Drakes Gold

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) –
Michael Jackson's funeral is being scheduled for 10 a.m. on Tuesday, July 7, at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, sources said.

AEG Live, which owns the basketball arena and the adjacent Nokia Theater, will use both facilities and the surrounding plaza. There's no word yet on how ticketing will be handled.

Earlier speculation had the funeral being held everywhere from Neverland to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

(Editing by Dean Gooodman at Reuters)

LOS ANGELES – A plan to bury Michael Jackson at his sprawling Neverland ranch fizzled Wednesday, leaving details about his funeral undecided as another mystery was solved: His newly unveiled will says his mother should raise his children, or failing her, Diana Ross.
The changing funeral circumstances thwarted many Jackson fans who had descended on the estate in the rolling hills near Santa Barbara with the hope of attending a public viewing.
"We're terribly disappointed," said Ida Barron, 44, who arrived with her husband Paul Barron, 56, intending to spend several days in a tent.
"We were going to listen to music and watch Michael Jackson DVDs and party all night long, not just to have fun, but in memory of Michael Jackson," Paul Barron said. "Now we're going to have to just go home."
Jackson's 7-year-old will, filed Wednesday in a Los Angeles court, gives his entire estate to a family trust and names his 79-year-old mother Katherine and his children as beneficiaries. The will also estimates the current value of his estate at more than $500 million.
Katherine Jackson was appointed their guardian, with entertainer Diana Ross, a longtime friend of Michael Jackson, named successor guardian if something happens to his mother. Ross introduced the Jackson 5 on the Ed Sullivan Show in the late 1960s and was instrumental in launching their career.
Meanwhile, Jackson family spokesman Ken Sunshine said a public memorial was in the works for Jackson but wouldn't be held at Neverland. In addition, it appeared more likely that a funeral and burial would take place in Los Angeles, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press.
But the person, who is not authorized to speak for the family and requested anonymity, said nothing was planned for Neverland, at least through Friday.
The person said billionaire Thomas Barrack, who owns Neverland in a joint venture with Jackson, sought an exemption to bury the singer at the ranch. But the person says it's a complicated process and it couldn't be done for a burial this week.
"The family is aware a Neverland burial is not possible. They are expected to make decisions about whatever funeral and memorial service" will take place, the person said.
Heavy construction equipment and workers were seen passing through the wrought-iron gates of Neverland on Tuesday. It wasn't clear what they were doing. The property is about 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
At once a symbol of Jackson's success and excesses, Neverland — nestled in wine country — became the site of a makeshift memorial after his death.
In Los Angeles, Jackson's lawyer John Branca and family friend John McClain, a music executive, were named in the will as co-executors of his estate. In a statement, they said the most important element of the will was Jackson's steadfast desire that his mother become the legal guardian for his children.
"As we work to carry out Michael's instructions to safeguard both the future of his children as well as the remarkable legacy he left us as an artist, we ask that all matters involving his estate be handled with the dignity and the respect that Michael and his family deserve," the statement said.
The will doesn't name father Joe Jackson to any position of authority in administering the estate.
The executors moved quickly to take control of all of Michael Jackson's property, going to court hours after filing the will to challenge a previous ruling that gave Katherine Jackson control of 2,000 items from Neverland.
Paul Gordon Hoffman, an attorney for the executors, told Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff his clients are the proper people to take over Jackson's financial affairs. He called Katherine Jackson's speed in getting limited power over her son's property "a race to the courthouse that is frankly improper."
Judge Beckloff urged attorneys from both sides to try to reach a compromise.

"I would like the family to sit down and try to make this work so that we don't have a difficult time in court," the judge said. A hearing on the estate was set for Monday.

The will, dated July 7, 2002, gives the entire estate to the Michael Jackson Family Trust. Details of the trust will not be made public.

The documents said Jackson's estate consisted almost entirely of "non-cash, non-liquid assets, including primarily an interest in a catalog of music royalty rights which is currently being administered by Sony ATV, and the interests of various entities."

Jackson owns a 50 percent stake in the massive Sony-ATV Music Publishing Catalog, which includes music by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers.

Jackson was recently in shaky financial health. In the most detailed account yet of the singer's tangled financial empire, documents obtained by The Associated Press show Jackson claimed to have a net worth of $236.6 million as of March 31, 2007.

