Despite receiving $170 billion in federal aid and recording a staggering loss for the last quarter, insurance giant American International Group is doling out tens of million of dollars in bonuses this week to senior employees.While AIG agreed to pay the bonuses months before the government's rescue of the company began, the matter still is a source of anger for government officials. In a phone call on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told AIG Chairman and chief executive Edward M. Liddy that the payments were unacceptable and needed to be renegotiated, according to an administration source.
The company has since agreed to change the terms of some of these payments. But in a letter to Geithner, Liddy wrote that the bonuses could not be cancelled altogether because the firm would risk a lawsuit for breaching employment contracts. Liddy also expressed concerns about whether changing the bonuses would lead to an exodus of talented employees who are needed to turn the company around.
"We cannot attract and retain the best and brightest talent to lead and staff the AIG businesses -- which are now being operated principally on behalf of the American taxpayers -- if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. treasury," Liddy wrote.
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An Ohio city court says it will only accept new case filings from people who bring their own paper.
Judge Lee McClelland of Morrow County Municipal Court in north-central Ohio says the court has just enough paper to handle hearing notices and other documents for pending cases.
McClelland says the court will stop accepting case filings Monday because it cannot afford to reorder more paper. He told The Columbus Dispatch that the county still hasn't paid the bill for basic supplies the court ordered in November.
McClelland says several county agencies have volunteered to provide paper to handle their own filings.
The Morrow County prosecutor declined to comment on the new filing rules.
A woman's postcard bearing greetings from Montana has finally arrived in northeastern Ohio - 47 years later.
Insurance agent Dave Conn opened his post office box in the community of Hudson last week and found the mailing sent from Helena, Montanta in 1962.
It was sent to Marion White, the previous renter of the box, who had died in 1988. The writer signed the postcard "Fran" and mentioned having "had a marvelous time in Montana."
After asking around, Conn says he determined the card must have come from White's well-traveled friend Frances Murphey, a longtime reporter at the Akron Beacon Journal. She died in 1998 at age 75.
U.S. Postal Service spokesman Victor Dubina says the postcard may have been stuck in equipment or lost behind a mail chute.
Officers said the woman cleaned the cages at the the Reynolds Road Animal Clinic.
A judge set bond at $25,000 Friday and a jailer said the woman was still being held Friday. Her next court appearance is scheduled for April 21.
A robber gets more than he bargained for when he targeted a Tae Kwon Do studio in suburban Milwaukee.
The robber thought he could quietly slip in and out of David Kang's studio in Fox Point with some loot.
What he didn't realize is that he would encounter a Tae Kwon Do master who wasn't about to let him off the hook.
Kang was giving a private lesson Tuesday and heard someone in his office.
Kang found the man going through his closet, grabbed him by the neck and sat him down while he called police.
The robber took off and Kang gave chase, finally catching up with the man and holding him by the neck until police arrived.
You forgot to buckle up, dummy!
A commuter who put a homemade dummy in the passenger seat to sneak into the car pool lane was caught Wednesday near Seattle.
But it wasn't because a cop realized the passenger was fake.
Instead, the State Patrol trooper noticed the dangling belt buckle on the passenger side and suspected a seat belt violation.
Patrol spokeswoman Christina Martin told The Herald of Everett that the driver acknowledged trying to beat traffic by using the HOV lane.
He created his passenger by draping a rain jacket over plastic piping, topping it off with a Halloween mask of Gandalf, the "Lord of the Rings" wizard, a beard and a baseball cap.
The trooper issued a $124 ticket and confiscated the dummy.
He said the woman was hospitalized with a wound to the abdomen but her condition was stable Friday.
He said police were investigating the man, a volunteer security corps member, for illegally discharging a firearm, which carries a maximum prison term of two years.
A Concord, Vermont man who bolted antlers to the head of a dead doe and posed for a photograph with the deer was fined $400 and jailed for game violations.
Marcel Fournier, 19, shot the deer the evening of November 22, 2008 and used lag bolts and epoxy to attach a 10-point rack, officials said. He then checked in the kill as lawful game at Barnie's Market.
It's illegal to kill an antlerless deer, and it's also illegal to hunt at night.
