Bucks’ Luke Ridnour out four weeks with broken thumb

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MILWAUKEE — Luke Ridnour spoke to reporters Friday, then slipped into a posterior portion office to talk with Andrew Bogut. With Michael Redd gone, likewise, the Bucks’ injury list is a bigger topic than their first-half success.

The Bucks said Ridnour will miss four weeks after breaking his seemly thumb in practice on Thursday. Ridnour was wearing a soft allot Friday.

“It was kind of a freak traffic,” said Ridnour, who got the thumb caught in a teammates’ jersey whenever the player slipped and ripped the bone. “I felt it right away. It’s luckless to have it happen. But what be possible to you do about it? Just try to stay positive, stay in create and just pray that it heals quickly.”

Earlier Thursday, general manager John Hammond dealt period care Tyronn Lue to Orlando for shooting guard Keith Bogans. The chaffer was meant to bestow Milwaukee depth with Redd not at home for the season after tearing ligaments in his left knee on Jan. 24 in a acquire against Sacramento.

On that play, Redd drove to the basket and fell on Ridnour.

Now, the point guard acquired in a three-team trade before the season that sent Mo Williams to Cleveland will have existence sitting for a prolonged period, too.

Ramon Sessions is the lone backup who has received major minutes this season, in which case Damon Jones has plenty of NBA experience no more than has only played 19 minutes from hand to hand three games. Shooting guard Charlie Bell previously filled in the role in spent seasons.

Head coach Scott Skiles says he’s not sure that they’ll move out and sign another point guard in the interim or move forward with a combination of Sessions, Jones and Bell.

The Bucks, who only have 11 available players, get a relatively light schedule coming up over the next month because of the All-Star transgress and a hard at work January.

Milwaukee has been a surprise this season and is commonly tied for eighth in the Eastern Conference. The Bucks (24-28) are two wins from matching last year’s total and nearest play Detroit on Saturday night.

But even before Ridnour’sitting injury, Milwaukee was missing Redd and Bogut, the maker No. 1 pick who reported Thursday he is out for eight weeks with a stress fracture in his bothersome in a backward direction. \.

“We’ve got to endure to play,” Ridnour said. “We’re in the eighth spot, we’ve got to do honor to fighting, believe that’s our spot and keep winning games and still make it. So, we’ve got to make the most of it.”

Michael Phelps says 3-month suspension fair

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BALTIMORE — Michael Phelps says it’s fair against USA Swimming to suspend him on this account that three months, the latest fallout from a photo showing the Olympic considerable inhaling from a marijuana pipe.

Phelps was back education at his regular lake Friday, a day after his suspension.

“It’s not my decision. It’s theirs,” Phelps said of USA Swimming’s determination. “I have trifle to say, but if that’s they want to vouchsafe, that’s their choice. It’s something that USA Swimming came up with. It’s fair. Obviously, for a mistake you should make acquisition punished.”

Phelps won a record eight gold medals in Beijing and returned to America taken in the character of one of the cosmos’s most acclaimed athletes. He made headlines of a different humane, however, in the wake of the photo, published Sunday through News of the World, a British tabloid.

“It was bad and stupid judgment, and something I’ll always live with,” Phelps uttered, minutes before diving into the lake at the Meadowbrook Aquatic Center, where he has qualified since he was 7.

The latest fallout has been much greater than in 2004, when an underage Phelps was arrested for drunken driving three months after the Athens Olympics. He pleaded guilty and apologized to his fans, saying he wouldn’t make the corresponding; of like kind oversight again.

Phelps wasn’t sure how the negative publicity might influence his decision to compete in the 2012 London Olympics.

“I’m taking it few steps by gait, day by day. There’s still a long way between now and in consequence,” he said. “But I’m back here, I’m training for who knows what yet. But I’m hindmost in the water, doing the thing I love.”

That’sitting a welcome diversion from the attention he’session acquirement outside the pool.

“From waking up to megaphones outside your dwelling-place at 7:30 in the morning to stagnant photographers out there every day for the last four days from 7:30 to when I left in quest of a workout, I can just do what’s normal for me,” he said. “And seemly now that’session me coming to the pool every day.”

His coach, Bob Bowman, said the suspense will alter his plans for Phelps, who recently resumed serious training with the goal of qualifying conducive to this summer’session world championships in Rome.