Jackson, who died June 25 at age 50, left behind three children: son Michael Joseph Jr., known as Prince Michael, 12; daughter Paris Michael Katherine, 11; and son Prince Michael II, 7. Debbie Rowe was the mother of the two oldest children; the youngest was born to a surrogate mother, who has never been identified.

Katherine Jackson was granted temporary guardianship Monday. A judge held off on requests to control the children's estates.

Rowe, who was married to Jackson in 1996 and filed for divorce three years later, surrendered her parental rights. An appeals court later found that was done in error, and Rowe and Jackson entered an out-of-court settlement in 2006.

Neither Rowe nor her attorneys have indicated whether she intends to seek custody of the two oldest children.

___

AP writers Michael R. Blood, Noaki Schwartz and Ryan Nakashima in Los Angeles, and John Rogers in Los Olivos contributed to this story.

MORONI, Comoros – The lone survivor of a Yemeni jetliner crash, who clung to wreckage for 13 hours before being rescued, lay in a hospital bed with a broken collarbone Wednesday, asking for little — except for a chance to see her mother.
But relatives said 14-year-old Bahia Bakari was too traumatized to be told her mother was feared dead, along with 151 others on board the Yemenia airways flight.
"I have told her that her mother is in the next room," the girl's uncle, Joseph Yousouf, told The Associated Press outside a hospital in this former French colony, where the jetliner was attempting to land in fierce winds before dawn Tuesday when it slammed into the Indian Ocean.
He said the girl was coherent and asking for food.
"They were coming to Comoros for vacation," Yousouf said of Bahia, who lived with her parents and three younger siblings outside Paris. "She was going to be staying with her grandmother."
The girl's father, Kassim Bakari, described his daughter as "fragile" and said she could "barely swim," but still managed to hang on for hours.
Her account of the crash aftermath seemed to indicate others survived the initial impact.
"I spoke to her this afternoon ... and I asked her what happened," Bakari said from his home in a suburb south of Paris. "She said 'Papa, we saw the plane going down in the water. I was in the water, I could hear people talking, but I couldn't see anyone. I was in the dark, I couldn't see a thing.'"
Bakari fingered his wife Aziza's old passport as he recalled the final moments before she and his daughter boarded the plane in Paris.
"When we arrived at the airport, I kissed both, then my wife turned around, she looked at me and she waved," he said. "That was the last time I saw my wife alive. My daughter... I will see her again I hope, but for my wife it was the last time."
The passengers on the downed plane, an aging Airbus 310, were flying the last leg of a journey from Paris and Marseille to Comoros, with a stop in Yemen to change planes. Most on board were from Comoros and 66 were French citizens. Severe turbulence was believed to be a factor in the crash, Yemen's embassy in Washington said.
For many, Bahia's survival was nothing short of miraculous.
On Wednesday, more than a dozen people — most of them government officials — crowded into a small room in Moroni's El Maaruf Hospital where Bahia lay curled in a fetal position, covered by a blue blanket.
She was conscious with bruises on her face and gauze bandages on her right elbow and right foot; at one point, she gamely shook the hand of Alain Joyandet, France's minister for international cooperation.
"It is a true miracle. She is a courageous young girl," Joyandet said of Bahia, who held onto floating debris from 1:30 a.m to 3 p.m. before she was seen by a passing boat, which rescued her.
"She really showed an absolutely incredible physical and moral strength," he said. "She is physically out of danger, but she is evidently very traumatized."
Bahia was flown home to Paris late Wednesday aboard a chartered executive jet and was to be taken to a hospital for further treatment, Joyandet said.
French and American recovery crews, meanwhile, continued to search for the plane's black boxes in deep waters off the Comoros after detecting a distress beacon. Officials hope the flight data and cockpit voice recorders will provide clues to the cause of the crash. Once retrieved, they will be taken to France for analysis, Yemenia said.

It was not immediately clear which section of the passenger cabin the girl had been sitting in. But if the plane flew into the water at speed, the impact damage to the fuselage would have been so violent and extensive that no part of the cabin would have been safer than any other, experts said.

Hassan al-Hawthi, the head of maintenance at Yemenia, told reporters Wednesday that air traffic controllers had instructed the pilot to change course because of the strong wind. He said there was no distress call before the crash.

