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Federal law limits SIPC protection to $500,000, and "so far, the only source of distributed funds is SIPC," the agency's president Stephen Harbeck said on the call. |
Harbeck said the $534.25 million of committed advances is more than in the SIPC's 321 prior liquidations combined. |
Picard also said he will pursue the recovery of $7.2 billion from the estate of billionaire philanthropist Jeffry Picower, who drowned Sunday in a swimming pool at his Palm Beach, Florida, home following a heart attack. |
Picard had accused Picower of withdrawing more than $7.2 billion from Madoff's firm, either directly or through entities he controlled. |
"His death is certainly tragic," Picard said. "Having said that, we will continue with the litigation." |
On October 2, Picard sued a brother, two sons and a niece of Madoff to recover $198.7 million he said was misappropriated while they were executives at the Madoff brokerage. |
Picard is trying to recover money from thousands of account holders he calls "net winners," or those who withdrew more money than they deposited. |
He said that of the 4,903 active accounts at Madoff's firm as of December 11, 2008, the day Madoff was arrested, holders of 2,568 accounts received more money than they deposited. |
A federal bankruptcy judge is expected in February to consider the validity of Picard's methods in deciding which Madoff clients should have undeserved money "clawed back." |
Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence in a medium-security federal prison in Butner, North Carolina. |
The case is Securities Investor Protection Corp v. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 08-1789. |
Last winter, amid the notoriously frozen tundra of the winter movie calendar, two movies became phenomena in ways that might have surprised even the people who made them. |
"Paul Blart: Mall Cop" and "Taken" each topped $145 million in domestic box office to become among the highest-grossing films released in the January-February period. The only three figures in contemporary moviedom who've managed to earn more during these months are Will Smith ("Hitch"), Hannibal Lecter ("Hannibal") an... |
"The Wolfman," which has earned just a 31% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, is already drawing reviews Kevin James would feel at home with ("If you think the Wolfman is conflicted, that's nothing compared with the filmmakers ... the film unfolds in both predictable and problematic ways," Betsy Sharkey writes in the ... |
"Valentine's Day" is an even more egregious case. The star-stew of a romantic comedy currently sits as the worst-reviewed movie of the year -- just a measly 14% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes. It's been so badly received that it actually makes "Percy Jackson & the Olympians," the third film opening wide this weekend, lo... |
The widening gap between quality – er, critical assessment -- and box office is nothing new, even if it is a sign of the times. "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" made $400 million last summer despite getting just a 20% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. |
But it's worth noting that while some summer franchises often are critically panned but commercially loved, that divergence is newer to winter. In this season, critics tend to pan the movies and audiences tend to stay away, at least in mega-size numbers. Yet slowly but surely, the second half of that equation is changi... |
"He's Just Not That Into You" started it last year, and now "Valentine's Day" is upping the ante: Throw into one romantic comedy actors who appeal to as many constituencies as possible and watch the audience come out in droves. |
At least that's the hope for "Valentine's Day," the Garry Marshall confection that takes actors from pretty much every age, creed and background and tosses them into one crock pot of a marketing casserole. |
Latinos (George Lopez), blacks (Jamie Foxx), frat boys (Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Ashton Kutcher), older women (Patrick Dempsey), the "Hangover" crowd (Bradley Cooper) and demos heretofore not thought of (not to mention those who like seeing actual movie stars such as Anne Hathaway and Julia Roberts) all will find a ... |
But for all the groups that the "Valentine's Day" stars (presumably) bring in, the real prize is tween girls, a demographic that the film grabs with with the coupling of Taylor Lautner and Taylor Swift (more on the latter below), whose appearance in the film is fleeting but whose demographic value is incalculable. |
Taylor Swift: future movie star? |
Taylor Swift makes her film debut this weekend with the ensemble romantic comedy "Valentine's Day," playing a sweet, vacuous high-schooler. The 20-year-old is hardly the first musician of her generation (or any generation) to make the jump to features. |
So how did Swift come to be involved? |
Marshall admits he was nervous when he first met the tween pop idol. "I don't always know how to relate in the right way," says Marshall, who, at 75, is a mere 55 years old than Swift. |
But he did use some tricks that can help a director bond with talent. "I said, 'Let's start off on a good foot. My lucky number is 13 and so is yours. She said, ‘It is!' Suddenly we were pals forever. She has e-mail, everything with the number 13 in it. I showed up to direct her in a shirt with 13 on it. I have to figu... |
NEW YORK — Marshawn Lynch’s return to the NFL came with a price. |
The Oakland Raiders running back was fined $12,154 by the league for flipping the middle finger on both hands last Sunday in the fourth quarter of the team’s 26-16 victory at Tennessee. Lynch, who was retired last season, ran for 76 yards on 18 carries and caught a 16-yard pass. |
Three Pittsburgh players — linebacker Ryan Shazier, cornerback William Gay and safety J.J. Wilcox — were each fined $24,309 for unnecessary roughness against Cleveland. |
New Orleans safety Kenny Vaccaro and linebacker Alex Anzalone were also docked $24,309 for hits to the head, as was the Los Angeles Chargers’ Melvin Ingram. |
Fined $9,115 on Friday were: San Francisco’s Jaquiski Tartt, the New York Jets’ Darron Lee, Detroit’s Jarrad Davis and Green Bay’s Martellus Bennett — all for unnecessary roughness — and Minnesota’s Linval Joseph (facemask). |
