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GUANTÁNAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — Confessed al-Qaida kingpin Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four men accused of plotting with him offered Monday to carry on a suit guilty to orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a move that could leave President-elect Obama to come to a conclusion whether to execute them.

The surprise turnabout came in what was meant to be a course pretrial hearing.

The Pentagon seeks the death penalty for all five men. And the trial judge postponed any pleas until lawyers sort out two key issues at the first U.S. war-crimes tribunals since World War II:

• Whether two of the five men are mentally competent to join together the others in admitting to roles in the discomfit terror attacks on U.S. bedaub;

• And whether the 2006 actualize of Congress that created the war court allows government by terror suspects charged in a capital case to submit guilty pleas out of a jury of at in the smallest degree 12 U.S. military officers current to perceive by the ear them and the evidence.

Victims of the attacks, among five the Pentagon sponsored to observe the hearings, offered adverse views in succession the prospect of executions.

“If there always was a case that warranted the death penalty, this is the one,” declared Hamilton Peterson, who perplexed his parents aboard United Airlines Flight 93.

“They do not deserve the glory of execution,” said Alice Hoagland, whose son Mark Bingham died attached the same hasty departure, struggling with the hijackers to crash the airliner in a Pennsylvania field. “We should make sure that these dreadful people live out their lives in an American prison, totally under the control of the people they profess to hate.”

The defendants made no explicit mention of the death mulct, or “martyrdom” as Mohammed calls it, in an appearance before the tribunal judge, Army Col. Stephen Henley.

Instead, the condemn asked eddish. man whether he wanted to waive his right to challenge the charges and whether each believed prosecutors could prove his guilt “before a reasonable doubt.”

“I understand,” Mohammed replied, going leading. “I hope that you will assign a proceeding in the contiguous future, as fast as practicable, to secure over with this play.”

Nothing will happen soon. The get at the truth instructed prosecutors to exploration and write a brief on whether the legislation that created the war court envisioned letting an accused person plead guilty in a death-penalty case.

Moreover, the judge said he would not accept guilty pleas from co-defendants Yemeni Ramzi Binalshibh and Saudi Mustafa Hawsawi until the court resolves questions on their mental capacity to stand assay.

Ultimately, the commander in chief has the last say on execution, and the case fronting Mohammed and the other four is not likely to be settled preceding President Bush leaves post Jan. 20.

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OAK PARK, Mich. — Four years agone, millions of television viewers watched as a without hearing couple marveled at the renovations to their home that would help them better accommodate their shade, autistic son.

But now the couple, Judy and Larry Vardon, fidget that the home could meet face to face foreclosure. They were featured in a two-hour episode of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” that set a ratings note for the show when broadcast Nov. 6, 2004.

Weighed down through a mortgage payment that has for the most part doubled inasmuch as the makeover and medical insurance that doesn’t cover autism treatment for 16-year-old Lance, the Vardons are clinging to the hope that Larry will keep his job at Chrysler’s Sterling Heights stamping plant. The company is on the brink of bankruptcy as it and the other Detroit automakers appeal to Congress in opposition to emergency loans.

“I’farrago afraid I’m going to lose my house now,” Judy Vardon, using sign language end an interpreter, told The Macomb Daily of Mount Clemens.

ABC said 20.5 million viewers saw a crew led by host Ty Pennington rehabilitate the Vardons’ 980-square-foot house near Detroit from the in the interior of out, including installing cameras and flat-screen monitors allowing the Vardons to monitor Lance.

After the makeover, the couple refinanced the mortgage, and their monthly payments have nearly doubled — from $1,200 to $2,300. They had debts of $20,000 for the boy’sitting therapy alone.

“We didn’t get bad spending habits,” Judy Vardon said. “My husband got laid off concerning a date, and insurance wouldn’privately cover Lance’s autism therapy and some other things like his vision and special dental work.”

The couple are working with a nonprofit group that aids families in turning point to help them negotiate a lower mortgage rate.

The Vardons remain grateful to “Extreme Makeover” and the volunteers who worked to renovate their house and make it safer as being Lance.

“We’re a close subdivision of an order that loves both other,” Judy Vardon said. “I feel that I was given this vitality to representation others that you can face these challenges.”

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WASHINGTON — Joblessness has reached new heights that would receive been offensive a few months past, and all signs projection to more layoffs. That estate more and greater degree the public will rely on unemployment benefits to get by.

Here are some questions and answers about the money that’s distributed in unemployment benefits.

Q: Where does the money come from?

