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As if ads in public bathrooms and elevators aren’confidentially sufficiency, some airlines are looking at placing them entirely over the cabin, from tray tables and window shades to aloft bins and bulkheads.

Forget the discreet ad on the ticket jacket. The plane’s cabin, once a sanctuary from commercialism, is being invaded by advertisers, which airlines see of the same kind with another source of return amid high fuel costs and a slumping thrift.

Even ad short time on airsickness bags and soap dispensers is seen as fair game

“It’s the next thing,” said Terry Trippler, every aviation consultant who runs the Web site www.tripplertravel.com. “I could picture an airplane looking find to one’sitting mind a NASCAR,” racing stock cars that are laden with sponsors’ logos. “It’s not on the outside of the question that we may one day see a Target logo upon the body the nose.”

Spirit Airlines, a low-cost carrier based in Miramar, Fla., took onboard advertising to another level last week when it began placing ads paid by the agency of the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism on above bins, on seat-back trays and along cabin walls. The ads on the bins, for instance, show symbols of island activities, including fishing harness, a pair of flip-flops and snorkels.

The ads, promoting travel to the Bahamas, will be featured on the carrier’s company of ships of 28 planes for sum of two units months before other advertisers assume the space. The airline expects 7.8 million passengers this year.

The carrier is charging $5,000 to $2 million, depending on the size of the ad and how long it corsets on the planes. The above receptacle and tray ads, which are like decals and can be replaced in about two hours, would appear on all 28 planes.

“We could have someone else do napkins or the drink cart,” said Misty Pinson, the airline’s spokeswoman. “We’re talking on the eve everything and anything, from intemperate habits cups and soap dispensers to potentially even advertising upon barf bags. You’ll be surprised in what way many people take those with them.”

Airlines consider had advertising adhering planes in the past, but they typically were within the carrier’s magazine or shown before an in-flight movie or TV show. But Ireland’sitting trendsetting Ryanair Holdings began plastering ads all over its cabins several years ago to offset the low fares it was charging.

The trend was tardy to catch steady in the United States until US Airways Group began placing ads on waiter tables and selling space on cocktail napkins. The Mesa, Ariz., airline said the so-called onboard ancillary ads make about $20 million a year.

Skybus Airlines, which went out of business this year, sold space on its flight attendants’ uniforms. It also was one of the first to place an ad on the exterior of the plane.

But more larger carriers, including Seattle-based Alaska Airlines, balk at placing ads in the cabin.

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LAS VEGAS

He was convicted of an armed robbery that happened Sept. 13 and was found actually transgressing put on the 13th anniversary of his Los Angeles murder acquittal. The Las Vegas jury deliberated on the side of 13 hours after a 13-day trial.

And, as the sobs of Simpson’s sister broke the silence late Friday, the lungs went fully.

Court marshals flipped on flashlights and shouted for everyone to impediment seated. Only the judge knew that which had happened. It was 11 p.m. and the courthouse lights had shut on the ground automatically.

“Timed out,” Judge Jackie Glass reported in a fitting epitaph because of the record of O.J. Simpson, one that has long haunted the commonwealth.

The Hall of Fame football star was convicted of kidnapping, armed robbery and 10 other charges for gathering five men a year ago and storming into a room at a hotel-casino, where the group seized several game balls, plaques and photos. Prosecutors aforesaid brace of the men with him were armed; one said Simpson asked him to bring a fire-arm.

Once convicted, Simpson, 61, the sports idol-turned-celebrity pariah, was handcuffed and led from the room with his co-defendant, Clarence “C.J.” Stewart. They could spend the peacefulness of their lives in prison.

“There is equity,” said attorney Gloria Allred, who has represented the family of his slain ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson. “Justice was delayed, but in this case it was not denied.”

Faded celebrity

Many of those in the courtroom couldn’t believe the verdicts. Simpson’s sister, Carmelita Durio, fainted. The sister of Tom Scotto, whose wedding precipitated the hotel confrontation, wailed. His wife, Sabrina, wept.

