Week 3 Bests & Worsts: Wild weekend for comebacks, led by Brett Favre’s thriller

Copied from: USA Today

USA TODAY’s Sean Leahy whips around the NFL to highlight the best and worst moments of Week 3:

Best play: Brett Favre’s game-winning 32-yard TD pass to Greg Lewis with 2 seconds left could hold up as the best play of the entire season. The Vikings were in desperation mode when Favre unleashed for the end zone. Lewis artistically planted his feet in the back of the end zone as he caught the ball. (See the video.)

— Worst time for a blackout: Only 40,896 watched the Lions end their 19-game losing streak against the Redskins. The Lions’ first win since 2007 was blacked out in Detroit. Euphoric Lions coach Jim Schwartz brought his team back out of the locker room to celebrate with fans inside Ford Field.

— Most costly three-and-out: The 49ers seemed to have sewed up a 24-20 win in Minnesota when they forced a Vikings turnover on downs with 1:55 left. With Frank Gore sidelined with an injury, three rushes by Glen Coffee yielded just 6 yards and San Francisco had to give the ball back to Minnesota for its 80-yard game-winning drive.

— Most humbling comeback: The Steelers fell to 1-2 when Bengals QB Carson Palmer threw a 4-yard TD pass to Andre Caldwell with 11 seconds left. The score capped off a 71-yard drive that handed Pittsburgh its second consecutive loss.

— Best comeback many people missed: After the Seahawks had rallied behind fill-in QB Seneca Wallace for a 19-17 lead with 5:17 to play, Bears QB Jay Cutler led his team on a 71-yard game-winning drive that culminated in a 36-yard TD pass to Devin Hester. The score gave the Bears a 25-19 win.

— Biggest surprises: After three games, the preseason projections have been thrown right out the window. The Super Bowl champion Steelers are 1-2. The 0-3 Titans have already matched their loss total from last year. The team with the rockiest offseason, Denver, has won its first three games.

— Worst offensive ineptitude: The Browns, losing their ninth consecutive game, failed to score an offensive TD for the eighth time during that streak. Coach Eric Mangini also benched QB Brady Quinn in favor of Derek Anderson, a move he said in training camp he wouldn’t make.

— Best start ever for a rookie QB: Jets signal caller Mark Sanchez became the first rookie QB ever to lead his team to a 3-0 start. Sanchez also scored his first TD in the 24-17 win against Tennessee.

— Worst NFL state: Florida, by far. The Jaguars’ victory against Houston on Sunday finally gave one of the state’s three teams a victory. Tampa Bay, Miami and Jacksonville are a combined 1-8.

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Oil spill shutters part of Houston Ship Channel

Copied From: Google News

(AP) – 2 hours ago

HOUSTON — The Coast Guard says crews are working to clean up a 10,500-gallon oil spill that has closed traffic along three miles of the Houston Ship Channel.

Chief Petty Officer Mark Mackowiak says the 458-foot tank vessel Chemical Supplier was trying to make a turn Friday night when it hit a barge in the 52-mile long channel.

No injuries were reported. But the motor vessel ended up with a 2-by-4-foot gash in one of its fuel tanks.

Mackowiak says a team was working Sunday to create a traffic flow system. He was not sure when traffic would resume. He says at least nine ships are waiting to come into the area.

At least 130 personnel have been involved in cleaning up the oil spill.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

The Madoff Scam: Meet The Liquidator

Copied from: CBS NEWS

(CBS) Wall Street in shreds, the watch dogs fast asleep, bonus-stuffed executives laughing all the way out of the busted banks – it’s been some year. Oh, and we left out the Ponzi scheme of Ponzi schemes: Bernard Madoff’s untidy little business that bilked thousands of people out of billions of dollars.

While the mastermind is doing 150 years in prison, the big question is: “Where did all the money go?”

Irving Picard, the court appointed trustee – the liquidator – is searching for the billions that disappeared, and trying to recover as much as possible from Madoff’s remaining assets.

It is a daunting and thankless task, for while he is suing whoever he can on behalf of the victims, he’s also suing many of the victims – those who he says benefited and should have known they were investing in a house of cards.

Mr. Picard and his chief counsel David Sheehan have been largely silent about the details of the recovery, until now.

“Last November, just before the whole thing collapsed, Bernard Madoff sent out statements to his clients. How much were they told they were worth?” correspondent Morley Safer asked.

“About 64.8 billion dollars,” Irving Picard replied.

Asked if the statement were total lies, David Sheehan said, “Yes, absolutely.”

The $64.8 billion that investors thought they had was just an illusion, designed by Madoff to keep investors investing.

Last December, the roof fell in.

Mr. Madoff has no say in the matter. If the victims want any money back, they’ll have to go through Mr. Picard, the decider, and his bloodhound, Mr. Sheehan.

