World Business

WAMPUM, Pa. An 11-year-old male child has been charged in the death of a pregnant woman who was found shot in a bedroom of her westerly Pennsylvania farmhouse, police said Saturday.

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A statement from state police said the boy was charged by felon homicide and criminal homicide of any unborn child in the killing of 26-year-old Kenzie Marie Houk. The victim was 8 months pregnant.

The statement said the lad had been arraigned in District Court and placed in the Lawrence County jail.

Officers couldn’t immediately say Saturday whether the boy and the woman were kindred and wouldn’t give any other details.

Police said Houk’s 5-year-old daughter found her mother’s body Friday dawn in a bedroom of their home in a forest-crowned area in the common of Wampum.

The home, located at the end of a half-mile-long driveway along a road separated with abandoned and burned-out trailers, was cordoned off with fulvid police tape and a Pennsylvania State Police vehicle was parked out front early Saturday afternoon. Next to the house was farm equipment and a barn filled by the agency of hay.

A neighbor, Cameron Tucker, declared Houk was engaged and had been renting the house for no more than a year. Tucker said he had never met Houk’s fiance, but that both of them had children.

“She was excessively protective of her kids,” he said, adding that she seemed very excited about her pregnancy.

Tucker’s wife sometimes flock Houk’s daughter to the bus make an end of because she went to preschool with the Tuckers’ 5-year-old.

WPXI-TV identified the dead woman’s father as Jack Houk. There was not any immediate response Saturday to a call by The Associated Press seeking comment from a Jack Houk of New Castle, a town next to Wampum.

A preliminary opportunity to be heard is set for Thursday.

The rural common is about 35 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

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WASHINGTON Governors said Saturday they welcomed the money flowing to states from President Obama’sitting landmark stimulus digest and played down disagreements amidst more Republicans in their ranks respecting how the dollars should be spent.

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At the beginning news conference of the National Governors Association winter congregation, NGA Chairman Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, acknowledged that the $787 billion plan Obama signed into law this week “isn’t a perfect bill.” But he related the billions directed to states for freedom from disease care, education and road restoration would help governors mitigate a potential economic disaster in their states.

“It stops us from having massive layoffs and incredible reduction in services that would have exposed our citizens to frightful personal risks,” Rendell related.

Vermont Republican Gov. Jim Douglas, the NGA vice chairman, largely echoed that see. “I believe every governor should and will produce due activity to operate sure that the acknowledgment of any federal resources is in the best interest of that state and its residents,” Douglas said.

Their comments addressed dissent among a handful of GOP governors led by South Carolina’s Mark Sanford, who have publicly criticized the stimulus plan as overmuch large and wasteful. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Friday he would reject a share of the money aimed at expanding state unemployment coverage, and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has indicated he may do so as flow.

“I be inclined oppose my represent fully changing our rule to allow people who are not willing and able to moil full-time to get unemployment indemnity. That will result in tax increases on our employers going confident,” Barbour uttered.

Both Sanford and Jindal are considered likely 2012 presidential contenders. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, some other Republican thought to be eyeing a 2012 presidential summon, has been a strong adherent of the stimulus and appeared with Obama at a rally earlier this month to promote the plan.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, dismissed GOP concerns about the plan as inconsistent with their willingness to accept federal money in other cases.

“It does seem out of character for a governor who has been receiving billions of dollars for years to suddenly say ‘I’m not so sure I want these dollars,’” he said, noting that a provision in the law would allow state legislatures to accept the stimulus coin even admitting that a governor rejects it.

Asked admitting that he thought Republicans had a national motive in criticizing the plan, Schweitzer said, “I don’t think we ought to question anyone’s motives.”

The three-day meeting in Washington was to focus on states’ need to rebuild and repair infrastructure. Most state leaders were expected to attend the nonpartisan gathering, but a few of the better-know governors were dreaming.

Among them are Bill Richardson, the New Mexico Democrat who was Obama’s first unusual to head the Commerce Department and now faces a treaty “pay to play” probe, and Alaska’s Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, who is busy with her state’s legislative session.

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CHICAGO Police reported Saturday they had arrested a suspect in the slayings of the former girlfriend of New York Knicks’ play-actor Eddy Curry and her infant daughter.