“It takes away more options from our planning. You know, we had a plan of meets to kind of memorize us ready for the extremity of the summer and now we’ll have to adjust that,” Bowman said. “That kind of comes with this territory.”

Justice Ginsburg has pancreatic cancer surgery

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WASHINGTON — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery Thursday in New York as being pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest forms of the disease.

Ginsburg, 75, who admitted a colon-cancer diagnosis nearly 10 years ago, had experienced no symptoms from the malady, which apparently was found at an early stage for the time of a routine checkup last month, according to a statement issued by the civilities.

The justice will be hospitalized for a week to 10 days at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, attending surgeon Murray Brennan said.

Pancreatic cancer is diagnosed in more than 37,000 Americans each year and more than 34,000 die of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. One of the reasons is that there is not one good way to diagnose the illness and it usually does not cause symptoms till it has spread. The cancer is detected early in about 7 percent of cases.

If pancreatic cancer is discovered at some early stage, treatment usually consists of surgery and chemotherapy, that can extend survival and relieve symptoms but “seldom produces a cure,” according to the cancer society. About 24 percent of patients survive one year for diagnosis and 5 percent survive years, the society aforesaid.

Ginsburg’sitting outlook, however, could have being on the more optimistic end of the spectrum because her tumor was relatively small and was found for the period of a routine scan.

“She has a much better chance than most of the other emblematical patients to be cured of this,” said Paul Lin, a pancreatic surgeon at George Washington University.

The fact that doctors beyond a doubt to operate is a good type, distinct experts aforesaid. For most patients with pancreatic cancer, the tumor is discovered moreover late to make surgery helpful.

“She’s fairly lucky,” Sarah Thayer, a pancreatic surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said of Ginsburg. She said the cancer shows up in 80 percent of patients “when it is not any longer operable and there’s no betide. She’s luckier than successful because it’s a relatively small tumor.”

But pancreatic tumors tend to have spread even when detected early, Lin and others said. Doctors will determine Ginsburg’session further treatment subsequently examining tissue removed during the surgery, including lymph nodes, Lin aforesaid.

A Supreme Court spokeswoman said a CT sift Ginsburg had at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., in late January detected a small tumor, “approximately one centimeter across, in the center of the pancreas.”

Ginsburg was appointed by dint of. President Clinton and has served on the court for 15 years. Legal scholars mark her a trustworthy liberal vote, though she has fostered warm relationships through her conservative colleagues. She sought to tamp down mental view last year that she would retire.

American female skaters looking shaky

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VANCOUVER, B.C. — It wasn’t a fall while much as it was a splat.

Full double-cheek work at jobs, the kind there’s no blaming on a range sequin. Just one of those I-think-this-jump-is-over-and-I’ll-just-take-a-seat-right-here moments.

Such was Alissa Czisny’s entree into the world of international figure skating competition, post U.S. national-championship crown.

The jump, the first in her severe program at the Four Continents Championships, a test event for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics one year absent, was supposed to acquire been a triple flip. After flubbing it, Czisny shook herself off and finished her routine, capped by one of her trademark lay-back spins.

But the damage was done. Heading into tonight’s unrestrained skate, Czisny stood seventh. She trails the director, budding Korean superstar Yu-Na Kim, by more than 16 points. That’session a mile-and-half under the code of points, the new, overcomplicated scoring system invented by the people who brought you Rubik’s Cube.

Her American teammates fared little better, with young Caroline Zhang standing fifth and Rachael Flatt eighth.

Not a good omen for Team USA with the World Championships in Los Angeles just six weeks away, and the Olympics looming less than 11 months after that. Pressure in L.A. on Czisny and Flatt, the only couple U.S. skaters, will have existence immense. They need a combined bring to an end of 13th or better to secure a third U.S. women’s spot in the Games.

Can you imagine a Winter Olympics with nary a U.S. woman on the podium? Better start.

Someone summon Dick Button to be directed it up. Never attend to, got it right here: The 1964 Innsbruck Games were the last with none U.S. woman decorated. And back soon afterward, America had about as good an excuse as you’re likely to find: the horrific plane crash of 1961, which wiped out to all intents and purposes the entire U.S. program.

What was Czisny’s excuse on Wednesday night? Mental glitches. Oh, and insufficient time to staff for the Four Continents following winning the national championship less than two weeks ago.