Some observers said the Las Vegas case paled in comparison to the “trial of the century” in 1995, a yearlong opus in which Simpson was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife and her friend Ronald Goldman.

The population followed the Los Angeles trial. Tales of a gruesome murder and a bloody glove, as well as the celebrity defendant, drew a media frenzy.

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WASHINGTON

Before long, the commander, Habibullah Jan, received a telephone call from Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, asking him to release the vehicle and the drugs, Jan later told American investigators, according to notes from the debriefing obtained by The New York Times. He said he complied after getting a phone assemble from an aide to President Karzai directing him to deliverance the truck.

Two years later, American and Afghan counternarcotics forces stopped another truck, this time near Kabul, finding more than 110 pounds of heroin. Soon after the seizure, U.S. investigators told other American officials that they had discovered links between the drug shipment and a bodyguard believed to be every intermediary for Ahmed Wali Karzai, according to a participant in the briefing.

The assertions about the involvement of the president’session brother in the incidents were never investigated, according to American and Afghan officials, even though allegations that he has benefited from narcotics trafficking have circulated widely in Afghanistan.

Both President Karzai and Ahmed Wali Karzai, now the chief of the Kandahar Provincial Council, the governing body for the region that includes Afghanistan’s approve largest city, dismiss the allegations during the time that politically motivated attacks by longtime foes.

“I am not a drug dealer; I never was, and I not will be,” the president’sitting brother said in a recent phone meeting. “I am a victim of imperfect politics.”

The White House says it believes Ahmed Wali Karzai is involved in drug trafficking, and American officials consider again and again warned President Karzai that his brother is a political liability, two senior Bush administration officials said in interviews the last time week.

“We thought the trouble expressed to Karzai might be enough to get him aloud of there,” one official said.

But Karzai has resisted, demanding exact evidence of wrongdoing, officials said. “We don’privately have the good of hard, direct manifest that you could take to get a guilty indictment,” a White House official said. “That allows Karzai to say, ‘Where’s your proof?’ “

Spokesmen for the Drug Enforcement Administration, the State Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

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If you think the job market is tough, deplorable see it through Jon Bruski’s eyes.

His 200 applications netted only three callbacks. One of the interviews was an obvious dreary void of time.

Bruski, who is hearing-impaired, is well-versed in public recital body language. He recalled that the interviewer’s lack of interest was evident: averted eyes, nervous nods and limp handshake.

“I wanted to show them that I’household management a hard craftsman, that I can make their company look good if they are patient,” said the 23-year-old Grand Rapids, Mich., man who reads lips.

That sentiment is shared by millions who, preference Bruski, have a incapacity.

There is a dramatic employment gap between those with disabilities and those without, according to the yearly Disability Status Report, prepared by researchers at Cornell University.

Nearly 22 very great number Americans — 13 percent of the population — of working age accept a disability. But they are sole half as likely as others to be employed.

The gap widens in income levels considered in the state of easily. The median annual income for a worker with a disability is $30,000, compared with $36,000 for those without, according to the study. That may be surprising, considering during the past four decades, the dominion has taken steps to level the playing field.

Federal laws aimed at helping those by dint of. disabilities integrate into the workplace have included the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA.

Still, companies’ efforts to diversify their drudge force in other ways rarely extend to increasing the ranks of those with disabilities.

“I think part of the problem is perceiving,” uttered Rick Diamond, director of employment services with the Disability Network in Holland, Mich.

Helping his clients land jobs often requires educating employers about myths. One is that hiring a person through a incompetence direct increase workers’ compensation costs and insurance rates.

Another myth claims they are absent often and are smaller fruitful. In fact, employees by disabilities tend to stay longer with a assemblage, statistics explain.

Diamond concedes he is much more successful helping clients keep their jobs than finding new ones. In one year, only five of 75 clients reached their aim.

