Posts Tagged ‘israel’
Israel, CIA aka Al-Qaida & SAS Britain usual suspects causing civil unrest in the middle east.
Russia and China were the only permanent Security Council members opposing the UN Security Council draft resolution on Syria, reminding others that it was not their place to intervene in the domestic affairs of another country. Russia’s permanent envoy to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin earlier said any proposals including an arms embargo or a demand for Assad’s resignation would be vetoed. Diplomatic insiders say there had been two draft resolutions on the table in the UNSC.
A version put forth by Morocco, the only Arab state on the Security Council, was opposed by Russia and China over provisions for foreign intervention in what both Moscow and Beijing call a ‘domestic’ affair.
The two states had previously vetoed a similar resolution, fearing its passage would cause a repeat of the Libyan scenario with another NATO military incursion. In turn, some UNSC members said Russia’s draft proposal was far too soft to have any effect on the conflict in Syria. To these claims, Churkin stressed the hope for a consensus on the matter, but noted that it was still too early to talk about a vote. It is not in America’s plans to push for a resolution demanding foreign intervention in Syria, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland announced on Thursday. She added that America wants a peaceful solution to the conflict in the country, saying that the situation in Syria is different from that of Libya. Nuland stressed, however, that the US is calling on other countries to back the toughest possible resolution on Syria.
Michel Chossudovsky, the Director at the Center for Research on Globalization, believes that instead of revising the current draft resolution, the Security Council should scrap it and work out a new one, based on the results of the Arab League’s report. “I think that resolution should be scrapped,” he told RT.
“What they should do is throw out that draft resolution and have another one which actually focuses on the foreign forces – including Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia – which are supporting an insurgency in a sovereign country namely Syria.” Chossudovsky believes that the Security Council paid too little attention to the Arab League observer mission’s “extremely explicit” report, which should be taken very seriously. “The report should be made public,” he said. “This observer mission is made up of people who are not necessarily politically inclined. They are independent observers and they are saying the truth.” (see video interview below)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?aid=29058&context=va
WASHINGTON — The government told passenger airlines Wednesday they’ll have to do more to ensure pilots aren’t too tired to fly, nearly three years after the deadly western New York crash of a regional airliner flown by two exhausted pilots.
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AP file
Holiday travel: not so hellish after all?
Getting ready to brave the teeming masses at the airport later this week? Turns out you may need less courage than you might think.
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14 essential stops in Stieg Larsson’s Stockholm
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Jinx! Items you can’t leave behind when traveling
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The Federal Aviation Administration’s update of airline pilot work rules, some of which dated to the 1960s, reflects a better understanding of the need for rest and how night shifts and traveling through time zones can increase errors.
“This is a big deal,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said. “This is as far as our government has ever gone” to protect the traveling public from pilot fatigue.
Carriers have two years to adapt to the new rules. The FAA estimated the cost to industry at $297 million over 10 years, a fraction of the $2 billion a year that an airline trade association had estimated the draft proposal released by FAA over a year ago would cost.
The airline industry had opposed the draft rule as too costly for the safety benefits it would achieve. But FAA officials made substantial changes to the final rule to lower the cost. Several expensive reporting and training requirements were eliminated.
Safety advocates have been urging FAA for over two decades to update pilot work rules, but previous efforts stalled after airlines and pilots unions were unable to agree on changes. Those efforts were revived after the February 2009 crash near Buffalo that killed 50 people. Families of the dead have lobbied relentlessly for more stringent regulations to fight pilot fatigue.
The rules would limit the maximum time a pilot can be scheduled to be on duty — including wait time before flights and administrative duties — to between nine and 14 hours. The total depends on the time of day pilots begin their first flight and the number of time zones crossed.
The maximum amount of time pilots can be scheduled to fly is limited to eight or nine hours, and pilots would get a minimum of 10 hours to rest between duty periods, a two-hour increase over the old rules. The minimum amount of time off between work weeks will be increased 25 percent, and there will be new limits on how many hours per month pilots can fly. Pilots flying overnight would be allowed fewer hours than pilots flying during the day.
But cargo carriers — which do much of their flying overnight when people naturally crave sleep — are exempted from the new rules. The FAA said forcing cargo carriers to reduce the number of hours their pilots can fly would be too costly when compared with the safety benefits.
Imposing the rules on cargo airlines like Federal Express or United Parcel Service would have added another $214 million to the cost, FAA officials said.
The exemption for cargo carriers, which runs counter to the FAA’s goal of “one level of safety” across the aviation industry, drew strong criticism from pilots unions.
“To potentially allow fatigued cargo pilots to share the same skies with properly rested passenger pilots creates an unnecessary threat to public safety. We can do better,” said Robert Travis, president of the Independent Pilots Association, which represents UPS pilots.
National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman, while calling the new rule “a huge improvement,” also expressed dismay that cargo operations weren’t included.
“A tired pilot is a tired pilot, whether there are 10 paying customers on board or 100, whether the payload is passengers or pallets,” she said.
LaHood said he plans to invite top officials from cargo airlines to meet with him next month so that he can urge them to voluntarily follow the new rules.
The charter airlines that transport nearly 90 percent of U.S. troops around the world had also lobbied heavily for an exemption to the new rules, saying military missions could be jeopardized. But FAA officials rejected those pleas.
The rules will prevent about one and a half accidents a year and an average of six deaths a year, FAA officials predict. They should also improve pilots’ health, officials said.
Jean Medina, a spokeswoman for the Airlines for America trade association, said the group is reviewing the new requirements. “We support changes to the rule that are science-based and that will improve safety,” she wrote in an email.