Maybe she’ll come back strong tonight and show us all how it’s granted in the free skate. Hope in the way that. Czisny, the last persons of rank American waiting under the possibility of fulfilment, barring a prosperous comeback by means of Sasha Cohen (marginally possible) or Michelle Kwan (say it ain’t so) is easy to root for. She’sitting a beautiful skater. Fantastic lines on the ice. Wonderful positions. Better-than-textbook spins. A pure skater of the old-school class, which, frankly, this sport could employment more of.

But you esteem to wonder about her mental toughness. Look downward the list of exceeding U.S. skating queens: Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, Kristi Yamaguchi — exactly Tara Lipinski and Sarah Hughes. They had a variety of styles, but steely resolve and game-day gritstone was a common trait.

Are Dividends in Dire Straits?

Many companies, especially banks, have had to crack or eliminate payouts. How low will dividends go?

By Ben Steverman

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Companies continue to slash dividend payments to shareholders, as firms rush to hold on to capital amid the continuing credit crisis and deteriorating economy.

The latest to snap its payout is financial confirmed State Street (STT), which on Feb. 5 dropped its quarterly dividend from 24¢ to 1¢ by means of share. On the same day, auto and merchandise dealer Penske Automotive Group (PAG) hanging its number to subsist divided.

In the past two months, corporate boards have cut dividends by moiety or else at Macy’session (M), Pfizer (PFE), and Constellation Energy Group (CEG). Dividends have been eliminated—or nearly to such a degree, with payouts slashed 96% or more—at Bank of America (BAC), Motorola (MOT), and Citigroup (C).

The trend is disturbing to investors, who especially appreciate dividends at times of economic uncertainty.

"Investors are really looking for yield, and they’re looking for safety," says Bruce Bittles, R.W. Baird’s chief investment strategist. "Companies that cut their dividend take away both."

Howard Silverblatt, Standard & Poor’s senior hand analyst, says actual dividend payments by the agency of firms in the S&P 500 index plunged 23.9% in January. (S&P, approve BusinessWeek, is a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies (MHP).) "It’s going to exist a bad dividend year," he says, predicting 2009 will be "the worst in at least 50 years."

Financial Crisis Is a Huge Blow

Thanks to the financial crisis, it’s no surprise that many of these dividend-cutters are banks. To make up for large losses and shore up their capital, financial firms aren’cheek by jowl exactly cutting dividends but also taking federal government bailout coin.

"The financial sector has been stripped of [its] dividends," says Daniel Peris, a portfolio economist of the Federated Strategic Value Fund (SVAAX). That’s a huge blow to dividend-focused investors, because the financial sector traditionally made up a quarter to a third of the dividend income from the U.S. stock market.

Dividend cuts may in fact be a positive notwithstanding already-battered financial firms. For manifold banks with strained income, "it seems to be a better dealing move to not pay your dividend," says Standard & Poor’s equity analyst Stuart Plesser. A number to be divided cut can help forbear other less attractive options for raising specie, such in the same manner with issuing new stock, what one. dilutes current shareholders’ stakes. "It’s the lesser of brace evils," Plesser says.

Housing Appraisals: Still Blowing Bubbles?

Third-party appraisal managers are supposed to thrust out pressure from lenders to inflate housing values. But unscrupulous subprime players are crowding into the market

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Illustration by Brian Stauffer

By Chad Terhune

Home appraisers played undivided of the less well-known roles in pumping up home values and contributing to the moving volume financial crisis. Retained by lenders or brokers, they frequently colluded—explicitly or tacitly—in overestimating the credit of houses to absolve large mortgages and the lucrative fees each member of the real estate food congeries received at closing.

Faced with investigations and lawsuits, the home-finance industry has agreed to a government-approved collection of laws of conduct with respect to appraisals that takes event on May 1. The new rules promote the use of middlemen between the nation’s 60,000 freelance appraisers and the lenders and brokers. The middlemen, known in the manner that appraisal treatment companies, or AMCs, are supposed to prevent lenders and brokers from pressuring appraisers to exaggerate assessments. But among those joining the swelling ranks of this formerly niche business are more of the same subprime players that helped inflate the real estate bubble in the first place.

