Ex-Goldman employee charged with insider trading

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WASHINGTON - US regulators on Wednesday charged a former Goldman Sachs employee and his father with insider trading on confidential information about Goldman's exchange-traded fund strategy.

The case is the latest effort by the US Securities and Exchange Commission to crack down on insider trading on Wall Street and is the first time the agency has gone after insider trading involving ETFs.

In a complaint filed with the SEC's internal administrative court, the SEC said that Spencer Mindlin, who worked on Goldman's ETF desk from September 2007 until his resignation in August 2009, and his father, Alfred Mindlin, had made at least $57,000 in illicit trading profits.

Robert Knut, an attorney for the Mindlins, said the SEC's accusations against his clients were without merit.

"Spencer Mindlin did not provide any non-public information to make any securities trades," Knut said, adding that Spencer Mindlin was merely helping his father understand and execute a trading strategy. "The Mindlins did nothing wrong, and the SEC should not have brought these charges."

The commission said Spencer Mindlin, 33, was able to get nonpublic information about Goldman's plans to buy and sell securities underlying the SPDR S&P Retail Exchange-Traded Fund, which replicates the performance of the Standard & Poor's Retail Select Industry Index.

The SEC said he then tipped off his father, 68, a certified public accountant who resides in Massapequa, New York, and Delray Beach, Florida. Together, the SEC alleges, the father and son traded illegally in four different securities that underlie the ETF.

"With his father's helping hand, Spencer Mindlin exploited his inside knowledge of Goldman's complex hedging strategies to line his own pockets," said George Canellos, director of the SEC's regional office in New York.

The SEC said the trades by the father-son duo were made in a brokerage account under a family member's name, and that Spencer Mindlin did not disclose them to his employer.

Andrea Raphael, a spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs, said the firm cooperated fully with the investigation. "All of the trading was conducted in private, undisclosed accounts held outside of Goldman Sachs and none of the trading involved client information," she said.

The insider trading allegedly occurred in December 2007 and March 2008 at times when Goldman's ETF desk was trading stocks in the S&P-linked fund because of scheduled quarterly changes to the index. At the time Goldman was the largest institutional holder of the ETF.

The agency alleges that Spencer Mindlin knew about Goldman's planned trades ahead of the rebalancing, and was able to profit from transactions in thinly traded, lesser-known companies such as Sport Supply Group Inc and PC Mall Inc, among others.

Knut, the Mindlins' lawyer, said that his clients' trading strategy was based on "the well known rebalancing phenomenon within the ETF industry and publicly available information."

Also on Wednesday, a federal court in New York postponed sentencing for Raj Rajaratnam, the trader at the center of the government's probe of insider trading by hedge funds, until Oct 13, but gave no reason for the delay. Trader Zvi Goffer and consultant Winifred Jiau were sentenced to 10 years and four years in prison, respectively, in separate insider trading cases stemming from the hedge fund probe.

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Georgia executes convict in high-profile case

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Protestors display banners in the protest area at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification prison where convicted killer Troy Davis is set to be executed by lethal injection in Jackson, Georgia Sept 21, 2011. The US state of Georgia executed convicted murderer Troy Davis on Wednesday in a case that drew international attention because of claims by his advocates that he may have been innocent. 


JACKSON, Georgia - The US state of Georgia executed convicted murderer Troy Davis on Wednesday in a case that drew international attention because of claims by his advocates that he may have been innocent.

Davis, convicted of the 1989 killing of a police officer, was put to death by lethal injection at 11.08 local time/0308 GMT Thursday at a prison in central Georgia after the US Supreme Court declined to hear a final appeal, a prison official said.

The case has attracted international attention and an online protest that has accumulated nearly a million signatures because of doubts expressed in some quarters over whether he killed police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989.

MacPhail was shot and killed outside a Burger King restaurant in Savannah, Georgia, as he went to the aide of a homeless man who was being beaten. MacPhail's family say Davis is guilty and called for his execution.

Outside Georgia Diagnostic and Classification prison earlier, hundreds of protesters chanted "I am Troy Davis" and other slogans and a cheer briefly went up when it was reported that the execution had been delayed.