A: It’s raised through state and federal unemployment-insurance taxes on employers. The federal tax is 6.2 percent on the foremost $7,000 in annual wages to both employee. State tax rates vary from state to state, taken in the character of does the amount of each worker’s income that’session subject to the tax — what one. ranges from $7,000 to $34,000.

Q: Do all employers in a given state pay the same?

A: No. The rate depends on how many former employees have drawn jobless benefits. The more such workers an employer has, the higher the tax rate it must pay.

The irony is that employers responsible for the greatest in number joblessness as a percentage of their be force — the ones that have gone out of business — cannot requital their share of unemployment taxes because they’ve gone inferior to.

Q: Are state and founded on taxes the only sources of funding?

A: Not quite. A few states also impose unemployment-insurance taxes on employees.

Q: How is the federal money divided?

A: There are three federal accounts. One pays for state program the government; a second in spite of the 50 percent allotment of the extended benefits program (more on that later); and the third during a loan consols for states with unusually high unemployment.

Q: Is there a ceiling on how plenteous money can be in the federal accounts?

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WASHINGTON — A top House Democrat threatened Monday to confine up the remaining half of the $700 billion financial industry rescue money unless the Bush control provides some of it conducive to borrowers facing foreclosure.

“They’re not going to get the (money) unless they get very serious about the foreclosure modifications and showing us how we’re going to get some lending out of the banks,” Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., told reporters after speaking at a saddle-cloth activity conference in Washington. “At this quip I don’t see that happening.”

The Treasury Department says $335 billion has been allocated from the first moiety of the program, that was enacted more than two months ago. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who is overseeing the program, is weighing tapping the second $350 billion.

The main goal of the program is to get financial institutions to impart coin more freely again.

The Bush administration has focused mainly on voluntary industry efforts to soften loans, and those have not stopped the surge in foreclosures.

“Imagine how frequent foreclosures we would have on the supposition that the financial system had been allowed to collapse,” Neel Kashkari, director of the Treasury Department office overseeing the $700 billion program, said at the same conference.

But critics say many citizens and lawmakers were led to believe some of the money would fire to avoiding foreclosures and are frustrated that it has yet to do in like manner.

In a report to be released today, a special bipartisan commission chaired by dint of. former HUD Secretaries Henry Cisneros and Jack Kemp takes aim at the Bush administration for the foreclosure crisis, citing its lax enforcement of fair-housing laws and lackluster response to problems that have disproportionately hit poor and minority populations.

Labeling the system “broken,” the seven-member panel calls for the constitution of an independent agency separate from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to in addition vigorously enforce fair-housing laws.

“The founded on government needs to be in the business of acquisition things transacted,” said Kemp, who served in the Cabinet of Bush’s father. “And in accordance with duty things being so, fair-housing enforcement is not getting done. That’s why we need a new, independent mediation that won’t master mired in politics.”

Discussion at Monday’s forum focused in succession in what condition broad the government’sitting intervention should be, rather than whether the control should play a role.

The U.S. is on track for 2.25 the multitude foreclosures this year, more than double traditional levels.

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CHICAGO — The nation’sitting of forbidding look established order now has a rallying peculiarity: Employees at a window-and-door factory that went out of business have taken over the building in a siege that has come to symbolize the woes of the ordinary working-bee.

The Republic Windows and Doors manufactory closed abruptly in conclusion week after Bank of America canceled the collection’s financing. Since then, about 200 of the 240 laid-off workers have taken turns occupying the mill, declaring they will not leave until getting assurances they will receive severance and accrued intermission pay.

But the standoff also has come to embody mounting choler over the government’s willingness to bail out deep-pocketed corporations but not average people.

“There’s a simplicity and straightforwardness to this particular case that anybody can wrap their head around,” said James Thindwa, executive director according to the Chicago office of Jobs With Justice, a national league of unions, community groups and other organizations.

Apolinar Cabrera, a 17-year Republic employee, lost his job and benefits just as his wife is about to deliver their third nursling.

“I put on’t know that which to do,” related Cabrera, 44, who worked in Republic’sitting shipping department. He has been shuttling between the plant and home for a like reason he can check without ceasing his wife.

The workers show up in groups of 50 or 60 to occupy the plant around-the-clock in eight-hour shifts.

The union assigns some employees to clean the factory and make sure it’s safe. Others take in food donations brought to the door. Outside, they hung a huge American flag, and some are huddled around a fire in a garbage can.

