Free Internet Press Newsletter - Saturday November 10 2007 - (813)

Saturday November 10 2007 edition
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U.S. House Passes $73 Billion In Tax Relief 2007-11-10 02:15:01 Bill would limit alternative minimum tax, offer breaks for mid-income homeowners, poor parents. The House Friday narrowly approved a $73.8 billion measure to protect millions of families from the alternative minimum tax (ATM) and offer new tax breaks to middle-income homeowners and low-income parents, offset by tax increases that would land primarily on wealthy Wall Street financiers. The 216 to 193 vote came after a fiery debate that divided Democrats and energized Republicans, who assailed proposed tax increases that Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) called "an assault on free enterprise." Democrats countered that they were only closing tax loopholes on super-rich private-equity and hedge fund managers in order to live by a pledge of fiscal responsibility. "We planted the flag for fiscal responsibility ... as we gave a tax cut to the middle class," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California).  Read The Full Story FCC Planning Rules To Open Cable Market To More Competition 2007-11-10 02:14:34 The U.S. Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is preparing to impose significant new regulations to open the cable television market to independent programmers and rival video services after determining that cable companies have become too dominant in the industry, said senior commission officials. The finding, under a law that gives the commission expanded powers over the cable television industry if it becomes too big, is expected to be announced this month. It is a major departure for the agency and the industry, which was deregulated by an act of Congress in 1996. Officials say the finding could lead to more diverse programs; consumer groups say it could also lead to lower rates. Heavily promoted by those groups and by the commission’s Republican chairman, Kevin J. Martin, the decision would be a notable exception to the broad deregulatory policies of the Bush administration. Officials in various agencies have relaxed industry regulations and have chosen not to challenge big corporate mergers. Read The Full Story Editorial: Indicting Mr. Kerik 2007-11-10 02:13:59 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Saturday, November 10, 2007. Bernard Kerik’s indictment on fraud and corruption charges is disturbing on its own, but it also raises broader issues. It is sobering to think how close Mr. Kerik came to becoming secretary of the Homeland Security Department, and it is also troubling that Rudolph Giuliani, a leading candidate for president, has been so close to him for so long, as a friend, boss and business partner. Because of Mr. Giuliani’s role in Mr. Kerik’s life, the nation has a compelling interest in learning more about the former police chief’s misdeeds. Mr. Kerik has been accused of accepting renovations to his Bronx apartment from a company that was suspected of having ties to organized crime and was seeking a license from the city. He allegedly used his office to help the company obtain the license. Mr. Kerik also has been accused of hiding the renovation income on his tax returns, along with more than $200,000 in rent payments on an Upper East Side apartment that a developer allegedly paid on his behalf. It is always a sad day, as United States Attorney Michael J. Garcia noted, when a law enforcement official is accused of breaking the law. That is especially true when the official was New York’s top jailer, the head of the nation’s largest police department, and nearly became the chief of a 180,000-member federal department charged with keeping America safe. Read The Full Story North Korea Rebuts Uranium Enrichment Claims 2007-11-10 02:12:44 If nation provides proof to counter enrichment accusations, it will be a blow to U.S. intelligence. North Korea is providing evidence to the United States aimed at proving that it never intended to produce highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, undermining a key U.S. intelligence finding, South Korean and U.S. officials said this week. In closely held talks, the North Korean government has granted U.S. experts access to equipment and documents to make its case, in preparation for declaring the extent of its nuclear activities before the end of the year. North Korean officials hope the United States will simultaneously lift sanctions against Pyongyang as the declaration is made. If North Korea successfully demonstrates that U.S. accusations about the uranium-enrichment program are wrong, it will be a blow to U.S. intelligence and the Bush administration's credibility. The U.S. charges of a large-scale uranium program led to the collapse of a Clinton-era agreement that had frozen a North Korean reactor that produced a different nuclear substance - plutonium. That development freed North Korea to use the plutonium route toward gathering the material needed for a nuclear weapon. Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test last year, detonating a plutonium-based device, and has built a plutonium stockpile that experts estimate could yield eight to 10 nuclear weapons. Read The Full Story Britain's New Afghanistan Plan - Pay Farmers To Ditch Opium 2007-11-10 02:12:10 Troops may target drug factories as part of new strategy to combat Taliban. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is planning a radical scheme to subsidize farmers in Afghanistan to persuade them to stop producing heroin, as part of a wide-ranging drive to re-energize policy in the conflict the prime minister now regards as the front line in the fight against terrorism. Britain's Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch-Brown has admitted that the rise in opium production in the country means Britain "cannot just muddle along in the middle" and must come up with more imaginative ideas on opium eradication. Ministers are looking at what Lord Malloch-Brown describes as a system of payments loosely along the lines of the common agricultural policy to woo the Afghan farmers off opium production. The government is conducting joint research on suitable economic incentives with the World Bank. Read The Full Story California Sues EPA Over Greenhouse Gas Standards 2007-11-09 13:54:17 California sued the federal government Thursday to force a decision about whether the state can impose the nation's first greenhouse gas emission standards for cars and light trucks. More than a dozen other states are poised to follow California's lead if it is granted the waiver from federal law, presenting a challenge to automakers who would have to adapt to a patchwork of regulations. The state's lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, has been expected since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) vowed last spring to take legal action. "Our future depends on us taking action on global warming right now," Schwarzenegger said during a news conference. "There's no legal basis for Washington to stand in our way." Read The Full Story Pakistan Protest Rally Blocked By Thousands Of Police 2007-11-09 13:53:49 In a huge show of force, the Pakistani government stopped a protest rally by the opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto,  before it started Friday, blanketing the rally site with thousands of police Friday, blocking roads to stop demonstrators, and barricading Ms. Bhutto inside her residence in Islamabad. In Rawalpindi, the nearby garrison town where the rally had been due to take place, double lines of police and police vans prevented most of the thousands of demonstrators from entering the city to protest emergency rule, which the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, declared six days ago. Thousands of party workers had already been arrested over the past few days, said party officials. At Bhutto’s residence, lines of police, barbed wire and concrete barricades kept Bhutto inside. Amid chaotic scenes, an attempt by Bhutto to leave in a white four-wheel drive car was thwarted by the police as they moved an armored personnel car and a police bus to block her way. Read The Full Story Fannie Mae Posts $1.4 Billion Loss 2007-11-09 13:53:10 Fannie Mae's third-quarter loss more than doubled to $1.4 billion, reducing year-to-date profits by more than half, as credit losses and mounting mortgage delinquencies sour its outlook into 2008, the company said Friday. Shares of Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. buyer and backer of home loans, sank more than 9 percent in morning trading. Fannie Mae posted a loss equivalent to $1.56 a share, in the tumultuous July-September quarter, compared with a loss of $629 million, or 79 cents per share, a year earlier. Fannie Mae said it expects the housing downturn to continue into 2008, shrinking home prices by 4 percent and decreasing demand for mortgages. Read The Full Story Bush Administration Tells E.U. Firms To Quit Iran Now 2007-11-09 02:03:41 U.K., French and German companies begin pullout as U.S. piles on pressure due to Tehran's nuclear program. Multinational companies are coming under increasing pressure from the U.S. to stop doing business with Iran because of its nuclear program. European operators are facing threats from Washington that they could jeopardize their U.S.  interests by continuing to deal with Tehran, with increasing evidence that European governments, mainly France, Germany and Britain, are supporting the U.S. campaign. It emerged Thursday night that Siemens, one of the world's largest engineering groups and based in Germany, has pulled out of all new business dealings with Iran after pressure from the U.S. and German governments. This follows the decision by Germany's three biggest banks, Deutsche, Commerzbank, and Dresdner, to quit Iran after a warning from U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney that if firms remain in Tehran, they are going to have problems doing business in the U.S. The British Foreign Office, while sympathizing with City firms, has privately backed the U.S. warnings in recent weeks, telling companies such as Shell and BP of the risks of continuing business with Iran. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has urged French energy firms Total and GDF not to pursue new business in Iran. Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, is joining him in pressing for new sanctions, probably at E.U. level. Read The Full Story Bhutto Placed Under House Arrest Prior To Protest Rally 2007-11-09 02:03:14 Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was placed under house arrest this morning, her political party said. Streets were filled with police officers carrying batons and shields, and trucks blocked roads, trying to prevent access to a protest rally that Ms. Bhutto had helped organize in Rawalpindi, the garrison city adjacent to the capital of Islamabad. Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Thursday, a day after President Bush called, that Pakistan’s parliamentary elections would be held before Feb. 15. But his security forces continued to widen their crackdown and jailed thousands of opposition party members before the rally, which is scheduled to start in the early afternoon today. In making the lone concession, General Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, appears to have calculated that it would be enough to defuse his opposition here and to satisfy the White House, which called the general’s announcement of an election timetable a “good thing.” Even so, Bhutto called General Musharraf’s statement “vague” and said Thursday that she was determined to go ahead with her protest rally, despite fears of heavy clashes between the police and protesters. Read The Full Story Exceptional Tidal Surge Puts Britain's East Coast On Emergency Alert 2007-11-09 02:02:37 Cabinet officials meet to prepare for breach in U.K.'s flood defenses; "extreme danger to life and property" warning issued. Thousands of people on the east coast of England were preparing to evacuate their homes Thursday night, having been told of an "extreme danger to life and property" as eight severe flood warnings were issued by the country's Environment Agency. Prime Minister Gordon Brown convened a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee last night amid signs a storm surge off the coast of East Anglia would lead to flash flooding. Ministers are particularly concerned over the vulnerability of the port of Lowestoft in Suffolk. The first indication of the scale of the risk came when the environment secretary, Hilary Benn, told the House of  Commons of the danger, but ministers had decided it was sufficiently acute to convene Cobra, a meeting of government  ministers and emergency planners from across Whitehall. The Environment Agency said gale-force winds in Scotland and a high tide were expected to cause a 2.9 meter (9 feet  6 inches) tidal surge, and suggested the areas at greatest risk were the Norfolk Broads and the coast south of Great Yarmouth including Lowestoft and Felixstowe. Read The Full Story U.S. Senate Confirms Mukasey As U.S. Attorney General 2007-11-09 02:01:21 A divided Senate narrowly confirmed former federal judge Michael B. Mukasey Thursday night as the 81st attorney general, giving the nominee the lowest level of congressional support of any Justice Department leader in the past half-century. The 53 to 40 vote came after more than four hours of impassioned floor debate, and it reflected an effort by Democrats to register their displeasure with Bush administration policies on torture and the boundaries of presidential power. The final tally gave Mukasey the lowest number of yes votes for any attorney general since 1952, just weeks after lawmakers of both parties had predicted his easy confirmation. His supporters believe that Mukasey is the best possible replacement for Alberto R. Gonzales, who left under a cloud of scandal in September. He avoided defeat only because a half dozen Democrats voted in favor of the appointment along with Republicans and Democrat-turned-independent Joseph I. Lieberman (Connecticut).  Read The Full Story Merck Agrees To Settle Vioxx Suits For $4.85 Billion 2007-11-09 02:00:44 Three years after withdrawing its pain medication Vioxx from the market, Merck has agreed to pay $4.85 billion to settle 27,000 lawsuits by people who claim they or their family members suffered injury or died after taking the drug, according to two lawyers with direct knowledge of the matter. The settlement, one of the largest ever in civil litigation, comes after nearly 20 Vioxx civil trials over the last two years from New Jersey to California. After losing a $253 million verdict in the first case, Merck has won most of the rest of the cases that reached juries, giving plaintiffs little choice but to settle. The settlement will help put Vioxx behind Merck, as well as sharply reduce its Vioxx-related legal defense fees, which are now running at more than $600 million annually. Judges in Louisiana, New Jersey and California, who oversee nearly all the lawsuits, had pressed for a deal before a new wave of trials was scheduled to begin in January. Read The Full Story	Rice's Management Criticized 2007-11-10 02:14:49 