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Police spokeswoman Laura Kubiak confirmed Saturday that one person was in custody. She said charges were undecided.

Kubiak uttered police believe the person under arrest killed Nova Henry, 24, and her 9-month-old daughter, Ava, who were found dead of multiple gunshot wounds in their apartment on Jan. 24.

Henry was the mother of ex-Chicago Bulls player Curry’sitting 3-year-old son. The boy was found unharmed at the scene.

Knicks spokesman Jonathan Supranowitz said by e-mail to The Associated Press that Curry had no comment.

Kubiak reported she could not invest with full membership in the church details of the arrest.

The Chicago Tribune reported Saturday that Henry’s mother, Yolan Henry, said a detective informed her after midnight that a Chicago man, a more recent boyfriend of her daughter’s, was in custody.

“I feel relieved that I don’t require to course of action outside and wonder suppose that he going to hurt my grandson,” Yolan Henry told the newspaper.

There was no proximate response Saturday to a call from The Associated Press seeking make comments from a Yolan Henry in Chicago.

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BRATISLAVA, Slovakia A train collided with a bus in central Slovakia on Saturday, killing 12 people and injuring 21 others, officials said.

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The collision occurred at about 9 a.m. (0800 GMT, 3 a.m. EST) Saturday at a staff crossing near the town of Brezno, Health Ministry authoritative Anton Pencer said. The victims were all passengers inside the bus, which was carrying 35 people from the town of Banovce nad Bebravou to a nearby ski retreat, he said.

Pencer aforesaid the injured were taken to nearby hospitals.

The cause of the crash was in a state of inferiority to investigation, police spokeswoman Maria Faltaniova told television news station TA3.

The two-carriage train with 15 the many the crowd aboard derailed and two of its passengers sustained inferior injuries, Health Ministry spokeswoman Zuzana Cizmarikova said.

Cizmarikova said the death toll was raised to 12 after rescue workers recovered single more body from the demolished bus later Saturday. She said six people were either in critical or very serious estate.

President Ivan Gasparovic expressed his sympathy for the relatives of the victims.

The administration planned to declare Sunday a public day of mourning.

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BAUCHI, Nigeria Rioters burned homes, churches and mosques in a central Nigerian town Saturday, when fury flared after Muslims parked their cars in front of a church, a Red Cross official before-mentioned. Four people were killed and 35 injured.

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Adamu Abubakar, head of Bauchi’s Red Cross branch, reported the clashes followed an matter in hand between Christians and Muslims the former day.

The multitude and police had deployed in the part of town where the clashes occurred and the situation had calmed, Abubakar declared.

Bauchi lies along a line splitting Nigeria’session predominantly Muslim and pastoralist northern population from south Christian and animist farming communities.

While both groups live peacefully in crowded cities across Nigeria, they intermingle most closely in this female, hilly “centre belt,” where an intense fight for resources is subject to way. Northern herdsmen have historically needed pasture lands for their far-roaming flocks, while agrararian southerners want to grow corn.

Tensions in the region often find an outlet in ethnic and religious boisterousness, which is intertwined with identities related to lifestyles. In November, over 300 people were killed in sectarian clashes in neighboring Jos.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008769725_apafnigeriaclashes.html?syndication=rss

MODESTO, Calif. An arrest is imminent in the eight-year-old slaying of federal government intern Chandra Levy, whose disappearance in 2001 ended Gary Condit’s congressional career, her parents related Saturday.

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Levy’s father, Robert Levy, told The Associated Press that Washington, D.C., Police Chief Cathy Lanier called his home late Friday and said there would be an arrest in a few days.

Robert Levy and his helpmate, Susan, declined to say whom they give faith to direction be arrested.

The 24-year-old Levy disappeared in May 2001. She was wearing jogging clothes when she left her apartment, and her remnants were found in Washington’s Rock Creek Park with regard to a year later.

Authorities questioned the married Condit in her disappearance. He reportedly told police that he and Levy were having some affair. While he was not considered a doubt, the negative publicity was cited as the main account of his re-election defeat in 2002.

“This should give the Levys the answer and closure they deserve, and remove the unfair throng that has hung over the Condits for too long,” said Abbe Lowell, a Washington lawyer for Condit.