The London-based International Federation of Air Line Pilots Association said the plane may have been trying to go around for another approach when it hit the sea.

The 9,558-feet long runway at Prince Said Ibrahim International Airport on Moroni island is adequate for modern airliners, but is considered a difficult one due to weather conditions and the surrounding hills. Some airlines provide special training to pilots who need to fly in there.

Pilots coming in from the north, as the Yemenia flight was doing, must land their planes visually and don't have any all-weather instrument landing system to help them.

"The field in question is thought of as being challenging, and certain operators consider it a daytime-only airport," said Gideon Ewers of the pilots' association.

Tuesday's crash came two years after aviation officials reported equipment faults with the plane.

The French air accident investigation agency BEA was sending a team of safety investigators, accompanied by advisers from Airbus, to Comoros, an archipelago of three main islands 1,800 miles south of Yemen, between Africa's southeastern coast and the island of Madagascar.

A judicial inquiry headed by three judges was also opened to determine the cause of the crash and those who eventually could be held responsible.

Rescue boats plied the waters north of the main island Wednesday and scores of people gathered on nearby beaches to watch.

"The sea is pretty rough at the present time, the wind is blowing hard and the drift is strong ... The bodies of the victims and the debris are drifting rapidly towards the north," said Christophe Prazuck, spokesman for the French military joint staff.

The tragedy prompted an outcry in Comoros, where residents have long complained of a lack of seat belts on Yemenia flights and planes so overcrowded that passengers had to stand in the aisles.

French aviation inspectors found a "number of faults" in the plane's equipment during a 2007 inspection, French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said.

European Union Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said the airline had previously met EU safety checks but would now face a full investigation amid questions over why passengers were put on another jet in Yemen for the final leg to Comoros.

"We can't accept that a plane is banned from Europe but still allowed to fly in Africa. It's the proof that our world isn't fair and that human beings don't weigh the same depending on which side of the Mediterranean they are," said Gilles Poux, mayor of the Paris suburb of La Courneuve, where Comorans gathered for prayers.

Mohammed Abdul Qader, the Yemenia spokesman and deputy head of civil aviation, said the same plane that crashed had flown to London about a week ago.

Abdul-Khaleq Al-Qadi, chairman of Yemenia's board, said the company has decided to pay families $28,300 for each death.

He added that maintenance was carried out regularly according to high standards.

"The crash has nothing to do with maintenance," he told reporters in San'a, adding that the aircraft received maintenance just two months before the crash under the supervision of an Airbus technical team.

___

Associated Press writers Emmanuel Georges-Picot in Paris, Yoann Guilloux in Saint-Denis de la Reunion, Slobodan Lekic in Brussels and Ahmed al-Haj in San'a, Yemen contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Marines and Afghan security forces moved into Taliban-infested villages Wednesday evening in one of the Obama administration's first major military operations in the previously forgotten war in Afghanistan.
The offensive was launched shortly after 1 a.m. local time in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province. More than 4,000 Marines and an estimated 650 Afghan soldiers and police sought to clear insurgents from towns and villages along the Helmand River Valley before the nation's Aug. 20 presidential election.
Dubbed Operation Khanjar, or "Strike of the Sword," the military push was described by officials as the largest and fastest-moving of the war's newest phase. British forces last week led similar missions to fight and clear out insurgents in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.
"Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces," Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said in a statement.
Southern Afghanistan is considered a Taliban stronghold. It also is a region where Afghan President Hamid Karzai is seeking votes from his Pashtun tribesmen ahead of next month's election.
The Pentagon is deploying 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in time for the elections and expects the total number of U.S. forces there to reach 68,000 by year's end. That is double the number of troops in Afghanistan in 2008 but still half of much as are now in Iraq.

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ISLAMABAD (Reuters) –
Pakistani troops cleared on Wednesday the last Taliban stronghold in the Swat Valley, the army said, and appealed for public support to defeat militants in an Afghan border region.

The military went on the offensive in Swat two months ago after the Taliban seized a district just 100 km (60 miles) from Islamabad, raising alarm at home and among Western allies who need Pakistan's help to fight al Qaeda and to tackle Afghanistan's insurgency.