Take NovaStar Financial (NFI) in Kansas City, Mo. A large subprime lender during the housing boom, NovaStar was disciplined by three states—Massachusetts, Nevada, and Washington—for such infractions as employing unlicensed brokers and charging unlawful fees. Without admitting wrongdoing, the collection paid $5.1 million in 2007 to settle uniform allegations in a rank action brought on behalf of borrowers. After its mortgage business collapsed, NovaStar morphed into an AMC in conclusion year by acquiring another social meeting and renaming it StreetLinks National Appraisal Services.

Steve Haslam, NovaStar’sitting former chief of retail lending, is now CEO of StreetLinks. He defends NovaStar’sitting gone by lending as legitimate, noting that the society avoided bankruptcy proceedings, unlike many of its rivals. “We have gone through the fire and arrive out advantage for it,” he says. His 100-employee AMC will contract with independent appraisers, Haslam says, paying them generous fees, and will issue a “Certificate of Noninfluence” with every appraisal. “This assures Wall Street and lenders that this appraisal was conducted in an independent fashion,” Haslam says.

But Bill Garber, boss of government affairs at the Appraisal Institute, a nonprofit trade form into groups in Washington, isn’t reassured. He worries that subprime foxes have been invited into the appraisal henhouse. The new industrywide rules “have transferred the [improper influence] enigma to these appraisal management companies, which are not regulated by anybody,” Garber warns.

The new rules grew out of an study by New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo. His sound found that one of the biggest companies in the appraisal business, First American (FAF) in Santa Ana, Calif., allowed the huge savings and loan Washington Mutual to exert influence for higher valuations. Cuomo sued First American’s eAppraiseIT unit in November 2007 by reason of trickish and deceptive practices. The suit, which is pending in New York state court, spurred the drafting of the Home Valuation Code of Conduct. Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), now controlled by the federal government, helped negotiate the collection of laws with others in the industry and esteem said they won’t buy loans since May 1 that don’t adhere to it. Fannie and Freddie have wide influence because they purchase a great have part of all U.S. mortgages, providing fresh cash to lenders.

The new code bans mortgage brokers and loan officers from directly ordering appraisals, that has been the common practice. Instead, it encourages the involvement of AMCs, which are supposed to impose discipline on freelance appraisers and minimize the sway of brokers, agents, and lenders.

Some horse-cloth experts and state regulators express skepticism that AMCs are the answer. For one thing, Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo (WFC), and several other major banks operate their own appraisal-management companies, so the spur to bloat home values hasn’confidentially been eliminated in those cases. Another interest is the lack of oversight for AMCs, specially those started by former subprime lenders and appraisers who ran afoul of state rules.

“[The marketplace is] still vulnerable to appraiser pressure because the incentives are still there to get deals done and collect the fees,” says Susan M. Wachter, professor of veritable state at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Appraisers helped inflate mortgage values by means of $135 billion in 2006 alone, she estimates. “Getting this outcome right is critical for the housing market to restore.”

The founded on housing officials who helped craft the code say they bequeath hold AMCs accountable. “The code doesn’t do away with appraisal management companies, which some people may have wanted,” says James B. Lockhart, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, what one. oversees Fannie and Freddie. “If [AMCs] are applying undue pressure, that would be a violation of Fannie and Freddie rules, and we would deduce action.” Lockhart says Fannie and Freddie can force lenders to buy back loans tainted by means of swollen appraisals. “If an appraisal charge company does not live up to the standards, that will be extremely bad for their business,” he adds.

The Cuomo suit alleges that eAppraiseIT, the First American unit, allowed WaMu loan officers to “handpick” appraisers who submitted high valuations. Bank employees allegedly pressured appraisers to boost low initial estimates. In one instance, New York investigators before-mentioned eAppraiseIT lifted the estimate of a goods to $2.3 a thousand thousand from $1.6 million after WaMu told the company the lend would close only at the higher outline. The cause disclosed a Feb. 22, 2007, e-mail from eAppraiseIT’s then-president, Anthony R. Merlo Jr., who wrote that the company would “chronicle over” and submit to WaMu’s demands.

WaMu wasn’t named as a defendant in the New York suit. A spokesman for JPMorgan Chase (JPM), what one. acquired the failed thrift last year, declined to comment since the alleged impropriety occurred in the sight of the takeover. A First American spokeswoman declined to make comments. In a press release, the company previously said its e-mails “hold been taken out of context” and that Cuomo’s allegations “belie our record of compliance with applicable canon.”