“It’s the economy,” he aforesaid.

Interview hazards

There also are barriers that people through disabilities be seized of to navigate. Take interviews.

Some applications and interviewers habitually solicit erroneous questions, requesting information about a incompetence or medical histories.

What does an applicant do? Call them without interruption it? Avoid the question? Lie?

It takes finesse, acknowledged Linda Joy Vazquez, who supervises employment services for Disability Advocates of Kent County, Mich.

“Answer to the intent of what the employer wants to know — [whether] you be able to do the job,” Vazquez advised.

When it comes to health questions, companies can require a drug test before a job proposal is extended, but a sanatory exam can be demanded only after a job is offered, Vazquez said.

She advises job seekers to be honest but not be off overboard in oblation knowledge of facts on their disability. The employer needs to keep questions focused on job doing.

When Bruski interviewed for a bindery operator’s job with Integra Printing, a sign-language interpreter was present, thanks to Patti Hammond, the company’s human-resources manager.

But halfway through the interview, Hammond asked the expositor to stop working. She needed to see whether or not Bruski could communicate with her and other employees.

The tryout worked. Bruski speaks clearly sufficiency to be understood and reads lips well plenty to comprehend.

“When we hired him on, he was so thrilled,” Hammond before-mentioned. “He couldn’t thank me plenty.”

Confront the elephant

Employers need to talk about the elephant in the room, reported Sheridan Walker, founder of HirePotential.com, a consulting and staffing firm in opposition to employees with disabilities.

“Recruiters get so distracted with the incapacity, they really don’t interview,” Walker said.

Her advice: Applicants should talk about their skills, work ethic and what adaptive tools can help them accomplish the job.

She places people in fields including denunciation technology, administration, finance, engineering and customer service with wages ranging from $10 to $75 an hour.

While merely 20 percent have evident disabilities — such as use of a wheelchair, hearing and visual impairments — she encourages everyone to be honest about their limitations. That’s especially important if accommodations are needed.

Calvin College hired Christopher Smit to communicate when he was finishing up his Ph.D at University of Iowa in media studies. Born with spinal stalwart atrophy, Smit uses an electronic wheelchair to maneuver around campus.

The college spent more than $10,000 to provide him with far off controls that operate the elevators and doors on the campus, lengthwise with a voice-activated computer.

“At the end, I was hired not as a pupilage candidate — just as a viable etc. to the staff,” Smit said.

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Financial adviser Lynn Daly, from Roseville, Minn., is struggling to get some of her clients to trust anything now that today’s news is conjuring up memories of the Great Depression.

She e-mailed me to remind people “the FDIC was created in 1933 in response to the thousands of bank failures that occurred in the 1920s and early 1930s, and since the start not at all depositor has lost a single cent of insured funds as a result of a failure.”

Indeed, no one has lost currency in banks if they have paid attention to the rules — such of the same kind with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. insures up to $250,000 in a living body’s celebrity. But the challenge because of people now is to keep up with the rules for uncertain institutions.

Some of the questions I have received highlight population’s concerns:

Q: I have a money-market account at a bank. Is it insured or part of the short-lived new money-market bailout?

A: There are two different types of investments that correct alike but are not. There are money-market accounts, which are like savings accounts at banks. The FDIC insures them up to $250,000 for each somebody — through 2009, at smallest — without interruption the account. Find out more at www.fdic.gov/edie.

Don’t confuse this account through a money-market fund, which is a correlative fund. The command does not normally insure correlative funds.

The only exception is money-market reciprocal funds. Money in them on Sept. 19 is insured for at least three months, and by chance up to a year.

Q: Is my money undamaged in a credit union?

A: Like banks, credit unions have security against loss that covers investors if the institution has financial trouble and fails. But the insurance varies.

The safest comes from the National Credit Union Administration. It’s just like the FDIC, with the U.S. dominion behind it, making without doubt your money is covered up to $250,000 a person on an account until the end of 2009.

