the Taj Mahal hotel, said Anees Ahmed, a top state official.
It was also unclear where the hostages were in the Taj Mahal, which is divided into an older wing that was in flames, and a more modern tower.
State Department spokesman Robert Wood said U.S. officials were not aware of any American casualties, but were still checking.
"We condemn these attacks and the loss of innocent life," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.
Blood smeared the grounds of the 19th century Chhatrapati Shivaji railroad station — a beautiful example of Victorian Gothic architecture — where attackers sprayed bullets into the crowded terminal.
Photos in the Mumbai Mirror newspaper showed a young gunman — dressed like a college student in cargo pants and a black T-shirt — walking casually through the station, an assault rifle hanging from one hand and two knapsacks slung over a shoulder.
Nasim Inam, a witness said four of the attackers gunned down scores of commuters. "They just fired randomly at people and then ran away. In seconds, people fell to the ground."
Other gunmen attacked Leopold's restaurant, a landmark popular with foreigners, and the police headquarters in southern Mumbai, the area where most of the attacks took place. The restaurant was riddled with bullet holes and there was blood on the floor and shoes left by fleeing customers. Gunmen also attacked Cama and Albless Hospital and G.T. Hospital, though it was not immediately clear if anyone was killed.
Early Thursday, several European lawmakers were among those who barricaded themselves inside the Taj, a century-old seaside hotel complex and one of the city's best-known destinations.
"I was in the main lobby and there was all of a sudden a lot of firing outside," said Sajjad Karim, part of a delegation of European lawmakers visiting Mumbai ahead of a European Union-India summit.
As he turned to get away, "all of a sudden another gunmen appeared in front of us, carrying machine gun-type weapons. And he just started firing at us ... I just turned and ran in the opposite direction," he told The Associated Press over his mobile phone.
Hours later, Karim remained holed up in a hotel restaurant, unsure if it was safe to come out.
India has been wracked by bomb attacks the past three years, which police blame on Muslim militants intent on destabilizing this largely Hindu country. Nearly 700 people have died.
Since May a militant group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen has taken credit for a string of blasts that killed more than 130 people. The most recent was in September, when explosions struck a park and crowded shopping areas in the capital, New Delhi, killing 21 people and wounding about 100.
Relations between Hindus, who make up more than 80 percent of India's 1 billion population, and Muslims, who make up about 14 percent, have sporadically erupted into bouts of sectarian violence since British-ruled India was split into independent India and Pakistan in 1947.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_india_shooting
Friday, November 21, 2008
The year 2025: Oil, dollar out; Russia, Islam in
WASHINGTON – Global warming could be a boon to Russia, a European country could be overrun by organized crime and the U.S. and its dollar could further decline in importance during the next two decades, says a U.S. intelligence report with predictions for the world in 2025.
The report, Global Trends 2025, is published every four years by the National Intelligence Council to give U.S. leaders insight into looming problems and opportunities.
The report says the warming earth will extend Russia and Canada's growing season and ease their access to northern oil fields, strengthening their economies. But Russia's potential emergence as a world power may be clouded by lagging investment in its energy sector, persistent crime and government corruption, the report says.
Analysts also warn that the same kind of organized crime plaguing Russia could eventually take over the government of an Eastern or Central European country. The report is silent on which one.
It also says countries in Africa and South Asia may find themselves unstable and ungoverned, as state regimes collapse or wither away under security problems and water and food shortages brought about by climate change and a population increase of 1.4 billion.
The potential for conflict will be greater in 2025 than it is now, as the world's population competes for declining and shifting food, water and energy resources.
Despite a more precarious world situation, the report also says al-Qaida's terrorist franchise could decay "sooner than people think." It cites its growing unpopularity in the Muslim world, where it kills most of its victims.
"The prospect that al-Qaida will be among the small number of groups able to transcend the generational timeline is not high, given its harsh ideology, unachievable strategic objectives and inability to become a mass movement," the report states.
The report forecasts a geopolitical rise in non-Arab Muslim states outside of the Middle East, including Turkey and Indonesia, and says Iran could also be a central player in a new world order if it sheds its theocracy.
The report, a year in the making, also suggests the world may complete its move away from its dependence on oil, and that the U.S. dollar, while remaining important, will decline to "first among equals" among other national currencies.
U.S. global power also will likely decline, as Americans' concerns about putting resources into solving domestic problems may cause the United States to pull resources from foreign and global problems.
___
On the Net:
Global Trends 2025: http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081121/ap_on_go_ot/intel_trends
The report, Global Trends 2025, is published every four years by the National Intelligence Council to give U.S. leaders insight into looming problems and opportunities.
The report says the warming earth will extend Russia and Canada's growing season and ease their access to northern oil fields, strengthening their economies. But Russia's potential emergence as a world power may be clouded by lagging investment in its energy sector, persistent crime and government corruption, the report says.
Analysts also warn that the same kind of organized crime plaguing Russia could eventually take over the government of an Eastern or Central European country. The report is silent on which one.
It also says countries in Africa and South Asia may find themselves unstable and ungoverned, as state regimes collapse or wither away under security problems and water and food shortages brought about by climate change and a population increase of 1.4 billion.
The potential for conflict will be greater in 2025 than it is now, as the world's population competes for declining and shifting food, water and energy resources.
Despite a more precarious world situation, the report also says al-Qaida's terrorist franchise could decay "sooner than people think." It cites its growing unpopularity in the Muslim world, where it kills most of its victims.
"The prospect that al-Qaida will be among the small number of groups able to transcend the generational timeline is not high, given its harsh ideology, unachievable strategic objectives and inability to become a mass movement," the report states.
The report forecasts a geopolitical rise in non-Arab Muslim states outside of the Middle East, including Turkey and Indonesia, and says Iran could also be a central player in a new world order if it sheds its theocracy.
The report, a year in the making, also suggests the world may complete its move away from its dependence on oil, and that the U.S. dollar, while remaining important, will decline to "first among equals" among other national currencies.
U.S. global power also will likely decline, as Americans' concerns about putting resources into solving domestic problems may cause the United States to pull resources from foreign and global problems.
___
On the Net:
Global Trends 2025: http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081121/ap_on_go_ot/intel_trends
Thursday, November 20, 2008
e=mc2: 103 years later, Einstein's proven right
PARIS (AFP) — It's taken more than a century, but Einstein's celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.
A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.
According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons.
The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?
The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons.
In other words, energy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905.
The e=mc2 formula shows that mass can be converted into energy, and energy can be converted into mass.
By showing how much energy would be released if a certain amount of mass were to be converted into energy, the equation has been used many times, most famously as the inspirational basis for building atomic weapons.
But resolving e=mc2 at the scale of sub-atomic particles -- in equations called quantum chromodynamics -- has been fiendishly difficult.
"Until now, this has been a hypothesis," France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said proudly in a press release.
"It has now been corroborated for the first time."
For those keen to know more: the computations involve "envisioning space and time as part of a four-dimensional crystal lattice, with discrete points spaced along columns and rows."
Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iYftcP0kR2mf032kK3WFVR9k_O2A
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Would-be buyer publicizes man’s immigrant status
Both lose in aborted home sale
Lorenzo Jimenez poses in front of a home he owns in Roswell. He lost his job and is now in danger of being deported.
Like all illegal immigrants, Lorenzo Jimenez knew the knock on the door from immigration agents could come at any time.
Still, he had enough faith in the American dream to buy a house, even though signing the papers meant raising the risk: He put his 2-year-old, American-born daughter’s name and Social Security number on the title.
And it worked, for a while. Jimenez and his family lived happily enough for several years alongside “regular” metro Atlanta citizens in Roswell.
Nicole Griffin’s mom lived a few doors away, and when Griffin visited, she said, her kids played with the Jimenez children. When Jimenez put his four-bedroom, two-bathroom home up for sale last spring, wanting more space, Griffin was immediately interested.
A contract was negotiated but when the sale appeared to go sour, Griffin raised a new issue: that she was a citizen and Jimenez wasn’t. She told local media, immigration officials, his boss and others that he was here illegally. She even put signs in the yard of the house exposing his residency status.
As a result, agents came knocking last month, and now Jimenez is fighting to keep from being deported. He also lost his job.
“I’m very sad and very worried,” said Jimenez, 32. “I can’t sleep because I’m thinking about my family. What’s going to happen? I don’t know.”
Griffin insists her intent was to buy the house, nothing else. The 28-year-old single mother of two maintains she was wronged first, so she acted to protect her interests. She has no regrets.
“At the end, do I feel bad the family got in trouble? No, not at all,” she said.