Nearing the end of its offensive in Swat, the military is set to launch a separate assault on Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border.

On Wednesday, soldiers captured the town of Shah Dheri, the militants' last stronghold in the former tourist valley of Swat, a military spokesman said.

Five soldiers were wounded in a clash as troops consolidated their positions and searched the area, said the spokesman.

A resident of the area, Abdul Ghaffar, welcomed the troops and said the Taliban had fled into the mountains.

"Now you can see troops everywhere, on the streets, in the villages and on rooftops while the militants are hiding in the peaks," Ghaffar said by telephone.

But no Taliban leaders have been among the approximately 1,600 militants the army has reported killed in Swat. Independent casualty estimates are not available.

A Swat Taliban spokesman said this week his leaders were alive and determined to fight on.

The army's campaign has won the praise of close ally the United States which is sending many thousands of troop reinforcements to Afghanistan.

"TROUBLE-MAKERS"

The Pakistani army has been launching attacks on Mehsud in South Waziristan over the past couple of weeks but it has yet to launch a full offensive.

Trouble is also brewing in another region on the Afghan border, North Waziristan.

Militants allied with Mehsud ambushed a military convoy there on Sunday, killing 16 soldiers. The next day a spokesman for the faction said his men would now go on the offensive against the army.

Analysts say the army would be reluctant to open a new front while it is finishes off the offensive in Swat and is planning its assault on South Waziristan.

Army helicopters dropped leaflets over North Waziristan appealing for the support of the people and assuring them there would be no offensive there.

"It is requested that you all play your role in protecting peace in your areas and keep an eye on the trouble-makers," the leaflet said.

The army also appealed for any information about plans for attacks on the security forces.

"Don't allow your soil to be used against the government and the army ... the government has no intention of launching a military operation in North Waziristan," it said.

Nearly 2 million people have fled the fighting in Swat and other parts of the northwest since late last year and aid groups are struggling to find funds to help them.

(Additional reporting by Junaid Khan; Editing by Robert Birsel)

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, several white firefighters were treated unfairly by the city of New Haven, Conn., when it refused to promote them despite their high scores on a promotional exam. In a 5-4 decision handed down on Monday, the court ruled that the city should not have scrapped the test just because black firefighters performed poorly.

That decision, in Ricci v. DeStefano, was eminently reasonable. You don't change the score after the game is over.

To begin with, New Haven shouldn't have staked firefighters' promotions largely on the outcome of a classroom test. There are far better ways to determine leadership skills in a fire department. Many departments test prospective leaders by running simulations of real-life scenarios. After all, giving correct answers on a pencil-and-paper test hardly proves the capacity to lead the rescue of people trapped in a burning building.

But if New Haven's fire department unwisely stuck with a classroom test -- and led all firefighters to believe promotions would be determined by those test scores -- it was honor-bound to follow through. The city's after-the-fact, don't-like-the-results decision to toss the test was guaranteed to infuriate those firefighters who had done well and animate conservatives who detest all efforts to encourage diversity.

The high court's four left-leaning justices supported New Haven, arguing that the city feared a lawsuit from black firefighters if none of them was promoted. (In essence, the four agreed with Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who supported New Haven in a ruling from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. So there are no grounds here to claim she's incompetent.) In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted, "Firefighting is a profession in which the legacy of racial discrimination casts an especially long shadow."

That is certainly true, especially in cities where Irish and Italian immigrants climbed into the middle class through patronage jobs, including slots in city police and fire departments. Their descendants came to believe those jobs rightfully belonged to them. Even now, cities like New Haven -- and New York, for that matter -- lag in hiring and promoting black firefighters. But that doesn't justify New Haven's crude remedy.

There is a now significant history of affirmative action by cities and corporations, universities and the armed forces, state legislatures and private schools -- a wide-ranging set of practices, procedures and standards designed to remedy centuries of overt discrimination against black Americans. A look at those efforts makes one thing clear: There is a right way to conduct affirmative action efforts, and there is a wrong way. New Haven went about it the wrong way.

Sometimes, in cynical moments, I wonder if some managers aren't intentionally wrongheaded in their ham-handed efforts to promote diversity. They hire stupidly; they tell white candidates they can't be hired because the next opening has to go to a minority; they don't encourage open-mindedness in the ranks. Those managers then feel perfectly justified in throwing up their hands and declaring affirmative action a failure.