Critics cite Blackwater, Baghdad embassy and passports. Shortly after Condoleezza Rice took charge of the 57,000-person U.S. State Department in 2005, she said she relished the challenge of "line responsibility" in leading a large organization. "I really enjoy that," she said in an interview. "Some of my favorite times here have been my budget and high-level management reviews." Nearly three years later, Rice is under fire from inside and outside the State Department for a range of crises that are largely managerial in nature - the failure to monitor private security guards in Irfaq, the delays in opening the huge U.S. Embassy under construction in Baghdad and the resistance of some Foreign Service officers to being forced to serve there. Over the summer, the department also fell woefully short in processing passport applications, resulting in ruined vacation plans for many Americans. Within the department, Rice is viewed by many rank-and-file employees as an aloof manager who relies on a tight circle of aides, leaving her out of touch with the rest of the staff, in contrast to her predecessor, Colin L. Powell, a retired Army general who won praise from workers for treating them as though they were his "troops." At her last town hall meeting with employees 2 1/2 years ago, Rice told staffers: "I consider myself the chief management officer of this department." A poll by the American Foreign Service Association, however, indicated that an overwhelming majority did not feel that Rice was their advocate. Read The Full Story News Analysis: U.S. Strategy For Pakistan Looks More Fragile 2007-11-10 02:14:13 In pushing for the deal that took Benazir Bhutto back to Pakistan, the Bush administration hoped to build a broader base of support that might help Gen. Pervez Musharraf  stay in power, but General Musharraf’s sweeping crackdown over the last week has raised questions about that strategy, not least when he sent thousands of police officers on Friday morning to prevent Ms. Bhutto from leading a protest rally against his imposition of de facto martial law. The images coming out of Pakistan - of police forces blanketing the site of a planned rally by Bhutto, the opposition leader, and then barricading her inside her residence - were hardly consistent with the kind of cooperation the United States promoted. Bush administration officials and Pakistani experts say they still believe that a power-sharing agreement between Bhutto and the general can survive. “We hope we’re seeing a little bit of political theater here,” said a senior State Department official. By that the official meant Bhutto’s insistence on holding a rally, General Musharraf’s decision to barricade her in her house, and the subsequent speech by Bhutto to the nation that was broadcast on official Pakistani television. Read The Full Story Commentary: A Post-Bush America Is Not About To Fall At Europe's Feet 2007-11-10 02:13:18 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Martin Kettle and appears in the Guardian edition for Saturday, November 10, 2007. Mr. Kettle writes for the Guardian on British, European and American politics, as well as the media, law, music and many other subjects. In his commentary, Mr. Kettle writes that the prospect of a more pliable U.S. is largely an illusion. European Union  states must make some very serious, existential choices. His commentary follows: If a week is a long time in politics, a year is an eternity. Yet this is an important time to look ahead. In 12 months we will at last know who is to succeed George Bush in the White House. Right now, the outcome of that contest is difficult to predict. Nevertheless the election will shape the context of international affairs until well into the coming decade. For those who want to set a course for Britain and Europe during those years, it is not too soon to start thinking and preparing. For the moment, what is important is to recognize two things. The first is that the November 2008 election is absolutely not a shoo-in for the Democrats, despite their strong general poll position and Bush's unpopularity. A President Rudy Giuliani or a President Mitt Romney remains as open a possibility as a President Hillary Clinton or a President Barack Obama. The second is that the new U.S. administration, of whatever party stripe, will preside over a far less benign political moment for the world than many, not least in our continent, currently assume. That claim may seem perverse. Bush suffers unprecedentedly low ratings at home. He has also triggered unmatched hostility abroad. Visit America and you find bestselling Bush's Last Day bumper stickers and desk calendars, while 01/20/09 countdown clocks (see http://www.backwardsbush.com) are this season's must-have onscreen accessory. What's not to look forward to about January 2009, given that the Bush years have been so uniquely disastrous? Read The Full Story 59 Children Die In Deadliest Afghan Suicide Attack 2007-11-10 02:12:28 Ninety-Three other children were injured, some critically, 5 teacher, 6 parliament members, and 5 bodyguards were also killed in the attack. The number