Those who enter the U.S. illegally often say they’re just striving for the same things that most American citizens want out of life — a good job, homeownership, maybe a chance to get a little bit ahead.
But the ambitions of citizens and noncitizens can collide and, as the painful entanglement between Jimenez and Griffin shows, both sides can wind up feeling like victims.
Daughter on title
Jimenez, who is Mexican, has been in the U.S. for about a decade. When he bought the house four years ago, the real estate agent handling the sale told him he could get a better interest rate using his daughter’s information on the closing documents than he could using the federal tax identification number he uses to pay income tax here.
Jimenez later filed papers to have his own name added to the title, and that’s how it stayed until Griffin spotted the “for sale” sign and $164,500 list price this spring.
With both sides enthusiastic about the sale, a deal was reached and the closing was set for May 15.
Griffin, a payroll clerk and first-time homebuyer, asked to postpone the closing until June 1 because she had problems locking in her interest rate. Jimenez agreed but asked that she move into the house as planned and pay rent until the closing.
Shortly after Griffin moved in, her attorney said there was a problem with the title on the house, namely that Jimenez’s young daughter’s name was on the title but her signature wasn’t on the sale documents.
Attorneys said some extra paperwork — establishing a conservatorship to watch out for the child’s interest, the first step in getting the title transferred solely to her father — would clear the title, and everyone agreed to postpone again.
Griffin didn’t pay the rent, however, claiming she was promised three months free since the delay was Jimenez’s fault. She has an e-mail from his real estate agent, Alina Carbonell, saying he’d made the offer.
Jimenez’s lawyer, Erik Meder, told her that offer was never firm and insisted she pay rent or vacate the house.
Locked in a letter war with Meder, Griffin escalated her actions. She contacted the FBI, the Roswell Police Department, local media, the state attorney general’s office and the governor’s office, among others. She asked her congressman, Rep. Tom Price, for help, saying she felt Jimenez and Meder had deceived her. Price’s office, in turn, contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Brendan Buck, a Price spokesman.
“I am a law-abiding American merely trying to purchase a home,” Griffin wrote in mid-July in a letter to American Homebuyers, a nonprofit that helps low- to moderate-income families buy homes. “An illegal family fraudulently obtained a mortgage using a 1 yr old SSN, and appear to have all the rights in this situation — How can this be when they shouldn’t even be in America?”
She said she contacted anyone she could think of who might be able to help the sale go through.
Jimenez said she started making his life a nightmare. He claims she caused cosmetic damage to the house and intentionally clogged the plumbing, both of which she denies.
Griffin also went after Carbonell, the real estate agent. She contacted the Georgia State Real Estate Commission to try to get her license revoked. Carbonell said the threat to her reputation and to her career caused her so much stress she had to take a leave of absence.
Griffin said she reported Carbonell because the agent knew Jimenez’s daughter’s name was on the title from the beginning but didn’t tell her right away. (Carbonell was not the real estate agent who originally advised Jimenez to use his daughter’s name.)
In September, Meder got a judge to order Griffin to pay retroactive rent and get out of the house within a week.
Griffin then went to the upscale Atlanta restaurant where Jimenez worked as a cook and told his boss he was undocumented, which Jimenez said resulted in his firing.
“It was my last resort,” Griffin said, “but once I realized my family had seven days to get out of a house that a family’s not even legally supposed to own, I did go to his employer and I did let his employer know.”
She also put bright red signs in the yard reading, “This house is owned by an illegal alien.” When Jimenez tore them down, she put up new ones.
Griffin said she wanted the neighbors to share her outrage over what was happening.
“I don’t feel bad for anything that happens to the Jimenez family at this point,” Griffin said recently, “because no one feels bad that all I tried to do was buy a house, and I ended up living back with my mother.”
Living in limbo
In early October, plainclothes ICE agents showed up at Jimenez’s apartment. They asked him about his residency status and his purchase of the house, then handcuffed him and took him away. He was released a few hours later and is due before a judge in January and could face eventual deportation.
His lawyers plan to apply to keep Jimenez in the country permanently, a process that could last several years. While it’s pending, he will be eligible for a work permit. But even if he gets one, Jimenez will be living in limbo. His application to stay could be rejected, which means he still could be ordered to leave the country.
Jimenez has taken the house off the market but doesn’t want to move his family back in amid the uncertainty, so they’re still in the apartment that was supposed to be a transitional stop until they bought a bigger place.
Griffin hasn’t tried to buy another home, in part because she can’t afford to, so she and her kids are still staying with her mother.
Down the street, the Jimenez house sits empty.
Source: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/northfulton/stories/2008/11/17/illegal_immigrant_house.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab
Lorenzo Jimenez poses in front of a home he owns in Roswell. He lost his job and is now in danger of being deported.
Like all illegal immigrants, Lorenzo Jimenez knew the knock on the door from immigration agents could come at any time.
Still, he had enough faith in the American dream to buy a house, even though signing the papers meant raising the risk: He put his 2-year-old, American-born daughter’s name and Social Security number on the title.
And it worked, for a while. Jimenez and his family lived happily enough for several years alongside “regular” metro Atlanta citizens in Roswell.
Nicole Griffin’s mom lived a few doors away, and when Griffin visited, she said, her kids played with the Jimenez children. When Jimenez put his four-bedroom, two-bathroom home up for sale last spring, wanting more space, Griffin was immediately interested.
A contract was negotiated but when the sale appeared to go sour, Griffin raised a new issue: that she was a citizen and Jimenez wasn’t. She told local media, immigration officials, his boss and others that he was here illegally. She even put signs in the yard of the house exposing his residency status.
As a result, agents came knocking last month, and now Jimenez is fighting to keep from being deported. He also lost his job.
“I’m very sad and very worried,” said Jimenez, 32. “I can’t sleep because I’m thinking about my family. What’s going to happen? I don’t know.”
Griffin insists her intent was to buy the house, nothing else. The 28-year-old single mother of two maintains she was wronged first, so she acted to protect her interests. She has no regrets.
“At the end, do I feel bad the family got in trouble? No, not at all,” she said.
Those who enter the U.S. illegally often say they’re just striving for the same things that most American citizens want out of life — a good job, homeownership, maybe a chance to get a little bit ahead.
But the ambitions of citizens and noncitizens can collide and, as the painful entanglement between Jimenez and Griffin shows, both sides can wind up feeling like victims.
Daughter on title
Jimenez, who is Mexican, has been in the U.S. for about a decade. When he bought the house four years ago, the real estate agent handling the sale told him he could get a better interest rate using his daughter’s information on the closing documents than he could using the federal tax identification number he uses to pay income tax here.
Jimenez later filed papers to have his own name added to the title, and that’s how it stayed until Griffin spotted the “for sale” sign and $164,500 list price this spring.
With both sides enthusiastic about the sale, a deal was reached and the closing was set for May 15.
Griffin, a payroll clerk and first-time homebuyer, asked to postpone the closing until June 1 because she had problems locking in her interest rate. Jimenez agreed but asked that she move into the house as planned and pay rent until the closing.
Shortly after Griffin moved in, her attorney said there was a problem with the title on the house, namely that Jimenez’s young daughter’s name was on the title but her signature wasn’t on the sale documents.
Attorneys said some extra paperwork — establishing a conservatorship to watch out for the child’s interest, the first step in getting the title transferred solely to her father — would clear the title, and everyone agreed to postpone again.
Griffin didn’t pay the rent, however, claiming she was promised three months free since the delay was Jimenez’s fault. She has an e-mail from his real estate agent, Alina Carbonell, saying he’d made the offer.
Jimenez’s lawyer, Erik Meder, told her that offer was never firm and insisted she pay rent or vacate the house.
Locked in a letter war with Meder, Griffin escalated her actions. She contacted the FBI, the Roswell Police Department, local media, the state attorney general’s office and the governor’s office, among others. She asked her congressman, Rep. Tom Price, for help, saying she felt Jimenez and Meder had deceived her. Price’s office, in turn, contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Brendan Buck, a Price spokesman.
“I am a law-abiding American merely trying to purchase a home,” Griffin wrote in mid-July in a letter to American Homebuyers, a nonprofit that helps low- to moderate-income families buy homes. “An illegal family fraudulently obtained a mortgage using a 1 yr old SSN, and appear to have all the rights in this situation — How can this be when they shouldn’t even be in America?”
She said she contacted anyone she could think of who might be able to help the sale go through.
Jimenez said she started making his life a nightmare. He claims she caused cosmetic damage to the house and intentionally clogged the plumbing, both of which she denies.