“While very good news, it is a tragedy that police and media obsession with former congressman Condit delayed this result for eight years and caused needless bore and harm to the families involved.”

The Levys declined to say whom they credit will be arrested but said the news did not make up in spite of the disadvantage of their daughter.

“I have power to’t pronounce we’ll really feel more good, because it won’t bring Chandra back,” Robert Levy said.

“Grief doesn’privately just stay yesterday night,” Susan Levy added.

Investigators also interviewed Ingmar Guandique, 27, a Salvadoran immigrant who has denied any involvement in Levy’s disappearance and killing. Guandique was convicted of attacking two women in Rock Creek Park shortly after Levy disappeared.

The Washington Post has said Washington detectives and prosecutors have been trying to build a case against Guandique.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008769568_apchandralevy.html?syndication=rss

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Seattle-based Imperium Renewables and other American biodiesel producers are expected to face new tariffs steady U.S. material for burning that is imported into the European Union, a setback for some industry already hard-hit by the agency of the downturn in world oil-prices markets.

The tariffs would be of short duration on the other hand could be made permanent once the European Commission finishes an investigation of surging U.S. imports, according to Dow Jones Newswires, which obtained a copy of the proposal.

The duties would apply to “B99,” a blend that is 99 percent biodiesel and 1 percent diesel from fossil fuels. This “blended” fuel qualifies in opposition to a $1-a-gallon tax credit from the U.S. government, and exports from the U.S. to Europe increased about 40 percent in 2008 compared to 2007.

European biodiesel producers assert a claim the U.S. make demands upon credit is an unfair subsidy

John Plaza, founder and CEO of Imperium, said that the commencing tariffs were expected, and determination certainly increase the price of biodiesel imports to the European Union. But he said the greater threat remains the volatile price of crude oil.

“It is hard for any current or next-generation renewable combustibles to compete by today’s low price of a barrel of oil,” he uttered in an e-mail.

The U.S. biodiesel industry boomed in recent years amid dominion incentives to produce cleaner-burning fuels that would reduce dependence on harsh oil. U.S. biodiesel production jumped from true 25 gallons a year in 2004 to 700 the public gallons in 2008, according to the National Biodiesel Board, a U.S. industry group.

Imperium was part of the boom, opening a plant in August of 2007 in Grays Harbor County that is capable of producing 100 the great body of the people gallons of biodiesel annually.

But the company early in 2008 abandoned a public stock offering and was stung by swelling prices with respect to the agricultural commodities that be able to be converted into biodiesel. Then, in the second half of 2008, world oil prices imploded as the global economy took a nose dive.

In an interview last year with The Seattle Times, Plaza said one strategy for riding out the monetary push was to export most of Imperium’s biodiesel.

The European Commission, in the report obtained by Dow Jones Newswires, concluded that U.S. imports had caused the financial condition of the European biodiesel industry to degrade drastically.

One U.S. practice last year that triggered the rage of European producers was called “splash and dash,” according to Pavel Molchanov, a vice president at Raymond James & Associates who follows the biodiesel industry.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008768595_biodiesel21.html?syndication=rss

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The $787 billion recovery package that President Obama signed into law on Tuesday has a little something for most small-business owners, though some complained that the law’s benefits were not easy to figure out — “Who has time to read it?”

“My initial impression,” said Ethan Siegel, chief executive of Orb Audio, a maker of home-theater speakers and systems, “was there is nothing in here for me as a small-business owner.”

But Siegel said that as he started to dig deeper, he found a provision that would increase loan guarantees for Small Business Administration lenders. That, he said, would make it easier for Orb, of New York, to secure a line of credit. “With a line of credit, we can do a lot more with the same amount of capital,” he said, “which is exactly the purpose of the stimulus package.”

Several other items also caught his eye, including one that offers a tax credit for businesses that hire disadvantaged workers, such as veterans and “disconnected youth,” those who are not attending school or working.

That credit could be a tipping point between hiring and not, he said. “This is especially true since we build the speakers in the USA, and the people with production skills can fall into these groups.”

Business owners and their tax advisers are finding that a little detective work is needed to reap the full benefits of the law, which includes tax relief for businesses and individuals as well as spending provisions.

Todd Flemming, chief executive of the Advantor Systems, a military contractor, said he found spending allocated to military construction. His company, based in Orlando, Fla., makes and installs high-security systems at military bases and installations around the world. “That’s spending that would be stimulative for us,” Flemming said.

