The lawyers, accountants and restructuring experts overseeing the remains of Lehman Brothers have already racked up more than $730 million in fees and expenses, with no end in sight. Anyone wondering why total fees doled out in the Lehman bankruptcy alone could easily touch the $1 billion mark merely has to look at the bills buried among the blizzard of court documents filed in the case. They’re a Baedeker to the continuing bankruptcy bonanza, a world where the meter is always running - sometimes literally: in the months after Lehman’s collapse in September 2008, the New York law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges paid one car-service company alone more than $500 a day as limo drivers cooled their heels waiting for meetings to break (and this in a city overflowing with taxis). While most of corporate America may be just emerging from the Great Recession, bankruptcy specialists have spent the last two years enjoying an unprecedented boom. Ten of the 20 largest corporate bankruptcies in recent decades have occurred over the last three years, according to BankruptcyData.com, with Lehman snaring honors as the biggest corporate belly-flop in American history. These megacases - Lehman, General Motors, Chrysler and […]
Iraq continues to be embroiled in its messy post-election coalition-building process. It has become so messy that the US may well be rethinking its withdrawal plans, and particularly its withdrawal of all combat troops at the end of August. In the past few weeks, amid a number of terror attacks, two key developments have taken place: an order by an electoral panel to have all the votes cast in Baghdad manually recounted; and a ruling that paves the way for banning some elected candidates because of their sympathies for the outlawed Ba’ath party. Reports suggest at least two of these candidates won seats in the 325-member Iraqi parliament; both belong to the winning bloc of the Iraqi National Movement (INM), led by Ayad Allawi who won 91 seats, ahead of Nouri al-Maliki and his State of Law coalition’s 89 seats. The banning of other INM elected members is also possible within the next couple of weeks. Together, the recount and the ban, may give Maliki little more than three or four additional seats, making him the overall electoral winner. But many will question what difference it will make, since Iraq’s supreme court has already ruled that it […]
RICHMOND — Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli apparently isn’t fond of wardrobe malfunctions, even when Virginia’s state seal is involved. The seal depicts the Roman goddess Virtus, or virtue, wearing a blue tunic draped over one shoulder, her left breast exposed. But on the new lapel pins Cuccinelli recently handed out to his staff, Virtus’ bosom is covered by an armored breastplate. When the new design came up at a staff meeting, workers in attendance said Cuccinelli joked that it converts a risqué image into a PG one. The joke might be on him, said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. ‘When you ask to be ridiculed, it usually happens. And it will happen here, nationally, he said. ‘This is classical art, for goodness’ sake. It wouldn’t be the first time that Cuccinelli has found himself in a punch line since taking office. The conservative Republican made Comedy Central’s ‘The Daily Show in March after he advised state colleges and universities they lack the legal authority to protect gay employees from discrimination. ‘You can’t be gay in college? host Jon Stewart asked in mock disbelief. ‘That’s the whole point of going to college! […]
ROME — Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday took control of the Legionaries of Christ, a powerful and wealthy Roman Catholic religious order whose founder, a friend of Pope John Paul II, was found to have molested seminarians and fathered several children. The move constituted the most direct action on sexual abuse since the most recent scandals have engulfed the church and prompted criticisms of the pope’s own handling of such cases as an archbishop in Munich and as a cardinal who led the office reviewing many sexual abuse charges. In a statement on Saturday, the Vatican said that Benedict would appoint a special delegate to govern the Legionaries, an influential worldwide order that has been an important source of new priests in a church that has struggled with a shrinking priesthood in much of the developed world. It was founded in 1941 by a Mexican priest, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado. Benedict also said he would appoint a special commission to examine the Legionaries’ constitution and open an investigation into its lay affiliate, Regnum Christi. The measures mean that the order would be governed directly from the Vatican. But the pope decided against dissolving the order […]
VENICE, La. - A sense of doom settled over the American coastline from Louisiana to Florida on Saturday as a massive oil slick spewing from a ruptured well kept growing, and experts warned that an uncontrolled gusher could create a nightmare scenario if the Gulf Stream carries it toward the Atlantic. President Barack Obama planned to visit the region Sunday to assess the situation amid growing criticism that the government and oil company BP PLC should have done more to stave off the disaster. Meanwhile, efforts to stem the flow and remove oil from the surface by skimming it, burning it or spiking it with chemicals to disperse it continued with little success. ‘These people, we’ve been beaten down, disaster after disaster,’ said Matt O’Brien of Venice, whose fledgling wholesale shrimp dock business is under threat from the spill. ‘They’ve all got a long stare in their eye,’ he said. ‘They come asking me what I think’s going to happen. I ain’t got no answers for them. I ain’t got no answers for my investors. I ain’t got no answers.’ He wasn’t alone. As the spill surged toward disastrous proportions, critical questions lingered: Who created the […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