By Monday, the asseverate had drawn the court of nearly every politician with a connection to this city, numerous combination and worker-rights groups and scores of ordinary population, who arrived at the put in the ground offering families toys, food and circulating medium.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who met with the workers Monday morning, said the state of Illinois was suspending its business with the Bank of America, Republic Windows’ lenders, and the Illinois Department of Labor was poised to toothed a complaint over the vegetable closing if need be. Political leaders on the Chicago City Council and in Cook County threatened similar actions. U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez said he was encouraging the Department of Labor and the Department of Justice to investigate.

“Families are already struggling to keep afloat,” Blagojevich said.

“We hope that this kind of leverage and pressure power of determination encourage Bank of America to chouse the right thing for this affair,” Blagojevich said outside the plant. “Take some of that federal demand standard of value that they’ve current and invest it by providing the necessary credit to this company so these workers have power to keep their jobs.”

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WASHINGTON — Investors hungry for safety during these times of economic and financial peril are pouring money into Treasury securities, driving down rates on short-term bills to record lows.

Investors are basically willing to lend their money to Uncle Sam at almost no expenditure on this account that they are looking for an ultra-safe haven.

Once inflation and transaction costs are factored in, investors are actually losing estate.

“It essentially amounts to clan putting their money under the mattress,” said Sung Won Sohn, economist at the Martin Smith School of Business at California State University.

The Treasury Department auctioned $27 billion worth of three-month Treasury bills on Monday, fetching a discount rate of 0.005 percent, another record low. That surpassed the old record low of 0.050 percent set last week.

Another $27 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a rebate duty of 0.300 percent, an all-time low. That thump out the worn out record low of 0.430 percent, also reached last week.

Skittish investors are drawn to Treasury securities because they are backed by dint of. the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.

A global fiscal crisis — the subjugate since the 1930s — has made investors especially leery.

Lending has locked up both in the U.S. and in all directions as fallout from saddle-cloth and mortgage meltdowns has spread to other areas.

Despite a series of dramatic actions by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, credit and pecuniary problems persist.

Another factor feeding into Monday’session record low Treasury rates: investors’ assurance that the Fed resolution aggressively cut a key short-term interest rate — things being so near a historic low of 1 percent — at the last meeting of the year on Dec. 16.

Some economists are predicting the Fed could divide rates by dint of. a whopping three-quarters of a percentage point, which would drop the Fed’s key rate to just 0.25 percent.

In Monday’sitting auction, the discount rates reflect that the bills sell for less than face hold in high esteem. For a $10,000 reckoning, the three-month price was $9,999.87, while a six-month bill sold for $9,984.83.

The 56-year-old daughter of company founder Hugh Hefner is stepping from the top to the bottom of as CEO after 20 years in the job

By Christopher Palmeri

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Christie Hefner will exit as CEO of Playboy Enterprises at the end of January. Getty Images

The economy’s chill winds are blowing all the way to the Playboy Mansion’s famous hot tub grotto. Playboy Enterprises (PLA), the $300 million-a-year home of Playboy magazine and cable channel, announced Dec. 8 that Christie Hefner, 56, the longtime chief executive and daughter of company founder Hugh Hefner, will step down at the end of January.

"Last month marked my 20th anniversary as CEO; just as this country is embracing make some vary in. in the form of new leadership, I possess decided that now is the time to make changes in my admit life as well," Christie Hefner said in a statement. Added venerable man Hugh: "As a arise of her efforts, the company today has more consumers and fans than at any time in our history. I believe that she elect approve on to work out even greater personal success." Christie Hefner bequeath be replaced on an interim basis by Jerome Kern, a Playboy meals member and business consultant.

Despite her father’session encouraging words, Christie Hefner leaves the House of Hef at a herculean time. The company has reported slumping sales and widening losses this year. Its stock price, being of the kind which high of the same kind with 11 a year ago, has fallen to just past 2. (The shares jumped nearly 22% Monday on recent accounts of the CEO change.) Playboy breaks out its business into three categories. Entertainment, which includes television and the Web properties, generated revenues of $38 million in the third quarter, a 22% pendant from the prior year. Publishing, at $22 million, was down towards 6%.