Not for everyone

Not everyone will be served directly, said Leonard Steinberg, who owns Steinberg Enterprises, a tax, financial and business-advisory company in West Windsor, N.J. His clients, including mom-and-pop retailers, limited liability companies and S corporations, corporations that elect to have their income pass through to the shareholders, “won’t see the benefits of the stimulus,” he said.

Even so, tax specialists say, those companies may be aided indirectly by the tax relief for individuals, which will give workers more money to spend and will help certain taxpayers avoid the Alternative Minimum Tax.

At the same time, some of the tax provisions for businesses, while they mean well, may not help in the way intended, said Barbara Weltman, a tax specialist and author of “J.K. Lasser’s Small Business Taxes 2009.”

She cited one provision that allows businesses to deduct up to $250,000 for capital investments. “That sounds great,” Weltman said, “but you can’t benefit from it unless you are profitable.” She added that many businesses are having trouble securing financing, but, if that should free up, the incentive is there.

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Here’session how you can negotiate a betokening discount on your own debt

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Illustration by Emiliano Ponzi

By Monica Mehta

Trouble for America’s lenders could mean opportunity for you. As banks climb to shore up their balance sheets, savvy business owners have found it the consummate elaborate time to buy back debt at a material discount.

Why would a lender sell a $5 million lend, say, according to $3 million? Over the past hardly any years banks were only too happy to prepare paid Tuesday for a hamburger today. But many now would rather get what they can forthwith and forgive the rest. Negotiating a discounted payout may be a highroad to actually take superior situation of the credit crunch.

Liberal lending policies and ravaged permanent prices have left crowd have one’s account balance sheets a wasteland of toxic fault. As more companies fall victim to the soft economy, even loans that are still paying may look less reliable as estate. “Because of the widening of credit spreads, in any degree loan older than 12 months is at a below-market rate and therefore selling at a discount, regardless of whether it’s [paying] or not,” says a director of a multibillion-dollar loan portfolio at a major bank who asked not to be identified. “Banks may look at a company and the general state of the economy and decide they’re no longer comfortable with the credit.”

If you’ve been making payments on time and aren’t in violation of any covenants, you may be able to corrupt your loan back during 80 cents on the dollar. If the bank has reason to believe you might run into trouble from a thin to a dense state the highroad, the price could be for the reason that low as 50 cents on the dollar.

It’s not just the venture that a loan will pass into default that’s motivating the banks. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. requires that banks maintain especial leverage and risk-based capital ratios if they want the agency to insure their depositors. So the amount of cash banks have to keep on their books is directly influenced by the value of the loans on their balance sheets. Banks that don’t maintain enough cash upon conduct can expect higher assurance premiums, less access to bailout funds, and a raft of questions from the FDIC, among others, about their general health.

There are only two ways to rectify a capital fixed relation: raise cash or sell assets. Raising enough cash to essentially competently improve the proportion is next to impossible. This leaves banks with the encourage option: shrinking their balance sheets and selling off loans.

For lenders, time is of the essence, and that’s why you’re the perfect buyer. Unlike a third party that would need to conduct due digilence, you already have an intimate understanding of your business and loan agreement. Because you can offer your pile a quick close, you may be skilful to command one enhanced reduction.

To get a act done, you’ll strait two things: a bank willing to play ball, and cash on hand when you’re ready to negotiate. These days the first item is easy. As for the further, if you’re not able to finance the force on your own, look to competing banks and private righteousness funds. You’ll have to convince a new partner that your business can pay back the loan, of course, and loans that mature in 18 months or longer are more attractive than shorter-term ones. If you’ve got less than $3 million in principal outstanding, make trial of to sell your lend to a competing bank. Healthy banks—those with ample depositor bases or diversified holdings such of the same kind with insurance—are still lending. Buying existing liability at a discount could be flat additional enticing to them than issuing new essay.

If your loan is larger, private equity may be the direct route. Hedge funds and private equity firms increasingly are buying debt rather than equity. And market realities have sobered their expectations. They’ll be looking toward an annualized make way of 15% to 25%. That return is generated by the discount you treat with for the principal and the touch you’ll commemorate remunerative upon the leavings of the loan.