Griffin also went after Carbonell, the real estate agent. She contacted the Georgia State Real Estate Commission to try to get her license revoked. Carbonell said the threat to her reputation and to her career caused her so much stress she had to take a leave of absence.
Griffin said she reported Carbonell because the agent knew Jimenez’s daughter’s name was on the title from the beginning but didn’t tell her right away. (Carbonell was not the real estate agent who originally advised Jimenez to use his daughter’s name.)
In September, Meder got a judge to order Griffin to pay retroactive rent and get out of the house within a week.
Griffin then went to the upscale Atlanta restaurant where Jimenez worked as a cook and told his boss he was undocumented, which Jimenez said resulted in his firing.
“It was my last resort,” Griffin said, “but once I realized my family had seven days to get out of a house that a family’s not even legally supposed to own, I did go to his employer and I did let his employer know.”
She also put bright red signs in the yard reading, “This house is owned by an illegal alien.” When Jimenez tore them down, she put up new ones.
Griffin said she wanted the neighbors to share her outrage over what was happening.
“I don’t feel bad for anything that happens to the Jimenez family at this point,” Griffin said recently, “because no one feels bad that all I tried to do was buy a house, and I ended up living back with my mother.”
Living in limbo
In early October, plainclothes ICE agents showed up at Jimenez’s apartment. They asked him about his residency status and his purchase of the house, then handcuffed him and took him away. He was released a few hours later and is due before a judge in January and could face eventual deportation.
His lawyers plan to apply to keep Jimenez in the country permanently, a process that could last several years. While it’s pending, he will be eligible for a work permit. But even if he gets one, Jimenez will be living in limbo. His application to stay could be rejected, which means he still could be ordered to leave the country.
Jimenez has taken the house off the market but doesn’t want to move his family back in amid the uncertainty, so they’re still in the apartment that was supposed to be a transitional stop until they bought a bigger place.
Griffin hasn’t tried to buy another home, in part because she can’t afford to, so she and her kids are still staying with her mother.
Down the street, the Jimenez house sits empty.
Source: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/northfulton/stories/2008/11/17/illegal_immigrant_house.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Effectiveness Of Bone Marrow Transplant In Suppressing HIV Creates Hope For Gene-Therapy Strategies In Treating Virus, Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal on Friday examined the case of an HIV-positive person who underwent a bone marrow transplant to treat leukemia and who has had undetectable HIV viral loads for almost two years. The procedure -- performed by German hematologist Gero Hutter of Berlin's Charite Medical University on a 42-year-old American living in the city -- "is stirring new hope that gene-therapy strategies on the far edges of AIDS research might someday cure the disease," the Journal reports.
For the procedure, Hutter, who is not an HIV/AIDS specialist, replaced the patient's bone marrow cells with those from a donor with a naturally occurring gene mutation that provides immunity to almost all strains of HIV by preventing the CCR5 molecule from appearing on the surface of cells. According to the Journal, about 1% of Europeans, and even more in northern Europe, inherit the CCR5 mutation from both parents, and people of African, Asian and South American descent almost never carry it. Of 80 compatible blood donors living in Germany, Hutter's colleague Daniel Nowak found one who had inherited the mutation from both parents on the 61st sample he tested. According to the Journal, because immune-system cells are created in bone marrow, "transplanting mutant bone-marrow cells would render the patient immune to HIV into perpetuity, at least in theory."
The Journal reports that prior to the transplant, Hutter administered a standard regimen of powerful drugs and radiation to kill the patient's bone marrow cells and many immune-system cells, which may have helped the treatment succeed because the procedure killed many cells that harbor HIV. Transplant specialists then ordered the patient to stop taking his antiretroviral drugs when they transfused the donor cells because they were concerned that the drugs might undermine the cells' ability to survive in their new host. Although the plan was to resume the antiretroviral regimen once HIV re-emerged in the patient's blood, more than 600 days later, standard tests have not detected HIV in his blood, or in brain and rectal tissues where the virus often hides.
David Baltimore, who won a Nobel prize for his research on tumor viruses, said the case is "a very good sign" and a virtual "proof of principle" for gene-therapy approaches, but he cautioned that it could be a fluke. However, researchers who recently have reviewed the case believe that although it is likely that some HIV remains in the patient, it cannot "ignite a raging infection, most likely because its target cells are invulnerable mutants." According to the Journal, the researchers agreed that the patient is "functionally cured." Nevertheless, research has shown that blocking CCR5 can have fatal consequences, and bone-marrow transplants, which are given only to later-stage cancer patients, can result in death among 30% of patients. The Journal reports that although "scientists are drawing up research protocols to try this approach on other leukemia and lymphoma patients, they know it will never be widely used to treat AIDS because of the mortality risk."
Although re-engineering a patient's own cells through gene therapy could be a safer alternative, such strategies face "daunting technical challenges," the Journal reports. However, several research groups are testing different approach to treating HIV/AIDS, "[e]xpecting that gene therapy will eventually play a major role in medicine" (Schoofs, Wall Street Journal, 11/7).
Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/128681.php
For the procedure, Hutter, who is not an HIV/AIDS specialist, replaced the patient's bone marrow cells with those from a donor with a naturally occurring gene mutation that provides immunity to almost all strains of HIV by preventing the CCR5 molecule from appearing on the surface of cells. According to the Journal, about 1% of Europeans, and even more in northern Europe, inherit the CCR5 mutation from both parents, and people of African, Asian and South American descent almost never carry it. Of 80 compatible blood donors living in Germany, Hutter's colleague Daniel Nowak found one who had inherited the mutation from both parents on the 61st sample he tested. According to the Journal, because immune-system cells are created in bone marrow, "transplanting mutant bone-marrow cells would render the patient immune to HIV into perpetuity, at least in theory."
The Journal reports that prior to the transplant, Hutter administered a standard regimen of powerful drugs and radiation to kill the patient's bone marrow cells and many immune-system cells, which may have helped the treatment succeed because the procedure killed many cells that harbor HIV. Transplant specialists then ordered the patient to stop taking his antiretroviral drugs when they transfused the donor cells because they were concerned that the drugs might undermine the cells' ability to survive in their new host. Although the plan was to resume the antiretroviral regimen once HIV re-emerged in the patient's blood, more than 600 days later, standard tests have not detected HIV in his blood, or in brain and rectal tissues where the virus often hides.
David Baltimore, who won a Nobel prize for his research on tumor viruses, said the case is "a very good sign" and a virtual "proof of principle" for gene-therapy approaches, but he cautioned that it could be a fluke. However, researchers who recently have reviewed the case believe that although it is likely that some HIV remains in the patient, it cannot "ignite a raging infection, most likely because its target cells are invulnerable mutants." According to the Journal, the researchers agreed that the patient is "functionally cured." Nevertheless, research has shown that blocking CCR5 can have fatal consequences, and bone-marrow transplants, which are given only to later-stage cancer patients, can result in death among 30% of patients. The Journal reports that although "scientists are drawing up research protocols to try this approach on other leukemia and lymphoma patients, they know it will never be widely used to treat AIDS because of the mortality risk."
Although re-engineering a patient's own cells through gene therapy could be a safer alternative, such strategies face "daunting technical challenges," the Journal reports. However, several research groups are testing different approach to treating HIV/AIDS, "[e]xpecting that gene therapy will eventually play a major role in medicine" (Schoofs, Wall Street Journal, 11/7).
Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/128681.php
Friday, November 7, 2008
Craigslist to Crack Down on Prostitution Ads
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Under the watchful eye of law enforcement in 40 states, Craigslist pledged Thursday to crack down on ads for prostitution on its Web sites.
As part of Craigslist's agreement with attorneys general around the country, anyone who posts an "erotic services" ad will be required to provide a working phone number and pay a fee with a valid credit card. The Web site will provide that information to law enforcement if subpoenaed.
Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist's CEO, said the deal will allow legitimate escort services to continue advertising, while providing a strong disincentive to companies that are conducting illegal business.
"We don't view it as a penalty, we view it as raising the accountability," he said. "A legitimate business should have no problem with that. They should have no problem providing a phone number or credit card credentials."
Craigslist filed lawsuits this week against 14 software and Internet companies that help people who post erotic service ads to circumvent the Web site's defenses against inappropriate content and illegal activity.
Craigslist, which posts 30 million ads every month for everything from apartment rentals to jobs in hundreds of cities, will also begin using new search technology in an effort to help authorities find missing children and victims of human trafficking.
Police across the country have been arresting people for using Web sites like Craigslist to advertise the sexual services of women and children.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who brokered the agreement, said his office contacted Craigslist after receiving several complaints from users late in 2007 about photographs depicting nudity on the site. He said Craigslist cooperated fully and there was never a need to threaten legal action against the company.