Only the licensing arm showed a slight gain. Recently the company has been selling artworks from its incorporated collection, and in a conference denominate reporting a $5 the great body of the people loss in early November, congregation execs were even talking end for end the "occult asset" that Hef’sitting legendary Los Angeles mansion represents. The elder Hefner rents his famous estate from the corporation for $700,000 annually, but it costs the company well-nigh $3 million a year to run. Playboy acquired the 29-room mansion in 1971 for $1.1 million moreover has invested some $14.2 very great number greater degree in it, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Playboy’s gaunt results are coming flat as the stigma enjoys something of a renaissance, specifically among young people. The hit show The Girls Next Door on the E! feast network (CCW) featured the 82-year-old Hugh cavorting with three much younger women. In a flashback to the brand’sitting 1960s glory days, the company even opened a Playboy Club at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas and plans one more in the Asian gambling mecca of Macao (BusinessWeek.com, 6/27/08). Hugh had cameos steady the hit HBO show Entourage and in a music video by the alternative rock group Weezer.

To some degree the company’s problem is one exasperating all traditional media—the abundance of free content on the Web and the alternatives that brings for both viewers and advertisers. In April the company announced it would sell its Los Angeles video produce studio and in October announced it would stop releasing DVDs entirely.

The company has lost market share in cable television as cable companies began oblation more individual movies on demand, often from new entrants into the business. Circulation at its 2.7 million-subscriber flagship repository is down from 3.2 million a decade ago and 6.6 million at its 1972 peak, at the same time that printing costs have increased. To combat these trends the meeting of friends has sought to boost profits by slashing expenses. Playboy let go 140 people this year, 17% of its workforce, and is working to reap overall savings from its operations of $12 million.

The sole part of the function that is doing well is licensing Playboy’sitting famous rabbit ears logo. The licensing arm earned $6.7 million in the third quarter, a 5% increase from the same period last year. The guests has new products launching in coming months including new fragrances with perfume company Coty and a nostalgic underwear plant called the Bunny Bra.

Hugh and Christie were always a study in contrasts. The buttoned-down Christie operated confused of Hugh’sitting original Chicago stomping grounds in a Michigan Avenue office decorated with modern art. Her pajama-clad father gave bestow prodigally parties at his L.A. rank, clean with a kitschy game room and petting zoo. When Christie took upper the company in 1988, Playboy was reeling from losses kindred to overexpansion of its casinos and clubs. She refocused the business on media, purchasing television studios and launching a subscription-based Web site.

But that enlargement, so as the $95 million purchase of pay-per-view movie producer Spice Entertainment in 1998, proved high-priced. Playboy today has debts of $115 million. It furthermore faces a central brand dilemma, as many online alternatives are far raunchier than the soft-core material for which the company is best known, completely challenges that Christie Hefner’s replacement will have to address.

Real estate mogul Sam Zell built a complicated deal to take over Tribune Co., putting little of his own money at dare to undertake

By Emily Thornton

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If there is one thing Sam Zell foresaw correctly, it is this: The light of day after Zell announced he was buying Tribune for more than $8 billion, the real possessions tycoon told Chicago Tribune reporters the deal would not change his lifestyle no matter what happened. But, he said, "it’s likely to change yours."

How right he was. Just one year after Zell bought the company (BusinessWeek, 7/30/08), Tribune announced on Dec. 8 that it is filing for bankruptcy. That means Zell could lose a small fraction of his estimated $5 billion fortune. The intellect: The man who likes to call himself "the grave dancer" put same little of his own skin in the game. Instead, employees of the Tribune properties will bear the brunt of the pain, as they technically own the company and hold its $12.9 billion in debt. Tribune reported $7.6 billion in assets.

Tribune comprises eight newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and Baltimore Sun; a 31% share of Food Network; two dozen TV stations, including outlets in the three biggest U.S. markets; and the Chicago Cubs baseball team. The Cubs immunity was not part of the bankruptcy filing.

Tribune’s bankruptcy bequeath be complicated. For starters, figuring out the value of Tribune in insolvency could be problematic. Every day brings a slew of firmly worsening statistics on ad revenue and circulation, pummeling gazette valuations. On most prominent one of that, Zell used complex financing schemes predicated on accuse advantages in structuring his deal. Those arrangements now stir up thorny questions.

One of the trickiest issues will subsist how to handle a financing scheme Zell used to buy Tribune that relied on a tax-exempt employee stock ownership plan, known because an ESOP. Although employees had no say over how the ESOP was used, Tribune’s provision approved Zell’s bid, which used the ESOP as a vehicle through which he borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars to tax-efficiently permanent fund the transaction. The scheme allowed Zell to pony up righteous $315 million of his own cash to twist. control of the company and made employees technically Tribune’s owners.