Perhaps that's not true in New Haven. Perhaps fire department supervisors just blundered into their current circumstances and didn't know how to proceed when the results showed no black candidates had scored high enough to get a promotion. Perhaps it didn't occur to city fathers (and mothers) that firefighting is a team effort requiring trust, and that a divisive battle over a promotional exam would erode that trust.

New Haven now gets a do-over. The city can go back to the drawing board and design a test that's fair to everyone.

While some commentators have declared President Obama's election a sign of a "post-racial" America in which we're all colorblind, that analysis is a bit premature. Race still matters, and efforts to overcome the legacy of discrimination will be necessary for some time to come.

And, as long as those remedies are necessary, they ought to be carried out with some degree of competence.

(Cynthia Tucker can be reached at cynthia@ajc.com.)

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Adult Diaper

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Joe Mauer went 3-for-3, raising his average to .392 and backing pitcher Glen Perkins in the Minnesota Twins' 5-1 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday.
After walking in the first inning, Mauer stroked three consecutive singles, driving in one run and scoring another as the Twins completed a 6-3 trip. Mauer was walked intentionally in the eighth.
His average would lead the major leagues but his 240 plate appearances are eight shy of the 3.1 per game he needs to qualify.
Perkins (4-4) allowed one run for the second straight start, scattering 10 hits in seven innings.

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Emergent behavior in video games date back to the earliest games though. Generally any place where event driven instructions occur for AI in a game, emergent behavior will inevitably exist. For instance, take a racing game in which cars are programmed to avoid crashing and they encounter an obstacle in the track, the cars might then maneuver to avoid the obstacle causing the cars behind them to slow and/or maneuver to accommodate the cars in front of them and the obstacle. The programmer never wrote code to specifically create a traffic jam, yet one now exists in the game.

LOS ANGELES – The life of "Charlie's Angels" star Farrah Fawcett is being celebrated at a private funeral in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles.
Her longtime companion, Ryan O'Neal, was among pallbearers who accompanied the casket, covered in yellow and orange flowers, into the Roman Catholic cathedral Tuesday afternoon.
Fawcett's friend Alana Stewart and "Charlie's Angels" co-star Kate Jackson were among early arrivals before the hearse arrived, accompanied by 10 motorcycle officers.
Fans and news media are watching from across a street.
Fawcett died Thursday at age 62 after a public battle with cancer. O'Neal and Stewart were at her side.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The life of "Charlie's Angels" star Farrah Fawcett is being celebrated Tuesday at a private funeral held, fittingly, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
Her longtime companion, Ryan O'Neal, and her friend, Alana Stewart, both wore black as they entered the service, which was closed to media and the public.
Fawcett died Thursday at age 62 after a public battle with cancer. O'Neal and Stewart were at her side.
"After a long and brave battle with cancer, our beloved Farrah has passed away," O'Neal said in a statement last week. "Although this is an extremely difficult time for her family and friends, we take comfort in the beautiful times that we shared with Farrah over the years and the knowledge that her life brought joy to so many people around the world."
Diagnosed with a rare cancer in 2006, Fawcett's battle with the disease was documented in "Farrah's Story," which aired last month on NBC.
Stewart, a producer of the documentary, said Fawcett was "much more than a friend; she was my sister."
"Although I will miss her terribly, I know in my heart that she will always be there as that angel on the shoulder of everyone who loved her," Stewart said in a statement.
Fawcett and O'Neal, 68, have a son, 24-year-old Redmond, who has been jailed since April 5 on drug charges.
Last week, a judge granted his request to attend Fawcett's funeral. The order by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jane Godfrey allows Redmond O'Neal to be released for three hours and wear street clothes to attend the funeral.

