Archive for June 29th, 2009

CHICAGO (Reuters) — Michigan has to close prisons to save money. California’s are bursting at the seams.Both states are struggling with huge budget gaps.Now, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has offered California some of the state’s prisons that are slated to close at a yet-to-be-determined cost.In a letter Monday to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Granholm formally… »

NEW YORK: Toyota has teamed up with British ultra-luxury carmaker Aston Martin to sell a version of the iQ city car, a car that is more than two feet shorter than a Mini Cooper.The nearly finished Toyotas (TM) will be shipped to Aston Martin’s assembly plant in Gaydon, England. There, the cars’ interiors will be… »

NEW YORK (CNN) — A burst of applause erupted in the ornate 9th floor ceremonial courtroom of Manhattan’s U.S. District Court as Judge Denny Chin proclaimed, “Bernard L. Madoff shall be and hereby is sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 150 years.”Victims, who have had little reason to cheer since learning in December their… »

WASHINGTON: Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will return to Capitol Hill later this month to testify before lawmakers investigating the government’s role in last fall’s Bank of America acquisition of troubled Merrill Lynch.The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Committee said Monday that Paulson would appear on July 16. It would mark his first… »

NEW YORK: Honda’s new hybrid-only Insight, touted as a low-cost competitor to the Toyota Prius was dealt a major blow Monday after it failed to get a thumbs up from the influential magazine Consumer Reports.”The Insight is the most disappointing Honda Consumer Reports has tested in a long time,” said David Champion, director of the… »

NEW YORK: Fans, friends and colleagues of Billy Mays are still absorbing the news of the ebullient TV salesman’s untimely death. Meanwhile, those in the infomercial field are left wondering: What will the industry do now that its most recognizable front man is gone?Mays, who died on Sunday from heart disease, worked closely with marketing… »

NEW YORK (Fortune) — As soon as I heard the sad and shocking news yesterday that TV pitchman Billy Mays had died at age 50, I thought back to the rainy Friday night in early February that I first met him.I was working on a story about the infomercial business that was to focus on… »

Universal phone charger deal done
By Dan Whitworth
Newsbeat technology reporter
Life could soon be easier for millions of mobile phone users across Europe.A deal’s been done between industry bosses and the European Commission in Brussels to work towards a ‘one size fits all’ charger. It would mean an end to users having to hunt around for the… »

NEW YORK (Fortune) — There was undeniable drama inside the ceremonial courtroom on the ninth floor of the federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan this morning. Cheers and applause burst out when federal district judge Denny Chin sentenced Bernard Madoff to 150 years in prison for the massive Ponzi Scheme he had committed.Nine victims — most… »

DETROIT (Reuters) — General Motors Corp. Monday cut its operational ties to a northern California auto plant it has operated in a joint-venture with Toyota Motor Corp. since 1983.GM (GMGMQ), which has been operating in a U.S. government-sponsored bankruptcy since the start of the month, said it had been unable to reach an agreement with… »