"The dark side of the Internet must be stopped from eclipsing its immense potential for good," Blumenthal said.
He added: "I am fully convinced that Craigslist wants to stop this activity as much as we do."
Buckmaster said the agreement does not cover Craigslist's personal ads, where prostitutes have been found advertising for "dates." But he said the San Francisco-based company has been working with authorities on that issue and on cutting down on the sale of stolen merchandise on its sites.
"We are experimenting with telephone verification in those sections," he said. "We don't have any plans to use credit card verification in that section currently. But this partnership is going to be active in that area as well, anywhere where crime does or could occur."
The agreement was joined by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
"The criminals engaged in the sexual trafficking of children no longer parade them on the streets of America's cities," said the center's chief executive, Ernie Allen. "Today, they market them via the Internet."
The states that signed the agreement are Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam also joined.
Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TEC_CRAIGSLIST_PROSTITUTION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
As part of Craigslist's agreement with attorneys general around the country, anyone who posts an "erotic services" ad will be required to provide a working phone number and pay a fee with a valid credit card. The Web site will provide that information to law enforcement if subpoenaed.
Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist's CEO, said the deal will allow legitimate escort services to continue advertising, while providing a strong disincentive to companies that are conducting illegal business.
"We don't view it as a penalty, we view it as raising the accountability," he said. "A legitimate business should have no problem with that. They should have no problem providing a phone number or credit card credentials."
Craigslist filed lawsuits this week against 14 software and Internet companies that help people who post erotic service ads to circumvent the Web site's defenses against inappropriate content and illegal activity.
Craigslist, which posts 30 million ads every month for everything from apartment rentals to jobs in hundreds of cities, will also begin using new search technology in an effort to help authorities find missing children and victims of human trafficking.
Police across the country have been arresting people for using Web sites like Craigslist to advertise the sexual services of women and children.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who brokered the agreement, said his office contacted Craigslist after receiving several complaints from users late in 2007 about photographs depicting nudity on the site. He said Craigslist cooperated fully and there was never a need to threaten legal action against the company.
"The dark side of the Internet must be stopped from eclipsing its immense potential for good," Blumenthal said.
He added: "I am fully convinced that Craigslist wants to stop this activity as much as we do."
Buckmaster said the agreement does not cover Craigslist's personal ads, where prostitutes have been found advertising for "dates." But he said the San Francisco-based company has been working with authorities on that issue and on cutting down on the sale of stolen merchandise on its sites.
"We are experimenting with telephone verification in those sections," he said. "We don't have any plans to use credit card verification in that section currently. But this partnership is going to be active in that area as well, anywhere where crime does or could occur."
The agreement was joined by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
"The criminals engaged in the sexual trafficking of children no longer parade them on the streets of America's cities," said the center's chief executive, Ernie Allen. "Today, they market them via the Internet."
The states that signed the agreement are Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam also joined.
Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TEC_CRAIGSLIST_PROSTITUTION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The government is listening to our phone sex
Soldiers in Iraq--men and women who have honorably taken oaths to defend the Constitution--and their loved ones may have had their own rights violated when Bush's terrorist surveillance program, which allows the intelligence community to monitor phone calls between the United States and overseas without a court order (if someone on the call is actually a terror suspect), was abused. ABC reports on the investigation into allegations that U.S. intelligence officers shockingly intercepted, recorded, and shared hundreds of phone sex calls between U.S. citizens:
"Adrienne Kinne, a former U.S. Army Reserves Arab linguist, told ABC News the NSA [National Security Agency] was listening to the phone calls of U.S. military officers, journalists and aid workers overseas who were talking about 'personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism.'"
In fact, what amused the workers most was phone sex, which was common between partners separated by the war.
"[David Murfee] Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of "cuts" that were available on each operator's computer.
'Hey, check this out,' Faulk says he would be told, 'there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, 'Wow, this was crazy',' Faulk told ABC News."
Cute, right?
The Patriot Act has always been controversial because its critics have maintained that giving the executive branch of the government seemingly limitless surveillance powers might open up a Pandora's Box of abuses. The allegations currently being brought forth against the National Security Agency seem to confirm that. Personally, I don't know about you guys but the whole move seemed to have an awfully menacing Big Brother tone at the time, and I sure as heck don't feel any better about it now.
How would you feel if you're making all these personal sacrifices and the country you were working hard to defend was listening in on your most intimate phone calls? I mean, WTF is going on?
Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/sex/the-government-is-listening-to-our-phone-sex-293420/
"Adrienne Kinne, a former U.S. Army Reserves Arab linguist, told ABC News the NSA [National Security Agency] was listening to the phone calls of U.S. military officers, journalists and aid workers overseas who were talking about 'personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism.'"
In fact, what amused the workers most was phone sex, which was common between partners separated by the war.
"[David Murfee] Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of "cuts" that were available on each operator's computer.
'Hey, check this out,' Faulk says he would be told, 'there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, 'Wow, this was crazy',' Faulk told ABC News."
Cute, right?
The Patriot Act has always been controversial because its critics have maintained that giving the executive branch of the government seemingly limitless surveillance powers might open up a Pandora's Box of abuses. The allegations currently being brought forth against the National Security Agency seem to confirm that. Personally, I don't know about you guys but the whole move seemed to have an awfully menacing Big Brother tone at the time, and I sure as heck don't feel any better about it now.
How would you feel if you're making all these personal sacrifices and the country you were working hard to defend was listening in on your most intimate phone calls? I mean, WTF is going on?
Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/sex/the-government-is-listening-to-our-phone-sex-293420/
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Bottled water has contaminants too, study finds
Tests on leading brands of bottled water turned up a variety of contaminants often found in tap water, according to a study released Wednesday by an environmental advocacy group.
The findings challenge the popular impression — and marketing pitch — that bottled water is purer than tap water, the researchers say.
However, all the brands met federal health standards for drinking water. Two violated a California state standard, the study said.
An industry group branded the findings "alarmist." Joe Doss, president of the International Bottled Water Association, said the study is based on the faulty premise that a contaminant is a health concern "even if it does not exceed the established regulatory limit or no standard has been set."
The study's lab tests on 10 brands of bottled water detected 38 chemicals including bacteria, caffeine, the pain reliever acetaminophen, fertilizer, solvents, plastic-making chemicals and the radioactive element strontium. Though some probably came from tap water that some companies use for their bottled water, other contaminants probably leached from plastic bottles, the researchers said.
"In some cases, it appears bottled water is no less polluted than tap water and, at 1,900 times the cost, consumers should expect better," said Jane Houlihan, an environmental engineer who co-authored the study.
The two-year study was done by the Washington-based Environmental Working Group, an organization founded by scientists that advocates stricter regulation. It found the contaminants in bottled water purchased in nine states and Washington, D.C.
Researchers tested one batch for each of 10 brands. Eight did not have contaminants high enough to warrant further testing. But two brands did, so more tests were done and those revealed chlorine byproducts above California's standard, the group reported. The researchers identified those two brands as Sam's Choice sold by Wal-Mart and Acadia of Giant Food supermarkets.
In the Wal-Mart and Giant Food bottled water, the highest concentration of chlorine byproducts, known as trihalomethanes, was over 35 parts per billion. California's limit is 10 parts per billion or less, and the industry's International Bottled Water Association makes 10 its voluntary guideline. The federal limit is 80.
Wal-Mart said its own studies did not turn up illegal levels of contaminants. Giant Food officials released a statement asserting that Acadia meets all regulatory standards. Acadia is sold in the mid-Atlantic states, so it isn't held to California's standard. In most places, bottled water must meet roughly the same federal standards as tap water.
The researchers also said the Wal-Mart brand was five times California's limit for one particular chlorine byproduct, bromodichloromethane. The environmental group wants Wal-Mart to label its bottles in California with a warning because the chlorine-based contaminants have been linked with cancer. It has filed a notice of intent to sue.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Shannon Frederick said the company was "puzzled" by the findings because testing by suppliers and another lab had detected no "reportable amounts" of such contaminants. She said Wal-Mart would investigate further but defended the quality of its bottled water.
The researchers recommend that people worried about water contaminants drink tap water with a carbon filter.
Source: http://green.yahoo.com/news/ap/20081015/ap_on_sc/impure_bottled_water.html
The findings challenge the popular impression — and marketing pitch — that bottled water is purer than tap water, the researchers say.
However, all the brands met federal health standards for drinking water. Two violated a California state standard, the study said.
