Oct 24
BOSTON, Oct 29 () – A rare October snowstorm bore down on the heavily populated U.S. Northeast on Saturday, knocking out electricity, delaying flights and threatening some areas with up to a foot (30 cm) of snow.
Snow was coming down from central Pennsylvania to southeastern New York and Connecticut after hitting parts of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland earlier in the day.
More than 63,000 customers had no power in Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia, the utility Allegheny Power said. Penelec, another utility, said at least 30,000 customers were without power in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
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Oct 10
Billionaire Carl Icahn disclosed a 9.8 percent stake in Navistar International Corp., an Illinois-based truck maker. Icahn is now the second-biggest holder of shares. Icahn, who buys shares in companies he considers to be underperforming and pushes for change, has held talks with management about adding people to its board. Third-quarter profit was $61 million, or 79 cents per share, down from $107 million, or $1.44 a share, a year earlier.
Sep 27
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Manhattan federal judge on Tuesday narrowed a 1 billion lawsuit against owners of the New York Mets baseball team by the trustee seeking money for victims of Bernard Madoffs epic fraud.
U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said the trustee, Irving Picard, can still pursue 300 million of “fictitious profits” and 700 million of principal from the Mets owners.
But he said the latter sum could be recovered only by showing that the owners “willfully blinded themselves” to Madoffs fraud.
Rakoff also dismissed nine of 11 counts raised in what he facetiously referred to as Picards “short and plain” 373-page complaint against the Mets owners, including Fred Wilpon, Saul Katz and others at Sterling Equities.
One of the surviving claims alleges actual fraud. T
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Sep 24
Reader Philip sent in this FREAK shot. No one said you have to be a math whiz to be a bartender — but, is there any logic in this from the bar’s perspective? Do they just assume patrons can’t or won’t do the simple math, and instead choose the bigger 32 ounce beer for $3?
Do you have a FREAK shot? Send it to editor@freakonomics.com
Aug 26
NEW YORK, Aug 27 () – The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq repeated on Saturday that, despite the arrival of Hurricane Irene in New York, both expect to conduct a normal trading session on Monday.
With the powerful storm roaring up the U.S. East Coast, setting off evacuations in parts of New York City and across the Eastern Seaboard, the NYSE Euronext and Nasdaq have said several times that they plan to open trading as usual next week.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and exchange officials will discuss the storm’s impact and plans for opening trading at the start of the week in a conference call on Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m., according to a source familiar with the plan.
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Aug 24
Last week, BP filed a complaint with a US court alleging that hundreds of documents relating to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are not being disclosed by the rig operator.
Since the legal “discovery” process started, Transocean has handed over at least 247,000 documents and 3.36m pages relating to its internal investigation on the causes of the accident. However, BP says it wants more key pieces of evidence.
Last week, BP filed a “motion to compel” Transocean to disclose more information with the Louisiana court handling all oil spill litigation.
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