It is the cultural bonanza that for decades has been promoted at home and abroad as the world’s biggest arts festival. |
But now the body behind the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has admitted that the scale of the event risks becoming “absolutely meaningless” in future unless it is also the best place to perform, stage and watch shows. |
Shona McCarthy, chief executive of the Fringe Society, has pledged that ensuring the festival experience was “excellent both on and off stage” would be more important than anything else for the event in the future. |
She has also pledged that it would take “direct” action against producers of shows and operators of venues “who fall short of good practice” and would be taking steps to “rate and reward good practice” at the event. |
But she insisted the event’s founding ethos of being “open access” will remain intact – despite claims by campaigners that it is “turning a blind eye” to exploitative practices in some venues. |
Official reports for the city council have raised concerns about growing overcrowding on the city’s roads and pavements, particularly Princes Street and the Royal Mile, and an increasing strain on the city’s public transport networks. |
She said some producers and promoters were being unfairly vilified and portrayed as “evil megalomaniacs” by Fair Fringe activists and accused them of being more interested in “hyperbole” and “exaggeration” than facts about the Fringe landscape and how venues operate. |
Speaking at the launch of the Fringe Society’s annual review, Ms McCarthy said: “Whether we look back to 2018 or forward to 2019, we are proud that the founding idea at the heart of the Edinburgh Fringe remains constant: anyone with a desire to perform and a venue willing to host them is welcome. |
“Our ambition is to ensure that this commitment to freedom of expression, giving voice to all, is a reality. Physical, socioeconomic, geographic or financial factors shouldn’t prevent people being part of it. |
Recent research carried out for the Fringe Society found that nearly a third of venue workers were not paid anything for their time. |
However Ms McCarthy has highlighted that 90 per cent of those who took part in the survey said they would choose to work at the event again. |
She added: “More than anything we want the experience of the Fringe to be excellent both on and off stage. |
“We’ve been working closely with Fringe venues and promoters, and been consistently proactive, conducting the biggest independent survey of workers on the Fringe ever undertaken, publicly sharing the results, giving positive encouragement to those whose good practice resulted in a 90 per cent positive rating of the Fri... |
Mike Dempsey of 1010 XL joins the show to talk all things Jaguars. Anything fans in Jacksonville want to talk about is Tim Tebow, and Dempsey says true, NFL-minded fans are not clamoring for Tebow because they know his skillset cannot help the team. |
Really? And how do “true NFL-minded fans know this? Last I checked, the only time Tim Tebow ever started for a team in the NFL he helped them pretty dramatically. Furthermore, how the hell does Mr. Dempsey know what “true NFL-minded fans are thinking”? |
The Internet might be a useful tool for activists and organizers, in episodes from the Arab Spring to the Ice Bucket Challenge. But over all, it has diminished rather than enhanced political participation, according to new data. |
Social media, like Twitter and Facebook, has the effect of tamping down diversity of opinion and stifling debate about public affairs. It makes people less likely to voice opinions, particularly when they think their views differ from those of their friends, according to a report published Tuesday by researchers at Pew... |
The researchers also found that those who use social media regularly are more reluctant to express dissenting views in the offline world. |
The Internet, it seems, is contributing to the polarization of America, as people surround themselves with people who think like them and hesitate to say anything different. Internet companies magnify the effect, by tweaking their algorithms to show us more content from people who are similar to us. |
The researchers set out to investigate the effect of the Internet on the so-called spiral of silence, a theory that people are less likely to express their views if they believe they differ from those of their friends, family and colleagues. The Internet, many people thought, would do away with that notion because it c... |
And in some ways, the Internet has deepened that divide. It makes it easy for people to read only news and opinions from people they agree with. In many cases, people don’t even make that choice for themselves. Last week, Twitter said it would begin showing people tweets even from people they don’t follow if enough oth... |
Humans are acutely attuned to the approval of others, constantly reading cues to judge whether people agree with them, the researchers said. Active social media users get many more of these cues — like status updates, news stories people choose to share and photos of how they spend their days — and so they become less ... |
For the study, researchers asked people about the revelations of National Security Agency surveillance by the whistle-blower Edward Snowden, a topic on which Americans were almost evenly divided. |
Most people surveyed said they would be willing to discuss government surveillance at dinner with family or friends, at a community meeting or at work. The only two settings where most people said they would not discuss it were Facebook and Twitter. And people who use Facebook a few times a day were half as likely as o... |
Yet if Facebook users thought their Facebook friends agreed with their position on the issue, they were 1.9 times more likely to join a discussion there. And people with fervent views, either in favor of or against government spying, were 2.4 times more likely to say they would join a conversation about it on Facebook.... |
The study also found that for all the discussion of social media becoming the place where people find and discuss news, most people said they got information about the N.S.A. revelations from TV and radio, while Facebook and Twitter were the least likely to be news sources. |