Researchers say fatigue, much like alcohol, can impair a pilot’s performance by slowing reflexes and eroding judgment.
The changes replace “rules that were dangerously obsolete and completely ineffective,” said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va. “The rule applies fatigue science in a way that makes sense.”
Susan Bourque, who lost a sister in the Buffalo air crash, said she was particularly pleased that the rule will require pilots to sign a statement before each flight stating that they are rested and fit for duty. “It’s a pretty good day,” said Bourque, of East Aurora, N.Y.
Scheduling wasn’t an issue in the Buffalo accident, but NTSB concluded that the pilots’ performance was likely impaired by fatigue.
Neither pilot appeared to have slept in a bed the previous night. The flight’s captain had logged onto a computer in the middle of the night from an airport crew lounge where sleeping was discouraged. The first officer had commuted overnight from Seattle to Newark, N.J., much of the time sitting in a cockpit jumpseat. They could be heard yawning on the ill-fated flight’s cockpit voice recorder.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Associated Press
This is the last known photo of Huguette Clark, taken 80 years ago. She hid away in a New York hospital room for at least the past 22 years, until her death in May. This photo was made on Aug. 11, 1930, the day of her divorce, in Reno, Nev. Her marriage lasted two years. She had no children.
New York — A New York state official has accused the attorney and accountant for mysterious heiress Huguette Clark of a tax fraud that could cost her estate $50 million in IRS penalties. While the men denied any wrongdoing, the accountant resigned this week from handling her $400 million estate just before the allegations were leveled in court documents.
The allegation was made by the office of the public administrator of New York County, who was appointed by the court as a third administrator, in effect to watch the actions of Clark’s attorney and accountant. The public administrator, Ethel J. Griffin, asked the court on Tuesday to remove attorney Wallace “Wally” Bock and accountant Irving Kamsler as executors, a position that would normally pay each of them about 2 percent of her estate, or roughly $16 million each.
Document: Read the full petition at msnbc.com. (PDF file opens in a new window.)
Clark, who died in May at age 104, gained public attention in a series of articles on msnbc.com over the past two years, focusing at first on the mystery of her empty mansions and then the financial dealings of her attorney and accountant. The full series of articles is at http://clark.msnbc.com. Born in 1906, Clark was the youngest child of former U.S. Sen. William Andrews Clark (1839-1925), a copper miner and U.S. senator from Montana, said to be one of the richest men in the world.
The public administrator alleges that while Huguette Clark lived as a recluse in New York City hospital rooms, attorney Bock and accountant Kamsler:
- Failed to file federal gift tax returns for Clark for the years 1997 through 2003, when she made approximately $56 million in gifts to individuals. The gift tax and generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax due would have been about $41.5 million.
- Charged her for filing tax returns that were not filed.
- Paid only $7.5 million in estimated tax payments toward the gift tax in those years.
- Failed to pay the remaining $34 million during the years since, exposing her to millions in IRS interest and penalties for failure to file.
- Failed to tell Clark about the unpaid taxes or possible interest and penalties, even though she had sufficient liquid assets to pay the bill in full.
- Filed false returns with the IRS for the years 2004 through 2009, claiming that previous gift tax returns had been filed, and understating Clark’s current tax liabilities by more than $7 million.
- Underreported and underpaid by millions her federal taxes.
- Misrepresented to the IRS that returns had been filed.
- Lied to the IRS, with Kamsler claiming he was unaware of a $5 million gift to Clark’s nurse, when documents show he listed that gift on a profit and loss statement seven months earlier.
- Lied to the public administrator, claiming that they were searching for the gift tax returns, until the IRS disclosed that none had been filed.
“By 2011, Mrs. Clark owed $34,000,000 in gift and GST taxes for the years 1997 through 2003; plus potential late filing and late payment penalties in excess of $16,000,000; plus interest on the unpaid taxes and potential penalties in the amount of approximately $32,000,000; for a total liability to the IRS in excess of $82,000,000,” the public administrator alleges, adding that “neither Bock nor Kamsler made Mrs. Clark aware of this tax liability.”
Claudio Papapietro
Irving Kamsler, Huguette Clark’s longtime accountant, resigned as her executor this week. He is shown outside court on Long Island after he pleaded guilty in October 2008 to attempting to disseminate indecent material to minors on AOL. The court sentenced him to five years of probation, but he was allowed to keep his license as a certified public accountant. In a letter he told his client only the barest details of the case.
The tax bill was rising at the rate of $9,000 per day, the public administrator calculated.
“Bock and Kamsler have demonstrated,” the public administrator wrote, “that they are unfit for the execution of their office as Preliminary Executors, by reason of their dishonesty, improvidence, waste and want of understanding, both while Mrs. Clark was alive and subequent to their appointment.” In addition, the public administrator’s office said it is investigating what it believes are other violations of trust, including improper soliciation of gifts, abuse of powers of attorney, and making gifts without authority.
An attorney for Kamsler in the estate case wrote to the judge informing her that Kamsler would resign. That letter was filed in court on Tuesday, just ahead of the filing by the public administrator, and was released by the court on Wednesday.
Kamsler’s criminal defense attorney, Elizabeth Crotty, would not answer questions but issued a statement on Wednesday: “For the past 3 decades, Mr. Kamsler has served professionally and diligently as Ms. Clark’s accountant. Although Mr. Kamsler is fully capable of remaining as a preliminary executor to Ms. Clark’s estate, the distant family members and the Public Administrator have made it impossible for him to carry out her wishes. Therefore, Mr. Kamsler is voluntarily removing himself as Preliminary Executor, with the hope that Ms. Clark’s last wishes be respected and to put this whole matter behind him.”