The Concord resident admitted to the killing and led a game warden to the deer's remains after an anonymous caller alerted authorities. Fournier said he had "quite a time" drilling and fastening the antlers, authorities said.
Game warden David Gregory said the antlers didn't look or feel right.
"When you grabbed them, you'd feel movement," he said.
Col. David LeCours, chief warden of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the size of the antlers relative to the size of the deer seemed off.
"Something wasn't natural about them, in addition to the fact that they weren't natural," he said.
Fournier was sentenced to 10 days in jail Feb. 18 for taking a deer in a closed season. He won't qualify for a state hunting, fishing or trapping license for at least three years.
LeCours said add-on antlers are the stuff of legend, but that it's the first documented case of it in Vermont.
Julian Luxford says a note discovered in the margins of an ancient history book contains rare criticism of the supposedly benevolent bandit.
Restaurant Popular (People's Restaurant) by Bruno Spada/MDS
Back in 1993, the newly elected city government of Belo Horizonte, Brazil declared that food was a right of citizenship. At that time, the city of 2.5 million had 275,000 people living in absolute poverty, and close to 20 percent of its children were going hungry. Since the declaration the city has all but wiped out hunger and only spends 2% of the city budget to do so.
So how did they make it happen?
Every single American has the power to stimulate their local economies: not by spending more, but by supporting local businesses. In economic theory, more local spending translates into less "leakage". This means a greater percent of the money spent actually stays and circulates within the region, supporting more employment, investment, goods and services. Local spending leads to economic multipliers that strengthen the regional economy.
Smart local investments also involve long-term benefits, many of them non-monetary.
The near-death of one of India’s most distinguished scientists has halted work on a major hydroelectric dam in the Himalayas. Professor AD Agarwal, 77, former dean of the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi at Kanpur, has been on hunger strike for 38 days in protest against a project that would dam the waters of a Ganges tributary.
"The water ... is not ordinary water to a Hindu. It is a matter of the life and death of Hindu faith," Agarwal said, before beginning his fast in January.
This is his second fast in the past year, which he called off last week only after the Indian government agreed that it would look into electricity generation that would not impede the flow of the holy Ganges. The river must run free in order to maintain its sacred status.
However, this dam project is only one of the hundreds planned to for the Himalayan foothill regions of India, Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan. The power needs of these nations are rising, but according to a recent report by the NGO International Rivers, many are being carried out with little environmental assessment.
This gentleman, Gabriel Cardona, was a hit man for a Mexican drug cartel. His eyelids are tattooed with eyes. "U.S. teens were hit men for Mexican cartel" The recession is leading lots of out-of-work folks to try new things, reports the Times:
Economists say that when the economy takes a dive, it is common for people to turn to their inner entrepreneur to try to make their own work. But they say that it takes months for that mentality to sink in, and that this is about the time in the economic cycle when it really starts to happen — when the formerly employed realize that traditional job searches are not working, and that they are running out of time and money.
Mark V. Cannice, executive director of the entrepreneurship program at the University of San Francisco, calls the phenomenon “forced entrepreneurship.”
“If there is a silver lining, the large-scale downsizing from major companies will release a lot of new entrepreneurial talent and ideas — scientists, engineers, business folks now looking to do other things,” Mr. Cannice said. “It’s a Darwinian unleashing of talent into the entrepreneurial ecosystem.”
That's great. Except for one thing, which the article completely misses: You won't find too many people in their middle ages or older in this category. Why? Because they can't get health insurance. America's health-care system makes it all but impossible for an older worker to try something new.
Even younger startup owners who are relatively healthy and have insurance are just a half-step from disaster. The insurance industry is in the business of not paying claims whenever possible, after all, and health insurers are working hardest to find ways not to cover people who might get sick even as they deny as many claims as possible from people who've been paying premiums.
The day we have national health care is the day that we unleash a wave of entrepreneurship the likes of which we've never seen before. That's one of the best reasons for moving toward such a system.
Sure, housing prices are falling. But how's this for a bargain for a Long Island, N.Y. couple: An iconic beach house, designed by a world famous architect, for just $1.
The catch? They have to pay at least $100,000 to move it on a barge from the Jersey shore to their home.
