Cheat Sheet
The Best In Brief
Please register to manage your email preferences and comment on the site.
Caroline Kennedy is lobbying New York Governor David Paterson to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate and her time as fundraiser for the New York City Department of Education is one of the top bullet points on her resume. Politico's Glenn Thrush set out to examine her education record, however, and found that when it comes to policy positions, Kennedy has "hardly left a vapor trail," making it difficult to judge her candidacy based on the issue. The article quotes several former colleagues who say that her fundraising role has been exaggerated as well.
38 people were injured on Sunday after a Continenal Airlines jet skidded off the runway and into a ravine at Denver International Airport. The plane caught fire after the aborted takeoff, causing its 115 passengers to flee for safety. Now investigators are searching the wrecked plane to try and figure out just what caused the crash.
In 2007, six Muslim immigrants were accused of planning to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey. Today, a jury found five of them guilty for conspiring to kill U.S. soldiers. They were acquitted of attempted murder but still face life in prison for conspiring to kill military personnel. Prosecutors said the men bought assault rifles that were tracked by the FBI and practiced shooting in the Poconos mountains. The sixth man was only with charged with gun offenses and plead guilty earlier.
Progressive groups are up in arms over Barack Obama's decision to have pro-life and anti-gay marriage pastor Rick Warren deliver the invocation at his inauguration. Now Joe Biden has stepped in to defend Obama, telling CNN's Larry King that "You've got to reach a hand of friendship across the aisle and across philosophies in this country." Biden reiterated Obama's commitment to gay rights and said that gays and lesbians "have nothing to worry about."
Sarah Palin's interviews during the presidential campaign, in which she argued that Alaska's proximity to Russia counted as foreign policy experience, failed to name a newspaper she read, and gave rambling answers on the economic crisis, were a constant source of aggravation for McCain, but in an interview with Human Events, Palin said she should have done even more. "I was not allowed to do very many interviews, and the interviews that I did were not necessarily those I would have chosen," Palin said. In the interview, published today, Palin was also asked to name her role model: "Susan B. Anthony...She was a pro-life feminist and those things that she stood for, and she was so far ahead of her time."
Someone blew it big time at the New York Times today. The paper of record on Monday printed a letter purportedly from the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, that criticized Caroline Kennedy's efforts to succeed Hillary Clinton in the Senate. The only problem—Mayor Delance did not write it. "We have already expressed our regrets to Mr. Delanoe's office and we are now doing the same to you, our readers," an editors note from the Times said.
Just because massive Ponzi schemes and staggering unemployment figures temporarily took the spotlight this month doesn't mean the foreclosure crisis has gone away. According to a federal report, some 55% of loans modified to prevent foreclosure in the first quarter of 2008 were delinquent for 30 days or longer after six months. The numbers are a sobering indicator that efforts to keep people from losing their homes are still failing to produce the desired results.
Though 2008 may be almost over, media people may want to avoid looking back at the year that was. The Business Sheet has assembled a list of the year’s 25 biggest media losers. Fox News President Roger Ailes clocks in at number 20 with a loss of $3.7 million, but compared to some of the names at the top of the list, he’s practically swimming in dough. Arthur Sulzberger Jr. lost $76.7 million as The New York Times Co.’s stock fell 50 percent. Even Sulzberger’s losses, however, are dwarfed by the year’s biggest loser, Viacom and CBS-controlling shareholder Sumner Redstone, who lost a whopping $7.2 billion. His daughter, Shari almost made the list ($426,000) making the Redstones and the Murdochs (Rupert: $3.95 billion; James: $48 million) the only parent-sibling duos to appear. Other big losers include Martha Stewart, who lost $323 million and Sam Zell, who could lose up to $315 million in the Tribune Co.’s bankruptcy filing.
The government’s soup line is getting longer: Property developers are now grubbing for a piece of bailout pie. The Wall Street Journal reports that developers are warning “that thousands of office complexes, hotels, shopping centers and other commercial buildings are headed into defaults, foreclosures and bankruptcies.” A recent letter to Henry Paulson claimed “Right now, we believe there is insufficient systemic capacity to refinance expiring, performing commercial real-estate loans. … For many borrowers, [credit] simply is not available.” The industry is asking for admittance to the $200 billion government program originally intended to fix the market for car, student and credit-card debts. The program is intended to help investors purchase securities backed by these assets. The inclusion of commercial developers into the program might make banks more willing to lend to them, as they’d be able to securitize their loans and pass them on to investors.
Bad news for Jesse Jackson Jr.: Raghuveer P. Nayak, a Chicago millionaire who was caught in discussions about raising $1 million for Blagojevich in order to convince him to give Obama’s Senate seat to Jackson Jr., has sought immunity from federal authorities in return for his cooperation in the investigation. Nayak appeared in the federal complaint as “Individual D.” Jackson Jr. says he spoke with Nayak about his desire for the seat, but that he did not know about his fundraising activities. A lawyer for Jackson Jr. said, "If that is indeed the case, and if that cooperation relates to my client, then [Nayak] is trying to save his own skin. That's all I have to say.”