An industry group branded the findings "alarmist." Joe Doss, president of the International Bottled Water Association, said the study is based on the faulty premise that a contaminant is a health concern "even if it does not exceed the established regulatory limit or no standard has been set."
The study's lab tests on 10 brands of bottled water detected 38 chemicals including bacteria, caffeine, the pain reliever acetaminophen, fertilizer, solvents, plastic-making chemicals and the radioactive element strontium. Though some probably came from tap water that some companies use for their bottled water, other contaminants probably leached from plastic bottles, the researchers said.
"In some cases, it appears bottled water is no less polluted than tap water and, at 1,900 times the cost, consumers should expect better," said Jane Houlihan, an environmental engineer who co-authored the study.
The two-year study was done by the Washington-based Environmental Working Group, an organization founded by scientists that advocates stricter regulation. It found the contaminants in bottled water purchased in nine states and Washington, D.C.
Researchers tested one batch for each of 10 brands. Eight did not have contaminants high enough to warrant further testing. But two brands did, so more tests were done and those revealed chlorine byproducts above California's standard, the group reported. The researchers identified those two brands as Sam's Choice sold by Wal-Mart and Acadia of Giant Food supermarkets.
In the Wal-Mart and Giant Food bottled water, the highest concentration of chlorine byproducts, known as trihalomethanes, was over 35 parts per billion. California's limit is 10 parts per billion or less, and the industry's International Bottled Water Association makes 10 its voluntary guideline. The federal limit is 80.
Wal-Mart said its own studies did not turn up illegal levels of contaminants. Giant Food officials released a statement asserting that Acadia meets all regulatory standards. Acadia is sold in the mid-Atlantic states, so it isn't held to California's standard. In most places, bottled water must meet roughly the same federal standards as tap water.
The researchers also said the Wal-Mart brand was five times California's limit for one particular chlorine byproduct, bromodichloromethane. The environmental group wants Wal-Mart to label its bottles in California with a warning because the chlorine-based contaminants have been linked with cancer. It has filed a notice of intent to sue.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Shannon Frederick said the company was "puzzled" by the findings because testing by suppliers and another lab had detected no "reportable amounts" of such contaminants. She said Wal-Mart would investigate further but defended the quality of its bottled water.
The researchers recommend that people worried about water contaminants drink tap water with a carbon filter.
Source: http://green.yahoo.com/news/ap/20081015/ap_on_sc/impure_bottled_water.html
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Repossession 'is mental threat'
The fallout from the economic downturn could be a significant threat to mental health, according to a survey.
House repossession was rated as the event most likely to cause mental health problems, ahead of redundancy, or finding out about infertility.
Charity Rethink called for action to prevent a "mental health disaster".
The survey was published as a UN report showed England spends more of its health budget on mental health care than any other European country.
Rethink's director of public affairs Paul Corry said: "I wouldn't be surprised if we see a rise in the number of people going to their doctor because of mental health problems in the coming months.
"Even for people lucky enough to hang on to their home, the stress and worry of arrears building up can be enough to harm your mental health - this survey shows it worries millions of us."
He said that people who already had mental health problems were likely to be treated less well by their lenders, and did not have a "safety net" to protect them.
He said: "There's an urgent need to do something to prevent a mental health disaster."
Another mental health charity agrees with that assessment - Mind, which is launching its own £16m initiative to link exercise to better mental health, and to reduce stigma, released its own report earlier this year warning about the dangers of debt.
High ranking
The survey of 2,000 people was released to mark World Mental Health day.
The World Health Organisation report contained a far cheerier message about the services in place to tackle the UK's mental health problems.
It compared spending on mental health in European countries, and found England and Wales spent 13.8% of its health budget on mental health - the highest level in Europe.
Scotland spent 9.8%, according to the report, and in the UK as a whole, the numbers of psychiatrists per 100,000 people was found to be above the European average.
More detained
Health Secretary Alan Johnson said he was "delighted" by the report, citing a huge rise in investment as the reason for the UK's present position, and said that the focus was now on community-based teams to treat patients.
"The pernicious concept of the asylum is over, but our commitment to improving services further is undiminished," he said.
However, a report in this week British Medical Journal suggested that, over the past 10 years, the use of inpatient mental hospitals has increased, rather than lessened.
Dr Patrick Keown, a Newcastle-based psychiatrist, calculated that the number of patients "sectioned" under the Mental Health Act increased by a fifth between 1996 and 2006.
At the same time, the number of psychiatric beds in England fell.
A spokesman for the charity Sane said: "Improvements in community care are supposed to reduce the need for compulsory admission when someone reaches crisis point - yet precisely the opposite appears to have happened.
"We urgently need to find out why this is the case."
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7662119.stm
House repossession was rated as the event most likely to cause mental health problems, ahead of redundancy, or finding out about infertility.
Charity Rethink called for action to prevent a "mental health disaster".
The survey was published as a UN report showed England spends more of its health budget on mental health care than any other European country.
Rethink's director of public affairs Paul Corry said: "I wouldn't be surprised if we see a rise in the number of people going to their doctor because of mental health problems in the coming months.
"Even for people lucky enough to hang on to their home, the stress and worry of arrears building up can be enough to harm your mental health - this survey shows it worries millions of us."
He said that people who already had mental health problems were likely to be treated less well by their lenders, and did not have a "safety net" to protect them.
He said: "There's an urgent need to do something to prevent a mental health disaster."
Another mental health charity agrees with that assessment - Mind, which is launching its own £16m initiative to link exercise to better mental health, and to reduce stigma, released its own report earlier this year warning about the dangers of debt.
High ranking
The survey of 2,000 people was released to mark World Mental Health day.
The World Health Organisation report contained a far cheerier message about the services in place to tackle the UK's mental health problems.
It compared spending on mental health in European countries, and found England and Wales spent 13.8% of its health budget on mental health - the highest level in Europe.
Scotland spent 9.8%, according to the report, and in the UK as a whole, the numbers of psychiatrists per 100,000 people was found to be above the European average.
More detained
Health Secretary Alan Johnson said he was "delighted" by the report, citing a huge rise in investment as the reason for the UK's present position, and said that the focus was now on community-based teams to treat patients.
"The pernicious concept of the asylum is over, but our commitment to improving services further is undiminished," he said.
However, a report in this week British Medical Journal suggested that, over the past 10 years, the use of inpatient mental hospitals has increased, rather than lessened.
Dr Patrick Keown, a Newcastle-based psychiatrist, calculated that the number of patients "sectioned" under the Mental Health Act increased by a fifth between 1996 and 2006.
At the same time, the number of psychiatric beds in England fell.
A spokesman for the charity Sane said: "Improvements in community care are supposed to reduce the need for compulsory admission when someone reaches crisis point - yet precisely the opposite appears to have happened.
"We urgently need to find out why this is the case."
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7662119.stm
Friday, October 10, 2008
Foreclosure Victims Often Leave a Lot Behind
Personal Belongings Collected, Auctioned Off
More then 300,000 foreclosure notices of some type went out in August alone, according to a report by RealtyTrac. Hundreds of thousands more have gone out since then.
The numbers can be numbing to many, but not to John Plocher.
Plocher owns WSR Preservation, a California property maintenance company that specializes in cleaning up foreclosed homes. It is Plocher's job to gather whatever is left behind after a family is forced to leave one of those homes, to root through the debris of a broken life, where the humanity behind the numbers is inescapable.
"People always say that the first thing they'd take in any disaster is photographs," Plocher told "Good Morning America." "We find pink slips. We find birth certificates. ... We've found dozens of things. One of the things we found more recently was an urn with somebody's remains that had been cremated and they left the urn at the house.
"This is disaster on a grand scale," he said. "This is not something we are excited about doing."
Although people usually know months in advance that they are headed towards foreclosure, Plocher said they often leave in a hurry. In one house he entered, there was still food in the refrigerator.
"These people didn't take much," he said. "They took what they needed. Perhaps wallets and purses, shirts on their back, literally, and they're gone. I guess if you're losing everything, what's the point of cleaning up, right?
"I think people that have gotten to this point are depressed," he added. "They've lost their home and they're probably not thinking straight. They've lost everything, and a lot of good stuff is still here, so they must be in great despair."
WSR employee Arik Jensen is still stunned by what he finds.
"I mean, I have to pick up children's toys. I pick up dolls and I wonder if this was a little girl's best friend," he said. "I wonder what this was to somebody else, and now it's going in the dumpster."
If the property does not end up in a dumpster, it is sold off at auctions or requisitioned by the bank that foreclosed on the home.
"I wonder how I would feel," Jensen said. "What I would leave behind, and what I would tell my kids before I leave."