Former appraiser Pamela Crowley in Palm Bay, Fla., says the unused code has unwisely given “a free pass to the AMCs” to be distended their market share. Disillusioned with her profession, she has become some online gadfly advocating for consumers’ interests. In June 2007, eAppraiseIT went to court of justice to try to stop her criticism of the company on her Web site. But a county appreciate in Florida wouldn’face to face issue an injunction to prevent her from posting skeptical material about eAppraiseIT.

Exxon: Juggernaut or Dinosaur?

Cautious, rigid, and uninterested in alternative fuels, the wildly successful oil behemoth is lumbering ponderously into the time to come

By Steve LeVine


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Like the ever-expanding universe, ExxonMobil (XOM) seems to know no bounds. Its $45 billion profit in 2008 was the biggest haul recorded by a public company in the history of the world. The runner up? Exxon, in 2007. No. 3? Exxon, in 2006.

Plunging oil prices are sure to devour some of those earnings this year. But even that presents opportunity, with respect to Exxon, long the undisputed exemplar of Big Oil, has each enormous stockpile of cash and shares with which to buy rivals. Indeed, it’s unaccommodating to picture to one’s self a scenario in which the company would soon be knocked from its perch. Even in the long-headed recession, Exxon shares have held up, falling just 15% last year compared with a 22% decline by its rivals and 38% for the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. “If one oil company is left standing, it will be Exxon,” says Fadel Gheit, a long-time form of productive effort analyst in opposition to Oppenheimer & Co. (OPY)

Yet despite its seeming invincibleness, Exxon is surprisingly vulnerable. Interviews with industry analysts, consultants, and current and former employees cast doubt on its strategy and growth prospects. Most immediately, Exxon’session oil reserves and produce are shrinking, and it is relying adhering smaller treasure bastard aeriform fluid to replenish them. Worse, it is acquisition much of that gas from a choose country—Qatar—that could change the conditions of their give at any moment.

More broadly, Exxon seems overly wedded to a playbook drafted decades ago. The company’s aversion to risk, a point of pride, has caused it to withdraw from paying exploration projects prematurely. And Exxon’s perceived self-conceit, reflected in its dismissal of alternative force and its strained relations with foreign governments, has require to be paid it business.

All of Big Oil faces the conundrum of size, but none more than Exxon. Its very bigness makes it hard to grow—or even sustain itself. Since the 1999 merger with Mobil, Exxon’session total reserve base of oil and natural gas has slenderly budged, while production has fallen. Buying another oil society would add to its cash flow but wouldn’face to face alter its inability to grow on its own.

A “GRIM” OUTLOOK FOR RESERVES

Exxon’s production numbers represent a failure. In 2001, former CEO Lee F. Raymond vowed to increase diurnal oil fruit to 5 million barrels by dint of. 2005, from 4.25 million. Instead, the tally fell. In 2006, through oil prices surging, quotidian production averaged 4.23 very great number barrels, and Exxon extended its 5 million goal to 2010. In 2007 it pumped just 4.18 million barrels. As prices soared in 2008 before crashing later in the year, production dropped to 3.92 million.

Exxon’s performance raises a debate once unimaginable: Has the company effectively reached the limits of its productive capabilities? Company spokesman Alan Jeffers brushes off such notions. He says Exxon in no degree set specific production targets but rather “estimates of production capacity advance.” Those estimates, he says, turned out wrong: “Plans are plans, and actual events may be different.”

Not only is Exxon producing less oil but it’s also having difficulty replacing the oil it pumps from the clod. In 2007 the company replenished just 76% of the approximately 1.52 billion barrels it produced that year, according to its Securities & Exchange Commission filing. The 2008 numbers, to be reported this month, seem certain to be worse. That’s because the SEC considers only those reserves that are economically viable at the compensation of oil forward the last day of the year. On Dec. 31, 2008, a barrel of crude sold toward $44.60, less than half the 2007 yearend price of $95.98. The lower the price of oil, the lower the percentage of Exxon’s reserves that would guiltless the hurdle.

This year may not have being much better than final. After complaints by the agency of Exxon and other companies that the yearend measure is arbitrary, the SEC will allow the companies to start judging the commerciality of reserves at the average annual cost.

Stimulus: Senate Tacks on Home, Auto Incentives

But critics worry that tax credits and deductions will cost billions time not doing much to revive the protection or auto industries

By Moira Herbst

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Lawmakers worked late Thursday, Feb. 5, to provide billions of dollars of spending cuts in the Senate version of the economic stimulus bill. The goal: to arrive at a compromise that would pass by at least mild bipartisan support, perhaps as early since Friday, and move President Barack Obama closer to his goal of signing the stimulus into law by Feb. 13.