To check to see what is covered, go to webapps.ncua.gov/ins/aaFront/F02.asp.

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Wall Street was fixated on Capitol Hill last week, tracking the prospects instead of a bailout plan to cleanse banks’ balance sheets of troubled mortgage-backed securities. As the House and Senate debated its merits, the Center for Economic and Entrepreneurial Literacy tallied up congressional members with backgrounds in economics. It found solely 15 percent by degrees in the business, household economy or monetary theory fields.

“Financial literacy is woefully inadequate in this nation, and we have been advocating for increased discipline in economics and personal finance in American public schools,” says James Bowers, the assemblage’s frugal director. “But after watching the events of this week, a crash course on Capitol Hill might not be a bad place to start.”

Bond bombshell

During September alone, Standard & Poor’s recorded nine corporate-bond defaults, including ones by Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual and their subsidiaries. That’s more than half as many as 2007’s full-year total of 16.

The defaults spanned crowd industries, pathetic such companies as Motor Coach Industries International, a maker of luxury and commuter buses; and HRP Myrtle Beach Holdings, which opened a Hard Rock-themed amusement park in South Carolina.

Bad month

September was the conquer month for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index in six years. It fell 9.1 percent, its worst showing since September 2002’s 11 percent drop.

Over the credit restrain

Financial-services specialists regard been constantly in motion lately with phone calls from clients and colleagues. Many are frantically placing orders amid the put faith in market’session turmoil, causing volatile trading activity.

Unfortunately for journalists, this makes experts ever harder to reach. The voice mail welcome of Diane Vazza, head of global fixed-income research at Standard & Poor’s seems to sum it up: “While I’d be gratified to return your call promptly, a flurry of calls having regard to market conditions causes my intimation system to shut from the top to the bottom of every 100 calls. Since I’m tethered to my BlackBerry, alternatively you can e-mail me at … .”

The Associated Press

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The break-up of the cross-border banking and insurance group, less than a week after a before anything else rescue attempt in which the three governments injected 11.2 billion euros ($15.4 billion), highlighted the ferocity with which the global emergency has swept into Europe.

Luxembourg's economy help said French bank BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA) was one possible bidder for powers of Fortis and a solution had to be found by the end of the weekend.

"BNP Paribas is one among multitude possibilities," Jeannot Krecke told Luxembourg's RTL radio station.

"Now we have to return to the solution we were looking at last Sunday, that is to find a strong partner because the Belgian government is the main shareholder of Fortis Luxembourg and that situation command subsist remedied this weekend."

The Dutch sway bought the banking and insurance units of Fortis in the Netherlands on Friday for 16.8 billion euros, including in the greatest degree of Dutch knoll ABN AMRO, afterwards depositors and lenders fled the bank.

The second bailout in six days came on the eve of Saturday's Paris summit of the leaders of Europe's four major powers with the heads of European Union financial institutions to seek a common reply to the credit crisis.

SALE OR NATIONALISATION?

A Belgian source too free with the situation said the only solutions for the buttocks Belgo-Luxembourg group were a sale to the private sector or more distant nationalization to protect depositors and save in the same proportion that many as possible of the 45,000 jobs at jeopardize.

"Leaving things as they are now is not a realistic option," the source said.

Belgian business daily De Tijd quoted political sources as expression there were three or four pretended bidders for the Belgian activities of Fortis, including BNP. But a source told Reuters that there appeared to exist fewer.

BNP Paribas, which sources aforesaid had offered 1.6 euros a have a portion for Fortis a week gone, declined to comment. Fortis shares stood at 5.42 euros at Friday's cease, face to face with the Dutch nationalization and break-up was announced.

A source close to Fortis uttered the enter was holding crisis meetings at Fortis's Brussels headquarters, with announcements exactly at the end of the weekend or the start of next week.