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=5998297&page=1
More then 300,000 foreclosure notices of some type went out in August alone, according to a report by RealtyTrac. Hundreds of thousands more have gone out since then.
The numbers can be numbing to many, but not to John Plocher.
Plocher owns WSR Preservation, a California property maintenance company that specializes in cleaning up foreclosed homes. It is Plocher's job to gather whatever is left behind after a family is forced to leave one of those homes, to root through the debris of a broken life, where the humanity behind the numbers is inescapable.
"People always say that the first thing they'd take in any disaster is photographs," Plocher told "Good Morning America." "We find pink slips. We find birth certificates. ... We've found dozens of things. One of the things we found more recently was an urn with somebody's remains that had been cremated and they left the urn at the house.
"This is disaster on a grand scale," he said. "This is not something we are excited about doing."
Although people usually know months in advance that they are headed towards foreclosure, Plocher said they often leave in a hurry. In one house he entered, there was still food in the refrigerator.
"These people didn't take much," he said. "They took what they needed. Perhaps wallets and purses, shirts on their back, literally, and they're gone. I guess if you're losing everything, what's the point of cleaning up, right?
"I think people that have gotten to this point are depressed," he added. "They've lost their home and they're probably not thinking straight. They've lost everything, and a lot of good stuff is still here, so they must be in great despair."
WSR employee Arik Jensen is still stunned by what he finds.
"I mean, I have to pick up children's toys. I pick up dolls and I wonder if this was a little girl's best friend," he said. "I wonder what this was to somebody else, and now it's going in the dumpster."
If the property does not end up in a dumpster, it is sold off at auctions or requisitioned by the bank that foreclosed on the home.
"I wonder how I would feel," Jensen said. "What I would leave behind, and what I would tell my kids before I leave."
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=5998297&page=1
Friday, October 3, 2008
Fannie Mae forgives loan for woman who shot herself
Fannie Mae said it will set aside the loan of a woman who shot herself as sheriff's deputies tried to evict her from her foreclosed home.
Addie Polk, 90, of Akron, Ohio, became a symbol of the nation's home mortgage crisis when she was hospitalized after shooting herself at least twice in the upper body Wednesday afternoon.
On Friday, Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith said the mortgage association had decided to halt action against Polk and sign the property "outright" to her.
"We're going to forgive whatever outstanding balance she had on the loan and give her the house," Faith said. "Given the circumstances, we think it's appropriate."
Residents of Akron have rallied behind Polk, who is being treated at Akron General Medical Center. She was listed in critical condition Friday afternoon, according to Akron City Council President Marco Sommerville.
U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, mentioned Polk on the House floor Friday during debate over the latest economic rescue proposal.
"This bill does nothing for the Addie Polks of the world," Kucinich said after telling her story. "This bill fails to address the fact that millions of homeowners are facing foreclosure, are facing the loss of their home. This bill will take care of Wall Street, and the market may go up for a few days, but democracy is going downhill."
Neighbor Robert Dillon, 62, used a ladder to enter a second-story bathroom window of Polk's home after he and the deputies heard loud noises inside, Dillon said.
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"I was calling her name as I went in, and she wasn't responding," he said.
He found her lying on a bed, and he could see she was breathing. He also noticed a long-barreled handgun on the bed, but thought she just had it there for protection. He touched her on the shoulder.
"Then she kind of moved toward me a little and I saw that blood, and I said, 'Oh, no. Miss Polk musta done shot herself,' " Dillon said.
He hurried downstairs and let the deputies in. He said they told him they found Polk's car keys, pocketbook and life insurance policy laid out neatly where they could be found, suggesting that she intended to kill herself.
"There's a lot of people like Miss Polk right now. That's the sad thing about it," said Sommerville, who had met Polk before and rushed to the scene when contacted by police. "They might not be as old as her, some could be as old as her. This is just a major problem."
In 2004, Polk took out a 30-year, 6.375 percent mortgage for $45,620 with a Countrywide Home Loan office in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. The same day, she also took out an $11,380 line of credit.
Over the next couple of years, Polk missed payments on the 101-year-old home that she and her late husband purchased in 1970. In 2007, Fannie Mae assumed the mortgage and later filed for foreclosure.
Deputies had tried to serve Polk's eviction notice more than 30 times before Wednesday's incident, Sommerville said. She never came to the door, but the notes the deputies left would always disappear, so they knew she was inside and ambulatory, he said.
The city is creating programs to help people keep their homes, Sommerville said. "But what do you do when there's just so many people out there and the economy is in the shape that it's in?"
Many businesses and individuals have called since Wednesday offering to help Polk, Sommerville said.
"We're going to do an evaluation to see what's best for her," he said. "If she's strong enough and can go home, I think we should work with her to where she goes back home. If not, we need to find another place for her to live where she won't have to worry about this ever again."
For his part, Dillon hopes his neighbor of 38 years can return to her home.
"She loves that house," he said. "I hope they can get her back in. That would make me feel better because I don't know what they're going to put in there once she leaves."
He said the neighborhood is declining because so many people have lost their homes.
"There's a lot of vacant houses around here. ... Now I'm going to have a house on my left and a house on my right, vacant," he said. "That don't make me feel good, because we were good neighbors, we trusted each other, and we looked out for each other.
"This neighborhood is shot, to me, from what it used to be," he added.
"When I moved here, if it were like it is now, I would have never moved here. But it was a nice neighborhood. ...
"I'll just tough it out. I'm too old to start thinking about buying another house."
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Sommerville said that by the time people call for help with an impending foreclosure, it's usually too late.
"I'm glad it's not too late for Miss Polk, because she could have taken her life," Sommerville said. "Miss Polk will probably end up on her feet. But I'm not sure if anybody else will."
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/03/eviction.suicide.attempt/
Addie Polk, 90, of Akron, Ohio, became a symbol of the nation's home mortgage crisis when she was hospitalized after shooting herself at least twice in the upper body Wednesday afternoon.
On Friday, Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith said the mortgage association had decided to halt action against Polk and sign the property "outright" to her.
"We're going to forgive whatever outstanding balance she had on the loan and give her the house," Faith said. "Given the circumstances, we think it's appropriate."
Residents of Akron have rallied behind Polk, who is being treated at Akron General Medical Center. She was listed in critical condition Friday afternoon, according to Akron City Council President Marco Sommerville.
U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, mentioned Polk on the House floor Friday during debate over the latest economic rescue proposal.
"This bill does nothing for the Addie Polks of the world," Kucinich said after telling her story. "This bill fails to address the fact that millions of homeowners are facing foreclosure, are facing the loss of their home. This bill will take care of Wall Street, and the market may go up for a few days, but democracy is going downhill."
Neighbor Robert Dillon, 62, used a ladder to enter a second-story bathroom window of Polk's home after he and the deputies heard loud noises inside, Dillon said.
Don't Miss
* Revamped bailout bill picks up 17 votes in House
* Jackson: Bill should address root cause, not symptoms
* iReport.com: Begging for bailout help
* The human face of economic uncertainty
"I was calling her name as I went in, and she wasn't responding," he said.
He found her lying on a bed, and he could see she was breathing. He also noticed a long-barreled handgun on the bed, but thought she just had it there for protection. He touched her on the shoulder.
"Then she kind of moved toward me a little and I saw that blood, and I said, 'Oh, no. Miss Polk musta done shot herself,' " Dillon said.
He hurried downstairs and let the deputies in. He said they told him they found Polk's car keys, pocketbook and life insurance policy laid out neatly where they could be found, suggesting that she intended to kill herself.
"There's a lot of people like Miss Polk right now. That's the sad thing about it," said Sommerville, who had met Polk before and rushed to the scene when contacted by police. "They might not be as old as her, some could be as old as her. This is just a major problem."
In 2004, Polk took out a 30-year, 6.375 percent mortgage for $45,620 with a Countrywide Home Loan office in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. The same day, she also took out an $11,380 line of credit.
Over the next couple of years, Polk missed payments on the 101-year-old home that she and her late husband purchased in 1970. In 2007, Fannie Mae assumed the mortgage and later filed for foreclosure.
Deputies had tried to serve Polk's eviction notice more than 30 times before Wednesday's incident, Sommerville said. She never came to the door, but the notes the deputies left would always disappear, so they knew she was inside and ambulatory, he said.
The city is creating programs to help people keep their homes, Sommerville said. "But what do you do when there's just so many people out there and the economy is in the shape that it's in?"
Many businesses and individuals have called since Wednesday offering to help Polk, Sommerville said.
"We're going to do an evaluation to see what's best for her," he said. "If she's strong enough and can go home, I think we should work with her to where she goes back home. If not, we need to find another place for her to live where she won't have to worry about this ever again."