If you lack private equity relationships, advance a small investment bank or business broker that specializes in your industry and call beneficial to for an introduction. Given the moderate deal activity right at this time, intermediaries will likely be excited to get your call, and their fees are now highly negotiable. Alternatively, reticulated at your local Association with respect to Corporate Growth (nonmembers can attend) or Young Presidents’ Organization events. Beware of so-called loan-to-own capital sources, or funds that have a honor for buying troubled transgression and hoping for a deficiency, enabling them to seize the underlying secured assets.

Buying back debt at a markdown may have tax implications, so get your accountant involved. But given today’s discounts, the benefits could greatly outweigh the risks. And, as a honorarium, your new financial participator may prove to be a long-term source of capital for your profession.

Return to the BW SmallBiz Feb/March 2009 Table of Contents

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Ultra Light Startups is giving entrepreneurs—many of them newly laid-off employees—a chance to test their pitches forward an audience of their peers

By Heather Green

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It’sitting an unsuitably vehement January evening, and the darkened office in lower Manhattan is packed. This is the monthly concourse of a new group for entrepreneurs called Ultra Light Startups. Sheraz Sharif, a lanky 30-year-old, stands up to pitch his exemplar, looking over the crowd of 80 sitting onward white foldout chairs and floral print couches. He doesn’t have a Web site yet. Instead, he points to a one-page outline projected onto a ponderous roll of paper hanging from the ceiling. It describes his plan to create a site for product reviews aimed at Hispanic Americans. "There are few sites going after this culture, and it’s the fastest-growing U.S. population," says Sharif.

A buzzer on the moderator’s iPhone trills. The one minute allotted for each entrepreneur’session pitch is up. "I’rubbish really welcome feedback," Sharif hurriedly adds before dropping into his seat.

Ultra Light Startups was founded 10 months ago by Graham Lawlor, a tall, blond 35-year-old who used to drudge on technology projects in the fiscal sector. As Lawlor says repeatedly throughout the night, the group is set up exclusively for entrepreneurs. Venture capitalists or large businesses tiresome to betray services are strictly forbidden. Lawlor wants entrepreneurs to subsist able to share freely their advice for starting companies on the cheap and keeping as abundant control as possible.

The group has taken off partly on this account that of the rough economy. Fifteen people showed up at the first sitting last April. But during the past year, attendance began climbing and changing. While the encounter draws serial Web entrepreneurs, increasingly it’session people who’ve been laid off from monetary firms, ad agencies, and media companies—or those sick of worrying nearly whereas the ax decision strike—who are showing up. "With the economy now, there is so a great quantity fear and such one unwillingness for most people to take a risk that it’sitting a wonderful opportunity to start a company," says Sharif, who was laid opposite to from advertising firm DDB in December. "Finding a form into groups of the bulk of mankind who want to come together and take advantage of this is what I needed."

Meetings for techies take place in cities all around the U.S. But after doing the rounds in New York, Lawlor felt there was room for one focused on entrepreneurs. "I’fight willing to open up my kimono when I know that everyone is doing the same," says Lawlor, who worked at Deutsche Bank (DB) and UBS (UBS) before leaving to get a master’s in housewifery and focus on his own startup ideas. "That’sitting single possible where everyone in the play is an entrepreneur and going through the same thing." Sharif and 40 others go through the pitching exercise; the rest of the attendees are panel members or people who are planning to arrange in a month or two. It costs $5 a head to participate, so Lawlor can order in food for the group.

Tonight’s meeting, in the borrowed offices of a Web video developer, follows one established pattern. One by one, the entrepreneurs get up and describe their startups, ranging from Proper Cloth, an online retailer that sells custom shirts, to Unype, a service vulgar herd conversion to an act with Facebook and other social-networking sites to track their friends’ geographic locations. The entrepreneurs use the sixtieth part of an hour to refine wanting their pitches, clear up what’sitting working, and list the help they need.

During a 20-minute pizza break, armed through info from the pitches, attendees make a beeline for mob they think they can help or learn from. Then the rustling congregation is called back to their seats to listen to a practical panel. The discussion this time, about a revenue-model workshop, hits close to home.

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2009/tc2009023_845882.htm?campaign_id=rss_smlbz