But the crowd dwindled as the evening wore on and those who remained greeted news from the Supreme Court with silence, prayers and tears.

"This is a tragic moment. We were hoping for a different result but we are determined to fight," said Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

"People are watching this particular execution in a way that's unprecedented and I think it's causing people to take a hard look at our criminal justice system," said Warnock, whose church was once led by slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

A majority of Americans support the death penalty and most executions attract little national attention but the Davis case prompted a rash of protests as well as expressions of concern from Europe.

France and the Council of Europe this week urged US authorities to stay the execution.

One sentence order

Since Davis's conviction, seven of nine witnesses have changed or recanted their testimony, some have said they were coerced by police to testify against him and some say another man committed the crime.

No physical evidence linked Davis to the killing.

"Our hearts go out to them (MacPhail's family). We have nothing but sympathy and prayers for them but they are not getting justice if the wrong person is paying for what happened to their son, their brother," civil rights leader Al Sharpton told reporters at the prison.

The Supreme Court took the rare step in 2009 of allowing the defense to present its case to an evidentiary hearing but a federal judge in Savannah said it cast "minimal doubt" on the conviction.

Once a death warrant was signed, Davis's best hope of avoiding execution had rested with the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles but on Tuesday it denied him clemency following a one-day hearing.

On Wednesday, his lawyers went through a series of maneuverers in an attempt to stay the execution finally reaching the Supreme Court.

It took the court more than four hours to issue its one-sentence order, an unusually long time in such cases.

Brian Kammer, a lawyer for Davis, said in seeking a stay from the Supreme Court that newly available evidence revealed false, misleading and inaccurate information was presented at the trial, "rendering the convictions and death sentence fundamentally unreliable."

A handful of supporters of capital punishment in the case also protested separately from Davis' supporters.

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White supremacist executed for Texas dragging

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HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A white supremacist gang member was executed Wednesday evening for the infamous dragging death slaying of a black man.

James Byrd Jr, 49, was chained to the back of a pickup truck and pulled whip-like to his death along a bumpy asphalt road in one of the most grisly hate crime murders in recent Texas history.

Lawrence Russell Brewer, 44, was asked if he had any final words, to which he replied: "No. I have no final statement." A single tear hung on the edge of his right eye.

He was pronounced dead at 6:21 pm, 10 minutes after the lethal drugs began flowing into his arms, both covered with intricate black tattoos.

Brewer's parents and two of Byrd's sisters were in attendance.

Appeals to the courts for Brewer were exhausted and no last-day attempts to save his life were filed.

Besides Brewer, John William King, now 36, also was convicted of capital murder and sent to death row for Byrd's death, which shocked the nation for its brutality. King's conviction and death sentence remain under appeal. A third man, Shawn Berry, 36, received a life prison term.

"One down and one to go," Billy Rowles, the retired sheriff who first investigated the horrific scene, said. "That's kind of cruel but that's reality."

Byrd's sister, Clara Taylor, said someone from her brother's family needed to be present to watch Brewer die so she was among witnesses in the death chamber.

"He had choices," she said Tuesday, referring to Brewer. "He made the wrong choices."

While the lethal injection wouldn't compare to the horrible death her brother endured, "Knowing you're going to be executed, that has to be a sobering thought," she said.

It was about 2:30 am on a Sunday, June 7, 1998, when witnesses saw Byrd walking on a road not far from his home in Jasper, a town of more than 7,000 northeast of Houston. Many folks knew he lived off disability checks, couldn't afford his own car and walked where he needed to go. Another witness then saw him riding in the bed of a dark pickup.

Six hours later, the bloody mess found after daybreak was thought at first to be animal road kill. Rowles, a former Texas state trooper who had taken office as sheriff the previous year, believed it was a hit-and-run fatality but evidence didn't match up with someone caught beneath a vehicle. Body parts were scattered and the blood trail began with footprints at what appeared to be the scene of a scuffle.

"I didn't go down that road too far before I knew this was going to be a bad deal," he said at Brewer's trial.

Fingerprints taken from the headless torso identified the victim as Byrd.

Testimony showed the three men and Byrd drove out into the county and stopped along an isolated logging road. A fight broke out and the outnumbered Byrd was tied to the truck bumper with a 24-foot (7-meter) logging chain. Three miles (5 kilometers) later, what was left of his shredded remains was dumped between a black church and cemetery where the pavement ended on the remote road.