For his part, Dillon hopes his neighbor of 38 years can return to her home.
"She loves that house," he said. "I hope they can get her back in. That would make me feel better because I don't know what they're going to put in there once she leaves."
He said the neighborhood is declining because so many people have lost their homes.
"There's a lot of vacant houses around here. ... Now I'm going to have a house on my left and a house on my right, vacant," he said. "That don't make me feel good, because we were good neighbors, we trusted each other, and we looked out for each other.
"This neighborhood is shot, to me, from what it used to be," he added.
"When I moved here, if it were like it is now, I would have never moved here. But it was a nice neighborhood. ...
"I'll just tough it out. I'm too old to start thinking about buying another house."
advertisement
Sommerville said that by the time people call for help with an impending foreclosure, it's usually too late.
"I'm glad it's not too late for Miss Polk, because she could have taken her life," Sommerville said. "Miss Polk will probably end up on her feet. But I'm not sure if anybody else will."
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/03/eviction.suicide.attempt/
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Reuters WaMu is largest U.S. bank failure
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON - Washington Mutual Inc was closed by the U.S. government in by far the largest failure of a U.S. bank, and its banking assets were sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co for $1.9 billion.
Thursday's seizure and sale is the latest historic step in U.S. government attempts to clean up a banking industry littered with toxic mortgage debt. Negotiations over a $700 billion bailout of the entire financial system stalled in Washington on Thursday.
Washington Mutual, the largest U.S. savings and loan, has been one of the lenders hardest hit by the nation's housing bust and credit crisis, and had already suffered from soaring mortgage losses.
Washington Mutual was shut by the federal Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp was named receiver. This followed $16.7 billion of deposit outflows at the Seattle-based thrift since Sept 15, the OTS said.
"With insufficient liquidity to meet its obligations, WaMu was in an unsafe and unsound condition to transact business," the OTS said.
Customers should expect business as usual on Friday, and all depositors are fully protected, the FDIC said.
FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said the bailout happened on Thursday night because of media leaks, and to calm customers. Usually, the FDIC takes control of failed institutions on Friday nights, giving it the weekend to go through the books and enable them to reopen smoothly the following Monday.
Washington Mutual has about $307 billion of assets and $188 billion of deposits, regulators said. The largest previous U.S. banking failure was Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust, which had $40 billion of assets when it collapsed in 1984.
JPMorgan said the transaction means it will now have 5,410 branches in 23 U.S. states from coast to coast, as well as the largest U.S. credit card business.
It vaults JPMorgan past Bank of America Corp to become the nation's second-largest bank, with $2.04 trillion of assets, just behind Citigroup Inc. Bank of America will go to No. 1 once it completes its planned purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co.
The bailout also fulfills JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon's long-held goal of becoming a retail bank force in the western United States. It comes four months after JPMorgan acquired the failing investment bank Bear Stearns Cos at a fire-sale price through a government-financed transaction.
On a conference call, Dimon said the "risk here obviously is the asset values."
He added: "That's what created this opportunity."
JPMorgan expects to incur $1.5 billion of pre-tax costs, but realize an equal amount of annual savings, mostly by the end of 2010. It expects the transaction to add to earnings immediately, and increase earnings 70 cents per share by 2011.
It also plans to sell $8 billion of stock, and take a $31 billion write-down for the loans it bought, representing estimated future credit losses.
The FDIC said the acquisition does not cover claims of Washington Mutual equity, senior debt and subordinated debt holders. It also said the transaction will not affect its roughly $45.2 billion deposit insurance fund.
"Jamie Dimon is clearly feeling that he has an opportunity to grab market share, and get it at fire-sale prices," said Matt McCormick, a portfolio manager at Bahl & Gaynor Investment Counsel in Cincinnati. "He's becoming an acquisition machine."
BAILOUT UNCERTAINTY
The transaction came as Washington wrangles over the fate of a $700 billion bailout of the financial services industry, which has been battered by mortgage defaults and tight credit conditions, and evaporating investor confidence.
"It removes an uncertainty from the market," said Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy at AMP Capital in Sydney. "The problem is that markets are in a jittery stage. Washington Mutual provides another reminder how tenuous things are."
Washington Mutual's collapse is the latest of a series of takeovers and outright failures that have transformed the American financial landscape and wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars of shareholder wealth.
These include the disappearance of Bear, government takeovers of mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the insurer American International Group Inc, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, and Bank of America's purchase of Merrill.
JPMorgan, based in New York, ended June with $1.78 trillion of assets, $722.9 billion of deposits and 3,157 branches. Washington Mutual then had 2,239 branches and 43,198 employees. It is unclear how many people will lose their jobs.
Shares of Washington Mutual plunged $1.24 to 45 cents in after-hours trading after news of a JPMorgan transaction surfaced. JPMorgan shares rose $1.04 to $44.50 after hours, but before the stock offering was announced.
119-YEAR HISTORY
The transaction ends exactly 119 years of independence for Washington Mutual, whose predecessor was incorporated on September 25, 1889, "to offer its stockholders a safe and profitable vehicle for investing and lending," according to the thrift's website. This helped Seattle residents rebuild after a fire torched the city's downtown.
It also follows more than a week of sale talks in which Washington Mutual attracted interest from several suitors.
These included Banco Santander SA, Citigroup Inc, HSBC Holdings Plc, Toronto-Dominion Bank and Wells Fargo & Co, as well as private equity firms Blackstone Group LP and Carlyle Group, people familiar with the situation said.
Less than three weeks ago, Washington Mutual ousted Chief Executive Kerry Killinger, who drove the thrift's growth as well as its expansion in subprime and other risky mortgages. It replaced him with Alan Fishman, the former chief executive of Brooklyn, New York's Independence Community Bank Corp.
WaMu's board was surprised at the seizure, and had been working on alternatives, people familiar with the matter said.
More than half of Washington Mutual's roughly $227 billion book of real estate loans was in home equity loans, and in adjustable-rate mortgages and subprime mortgages that are now considered risky.
The transaction wipes out a $1.35 billion investment by David Bonderman's private equity firm TPG Inc, the lead investor in a $7 billion capital raising by the thrift in April.
A TPG spokesman said the firm is "dissatisfied with the loss," but that the investment "represented a very small portion of our assets."
DIMON POUNCES
The deal is the latest ambitious move by Dimon.
Once a golden child at Citigroup before his mentor Sanford "Sandy" Weill engineered his ouster in 1998, Dimon has carved for himself something of a role as a Wall Street savior.
Dimon joined JPMorgan in 2004 after selling his Bank One Corp to the bank for $56.9 billion, and became chief executive at the end of 2005.
Some historians see parallels between him and the legendary financier John Pierpont Morgan, who ran J.P. Morgan & Co and was credited with intervening to end a banking panic in 1907.
JPMorgan has suffered less than many rivals from the credit crisis, but has been hurt. It said on Thursday it has already taken $3 billion to $3.5 billion of write-downs this quarter on mortgages and leveraged loans.
Washington Mutual has a major presence in California and Florida, two of the states hardest hit by the housing crisis. It also has a big presence in the New York City area. The thrift lost $6.3 billion in the nine months ended June 30.
"It is surprising that it has hung on for as long as it has," said Nancy Bush, an analyst at NAB Research LLC.
Found at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080926/ts_nm/us_washingtonmutual_jpmorgan_news
Thursday's seizure and sale is the latest historic step in U.S. government attempts to clean up a banking industry littered with toxic mortgage debt. Negotiations over a $700 billion bailout of the entire financial system stalled in Washington on Thursday.
Washington Mutual, the largest U.S. savings and loan, has been one of the lenders hardest hit by the nation's housing bust and credit crisis, and had already suffered from soaring mortgage losses.
Washington Mutual was shut by the federal Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp was named receiver. This followed $16.7 billion of deposit outflows at the Seattle-based thrift since Sept 15, the OTS said.
"With insufficient liquidity to meet its obligations, WaMu was in an unsafe and unsound condition to transact business," the OTS said.
Customers should expect business as usual on Friday, and all depositors are fully protected, the FDIC said.
FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said the bailout happened on Thursday night because of media leaks, and to calm customers. Usually, the FDIC takes control of failed institutions on Friday nights, giving it the weekend to go through the books and enable them to reopen smoothly the following Monday.
Washington Mutual has about $307 billion of assets and $188 billion of deposits, regulators said. The largest previous U.S. banking failure was Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust, which had $40 billion of assets when it collapsed in 1984.