Asked how much real money went into the whole scheme, Sheehan told Safer, “I’d say about $36 billion. And about 18 of it went out before the collapse. And 18 of it is just missing. And that $18 billion is what we’re trying to get back.”

So for the past nine months, Picard and his team have been on a global treasure hunt. The first step: liquidating Madoff’s boats, his art, even his season tickets to the New York Mets, plus Bernie’s various homes, all sold or about to be sold with a U.S. Marshal as real estate pitchman.

“They didn’t exactly hide their wealth, did they?” Safer asked.

“They did have the house in Palm Beach. They had a place in Montauk. They had to have, you know, an apartment here on Park Avenue in the city – all of which are the accoutrements of great wealth. But it wasn’t an extraordinary lifestyle,” Sheehan said.

According to the government, those homes, boats, art and more are worth over $50 million.

That’s just a drop in an oversized bucket, nothing close to what investors lost. So Picard and his team continue to follow the money.

They started at Madoff’s New York offices, now an impressive landscape of emptiness.

And close by, perhaps a work of art that sums up the entire story: “It was called the ‘Soft Screw.’ And it was about four, I guess four to six feet high. And it was sitting right here,” Picard explained, describing a screw-like sculpture that used to be displayed in Madoff’s office.

And sitting on top of the world was Madoff himself. “He was much like the Wizard of Oz, just hiding behind this wall. And no one could quite penetrate it but they sort of really liked the results,” Sheehan said.

“As far as you’ve been able to find out, was he ever legitimate?” Safer asked.

“No, it was never legitimate,” Sheehan said. “And I think Bernie, if he told the truth – which he’s not capable of – he would then say, ‘Yes. I started out as a crook, and I ended up as a crook.'”

-Lili

Polanski’s arrest could lead to his freedom Case could spur legal team’s motion to have child rape charges dismissed

Long title….sorry

Copied from MSNBC

updated 2 hours, 47 minutes ago

ZURICH – A surprise arrest at the Zurich airport, detention at the hands of Swiss authorities, and a high-profile extradition process that could take weeks or months. The irony is that for Roman Polanski, the acclaimed director accused of child rape three decades ago, this latest ordeal could lead to the one thing he’s lacked since: his freedom.

Polanski’s arrest as he arrived Saturday in Switzerland for a film festival honor could potentially spur on his legal team’s recent motion to dismiss charges that have dogged him since he fled the U.S. for France in 1978, a year after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl.

But it could also elevate his case into an international ordeal — involving the governments of Switzerland, France, Poland and the United States — and potentially complicate his possible extradition.

“The big issue is whether it would have been better for him to negotiate a surrender when he had the chance,” Loyola University law professor Laurie Levenson said. “Now it has become an international incident and thedistrict attorney may be under pressure not to negotiate a sweetheart deal. They’ve gone to all this trouble of getting Switzerland involved. It could make it harder on him.”

Nevertheless, some believe the arrest of the 76-year-old Academy Award winner could lead to a resolution that will allow him to once again travel freely.

“I think he will finally get his day in court,” criminal defense attorney Steve Cron said, “and there’s a good chance his case will be dismissed or the sentence will be commuted to time served.”

Meanwhile, Poland and France intend to make a joint appeal to Switzerland and the United States to have Polanski released from his detention, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski told the Polish news agency PAP. Sikorski said he and French counterpart Bernard Kouchner also plan to ask Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to offer Polanski clemency.

“The good news for him is he’s been living under a cloud all these years wondering who would swoop in and arrest him,” Cron said. “Now he can get this thing finally worked out.”

Countries have tightened policies since he fled
Polanski, the director of such classic films as “Chinatown” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” reached a plea deal in 1978, but was threatened with more prison time than previously agreed upon and fled to France before he was formally sentenced.

France has no extradition treaty with the U.S., and while he traveled throughout Europe, he avoided arrest in part because of lax policies on apprehending foreign fugitives. But in recent years, many countries have gradually tightened their efforts to find suspects abroad and extradite them.

It’s also not clear how hard authorities was searching for him. The Swiss Justice Ministry said in a statement that U.S. authorities have sought Polanski’s arrest around the world since 2005, although he has been a fugitive much longer.

“There was a valid arrest request and we knew when he was coming,” Swiss Justice Ministry spokesman Guido Balmer told The Associated Press. He rejected the idea that politics may have played a part in the action.

Previous attempts to nab Polanski when he left France were thwarted because authorities didn’t learn of his travel soon enough — or Polanski didn’t make the trip, said William Sorukas, chief of the U.S. Marshals Service’s domestic investigations branch.

“This is not the first time we have done this over the years,” said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office. She said warrants had been sent out whenever rumors circulated that he would be traveling to a country outside France.

In this case, the honor for Polanski’s work proved to be his downfall, Gibbons said.

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-Lili