An attorney representing Bock and Kamsler in the estate case, John Dadakis of the firm of Holland and Knight, issued this statement Wednesday through a spokesman: “For 30 years, Irving Kamsler was Mrs. Clark’s accountant, and for 15 years Wallace Bock was her attorney. There is no allegation in the paper’s filed that either individual was taking anything out of her account for themselves. Their entire handling of her affairs was an effort to protect and preserve Mrs. Clark’s chosen lifestyle.”
Bock and Kamsler are already under investigation by the Manhattan district attorney, who is looking into their handling of Clark’s finances; no charges have been filed, and the investigation remains open.
Christopher Sadowski
Attorney Wallace “Wally” Bock says he has always done exactly what his client, heiress Huguette Clark, has asked. He acknowledged soliciting from her a gift of $1.5 million for the community where his daughter and grandchildren live. Court records show the amount to be $1.85 million. He remains an executor of her estate, at least until a court hearing planned for Friday.
The new allegations raise the possibility that they could face federal charges, with the public administrator noting that it is a felony to willfully submit fraudulent tax returns.
Kamsler, 64, from the Bronx, N.Y., is a convicted felon and a registered sex offender who pleaded guilty in 2008 to attempting to distribute indecent materials to teenage girls in a chat room on AOL, under the moniker “IRV1040.” Bock, 79, is from Queens, N.Y.
Msnbc.com reported last year that the two men also handled the affairs of another elderly client, Donald Wallace, who in fact was the previous attorney for Huguette Clark. After the man’s will was revised six times, during years when his relatives said he was suffering from dementia, Bock and Kamsler ended up as his executors and also beneficiaries in his will, getting his New York apartment and his Mercedes.
And the allegations may bolster the request by Clark’s relatives that they be allowed to intervene in the case. The relatives disclosed last month that Clark signed two wills at age 98 in 2005, six weeks apart: The first benefitted mostly her family, the second cut out the family altogether and included $500,000 each in bequests to attorney Bock and accountant Kamsler, who also stood to benefit as trustees of a charitable foundation and art museum to be established in her home in Santa Barbara, Calif. The family has not yet officially challenged that second will but has asked to intervene in a preliminary stage of the case, the accounting of the estate.
The public administrator makes a point in the document of saying that the gifts made by Bock and Kamsler from Clark’s accounts may not have been valid, because the men may not have had authority to make those gifts. “The Public Administrator will seek, in a separate proceeding, to clawback into the Estate any gifts deemed to be invalid.”
The public administrator notes that Kamsler lists himself in online biographies as a specialist in “gift tax planning and preparation,” and Bock bills himself as having “substantial expertise in estate planning.”
The allegations by the public administrator were first reported Wednesday by The Associated Press.
A hearing is scheduled on Friday in Surrogate’s Court in Manhattan on the family’s request to intervene in the case, and the public administrator’s request to remove Bock and Kamsler.
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Documents (PDF files)
Public administrator’s petition to remove Bock and Kamsler, Dec. 20, 2011
Family motion to intervene in the estate case, Nov. 28, 2011
Huguette Clark’s last will and testament, signed April 19, 2005
Huguette Clark’s previous will, signed March 7, 2005
Family’s petition seeking a guardian for Huguette Clark, September 2010
Attorney Bock’s sworn statement to the court, September 2010
Judge’s ruling rejecting her family’s guardianship petition, September 2010
Kamsler letter informing Clark of his guilty plea, February 2009
Kamsler’s criminal court file and investigator’s report
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Previous stories in the Huguette Clark mystery on msnbc.com:
Archive of all stories, photos and videos
Photo narrative, “The Clarks: An American story of wealth, scandal and mystery,” Feb. 26, 2010.
Printable version of the photo narrative, Feb. 26, 2010.
Clark family notes and sources, Feb. 26, 2010.
Investigative report, part one, “At 104, the mysterious heiress Huguette Clark is alone now: Relatives are kept away. Only her accountant and attorney visit. Who protects Huguette Clark, with 3 empty homes and no heirs?” Aug. 19, 2010.
Investigative report, part two, “Who is watching Huguette Clark’s millions? Reclusive heiress’s assets are sold by two advisers, one an accountant with a felony conviction. Another elderly client signed over his property to the same accountant and attorney,” Aug. 20, 2010.
“Criminal probe begins into the finances of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark: Manhattan DA’s Elder Abuse Unit is on the case. The same unit prosecuted the Brooke Astor case — though Clark has about four times the wealth,” Aug. 24, 2010.
“Report sparks welfare check on heiress Huguette Clark,” Aug. 25, 2010.
“Generosity of an heiress: four homes for a nurse, gifts for attorney’s family,” Sept. 1, 2010.
“Huguette Clark, the reclusive heiress, has signed a will, attorney says,” Sept. 2, 2010.
“Family of copper heiress asks court to protect her from attorney, accountant,” Sept. 3, 2010.
“Attorney for 104-year-old heiress defends his handling of her finances,” Sept. 7, 2010.
“Judge leaves pair under investigation in control of heiress Huguette Clark’s fortune,” Sept. 9, 2010.
“Huguette Clark, the reclusive copper heiress, dies at 104,” May 24, 2011.
“Family excluded from Huguette Clark burial,” May 26, 2011.
“The 1 percent of the 1 percent: How Huguette Clark’s millions were spent,” Nov. 19, 2011.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A Navy tradition caught up with the repeal of the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule on Wednesday when two women sailors became the first to share the coveted “first kiss” on the dock after one of them returned from 80 days at sea.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta of Placerville, Calif., descended from the USS Oak Hill amphibious landing ship and shared a quick kiss with her partner, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell of Los Angeles. The crowd screamed and waved flags around them.