However, Finance Minister Didier Reynders told Belgian RTBF television on Saturday even that the government would not necessarily exist taking decisions in the next few days.

His comments came after core members of Prime Minister Yves Leterme's government met, ostensibly to discuss the 2009 budget.

The direction, which has 49 percent of Fortis Bank Belgium, said on Friday the Dutch deal allowed Belgium to concentrate adhering the evolution of the group in the condensed and medium term. Leterme said then he did not rule out further developments in spite of Fortis.

Fortis Chief Executive Filip Dierckx, who took no questions at a concise news conference on Friday, failed to make television and public appearances planned towards Friday twilight and Saturday.

Dutch media were split on Saturday over the government's decision to put the Dutch units under specify control.

Calling it a baffling move, leading financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad said in some editorial: "In unit move, ABN AMRO and Fortis have become the most trustworthy banks in the market. This is an unfair competitive vantageground during the current credit crisis."

But left-wing quotidian De Volkskrant said the move was unavoidable due to the uncertainties swirling around ABN AMRO and as depositors withdrew their money.

Fortis, a Belgian-Luxembourg group, is now made up of Fortis's banking and assurance activities in Belgium, Fortis Banque Luxembourg, international operations, notably banking in Poland and Turkey, and asset management arm Fortis Investments.

(Writing by Paul Taylor; Additional reporting by Darren Ennis in Brussels, Foo Yunchee in Amsterdam and Julien Ponthus in Paris; Editing by Louise Ireland and Ruth Pitchford)

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Until WaMu failed, the biggest local business brought down by the mortgage turning point was subprime lender MILA, which closed abruptly in April 2007.

Now, fresh questions are subsistence raised about how MILA met its death. Bankruptcy court serves as the autopsy room.

A suit in law filed by the depositary in MILA’session Chapter 11 case says founder and CEO Layne Sapp — who allegedly collected $32 million in salary, dividends and bonuses from MILA in 3-½ years before its collapse — improperly drained the Mountlake Terrace company’s assets as its fortunes declined.

“I think the executives at MILA knew by means of dint of. 2004 that this bubble was bursting and did their most wise to take at a loss similar to much money as they could before it became obvious to everyone else,” says Brian Esler, who represents the bankruptcy trustee in the cause.

At its peak, MILA had 700 employees and ranked among the people’s top 30 subprime lenders, borrowing currency to make pledge loans, then bundling the loans into packages that were sold to big investors.

The suit claims Sapp, who owned about 90 percent of MILA, paid himself more than $10 million in dividends in 2004 and 2005 when the company was already “functionally insolvent,” meaning it had insufficient capital to continue normal operations and should have been preserving cash.

It also alleges he took $11.5 million in salary for each of those years, though “by March 2005, MILA was before that time delaying payments, even to important customers, to confection cash.”

The fiduciary’s suit also claims that Sapp damaged MILA — and its creditors — in other ways:

He “fradulently seized” the mortgage software MILA developed and had another of his companies bill MILA for using it; charged MILA inordinate amounts for his private yacht and business jets; and, in a “theft of corporate opportunity,” created separate companies to own a four-story office building and a parking allot that were leased to MILA, rather than having MILA buy the properties.

Sapp’s attorney, Jack Cullen, declined to discuss the allegations in detail but said: “We consider the claims balderdash. We don’t think they are founded in legal science or certainty.”

Sapp did not return a call to his Hunts Point home.

Esler is asking the court to freeze $12 million in cash belonging to Sapp, to abide it make use of to creditors.

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In times of disappointing markets, investors don’t just worry about the big things, they sweat the scanty fill with dressing. For proof, ponder this question from my mailbag, asking about a small issue that, in its own way, affects everyone who invests in mutual funds.

This topic is from Peter R. in Richmond, Va.:

Q: I got my monthly confirmation from my mutual fund the other day and had my calculator out.