Who says it’s a bad time to work on Wall Street? According to a review by the Associated Press, the 116 banks that have so far received a government bailout have paid their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and benefits. The average compensation for executives at these banks was $2.6 million. Representative Barney Frank called large bonuses bribes "to get [executives] to do the jobs for which they are well paid in the first place.”
Dick Cheney appeared on Fox News last night in what may be the last interview of his vice presidency. Did the Angler have any regrets? Well, he did say that he wished the president had kept Donald Rumsfeld around. Other than that? “We set out to do what we thought was necessary and essential for the country,” he said. “I feel very good about a lot of the things we've done in this administration.” Cheney also attacked his successor, Joe Biden, saying he didn’t take seriously Biden’s critique of him as American history’s “most dangerous vice president.” He also said that he did not regret telling Senator Patrick Leahy to “[expletive] off” in 2004. “I thought he merited it at the time, and we've since, I think, patched over that wound and we're civil to one another now," Cheney said.
Fred Thompson is set for another career change: The former senator, actor, and presidential candidate will be taking over Bill O’Reilly’s radio timeslot in March, according to The New York Times. Thompson’s transition to the airwaves signals a renaissance of conservative talk radio, which is preparing to oppose Barack Obama. Rudy Giuliani was also in talks for O’Reilly’s timeslot, and Mike Huckabee is going to host radio segments for ABC News. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, and Laura Ingraham all signed new contracts within the past month. Limbaugh’s contract promised him $400 million through 2016.
Is Michael Jackson dying? So says his biographer, who just completed a book about the singer. According to author Ian Halperin, Jackson suffers Alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency, a genetic condition that can be fatal. "He's had it for years, but it's gotten worse,'' Halperin told In Touch. "He needs a lung transplant but may be too weak to go through with it. He also has emphysema and chronic gastrointestinal bleeding, which his doctors have had a lot of trouble stopping. It's the bleeding that is the most problematic part. It could kill him.'' Halperin also says that Jackson “can barely speak” and has lost 95 percent of his vision in his left eye. Jackson’s spokesperson was unavailable for comment, but his brother Jermaine told Fox News “He’s not doing well right now.”
This can’t make Caroline Kennedy happy: According to The New York Post, Governor David Paterson will hold talks with Long Island Representative Steve Israel about Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat when the two men travel together to Iraq. Israel has been open in his desire for Clinton’s seat and has said that, even if he is not appointed, he will likely run for it in 2010. Representative Anthony Weiner of Brooklyn will also be on the trip. He is a likely challenger to Mayor Bloomberg next year, but may also discuss the Senate seat with Paterson.
Detroit has become everyone’s favorite whipping boy these days, but in The New Republic, Jon Cohn notes, “for all of Detroit's mistakes, it is also a victim of something it did right: ensuring a middle-class lifestyle for blue-collar workers." “In a more enlightened society, after all,” Cohn writes, “government would have made those promises and extended them to all workers, thereby spreading the burden of financing them to all taxpayers. That's how it's done in Europe and in Japan--which, not coincidentally, is the home of Detroit's most successful competitors. But the U.S. government never took that step. So, instead of a public welfare state, we got a private one, administered for only some workers and paid for by their employers. Sooner or later, this arrangement was bound to fail.”
The Fairfield Greenwich Group lost more money to Bernard Madoff than any other investor, but does it qualify as a victim? Since 2003, Fairfield’s executives collected over $500 million in fees from the money they invested with Madoff (while investing only about $60 million of their own money with him). It promised its investors that it would monitor and track Madoff’s investments, but it’s unclear what, exactly, it did. It’s possible, suggests The New York Times, that Fairfield was more “facilitator” than “victim.” According to The Times, Fairfield’s founder, Walter M. Noel owns at least five luxury homes.
After two decades of home theater dominance - followed by a decade of torturous decline - VHS movies are finally headed for the dustbin. Pronouncing this "the last Christmas, without a doubt," the format's sole remaining major supplier, Burbank-based Distribution Video Audio Inc., is shipping the remainder of its inventory to a landfill after the holidays and closing up shop. The company is essentially VHS's last stand -- in the past few years, says the L.A. Times, "If you bought a Clint Eastwood movie at the Flying J Truck Stop in Saginaw, Mich., or a "Care Bears" tape at one of the H.E. Butts Grocery stores in Texas," Distribution Video Audio probably put it there. But Hollywood has moved on: the last major film released on VHS was "A History of Violence" in 2006. And even this year's Jack Black comedy, "Be Kind Rewind," about an all-VHS rental store, is only available on DVD and Blu-ray.
When K.R. Ramamoorthy last visited the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel in Mumbai, he was taken hostage, tied up, abused, and insulted by terrorist attackers. Last night, he was one of hundreds of guests who attended a party to celebrate the hotel's reopening, a defiant gesture meant to show the terrorists how quickly India has rebounded. "I thought I should come back to the place where this happened and show my support for the Taj and my defiance against those who did this to me and to this magnificent city," said the 69-year-old Ramamoorthy. Of course, many signs of the attacks lingered, like new metal detectors and armed guards in the lobby. And while a frenzied surge of repairs had restored much of the damaged hotel, bruises still lingered on Mr. Ramamoorthy's neck.