Both women, ages 22 and 23 respectively, are fire controlmen in the Navy. They met at training school and have been dating for two years.
Navy officials said it was the first time on record that a same-sex couple was chosen to kiss first upon a ship’s return. Sailors and their loved ones bought $1 raffle tickets for the opportunity. Gaeta said she bought $50 of tickets. The Navy said the money would be used to host a Christmas party for the children of sailors.
The ship returned to Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story following an 80-day deployment to Central America. The crew of more than 300 participated in exercises involving the militaries of Honduras, Guatemala Colombia and Panama as part of Amphibious-Southern Partnership Station 2012.
Snell is based on the USS Bainbridge, the guided missile destroyer that helped rescue cargo captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates in 2009.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Fred Prouser / Reuters
An existing single family home which is up for sale is pictured in Burbank, Calif., Dec. 15, 2011.
Send us your story ideas
Real estate agents are famous for putting a listing in the best possible light to close a sale. On Thursday, the industry’s national trade association confirmed that its monthly data have been painting a rosier picture of the pace of home sales since 2007.
As msnbc.com reported in March, the National Association of Realtors has been overstating the pace of existing home sales by more than 16 percent. The trade group now says just 17.7 million existing homes were sold from 2007 to 2010, not the 20.6 million it originally reported. The NAR made no changes to its data on home prices.
In its announcement of the downward revisions, the trade group sought to downplay the impact of “re-benchmarking” the data lower.
“From a consumer’s perspective, only the local market information matters and there are no changes to local multiple listing service data or local supply-and-demand balance, or to local home prices,” NAR economist Lawrence Yun said in a release explaining the revisions.
The NAR’s monthly sales data is a critical input for a host of widely-watched forecasts generated by public and private economists – from Wall Street to the Federal Reserve. Investors make big bets based on the data. Debates on government policy, from the White House to Capitol Hill, rely on this barometer of the health of the housing industry, a critical pillar of the U.S economy.
Barclays Capital
The revision shows that home sales were substantially lower than originally reported over the past three years.
But beginning about a year ago, the data reported by the NAR began diverging from the assessment of independent researchers. That began a lengthy reassessment of its data collection methods and analysis as the trade group met with government and private housing experts, including the Federal Reserve, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Home Builders, government-owned mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and CoreLogic, a California-based data firm that first raised doubts about the association’s data.
It would not be the first time the NAR’s economics team has overstated the health of the housing market. Following the housing market peak in late 2005, the trade group’s forecasts remained upbeat well into 2007.
Thursday’s downward data revisions confirm that the housing market has fallen further than originally thought. But the new numbers don’t change the outlook for the market’s recovery. That’s because the revisions also lowered the NAR’s estimate of the number of houses for sale by 18 percent, to 2.6 million from 3.1 million.
“The balance between supply and demand is the same,” said Paul Dales, a senior economist at Capital Economics. “The revisions therefore hold no implications for either the previous, or future, path of prices.”
The median price for an existing home fell 3.5 percent in November from a year earlier to $164,200, according to the NAR.
On Thursday, the trade group cited a number of factors that combined to skew the data upward. Since the housing market collapsed in 2007, fewer homeowners have opted to sell their house without a real estate agent. At the same time, more homebuilders have begun using the multiple listing services to find customers. Those shifts tended to inflate the number of sales captured by those MLS systems, which form the basis for the NAR’s data collection.
The expansion of MLS services since 2007 has already created some regional overlap, with more than one MLS system listing the same property in some cases. That overlap lead to some double counting of sales, the NAR said.
The group also cited changes in the way the Census Bureau collects data, population shifts and noted that some sales were counted twice as homes were “flipped” shortly after they were purchased.
The “re-benchmarked” data show the pace of home sales was substantially slower from 2007 through 2010 than originally reported. The figure for 2007 was lowered 11 percent to 5.04 million; 2008 was lowered 16 percent to 4.11 million; 2009 dropped 16 percent to 4.34 million; and 2010 fell by 15 percent to 4.19 million.
The latest monthly data from the group show that existing home sales rose 4 percent in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.42 million.
The NAR report follows news Tuesday that home builders are seeing a gradual recovery new housing starts and permits. Last month, builders broke ground on an annual rate of 685,000 homes, according to the Commerce Dept. That was a 9.3 percent jump from October and the fastest pace since April 2010.
The National Association of Realtors announces existing home sales in November increased 4 percent, reports CNBC’s Diana Olick.
Milder weather around most of the US could make Christmas travel easier this year. NBC’s Michelle Franzen reports.
Getting ready to brave the teeming masses at the airport later this week?
Turns out you may need less courage than you might think. Contrary to accepted wisdom, the idea that the holidays represent the busiest days in air travel may be more myth than reality.
“The days around the holidays are still among the busiest periods,” said Steve Lott, spokesman for Airlines for America (A4A), the industry trade group formerly known as the Air Transport Association. “But on a random Friday in July you can often see travel numbers that top, say, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.”
“Our busiest day was Sunday following Thanksgiving with about 89,000 passengers,” said Perry Cooper, spokesman for Sea-Tac International Airport. “That didn’t even come close to what we have daily during the summer.”
And barring major weather snafus, travel during the upcoming Christmas holiday may follow a similar pattern. On Tuesday, A4A forecasted that 43.3 million travelers will fly on U.S. airlines during the Dec. 21–Jan. 4 period. That’s a 1 percent drop from last year which works out to about 20,000 fewer passengers per day.