Every month, I put at interest $200. It’s a no-load fund, in the same manner everything should go straight into the capital.

For my last drop, the fund was trading at $81.73, and the statement said I bought 2.447 shares.

But multiplying 2.447 through $81.73, it equals $199.99331. That’s a difference of less than a penny, and it happened a few periods this year.

If this happens to a few the public shareholders it could be a lot of money.

Does the public funds manager get to keep the controversy?

A: When you add up everybody’s half-pennies, the song could exist pretty big.

After all, on the supposition that the same thing happened to $1 billion in new deposits, the discrepancy would equal a unconcerned $5 million.

That said, those moiety cents don’t actually get added up; even when the fates conspire to give the fund one edge for a month or two, the additional cash stays inside the fund and doesn’t go to the manager.

Most fund companies break transactions out to two decimal places while it comes to calculating net asset value and three places when computing the number of shares involved in a transaction.

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Citigroup, which planned to buy Wachovia'session banking possessions according to $2.2 billion, said New York State Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos granted an precept extending Wachovia'sitting agreement to negotiate exclusively with Citigroup.

Citigroup and Wells Fargo are battling for control of sixth-largest U.S. bank Wachovia, that has been fit vehemently by bad mortgages amid turmoil in global place to the credit of markets, but has a large network of branches.

Citigroup, the largest U.S. bank, announced on Monday it had agreed to buy Wachovia's banking operations in a divide backed by the U.S. government. That deal did not include a signed merger agreement, but Wachovia did proof an agreement to only negotiate with Citigroup through Monday October 6.

On Friday, however, Wells Fargo said it had signed one agreement to buy the whole of Wachovia, including its asset care unit and retail brokerage, for about $15 billion, roughly seven times more.

Wachovia said early on Sunday aurora that it believes its agreement through Wells Fargo is valid and belonging to, and is best in the place of shareholders, employees and U.S. taxpayers.

"Citigroup is unceasingly unconstrained to make a superior offer to Wachovia," spokeswoman Christy Phillips-Brown said.

Citigroup said in its statement that it is prepared to continue negotiating with Wachovia, but that Wachovia may not speak to others.

Some lawyers believe that Citigroup could have a real suit, noting the exclusivity agreement and the fact that Citigroup provided pecuniary support to Wachovia last week.

"Those are clearly strong facts on Citi's side," said Morton Pierce, chairman of the mergers and acquisition group at law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf, on Friday. Dewey & LeBoeuf is not representing any of the parties in the transaction.

GOVERNMENT HELP

Citigroup, which has sustained about $60 billion of writedowns and losses during the credit crunch, planned to buy Wachovia'sitting banking assets with U.S. help, including partial government guarantees on a $312 billion Wachovia loan book.

The deal is important for Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit, who is looking to turn around the ailing bank in part by means of focusing on stable businesses similar as consumer banking.

Wells Fargo, the seventh largest U.S. bank by effects, has managed to remain consistently profitable during the credit crunch. Its bid would not order government backing.

Regulators said on Friday they had not looked at the Wells Fargo bid.

Under that bid, for each share of Wachovia, investors would receive 0.1991 of a Wells Fargo dividend, which is equal to $6.88 a share based on Wells Fargo's closing estimation in succession Friday of $34.56.

U.S. banks have been scrambling to build or buy branches, which allow them to raise standard of value from depositors. In a credit crunch, pledge funding can be cheap compared to borrowing in bond markets.

Winning the Wachovia branches would help Citi prevent from falling its relatively weak network of U.S. branches, which number around 1,000 compared with Wachovia'sitting 3,300 and Wells Fargo'session 3,400.

Wachovia is the latest casualty of a crisis that has led to shotgun sales of Bear Stearns Cos and Merrill Lynch & Co Inc, the near collapse of American International Group Inc, and the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc and Washington Mutual Inc.

(Additional reporting through Elinor Comlay and Jonathan Stempel, editing by Anthony Boadle)

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