JPMorgan said the transaction means it will now have 5,410 branches in 23 U.S. states from coast to coast, as well as the largest U.S. credit card business.
It vaults JPMorgan past Bank of America Corp to become the nation's second-largest bank, with $2.04 trillion of assets, just behind Citigroup Inc. Bank of America will go to No. 1 once it completes its planned purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co.
The bailout also fulfills JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon's long-held goal of becoming a retail bank force in the western United States. It comes four months after JPMorgan acquired the failing investment bank Bear Stearns Cos at a fire-sale price through a government-financed transaction.
On a conference call, Dimon said the "risk here obviously is the asset values."
He added: "That's what created this opportunity."
JPMorgan expects to incur $1.5 billion of pre-tax costs, but realize an equal amount of annual savings, mostly by the end of 2010. It expects the transaction to add to earnings immediately, and increase earnings 70 cents per share by 2011.
It also plans to sell $8 billion of stock, and take a $31 billion write-down for the loans it bought, representing estimated future credit losses.
The FDIC said the acquisition does not cover claims of Washington Mutual equity, senior debt and subordinated debt holders. It also said the transaction will not affect its roughly $45.2 billion deposit insurance fund.
"Jamie Dimon is clearly feeling that he has an opportunity to grab market share, and get it at fire-sale prices," said Matt McCormick, a portfolio manager at Bahl & Gaynor Investment Counsel in Cincinnati. "He's becoming an acquisition machine."
BAILOUT UNCERTAINTY
The transaction came as Washington wrangles over the fate of a $700 billion bailout of the financial services industry, which has been battered by mortgage defaults and tight credit conditions, and evaporating investor confidence.
"It removes an uncertainty from the market," said Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy at AMP Capital in Sydney. "The problem is that markets are in a jittery stage. Washington Mutual provides another reminder how tenuous things are."
Washington Mutual's collapse is the latest of a series of takeovers and outright failures that have transformed the American financial landscape and wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars of shareholder wealth.
These include the disappearance of Bear, government takeovers of mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the insurer American International Group Inc, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, and Bank of America's purchase of Merrill.
JPMorgan, based in New York, ended June with $1.78 trillion of assets, $722.9 billion of deposits and 3,157 branches. Washington Mutual then had 2,239 branches and 43,198 employees. It is unclear how many people will lose their jobs.
Shares of Washington Mutual plunged $1.24 to 45 cents in after-hours trading after news of a JPMorgan transaction surfaced. JPMorgan shares rose $1.04 to $44.50 after hours, but before the stock offering was announced.
119-YEAR HISTORY
The transaction ends exactly 119 years of independence for Washington Mutual, whose predecessor was incorporated on September 25, 1889, "to offer its stockholders a safe and profitable vehicle for investing and lending," according to the thrift's website. This helped Seattle residents rebuild after a fire torched the city's downtown.
It also follows more than a week of sale talks in which Washington Mutual attracted interest from several suitors.
These included Banco Santander SA, Citigroup Inc, HSBC Holdings Plc, Toronto-Dominion Bank and Wells Fargo & Co, as well as private equity firms Blackstone Group LP and Carlyle Group, people familiar with the situation said.
Less than three weeks ago, Washington Mutual ousted Chief Executive Kerry Killinger, who drove the thrift's growth as well as its expansion in subprime and other risky mortgages. It replaced him with Alan Fishman, the former chief executive of Brooklyn, New York's Independence Community Bank Corp.
WaMu's board was surprised at the seizure, and had been working on alternatives, people familiar with the matter said.
More than half of Washington Mutual's roughly $227 billion book of real estate loans was in home equity loans, and in adjustable-rate mortgages and subprime mortgages that are now considered risky.
The transaction wipes out a $1.35 billion investment by David Bonderman's private equity firm TPG Inc, the lead investor in a $7 billion capital raising by the thrift in April.
A TPG spokesman said the firm is "dissatisfied with the loss," but that the investment "represented a very small portion of our assets."
DIMON POUNCES
The deal is the latest ambitious move by Dimon.
Once a golden child at Citigroup before his mentor Sanford "Sandy" Weill engineered his ouster in 1998, Dimon has carved for himself something of a role as a Wall Street savior.
Dimon joined JPMorgan in 2004 after selling his Bank One Corp to the bank for $56.9 billion, and became chief executive at the end of 2005.
Some historians see parallels between him and the legendary financier John Pierpont Morgan, who ran J.P. Morgan & Co and was credited with intervening to end a banking panic in 1907.
JPMorgan has suffered less than many rivals from the credit crisis, but has been hurt. It said on Thursday it has already taken $3 billion to $3.5 billion of write-downs this quarter on mortgages and leveraged loans.
Washington Mutual has a major presence in California and Florida, two of the states hardest hit by the housing crisis. It also has a big presence in the New York City area. The thrift lost $6.3 billion in the nine months ended June 30.
"It is surprising that it has hung on for as long as it has," said Nancy Bush, an analyst at NAB Research LLC.
Found at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080926/ts_nm/us_washingtonmutual_jpmorgan_news
Astronomers spot a 'bizarre' strobe light star
A "most bizarre" strobe light star reported by European astronomers likely belongs to a long-sought family of compact "neutron" stars.
It initially showed up as a gamma-ray burst, leading astronomers to think it was the death of a star in the far-off universe. But after that first gamma-ray pulse, there was a three-day period of activity during which this odd celestial object emitted 40 visible-light flashes before disappearing again. Eleven days later, there was a brief near-infrared flaring episode recorded by ESO's Very Large Telescope. Then the weird object went visibly "silent" again.
"We are dealing with an object that has been hibernating for decades before entering a brief period of activity," said Alberto J. Castro-Tirado, lead author of a paper in this week's issue of Nature.
Astronomers now think this celestial enigma is a 'magnetar' located in our own Milky Way galaxy, about 15,000 light-years away in the area around the constellation of Vulpecula, the Fox. Magnetars are a type of young neutron stars. They boast a magnetic field that's a billion billion times stronger than Earth's.
To put that in perspective for those of us with the financial crisis willies: “A magnetar would wipe the information from all credit cards on Earth from a distance halfway to the Moon,” explains Antonio de Ugarte Postigo, the study's co-author.
Because magnetars can be celestially silent for decades at a time, they're hard to pin unless we're looking at the right place at the right time. Postigo says there's likely a large population of them in the Milky Way even though we've only identified about 12.
The magnetar, known as SWIFT J195509+261406, is a candidate for what scientists have been looking for: A magnetar moving towards a pleasant retirement as its magnetic fields decay.
Photo: The twisting of magnetic field lines in magnetars give rise to 'starquakes', which will eventually lead to an intense soft gamma-ray burst. In the case of the SWIFT source, the optical flares that reached the Earth were probably due to ions ripped out from the surface of the magnetar and gyrating around the field lines.
Found at: http://blogs.usatoday.com/sciencefair/2008/09/astronomers-spo.html
It initially showed up as a gamma-ray burst, leading astronomers to think it was the death of a star in the far-off universe. But after that first gamma-ray pulse, there was a three-day period of activity during which this odd celestial object emitted 40 visible-light flashes before disappearing again. Eleven days later, there was a brief near-infrared flaring episode recorded by ESO's Very Large Telescope. Then the weird object went visibly "silent" again.
"We are dealing with an object that has been hibernating for decades before entering a brief period of activity," said Alberto J. Castro-Tirado, lead author of a paper in this week's issue of Nature.
Astronomers now think this celestial enigma is a 'magnetar' located in our own Milky Way galaxy, about 15,000 light-years away in the area around the constellation of Vulpecula, the Fox. Magnetars are a type of young neutron stars. They boast a magnetic field that's a billion billion times stronger than Earth's.
To put that in perspective for those of us with the financial crisis willies: “A magnetar would wipe the information from all credit cards on Earth from a distance halfway to the Moon,” explains Antonio de Ugarte Postigo, the study's co-author.
Because magnetars can be celestially silent for decades at a time, they're hard to pin unless we're looking at the right place at the right time. Postigo says there's likely a large population of them in the Milky Way even though we've only identified about 12.
The magnetar, known as SWIFT J195509+261406, is a candidate for what scientists have been looking for: A magnetar moving towards a pleasant retirement as its magnetic fields decay.
Photo: The twisting of magnetic field lines in magnetars give rise to 'starquakes', which will eventually lead to an intense soft gamma-ray burst. In the case of the SWIFT source, the optical flares that reached the Earth were probably due to ions ripped out from the surface of the magnetar and gyrating around the field lines.Found at: http://blogs.usatoday.com/sciencefair/2008/09/astronomers-spo.html
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