These findings are limited because the researchers studied a single news event. But consider another recent controversial public affairs story that people discussed online — the protests in Ferguson, Mo. Of the posts you read on Twitter and Facebook from people you know, how many were in line with your point of view an... |
After five films together, Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese are teaming up once again for The Devil in the White City, a Hulu TV adaptation of Erik Larson’s bestselling 2003 book about the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 and two men who played significant roles in it: Daniel H Burnham, the Fair’s chief architect; and... |
Holmes famously built his own “Murder Castle” alongside the Fair, and, while claiming credit for 27 murders among the Fair’s attendees, is thought to have actually killed up to 200. DiCaprio has signed on to play Holmes; even by his own arduous standards, his follow-up to The Revenant may challenge both the actor and h... |
Hundreds of passengers on an Amtrak train that became disconnected will have quite a story to tell around the Thanksgiving table. |
The Montreal to New York train was traveling near Albany, New York, at about 7:20 p.m. Wednesday when two cars separated from the engine, Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams said in a statement. Of the 287 passengers and crew, he said, no one was injured. The passengers were transferred to a new train, Abrams said. |
CNN reached out to Amtrak for further details but has not heard back. |
Billy Osher-Dugan was traveling to spend Thanksgiving with his girlfriend when he saw the cars separate. |
"It was packed," he said. "There were hardly any seats available." |
He heard a noise and turned around to see cars behind him rip apart from the train, he said. That's when one passenger pulled the emergency brake to stop the train and others -- upon smelling smoke -- grabbed the fire extinguisher. |
Luckily, he said, there was no fire and everyone was OK. |
Helen Mary Crane was with her son on the way to spend the holiday with her daughter. Crane said two cars were added to the train when she boarded in Rensselaer, New York, and that she and her son were told to sit in the first of the additions. |
Crane's car was one of the two to break off. |
"As far as being with my son," she said. "I was terrified when I saw the sparks and smelled burning and then realized our car was no longer attached. I thought we would derail or be hit by the other train." |
She said she credits the man who pulled the emergency brake on the runaway cars for the safety of everyone. She identified him as Reuben Clarke, a student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. |
"He saved our lives tonight," Crane said. "Our car broke off from the rest of the train and was picking up speed. There was no Amtrak personnel in our car. Reuben calmly went into action and pulled the emergency brake at the front of the car. Thankful he was on the train with my son and I." |
The National Transportation Safety Board will not investigate since there were no injuries or a derailment, board spokesman Nicholas Worrell said. |
New York State Police are investigating the incident. |
Tim Paine admits the captaincy does at times take a toll. |
WHEN the Ashes finished last summer I went home to Hobart and literally slept for two days. |
It was the same again after the Indian Test series just gone. |
It's tiring being captain and wicketkeeper, but in terms of my cricket I'm not finding the physical strain any different to when I didn't have that extra responsibility. |
As a wicketkeeper you're always tuned in anyway and I was always having those key conversations with captains and bowlers and often being the man in between who would help get messages across. |
I've always been heavily invested in the game when I'm out in the middle, so I haven't felt like that's changed. |
There's no doubt there is a little bit of extra mental pressure and strain so I have come up with ways of trying to manage that. |
It's usually just as simple as trying to go to bed a bit earlier. |
If I need to hit the hay at 7pm rather than 10pm then I know I'll wake up fresh and ready to go. |
There's certainly times now where instead of going out with the boys for dinner, or going to the movies, or catching up with people if I'm in a new city, I'll just chill in my hotel room. |
It's no different to when you're getting a bit sick - you just listen to your body. |
Being captain has given me the need to do that. |
Over the past six months my wife, Bonnie, has sometimes got a bit frustrated because when I get home from a match or a tour I can be very quiet and withdrawn - and that's because I am really tired. |
I'm trying to work on that and having the kids at home really helps I find because it gets me out of my own head. |
The only difference I've found being captain during the game is that when we are batting I feel like I'm the next man in all the time. |
Previously, I could tune out of the game really well and only when we were four down would I start getting myself ready. |
That can be a bit draining and when there's big days coming up I can find it hard to sleep - but when I get to the end of the game I can just shut down and I'll sleep really well because I'm exhausted. |
But I've got the same mindset I had when I was called back into the side last summer. |
I won't get to do it forever so I'm loving the captaincy. |
Rather than complain that it's difficult or that I'm tired, I'm enjoying every minute of it. |
Travis Head got named one of our vice-captains last week and excuse the pun, but he has an old head on young shoulders. |
He's been captain of South Australia for a number of years and he's growing in confidence at this level and has a nice, calm way about him. |
He's someone who has been recommended by his peers first and foremost and secondly I imagine he's someone we see as a potential captain down the track if he is playing good enough cricket in the years to come. |
Marnus Labuschagne is the sort of bloke who if you play against him, you think he's a pain in the backside. But when he's in your team he's brilliant. |
I remember having a crack at Marnus a few times in Shield cricket. He was annoying, talked a lot. |
But in my team, I love him and I find his energy and attitude is infectious for us and gets the other boys up. |
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