Brewer, King and Berry were in custody by the end of the next day.

The crime put Jasper under a national spotlight and lured the likes of the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Panthers, among others, to try to exploit the notoriety of the case which continues - many say unfairly - to brand Jasper more than a decade later.

King was tried first, in Jasper. Brewer's trial was moved 150 miles (240 kilometers) away to Bryan. Berry was tried back in Jasper.

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US man sues Starbucks over restroom camera

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WASHINGTON - A US man is suing Starbucks Coffee Co after his 5-year-old daughter allegedly found a video camera pointed at the toilet in a bathroom in one of their cafes.

William Yockey, of Virginia, is asking for $1 million in the civil suit on four counts, including breach of privacy, his lawyer, Hank Schlosberg, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Yockey and his daughter went into a Starbucks in downtown Washington to use the restroom during an April sightseeing trip, he said.

After using the unisex toilet, the girl discovered a digital video camera hidden in the U-shaped drain pipe under the sink. The camera was aimed at the toilet and recording, Schlosberg said.

"The little girl was very upset and the father was irate," he said.

Yockey contacted the manager, who called police.

The incident is at least the third involving a camera in a Starbucks bathroom this year.

A man was arrested in May for placing a camera in a California Starbucks and recording at least 40 women. A man was arrested in June for putting a camera in a Florida Starbucks.

Starbucks spokesman Alan Hilowitz said: "We take our obligation to provide a safe environment for our customers and our employees very, very seriously."

Such incidents as the alleged camera placement were "extremely,

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Megacities could help 'save the world'

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NEW YORK - A global explosion of urban growth and the rise of the megacity could help resolve some of the world's deepest problems, from overpopulation to environmental devastation.

In an upbeat assessment, senior international business and political figures told a forum in New York that along with the obvious challenges, they saw huge opportunities in the rush to urbanization.

In 1800, just 3 percent of the world lived in urban areas. Today that figure has passed 50 percent and by 2050 it will likely reach 70 percent, with cities like New York, Mexico City, Moscow and Shanghai growing exponentially.

Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim, named by Forbes as the world's richest person, said that bringing people into urban areas is the only way for countries to cope with already inevitable population growth.

"If there were not big cities the service will not be affordable for the population," Slim told the panel at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative group.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said his country is embracing the urban model with about 120 cities of more than a million people already on the map.

"Cities are very important for generating more GDP and to uplift the whole society," he said. "One percentage increase in urban population will mean a lot jobs, a lot of consumption and a lot of investment."

Of course, packing so many people into tight spaces brings equally big challenges.

"(It) will create a lot of problems as well, for instance: population pressure, environmental degradation and lack of social amenities," Yang said.

California's Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom described the "remarkable challenge to deal with ethnic, racial, religious diversity", and said what matters is "the human capital equation, not just the infrastructure".

Janette Sadik-Khan, transport commissioner for New York City, agreed, saying the Big Apple was attempting to make the city more pleasant as it prepares to accommodate an expected extra million people over the next 20 years, on top of the current 8.4 million population.

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Mad Men wins big at Emmy Awards

The cast and crew of Mad Men and creator Matthew Weiner (front left) accept the award for outstanding drama series at the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday in Los Angeles.

LOS ANGELES - The Emmys keep buying what Mad Men is selling. The 1960s Madison Avenue saga won its fourth consecutive best drama series award on Sunday, while big-hearted romp Modern Family claimed its second best comedy trophy.

Modern Family producer Steve Levitan, whose picture of the US family today includes gay couples and interracial families, told of being approached during shooting by a real-life gay couple who wanted to say thanks.

"They said, 'You're not just making people laugh, you're making them more tolerant'," said Levitan, whose show received a total of five awards.

While Mad Men gained the top drama award, it couldn't pull honors for stars Jon Hamm or Elisabeth Moss.

Kyle Chandler was the surprise winner in the best drama actor category for the last season of Texas football drama Friday Night Lights, blocking odds-on favorites among his fellow nominees, including Hamm.