The story of Liliane Bettencourt, the L’Oréal heiress and the world’s richest woman, seemed at first France’s version of the Astor scandal, but it may in fact be even better: Bettencourt said yesterday that she would never see her daughter again after her daughter filed a lawsuit alleging that the photographer François-Marie Banier exploited Bettencourt’s frail health to the tune of more than $1 billion. In an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche. Bettencourt said “I find this whole affair completely idiotic. It's a waste of energy. It is very disagreeable and distressing.” She went onto say that “I don't see my daughter any more and I don't want to see her,” but added that her daughter will still inherit her wealth.
Is Obamamania over already? The Secret Service and the Washington D.C. City Administrator are revising their inauguration attendance estimates down from four to five million, saying that about half that number are now expected to attend. Two million visitors would still be five times the 400,000 guests who came to see President Bush in 2004, and would still overwhelm local infrastructure. The record for an inauguration is Lyndon Johnson’s 1.2 million in 1965, so Obama can still break that. The Mall is estimated to have the capacity for three million people.
Donald Trump wanted one simple thing: to build and operate a luxury golf course with a 45,000 square foot courthouse, stately locker rooms, a grand ballroom, and stunning oceanfront views half an hour south of Los Angeles. According to The Independent, the town of Rancho Palos Verdes provoked Trump’s ire when it refused to rename a local highway Trump National Drive, forced Trump to cut down a row of 12 foot trees that hide low-cost housing from the course and held up plans for 20 luxury homes on the grounds. In his lawsuit against the town, Trump alleges that it forced him to spend millions on unnecessary geological surveys. The town thinks the suit, which asks for $100 million in damages--five times the town’s annual budget--is an attempt to bully it into submission. “He just feels rules aren’t made for him,” one resident said of Trump.
The shoe-thrower Muntazar al-Zaidi has still not been heard from since he was taken into custody last week, but according to his brother Uday, Zaidi plans to sue the Iraqi government for his public beating. Uday alleges that his brother suffered cigarette burns and lost a tooth in the beating, and that he was tortured into writing a letter of apology. "The thing that makes you cry and laugh at the same time,” Uday said, “is that when the prime minister said that that my brother was not tortured and will not be tortured, he was under severe torture by security authorities." Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, said Zaidi admitted he was convinced to throw his shoes at President Bush by a terrorist “known to us for slitting throats." Zaidi faces up to two years in prison for “insulting a foreign leader.”
The U.S. is now taking a hard line against Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, refusing to support a power-sharing agreement that would leave him as President. Jendayi Frazer, U.S. assistant secretary of State for African affairs made the announcement in South Africa, a clear signal to the influential South African government that it should join the U.S. in abandoning Mugabe. So far, South Africa has said that a deal in which Mugabe is president and his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, is prime minister, is the only option. Frazer said that Mugabe is, "a man who's lost it, who's losing his mind, who's out of touch with reality." She pointed to his scapegoating of the West for a cholera outbreak in his country. Frazer insisted that if Mugabe's neighbors, "go to Mugabe and tell him to go, I do think he would go."
The phrase “turn on” is taking a turn for the literal: British researchers are working on a “sex chip” which would stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain with electric shocks. This kind of technology is already in use to treat Parkinson's disease, but as the technology improves, deep brain implants may be used to elicit a host of reactions. "In 10 years' time the range of therapies available will be amazing – we don't know half the possibilities yet," said neurosurgery professor Tipu Aziz. The chip would not just be recreational. An Oxford study proposed using it to cure anhedonia, an inability to experience pleasure from normal sexual activities. And just because the device works, doesn't mean it will be a success. A chip implanted in a woman with a low sex drive turned her into a raging pleasure seeker, but Aziz said, "She didn't like the sudden change, so the wiring in her head was removed."
Condi and crew may be vacating the State Department in January, but she expects her policy to stick around for some time. Rice told the Financial Times that she expects Barack Obama will follow President Bush’s lead on several foreign policy issues, including Iran. Rice cited President Bush’s cooperation with other countries like the European Union, China, and Russia during his second term. “The reason why there might be some elements of continuity,” she said, “is that what we’ve tried to do is to arrange or organize international groupings that can first manage and then resolve these very difficult problems in a multilateral way.” She also cited this approach on North Korea and Israel-Palestine.
This is what Barack Obama meant by “hitting the ground running”: After completing the top level of his Cabinet over the weekend, the president-elect has set “transition records for speed,” reports The Wall Street Journal. By this point in their own transitions, George H.W. Bush had appointed 26 senior executives and White House staff, while Richard Nixon had appointed 25. Obama, by contrast, has appointed 69, and has begun lower appointments. "They are proceeding right now on a pace to break all records by the first 100 days," said a professor who studies transitions. Obama has enjoyed an advantage over his predecessors in the race: A 2004 intelligence reorganization law has allowed him to submit names to be pre-cleared for classified briefings.
Partner Sites: Expedia| Hotels| Hotwire| Urbanspoon| Vimeo