That should translate into fewer people in the terminal although it may not always feel that way. “Airports may appear busier because of travelers who are unfamiliar with the kiosks or security or how the boarding process goes,” said Debby McElroy, executive vice president of policy and external affairs at Airports Council International, a trade group.
“It may seem like it’s taking longer when, in fact, there may not be more travelers at all,” she told msnbc.com.
To help facilitate traffic flow, airports are beefing up their staffs of volunteer ambassadors, keeping travelers advised through social media and rolling out programs to minimize hassles. At Los Angeles International Airport, for example, 70 red-vested volunteers will be roaming the terminals offering assistance as part of the airport’s N.I.C.E. (Neutralize Irritations Customers Experience) program.
Across the country, Cleveland Hopkins International Airport is offering free gift-wrapping post-security on Wednesday and Thursday in an effort to forestall situations where passengers slow down screening procedures by trying to bring pre-wrapped gifts through security.
Even TSA is expected to play a role in easing the airport experience as new procedures, including allowing children under 12 to keep their shoes on, should help cut security wait times, providing some relief to both parents and other travelers.
Of course, all the pre-planning in the world will be for naught if travelers are subject to a repeat of “Snowmageddon,” the holiday storm that slammed the East Coast last winter and led to the cancellation of thousands of flights. In that case, airports will once again fulfill their reputation as madhouses jammed with masses of angry, frustrated people.
“The struggle nowadays is that planes are so full that if you do run into a problem and have to cancel a flight, there’s nowhere to put those passengers,” said Cooper. “Trying to put those 200 people into [seats the airlines] don’t have can take days.”
But even there, suggests Lott, summer still trumps the holidays in terms of passenger inconvenience: “A bad thunderstorm in July is oftentimes more disruptive than a bad snowstorm because there’s usually little advance warning,” he said. “At least with a snowstorm, you can sometimes have several days of advance warning that a weather event is on its way.”
A deadly snow storm that halted travel throughout the Great Plains weakened Tuesday as it headed east into Missouri and toward the Great Lakes. The Weather Channel’s Mike Seidel reports.
More stories you might like:
- Your holiday plans in Tweets
- Skiers paradise? It starts at the airport
- That’s the Spirit: Airline tempts industry with bag fee
Rob Lovitt is a longtime travel writer who still believes the journey is as important as the destination. Follow him at Twitter.
Fred Prouser / Reuters
An existing single family home which is up for sale is pictured in Burbank, Calif., Dec. 15, 2011.
Send us your story ideas
Real estate agents are famous for putting a listing in the best possible light to close a sale. On Thursday, the industry’s national trade association confirmed that its monthly data have been painting a rosier picture of the pace of home sales since 2007.
As msnbc.com reported in March, the National Association of Realtors has been overstating the pace of existing home sales by more than 16 percent. The trade group now says just 17.7 million existing homes were sold from 2007 to 2010, not the 20.6 million it originally reported. The NAR made no changes to its data on home prices.
In its announcement of the downward revisions, the trade group sought to downplay the impact of “re-benchmarking” the data lower.
“From a consumer’s perspective, only the local market information matters and there are no changes to local multiple listing service data or local supply-and-demand balance, or to local home prices,” NAR economist Lawrence Yun said in a release explaining the revisions.
The NAR’s monthly sales data is a critical input for a host of widely-watched forecasts generated by public and private economists – from Wall Street to the Federal Reserve. Investors make big bets based on the data. Debates on government policy, from the White House to Capitol Hill, rely on this barometer of the health of the housing industry, a critical pillar of the U.S economy.
But beginning about a year ago, the data reported by the NAR began diverging from the assessment of independent researchers. That began a lengthy reassessment of its data collection methods and analysis as the trade group met with government and private housing experts, including the Federal Reserve, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Home Builders, government-owned mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and CoreLogic, a California-based data firm that first raised doubts about the association’s data.
It would not be the first time the NAR’s economics team has overstated the health of the housing market. Following the housing market peak in late 2005, the trade group’s forecasts remained upbeat well into 2007.
Thursday’s downward data revisions confirm that the housing market has fallen further than originally thought. But the new numbers don’t change the outlook for the market’s recovery. That’s because the revisions also lowered the NAR’s estimate of the number of houses for sale by 18 percent, to 2.6 million from 3.1 million.
“The balance between supply and demand is the same,” said Paul Dales, a senior economist at Capital Economics. “The revisions therefore hold no implications for either the previous, or future, path of prices.”
The median price for an existing home fell 3.5 percent in November from a year earlier to $164,200, according to the NAR.
On Thursday, the trade group cited a number of factors that combined to skew the data upward. Since the housing market collapsed in 2007, fewer homeowners have opted to sell their house without a real estate agent. At the same time, more homebuilders have begun using the multiple listing services to find customers. Those shifts tended to inflate the number of sales captured by those MLS systems, which form the basis for the NAR’s data collection.
The expansion of MLS services since 2007 has already created some regional overlap, with more than one MLS system listing the same property in some cases. That overlap lead to some double counting of sales, the NAR said.
The group also cited changes in the way the Census Bureau collects data, population shifts and noted that some sales were counted twice as homes were “flipped” shortly after they were purchased.
The “re-benchmarked” data show the pace of home sales was substantially slower from 2007 through 2010 than originally reported. The figure for 2007 was lowered 11 percent to 5.04 million; 2008 was lowered 16 percent to 4.11 million; 2009 dropped 16 percent to 4.34 million; and 2010 fell by 15 percent to 4.19 million.