of children killed in Afghanistan's deadliest ever suicide attack this week was put at 59 Friday, possibly the largest number to die in a single suicide attack anywhere in recent times. The revelation, grim even by the wretched standards of Afghanistan and Iraq, set off immediate recriminations about why such a large number of children were involved in a high-profile public event. The education ministry in Kabul insisted it had instructed schoolchildren to be kept away from the kind of function targeted in Tuesday's bombing. The children, all boys aged between eight and 18 from the same school, had gathered to welcome a visiting delegation of parliamentarians to a sugar factory outside the town of Pul-i-Khumri, 90 miles north of the capital, in the province of Baghlan. Five teachers, six parliament members and five bodyguards were also killed in the attack, and 93 other children were injured, some critically. Witnesses have said some victims may have been killed or wounded by guards who opened fire after the blast. Read The Full Story Spain Shows Perils Of Climate Change 2007-11-10 02:11:46 It's an apocalyptic view of the future, a stark warning to Spain of what the country could look like if action is not taken to reduce the effects of climate change. The warning comes in a book, Photoclima, launched this week by Greenpeace in which images of some of Spain's most emblematic places have been altered to show what they could look like in the future. Using statistics from the United Nations panel on climate change and a touch of digital makeup Greenpeace hopes to scare Spain into taking action. We see the Ebro river in Zaragoza as a dried-up riverbed in 2070, by which time the fields of Valencia, which have provided Spain with oranges for centuries, will have all but disappeared. Perhaps the most dramatic image is that of La Manga de Mar Menor in Murcia, where hotels and apartment blocks abut the Mediterranean. In a few decades, according to Greenpeace, most of this will be underwater. Read The Full Story Oil Spill Fouls Shores In San Francisco Bay Area 2007-11-09 13:54:00 A South Korean container ship hit one of the stanchions of the Bay Bridge in a dense fog on Wednesday, spilling 58,000 gallons of bunker oil. Strong tides have since swept the slick through the mouth of San Francisco Bay, fouling beaches up to 20 miles north of the city and girdling Alcatraz Island with a belt of goo. While every change of tide sent the oil to a different shore, the largest concentrations were “one-and-a-half to two miles offshore, west of the Golden Gate bridge,” said Lt. Rob Roberts of the California Department of Fish and Game. Several beaches were closed by the spill. Lieutenant Roberts said that of the 26 oil-covered shorebirds that had been found, six were dead. Read The Full Story Wachovia Reports $1.1 Billion In Credit Losses 2007-11-09 13:53:23 Wachovia Corp., the fourth-largest U.S. bank, on Friday said it incurred about $1.1 billion of losses in October on mortgage securities as a year-long credit market slump shows no signs of abating. The company said the pretax value of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) invested in asset-backed securities declined by $1.1 billion last month. That's on top of a $1.3 billion write-down during the third quarter. Wachovia also warned that it expects to set aside $500 million to $600 million in excess of actual mortgage-loan charge-offs, further reducing earnings. Shares of Wachovia fell 5 percent in pre-market trade. Read The Full Story Capital One Stock Takes A Beating Over Loan Portfolio 2007-11-09 13:52:55 Shares of Capital One Financial have taken a beating this week as analysts cast a more pessimistic eye on the company's outlook for further losses in its lending portfolio. On Tuesday, the McLean, Virginia-based financial services company increased its forecast of the amount of bad loans it may write off next year by several hundred million dollars. The move came as major banks and financial institutions are confronting the fallout from the mortgage industry crisis. In recent days, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley have announced billions of dollars in additional investment losses from mortgage-backed securities, causing the broader stock market to fall sharply. Capital One shares fell 16 percent Wednesday - its biggest, single-day loss in more than a year - to close at $50.21, down sharply from more than $80 a share in June. The stock tumbled a day after the company warned in a regulatory filing that rising loan delinquencies and housing-market problems could increase its credit losses for 2008. Read The Full Story Majory Oil Discovery Rocks Brazil 2007-11-09 02:03:29 A huge offshore oil discovery could raise Brazil's petroleum reserves by a whopping 40 percent and boost this country into the ranks of the world's major exporters, said officials. The government-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, said the new "ultra-deep" Tupi field could hold as much as 8 billion barrels of recoverable light crude, sending Petrobras shares soaring and prompting predictions