"I knew for a fact I would not be standing here. I did not write anything and now I'm starting to worry," said Chandler, who also beat out Steve Buscemi of Boardwalk Empire.

It was a fitting victory for Chandler and Friday Night Lights, which was critically acclaimed but struggled for an audience, and whose high school football team's motto was, "clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose".

Julianna Margulies won top drama acting honors for The Good Wife. Margulies, who navigates politics, law and family in the show, added to her Emmy stash. As part of the ER medical drama cast, she won a supporting actress Emmy in 1995.

Melissa McCarthy of Mike & Molly was honored as best lead actress in a comedy series with an Emmy and a glitzy prom queen's crown, while Jim Parsons of The Big Bang Theory earned his second trophy in the best actor category.

"Holy smokes. Wow, it's my first and best pageant ever," said a beaming McCarthy. "I'm from Plainfield, Illinois, and I'm standing here and it's kind of amazing."

Moments earlier, she and her fellow nominees had broken with tradition by jumping up on stage as their names were called, led by Amy Poehler of Parks and Recreation.

They earned a standing ovation from many in the audience, which seemed fitting in a year in which TV shows and movies are giving women edgier leading roles. Among them is the box-office hit Bridesmaids, which featured McCarthy.

Parsons looked genuinely surprised at his victory. "This is so odd for so many reasons. I was assured by many people in my life that this wasn't happening," he said.

The first awards in the drama category went to Jason Katims of Friday Night Lights for outstanding writing, and Margo Martindale, named best supporting actress for the show Justified.

"Sometimes, things just take time. But with time comes great appreciation," said the veteran actress.

Peter Dinklage, the winning actor in the category for sci-fi fantasy Game of Thrones, was awed by another winner, filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who received a directing trophy for Boardwalk Empire.

"Thanks. Wow. Wow. I followed Martin Scorsese. My heart is pounding. You are a legend," Dinklage said.

The directing trophy was the sole award on Sunday for Boardwalk Empire, HBO's lavishly produced tale of Prohibition-era mobsters and crooked politicos on the make in freewheeling Atlantic City, New Jersey.

The ceremony aired by Fox opened with a pre-taped comedy sketch that generated controversy because Alec Baldwin's part was cut after he included a joke about the News Corp phone hacking scandal. Fox is a unit of News Corp.

Baldwin tweeted that Fox killed the joke about the hacking scandal in Britain involving the now-closed News of the World tabloid. Fox said it believed the joke was inappropriate to make light of an issue being taken very seriously by the company.

Leonard Nimoy stepped in and the bit was retaped. It featured host Jane Lynch celebrating television in a musical number, singing about TV as "a vast wonderland, a kingdom of joy in a box".

"Oh, there's Betty White. She's the reason we start the show at 5 pm," Lynch cracked during her opening monologue.

Charlie Sheen presented the lead actor award, using his time on stage to make nice with his former Two and a Half Men colleagues. He was fired from the show after bitterly clashing with its producer and studio, and was replaced by Ashton Kutcher.

"From the bottom of my heart, I wish you nothing but the best for this upcoming season," he said. "I know you will continue to make great television."

Modern Family won the first four Emmys, capturing best supporting comedy actress, best supporting comedy actor, best writing for a comedy and best direction for a comedy series.

Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell, who play husband and wife on the series, won best supporting actor honors for a comedy series.

"Oh, my God, I don't know what I'm going to talk about in therapy next week," said a shocked-looking Bowen. "I won something."

World eating champ defends title at Ohio contest

CINCINNATI - The top-ranked competitive eater in the world and reigning king of the World Bratwurst Eating Championship has defended his title in Cincinnati, washing down 35 brats in 10 minutes.


The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that Joey "Jaws" Chestnut approaches the contest like a sport.

Chestnut, a construction manager in San Jose, Calif., says he prepares by fasting for two to three days before the contest, which took place at Oktoberfest Zinzinnati, North America's largest Oktoberfest.

The 10 male competitors put away 170 brats in 10 minutes Saturday during the officially sanctioned contest.

One observer called the contest "pretty wild" and said he didn't know whether to throw up or get a brat for himself.

For his victory, Chestnut won $2,000 and a golden Oktoberfest-Zinzinnati chicken hat.