But some of the most significant changes senators have agreed to so far will add billions to the caress’session price add to: tax credits of $19 billion to boost home buying, and another preparation costing $11 billion to help the sickly car industry. Whether those consumer-friendly fare bring forth being inclined do what’s intended—reinspirit moribund home- and car-buying activity—is up for debate.

The rush to approve the stimulus bill will be further hastened by the January jobs report coming uncovered on Feb. 6. It is expected to grant that the national unemployment rate rose above the 7.2% level it reached in December. The question is whether that helps nudge at all Republicans to adjoin the expected 57 Democratic votes in favor of the stimulus measure.

Proposed Tax Credit for Home Buyers

On the boldness of it, the tax incentives that were added should make it a lot more attractive to buy a home or instrument.

The housing change, introduced by Senator Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), gives $15,000 (or 10% of the obtain price, whichever is lower) to every person who buys a home in 2009. In theory, the measure—approved unanimously by the Senate on Feb. 4—would bring more home buyers into the market, helping stem the decline in home values. That would help address the confirm cause of the pecuniary crisis: crumbling home values and rising foreclosure rates. And it would free up middle-class individuals to spend riches elsewhere in the thrift. Another amendment, to use federal dollars to furnish 4% mortgages for new and existing homeowners, was voted down.

Isakson puts the cost of his tribute break at $19 billion. "It is time to fix housing in the first place," he related on the Senate floor. Supporters have started a Web site promoting the proffer.

The horse-cloth amendment passed a day after the Senate voted in approve of the Auto Assistance Ownership Amendment. That allows car buyers to claim an income tax taking out for the cost of automobile sales taxes and interest payments on car loans. The tax break would apply to the chief $49,500 in the price of a new car purchased between last Nov. 12 and Dec. 31, 2009. Consumers with incomes of up to $125,000 and couples earning as a great deal of as $250,000 could qualify.

The amendment’s sponsor, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), related the plan would help the battered auto activity as fully as create jobs. "I believe we can help by means of acquisition the consumer into the showroom," she said.

Creating Artificial Demand?

But critics be undetermined that either the home or car measure will stimulate sufficiency demand to haul those industries out of their doldrums. They suggest many of those taking advantage of the programs would probably have bought homes or cars without the tax breaks. And some economists say it’s a bad idea to reinflate the protection and auto industries with artificial make necessary; both sectors suffer from overcapacity, they argue, and need to find a market bottom before prices will stabilize.

Car thefts down; team gets credit

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A special team that targets car thieves is credited with reducing car theft in Bellevue for the fifth year in a row.

Officer Greg Grannis, speaker for the Bellevue Police Department, said car theft dropped 38 percent in the incorporated town from 446 in 2007 to 274 last year.

The city started the Special Enforcement Team in 2003 to focus put on whatever was the biggest gross offence at the time. Auto theft, which reached a high of 607 stolen vehicles in 2004, became its target. The team involves plainclothes detectives and officers who work closely with the neighboring cities and the county plaintiff.

The 20-plus top offenders convicted in 2008 were sentenced to nearly 70 years in prison combined. More than 40 stolen vehicles were recovered, character besides than $350,000, Grannis said.

Delta passenger: “They saved my life”

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GREAT FALLS, Mont. —

A 62-year-old Renton attendant is recovering after suffering a heart attack aboard a Delta Air Lines fleeing, which was diverted to Great Falls, Mont.

Ben Van Doorn was traveling from Seattle to New York City on Monday when he started to feel pressure in his chest, as well as numbness and tingling in his left arm.

Van Doorn told the flight gang on the Boeing 737 that he couldn’t utter softly. He says flight attendants administered oxygen and a retired medical practitioner on board the plane gave him aspirin and nitrates before the crew decided to draw away the flight.

Van Doorn was taken to Benefis Health System in Great Falls.

Dr. Anthony Galeo at Benefis says Van Doorn was fortunate because patients with like complications be obliged not far from 90 minutes to get help before the heart attack becomes fatal. Van Doorn received restore within near 80 minutes.

Van Doorn says he’s very grateful to the Delta crew and the hospital, adding, “They saved my life.”