that Brazil could join the world's "top 10" oil producers. Petrobras President Sergio Gabrielli said Thursday the oil from ultradeep areas, including the Tupi field, would give Brazil the world's eighth-largest oil and gas reserves. "Brazil's reserves will lie somewhere between those of Nigeria and those of Venezuela," Gabrielli said at a news conference. Petrobras says the Tupi field, off Brazil's southeastern Atlantic coast, has between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels - equivalent to 40 percent of all the oil ever discovered in Brazil. Read The Full Story As Yellowstone Bubbles, Experts Are Calm 2007-11-09 02:02:51 Something is stirring deep below the legendary hot springs and geysers of Yellowstone, the first and most famous national park in America - and home to a huge volcanic caldron. Parts of the park have been rising the past three years at a rate never before observed by scientists. They believe that magma - molten rock - is filling pores in the Earth's crust and causing a large swath of Yellowstone to rise like a pie in the oven. That doesn't mean you should cancel any vacation plans. Scientists see no sign that Yellowstone is about to blow its top. "There's no evidence of eruption," said Robert B. Smith, a University of Utah geophysicist and co-author of a new report on Yellowstone's unusual behavior, published Friday in the journal Science. The park's recent rise is "just part of the natural process." Read The Full Story U.S. Claims Al-Qaeda Out Of Baghdad - European Analysts Doubt Assessment 2007-11-09 02:02:01 The U.S. military has painted its most upbeat assessment yet of security in the Iraqi capital, claiming it has forced the most extreme of the insurgent groups, al-Qaeda in Iraq, out of every neighborhood in Baghdad, and has cut the number of murders by 80%. In a move described as over-optimistic by some observers, Major-General Joseph Fil, commander of the U.S. forces in Baghdad, told reporters that the clear-out of extremists would make it easier for the U.S. military to reduce its presence in the city beginning next year. Speaking to reporters in the Iraqi capital, Gen. Fil said "there's just no question" that violence had declined since a rise in June. He said: "Murder victims are down 80% from where they were at the peak." He added: "The Iraqi people have decided that they've had it up to here with violence." The U.S. has been providing arms to militia groups in Baghdad and elsewhere to take on al-Qaeda. Gen. Fil's comments are in line with recent U.S. assessments that there have been improvements in security, albeit often marginal. European defense analysts cautioned against rushing to premature judgments. One, speaking on condition of anonymity, described Gen. Fil's assessment as "wildly optimistic" and warned that there was a danger of his words "coming back to bite him". Read The Full Story FDA: Some Anemia Drugs Lead To Tumor Growth 2007-11-09 02:01:01 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration called on physicians Thursday to warn cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy that certain anti-anemia drugs led to tumor growth and decreased survival in some patients. At issue are drugs sold under the brand names Procrit, Epogen and Aranesp. They are genetically engineered versions of a natural protein that increases the number of red blood cells. The drugs generated $10 billion in sales last year. The FDA also approved several new labeling changes, which emphasize that the drugs caused tumor growth and shortened survival in cancer patients with advanced breast, head and neck, lymphoid, or non-small-cell lung cancer. The patients at greater risk for the adverse effects received a dose that attempted to raise hemoglobin levels in blood to at least 12 grams per deciliter. The new boxed warning emphasizes that no clinical data are available that would exclude similar risks for patients getting smaller doses, said FDA officials. Read The Full Story Kerik's Corruption Case Dogs Giuliani 2007-11-09 02:00:27 The scene outside the old Victorian-style courthouse in Dubuque, Iowa, on Thursday morning showed that the indictment of Bernard B. Kerik is at the very least a big distraction for Rudolph W. Giuliani's presidential campaign. The site had been chosen with care: Giuliani spoke across from the courthouse, which has a statue of Justice atop its golden cupola. With him were two former United States attorneys who were there to talk about Giuliani’s record as a corruption-busting federal prosecutor before he became mayor of New York. But the only federal corruption case that reporters asked about was the one being built against Kerik - Giuliani's former driver, police commissioner, partner, and, briefly, choice to head the federal Department of Homeland Security. A grand jury on Thursday voted to charge Kerik, and he is expected to be arraigned on a sealed indictment at midday Friday in United States District Court in White Plains, New York, on corruption-related charges, according to people briefed on the case. Read The Full Story
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