The latest monthly data from the group show that existing home sales rose 4 percent in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.42 million.
The NAR report follows news Tuesday that home builders are seeing a gradual recovery new housing starts and permits. Last month, builders broke ground on an annual rate of 685,000 homes, according to the Commerce Dept. That was a 9.3 percent jump from October and the fastest pace since April 2010.
The National Association of Realtors announces existing home sales in November increased 4 percent, reports CNBC’s Diana Olick.
ATLANTA, Mich. — The gray wolf populations in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin have recovered from near extinction and as a result will be removed from the endangered species list, the Obama administration announced Wednesday.
Citing a “robust, self-sustaining wolf population” in those states, the Fish and Wildlife Service finalized a proposal first made last May. The formal delisting will take place next month.
The decision follows a trend of the federal government wanting to get out of the wolf protection business after devoting four decades and tens of millions of dollars to saving the species.
Instead, individual states are being given control over the future of the legendary predator.
Wolf populations will be monitored for at least five years and can be relisted at any time if it appears they cannot sustain themselves, the Interior Department stated.
The gray wolf has recovered from near-extinction in the lower 48 states and now stands at a historical crossroads that could test both its reputation for resilience and the tolerance of ranchers and hunters who bemoan its attacks on livestock and big game.
Since being added to the federal endangered species list in 1974, the American wolf population has grown fivefold — to about 6,200 animals wandering parts of 10 states outside Alaska.
But the legal shield that made it a federal crime to gun down the wolves has been lifted in many areas — even though wolves have returned only to isolated pockets of the territory they once occupied, and increasing numbers are dying at the hands of hunters, wildlife agents and ranchers protecting livestock.
Wolves “are in the best position they’ve been in for the past 100 years,” said David Mech, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in St. Paul, Minn., and a leading wolf expert. The animals’ long-term survival will “depend on how much wild land remains available, because wolves are not compatible with areas that are agricultural and have a lot of humans. There’s just too much conflict.”
Congress last spring canceled the animals’ endangered status in five Western states. The Obama administration plans to decide whether to also lift protections in 29 Eastern states that presently have no wolves. Similar actions are planned for most remaining Western states and the Great Plains.
Since 1991, the federal government has spent $92.6 million on gray wolf recovery programs, and state agencies have chipped in $13.9 million, according to documents reviewed by the Associated Press.
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“We are ready to declare success in those areas where wolves are now secure, turn over management responsibility to the states and begin to focus our limited resources on other species that are in trouble,” said Gary Frazer, assistant director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s endangered species program.
In Montana and Idaho, where wolves can now be legally hunted and trapped, officials are seeking to sharply drive down wolf numbers this winter to curb attacks on farm animals and elk herds.
Some scientists and advocates say the hunts offer a preview of what will happen when the federal safeguards are lifted elsewhere. The government, they say, is giving up the recovery effort too soon, before packs can take hold in new areas. Vast, wild territories in the southern Rockies and Northeast are ripe for wolves but unoccupied.
“Wolf recovery in the Midwest has been a tremendous success, but the job is far from complete,” said Collette Adkins Giese, a staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The three Great Lakes states with wolves all plan to kill more wolves and to reduce populations through hunts and other means. Wolves remain threatened by human intolerance and persecution. More should be done to help people live with wolves and increase tolerance before protections are removed.”
Federal officials are grappling with tight budgets and political pressure to expand hunting and prevent wolves from invading new turf. They insist the animals best known for their eerie howl, graceful lope and ruthless efficiency in slaughtering prey will get by on their own with help from state agencies.
The government still plans to nurture a fledgling Mexican gray wolf population in the desert Southwest. It’s also weighing whether to expand protections for small numbers of the animals that have slipped into the Pacific Northwest from Canada.
However, there are no plans to promote their return elsewhere. Federal officials say it’s not the government’s job to return wolves to their previous range as long as the population is stable.
North America was once home to as many as a couple of million gray wolves, which are prolific breeders. But by the 1930s, fur traders, bounty hunters and government agents had poisoned, trapped and shot almost all wolves outside Canada and Alaska.
The surviving 1,200 were clustered in northern Minnesota in the 1970s. After the species was added to the endangered list, their numbers rocketed to nearly 3,000 in the state — and they gradually spread elsewhere.
Today, Wisconsin has about 782 wolves, Michigan 687 — far above what biologists said were sustainable populations.
The success story is hardly surprising in woodlands teeming with deer, said John Vucetich, a biologist at Michigan Tech University. But even in such an ideal setting, the wolves were able to return only when killing them became illegal.
“What do wolves need to survive?” Vucetich said. “They need forest cover, and they need prey. And they need not to be shot.”
Shooting already is happening — legally or not — as adventurous wolves range into new regions such as Michigan’s Lower Peninsula and the plains of eastern Montana.
Those sightings are unsettling to farmers because packs have killed thousands of livestock nationwide during their comeback.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
A portrait of Army Pvt. Danny Chen is placed on a car in his funeral procession in Chinatown on Oct. 13 in New York City.
Updated at 1:00 p.m. ET
Eight U.S. soldiers have been charged in the death of 19-year-old Private Danny Chen, who was found shot to death in a guard tower in Afghanistan. It was first thought that Chen may have committed suicide, but the military’s investigation found that Chen, an Asian-American, had been the target of ethnic slurs and physical attacks at the hands of his fellow soldiers.
Chen was found dead on Oct. 3 with a gunshot wound below the chin; it’s not clear from the charges whether the eight soldiers are accused of killing him or whether officials are alleging that their mistreatment of Chen led him to take his own life.