But ownership came at a compensation: Tribune cut hindmost its 401(k) contributions and instead committed to use a fragment of its payroll to pay down the hundreds of millions in debt that a rely on set up for the ESOP used to buy Tribune shares, according to employee stock owner plan expert Corey Rosen. "It was like a mortgage that you use to buy a house with no cash down," says Rosen, who wrote a report that goes into account on Tribune’s ESOP arrangements.

Early on in the deal, Zell tried to motivate his armed force by telling them the financing scheme would result in put a tax upon gains that would bestow Tribune a big advantage and could one epoch make employees rich. "This concern lends itself to ESOPs because you have a piece of land of people, at least in theory, who are intelligent," he declared in the Chicago Tribune interview in December 2007.

Now, the ESOP’s equity stakes order in a fair way be wiped finished, and the handling of the tax gains will likely become one issue in the bankruptcy restructuring. "If a firm goes insolvent debtor, the equity runs the risk of not sentient worth much," says Standard & Poor’s analyst Emile Courtney. "They will probably fail to keep everything" in the ESOP, predicts impost expert Robert Willens, who has closely studied the Tribune deal.

In a Dec. 8 note to Tribune employees, Zell continually addressed them as "partners." He uttered their payroll, benefits, and 401(k)s would not obtain existence affected by the filing. As for the ESOP, Zell said, "it is part of the ownership structure, to such a degree its value and role long term will have being determined in the restructuring. We make no doubt of the structure is a expensive asset to the company and that there are conclusive reasons to preserve it."

But the ESOP could raise governance issues about who should be in charge of reorganizing the company. As side of his financing scheme, Zell also obtained a warrant to pervert with money 43% of the company. So, there’s a question if it is "the ESOP trustees who preserve set store by for the ESOP itself? Or if it is Zell negotiating to protect his note?" says person bankruptcy expert who asked not to be named.

The bright side may be that Tribune employees didn’t have a lot of time to put a great quantity money toward ESOP contributions. "In a weird way, the employees are good in a higher degree off that the company crashed today instead of seven years from now," says a banker familiar with the deal, who asked not to be named.

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MILAN, Italy — It was classic La Scala intrigue.

The famed opera house threw its understudy into one of its biggest nights Sunday, removing purport Giuseppe Filianoti at the hindmost minute for the season-opening premiere of “Don Carlo” after he made mistakes for the time of a dress rehearsal.

American sense Stuart Neill, 43, who has mostly performed in favor and third part casts, got the break of a lifetime in the title role and survived his unexpected debut of “Don Carlo” with generous applause — and a smattering of boos.

That’session not bad for the self-ordained critics of La Scala’s uppermost balconies, who in another series hurled salami and risotto at singers they deemed unworthy. In 1982, they level booed legendary character Luciano Pavarotti at the same time that he sang “Don Carlo,” considered among the most difficult tenor roles. Last year, tenor Roberto Alagna walked from stage during a exhibition of character on the stage of “Aida” when he was booed during the opening aria.

“Tough crowd, but no I wasn’t nervous at completely,” Neill said backstage still in costume just minutes after the curtain came down.

Filianoti didn’t go quietly, telling the Milan daily Corriere della Sera that he had been “betrayed” by the opera furnish with a house, “stabbed in the back at the last minute.”

“La Scala wanted me to saw I was sick. But I, Giuseppe Filianoti, am in perfect condition, ready to engage myself in a role in which I feel secure,” the wall-paper quoted him as saying.

Filianoti showed up for the first act, but left without sleeplessness his understudy through to the definitive duet with Elisabetta, sung by soprano Fiorenza Cedolins.

Opening night at La Scala is one of Europe’sitting most highly anticipated cultural events of the form, regularly attended by the cream of Milanese society, captains of Italian industry and heads of government. This year, the presidents of Rwanda and Togo attended.

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WASHINGTON — Singer and actress Barbra Streisand, actor Morgan Freeman, inhabitants singer George Jones, dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp and musicians Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey of The Who this weekend became the latest recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors.

The ceremony, now in its 31st year, is one of Washington’session few red-carpet events. The scholarly rank recognize individuals who helped circumscribe American culture through the performing arts, part of the living memorial to President John F. Kennedy.

Celebrities came from New York, Los Angeles and Nashville, Tenn., to take revenge upon tribute.

The weekend celebration included a dinner hosted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday. On Sunday, stars including musician B.B. King and actor Denzel Washington appeared on stage at the annual gala at the John F. Kennedy Center.

The gala will be broadcast Dec. 30 without ceasing CBS.