I’ve often said that I don’t believe government has the answer to every problem or that it can do all things for all people. We are a nation built on the strength of individual initiative. But there are certain things that we can’t do on our own. There are certain things only a government can do. And one of those things is ensuring that the foods we eat, and the medicines we take, are safe and don’t cause us harm. That is the mission of our Food and Drug Administration and it is a mission shared by our Department of Agriculture, and a variety of other agencies and offices at just about every level of government.
The men and women who inspect our foods and test the safety of our medicines are chemists and physicians, veterinarians and pharmacists. It is because of the work they do each and every day that the United States is one of the safest places in the world to buy groceries at a supermarket or pills at a drugstore. Unlike citizens of so many other countries, Americans can trust that there is a strong system in place to ensure that the medications we give our children will help them get better, not make them sick; and that a family dinner won’t end in a trip to the doctor’s office.
But in recent years, we’ve seen a number of problems with the food making its way to our kitchen tables. In 2006, it was contaminated spinach. In 2008, it was salmonella in peppers and possibly tomatoes. And just this year, bad peanut products led to hundreds of illnesses and cost nine people their lives – a painful reminder of how tragic the consequences can be when food producers act irresponsibly and government is unable to do its job. Worse, these incidents reflect a troubling trend that’s seen the average number of outbreaks from contaminated produce and other foods grow to nearly 350 a year – up from 100 a year in the early 1990s.
Part of the reason is that many of the laws and regulations governing food safety in America have not been updated since they were written in the time of Teddy Roosevelt. It’s also because our system of inspection and enforcement is spread out so widely among so many people that it’s difficult for different parts of our government to share information, work together, and solve problems. And it’s also because the FDA has been underfunded and understaffed in recent years, leaving the agency with the resources to inspect just 7,000 of our 150,000 food processing plants and warehouses each year. That means roughly 95% of them go uninspected.
That is a hazard to public health. It is unacceptable. And it will change under the leadership of Dr. Margaret Hamburg, whom I am appointing today as Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. From her research on infectious disease at the National Institutes of Health to her work on public health at the Department of Health and Human Services to her leadership on biodefense at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Dr. Hamburg brings to this vital position not only a reputation of integrity but a record of achievement in making Americans safer and more secure. Dr. Hamburg was one of the youngest people ever elected to the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine. And her two children have a unique distinction of their own. Their birth certificates feature her name twice – once as their mother, and once as New York City Health Commissioner. In that role, Dr. Hamburg brought a new life to a demoralized agency, leading an internationally-recognized initiative that cut the tuberculosis rate by nearly half, and overseeing food safety in our nation’s largest city.
Joining her as Principal Deputy Commissioner will be Dr. Joshua Sharfstein. As Baltimore’s Health Commissioner, Dr. Sharfstein has been recognized as a national leader for his efforts to protect children from unsafe over-the-counter cough and cold medications. And he’s designed an award-winning program to ensure that Americans with disabilities had access to prescription drugs.
Their critical work – and the critical work of the FDA they lead – will be part of a larger effort taken up by a new Food Safety Working Group I am creating. This Working Group will bring together cabinet secretaries and senior officials to advise me on how we can upgrade our food safety laws for the 21st century; foster coordination throughout government; and ensure that we are not just designing laws that will keep the American people safe, but enforcing them. And I expect this group to report back to me with recommendations as soon as possible.
As part of our commitment to public health, our Agriculture Department is closing a loophole in the system to ensure that diseased cows don’t find their way into the food supply. And we are also strengthening our food safety system and modernizing our labs with a billion dollar investment, a portion of which will go toward significantly increasing the number of food inspectors, helping ensure that the FDA has the staff and support they need to protect the food we eat.
In the end, food safety is something I take seriously, not just as your President, but as a parent. When I heard peanut products were being contaminated earlier this year, I immediately thought of my 7-year old daughter, Sasha, who has peanut butter sandwiches for lunch probably three times a week. No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch. Just as no family should have to worry that the medicines they buy will cause them harm. Protecting the safety of our food and drugs is one of the most fundamental responsibilities government has, and, with the outstanding team I am announcing today, it is a responsibility that I intend to uphold in the months and years to come.
Thank you.