The military said the soldiers from Chen’s company face charges ranging from dereliction of duty, assault, negligent homicide and involuntary manslaughter.
Read more coverage on NBC New York
Chen’s family welcomed the charges Wednesday during an emotional news conference at the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in New York’s Chinatown, where their only child grew up and went to school.
“Over two months of agonizing over the loss, it is of some comfort and relief to learn that the Army is taking this seriously,” Chen’s mother, Su Zhen, 49, speaking in Chinese, said through a family friend who was translating as she spoke and at moments, wiped away streaming tears. “(We) hope that the truth will come out and hopefully that what happened will not happen again.”
Zhen, who came to the United States in 1987 from Taishan in southern China, said she had not wanted her only child to join the Army.
Danny was a very good student with lots of friends, she said, adding she ”could not figure out why they would do this to him.”
Chen’s father, Yantao Chen, 49, a cook who moved to America from the same province in 1989, said through the family friend that well wishes “gives them comfort … he realizes that Danny will never return, but it gives him hope.”
The translating friend was Frank Gee, 72, an Army veteran, who said the family heard about the charges Tuesday from a lieutenant colonel in Agfhanistan. He said they were expecting the charges, though Zhen still cried when she heard the news.
“Danny (was) a very good boy, like the sunshine,” said his aunt, Lucy Chen, 45, who works in construction. “We miss him, can’t forget him … it’s very hard to stop thinking about” him.
Elizabeth OuYang, New York branch president of OCA, a national civil rights organization serving Asian Pacific Americans, said Chen had suffered physical abuse: he was dragged from his bed and made to crawl while rocks were thrown at his back and was forced to hold liquid in mouth while doing chin-ups, during his two months in Afghanistan. He was deployed there in August, and had been in the military just seven months.
“Whether suicide or homicide, those responsible for mistreating Danny caused his death and they must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” OuYang said at the news conference, noting that forensic expert Henry Lee was to conduct an independent autopsy.
She said they had a meeting last week at the Pentagon to put forward reforms to prevent such abuse and that they had another one on Jan. 4. She said the military investigation was to be completed by the end of February.
“Clearly the Army’s diversity training is not effective,” she said. ”It’s not worth it (to serve) if we can’t be protected from people who are supposed to be on our side.”
Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez, D-N.Y., called the day “bittersweet” and demanded a “clear accounting of the facts” on behalf of the family. She said minorities make up 35 percent of active duty forces (Some 3,000 Asian Americans were recruited to serve in the U.S. military in 2009, OuYang wrote in October).
“We need to know the whole truth,” Velázquez said. “If there is a message to everyone in this country, especially to the armed forces, its that racial intolerance and discrimination have no place in our military and we need to have that message clearly conveyed today.”
Wellington Chen, executive director of Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation, said the community could handle the truth and cited a Chinese expression: “If you have a fire, you can’t cover it with paper.”
Military’s charges
According to an official statement from the military, 1st Lt. Daniel J. Schwartz, Staff Sgt. Blaine G. Dugas, Staff Sgt. Andrew J. Van Bockel, Sgt. Adam M. Holcomb, Sgt. Jeffrey T. Hurst, Spc. Thomas P. Curtis, Spc. Ryan J. Offutt and Sgt. Travis F. Carden, all of C Co., 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25thInfantry Division were charged Wednesday in connection withthe death of Chen, an infantryman assigned to C Co. at Combat Outpost Palace.
According to the statement:
- Schwartz is charged with eight specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, dereliction of duty.
- Dugas is charged with one specification of Article 92, UCMJ, violation of a lawful general regulation, four specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, dereliction of duty, and one specification of Article 107, UCMJ, making a false official statement.
- VanBockel is charged with two specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, violation of a lawful general regulation, three specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, dereliction of duty, four specifications of Article 93, UCMJ, maltreatment, one specification of Article 119, UCMJ, involuntary manslaughter, one specification of Article 128, UCMJ, assault consummated by battery, one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, negligent homicide, and one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, reckless endangerment.
- Holcomb is charged with four specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, violation of a lawful general regulation, two specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, dereliction of duty, two specifications of Article 93,UCMJ, maltreatment, one specification of Article 108, UCMJ, destruction of military property, one specification of Article 119, UCMJ, involuntary manslaughter, two specifications of Article 128, UCMJ, assault consummated by battery, one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, negligent homicide, one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, reckless endangerment, and one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, communicating a threat.
- Hurst is charged with two specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, violation of a lawful general regulation, two specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, dereliction of duty, two specifications of Article 93, UCMJ, maltreatment, one specification of Article 119, UCMJ, involuntary manslaughter, one specification of Article 128, UCMJ, assault consummated by battery, one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, negligent homicide, and one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, reckless endangerment.
- Curtis is charged with two specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, violation of a lawful general regulation, one specification of Article 92, UCMJ, dereliction of duty, six specifications of Article 93, UCMJ, maltreatment, one specification of Article 119, involuntary manslaughter, four specifications of Article 128, UCMJ, assault consummated by battery, one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, negligent homicide, and one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, reckless endangerment.
- Offutt is charged with two specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, violation of a lawful general regulation, one specification of Art 92, UCMJ, dereliction of duty, four specifications of Article 93, UCMJ, maltreatment, one specification of Article 119, UCMJ, involuntary manslaughter, three specifications of Article 128, UCMJ, assault consummated by battery, one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, negligent homicide, and one specification of Article 134, UCMJ, reckless endangerment.
- Carden is charged with two specifications of Article 92, UCMJ, violation of a lawful general regulation, two specifications of Article 93, UCMJ, maltreatment, and one specification of Article 128, UCMJ, assault.
Pattern of abuse
Last week, hundreds of supporters held a vigil and demanded answers in Chen’s death. A group of community leaders at the vigil said it had a meeting at the Pentagon recently about the treatment of Asian soldiers in the military, and wanted the commanding officers to be punished.
At the vigil last Thursday, the soldier’s family ramped up pressure on investigators, reading aloud letters Chen had sent home, reflecting the state of isolation he was in from being harassed by his comrades and superiors.
“‘Feb. 27, 2011: Since I am the only Chinese person here, everyone knows me by Chen,’” read his cousin Banny Chen. “‘They ask if I’m from China a few times a day… They also call out my name Chen in a goat-like voice sometimes for no reason.’”
“‘People crack jokes about Chinese people all the time. I’m running out of jokes to come back at them.’”
Chen’s death is one of several recent cases of alleged hazing in the military, according to OCA.
One of those was apparently Lance Cpl. Harry Lew, who was hazed by fellow Marines, according to a U.S. military report on his April 3 death. The military charged three Marines – accused of beating Lew hours before he killed himself — with hazing and they face court martial, The San Jose Mercury News reported.
Lawyer Mathew B. Tully, an expert in military law and a former Army soldier, wrote in an article earlier this year that the “military’s zero-tolerance position on hazing has not completely eradicated the practice” of hazing.
“While some instances of hazing are as easy to identify as the marks they leave on victims, verbal or psychological offenses are not as black and white,” he wrote. “For example, in 2007 three Marines based in Yorktown, Va., were charged with hazing subordinates after making them stand in formation for five hours and perform cleaning duties to the point of exhaustion, without food or sleep.”
NBC New York and NBC News contributed to this report.
Jonathan Adams for msnbc.com
Newborn Kendall Paciorek is fed by her big sister, Madison, 4, on her first day home from the hospital. Kendall was born prematurely when her mother contracted listeria after eating contaminated cantaloupe. Kendall has little energy for feeding, so when she refuses a bottle, she must be fed through a stomach tube.
Three months after she was born, Kendall Paciorek is finally home, just in time for Christmas.
The premature girl from Fishers, Ind., is one of the tiniest victims of last summer’s deadly listeria outbreak in cantaloupe, which sickened 146 people, including 30 who died.
Kendall spent the first several weeks of her life in an incubator, fighting off an infection contracted when her mother ate tainted melon traced to Jensen Farms of Holly, Colo.
She’s strong enough now to sleep in her own crib in the house where big sister Madison, 4, loves to color pictures of Santa.
Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the outbreak over this month, and the rest of the world seems poised to move on.
But for Kendall and her family, the impact of the foodborne illness caused by a summer snack is just beginning.
“Right now they don’t know what’s going to happen to her in the long term,” said Michelle Wakley-Paciorek, Kendall’s 41-year-old mother. “We were told she could have mental and or physical delays.”
Kendall was one of three newborns diagnosed with listeria infections in the outbreak that largely affected the elderly, according to the CDC. Four pregnant women became ill; one had a miscarriage.
For now, there’s no sign of serious trouble, other than the feeding tube that runs into Kendall’s stomach because the baby has had difficulty eating.
Jonathan Adams for msnbc.com
Dad Dave Paciorek, sister Madison and mom Michelle Wakley-Paciorek are grateful to bring baby Kendall home from the hospital in time for Christmas.
With help, she’s gained weight, now topping 7 pounds, up from 3 pounds, 11 ounces when she arrived suddenly on Sept. 21.
That was a week after the federal Food and Drug Administration announced a voluntary recall of the entire crop of fresh, whole cantaloupe from Jensen Farms.
But for Kendall and her mom, it was already too late.
“We’re thinking I ate cantaloupe sometime in the first three to four weeks of August,” Wakley recalled. “I ate it probably multiple times. You try to eat better because you’re pregnant.”
Wakley never became violently ill. Instead, she suffered headaches, muscle aches, fever and chills for several weeks before she started having contractions during a pedicure.
“I couldn’t even believe I was in labor,” said Wakley, who was rushed to an emergency department and given drugs to halt delivery.
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Despite the effort, Kendall was born hours later, but so small and sick that doctors feared for her life.
Blood tests later revealed that both mother and baby were infected with listeria later traced to the tainted Colorado cantaloupe.
The months since then have been a blur of hospital rooms, doctors’ visits and worried conversations about Kendall’s future.
“You almost panic because they tell you about all kinds of learning disabilities and other problems,” she said. “It’s been like an emotional roller-coaster.”
It’s not clear whether Wakley can continue working, or whether she’ll need to quit her job to care for Kendall and her sister full-time. Her husband, Dave Paciorek, 41, is a senior manager at Federal Express.
The family has hired Seattle food safety lawyer Bill Marler, to represent them in a private lawsuit to make sure their daughter gets any care she needs. Marler said he has about 45 clients with cases tied to the Jensen Farms outbreak, including families of 10 of the people who died.
So far, Kendall Paciorek is the youngest victim he represents, Marler said. “I think there are probably dozens of those cases out there,” he added.
Food and Drug Administration inspectors found that the outbreak was traced to dirty equipment, faulty sanitation and bad storage practices at the Colorado farm.
That’s especially galling to Michelle Wakley, who said she’s gotten over the “why me?” phase of shock about her daughter’s illness. Even as she prepares to celebrate Christmas with Kendall at home, she finds it hard to hide her frustration that simple sanitation could have saved her family such heartache.
“It’s reckless. It’s something that could have been prevented,” Wakley said. “No one should have to go through this.”
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