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BOSTON – Yoko Ono is the rightful copyright holder of rare, intimate footage showing John Lennon and his family in London in 1970, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel last week refused to reinstate a copyright-infringement lawsuit filed by a Lawrence, Mass.-based company against Lennon's widow and the broker who sold her the tapes.
World Wide Video LLC sued Ono in March 2008, accusing her of copyright infringement and of wrongfully interfering with its personal property. Ono countersued, saying she is the rightful owner and that World Wide Video has no rights to the material.
Ono wants to keep the material private. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment made by The Associated Press through her Boston attorneys.
The 10 hours of footage was shot at Lennon's England estate in February 1970 — before the Beatles broke up — by Anthony Cox, Ono's husband before her marriage to Lennon in 1969. It shows Lennon hunched over a piano, smoking marijuana and joking about putting LSD in President Richard Nixon's tea. It has never been shown publicly in its entirety.
World Wide Video claimed it owns the raw footage. The company produced a two-hour documentary, "3 Days in the Life," using the footage, and planned to show it at a private school in Maine in 2007. The screening was scrapped after the company received a stop order from Ono's lawyers. The producers had previously shown excerpts from the film four times.
In court documents, Ono said she had a "clear and absolute" agreement with Cox when he shot the footage that it would never be "commercially exhibited, commercially exploited or released."
Ono said she purchased all rights to the videotapes for $300,000 in 2002 from Anthony Pagola, an intermediary who had copies.
But the principals of World Wide Video — John Fallon and Robert Grenier — say that sale was invalid and that the company bought copyright from Cox for $125,000 in 2000. They claim Pagola wound up with the tapes after they were stolen by an ex-employee.
Fallon and Grenier claim that, in 2001, Pagola approached them and threatened to destroy the tapes unless World Wide agreed to let him broker a sale. Fallon and Grenier claim that Pagola later sold the tapes and copyright to Ono without their permission and that he forged their signatures on the sale agreement.
The judge on Thursday sided with Ono. On Monday, the court issued a notice of default against Pagola after he failed to respond to the lawsuit.
The judge will issue the final order in the copyright infringement case after ruling on damages against Pagola, World Wide Video's attorney Joseph T. Doyle Jr. said.

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BOSTON – Yoko Ono is the rightful copyright holder of rare, intimate footage showing John Lennon and his family in London in 1970, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel last week refused to reinstate a copyright-infringement lawsuit filed by a Lawrence, Mass.-based company against Lennon's widow and the broker who sold her the tapes.
World Wide Video LLC sued Ono in March 2008, accusing her of copyright infringement and of wrongfully interfering with its personal property. Ono countersued, saying she is the rightful owner and that World Wide Video has no rights to the material.
Ono wants to keep the material private. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment made by The Associated Press through her Boston attorneys.
The 10 hours of footage was shot at Lennon's England estate in February 1970 — before the Beatles broke up — by Anthony Cox, Ono's husband before her marriage to Lennon in 1969. It shows Lennon hunched over a piano, smoking marijuana and joking about putting LSD in President Richard Nixon's tea. It has never been shown publicly in its entirety.
World Wide Video claimed it owns the raw footage. The company produced a two-hour documentary, "3 Days in the Life," using the footage, and planned to show it at a private school in Maine in 2007. The screening was scrapped after the company received a stop order from Ono's lawyers. The producers had previously shown excerpts from the film four times.
In court documents, Ono said she had a "clear and absolute" agreement with Cox when he shot the footage that it would never be "commercially exhibited, commercially exploited or released."
Ono said she purchased all rights to the videotapes for $300,000 in 2002 from Anthony Pagola, an intermediary who had copies.
But the principals of World Wide Video — John Fallon and Robert Grenier — say that sale was invalid and that the company bought copyright from Cox for $125,000 in 2000. They claim Pagola wound up with the tapes after they were stolen by an ex-employee.
Fallon and Grenier claim that, in 2001, Pagola approached them and threatened to destroy the tapes unless World Wide agreed to let him broker a sale. Fallon and Grenier claim that Pagola later sold the tapes and copyright to Ono without their permission and that he forged their signatures on the sale agreement.
The judge on Thursday sided with Ono. On Monday, the court issued a notice of default against Pagola after he failed to respond to the lawsuit.
The judge will issue the final order in the copyright infringement case after ruling on damages against Pagola, World Wide Video's attorney Joseph T. Doyle Jr. said.

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In national accounting, debts are added according to those who are indebted. Household debt is the debt held by households. "National" or Public debt is the debt held by the various governmental institutions (federal government, states, cities ...). Business debt is the debt held by businesses. Financial debt is the debt held by the financial sector (from one financial institution to another).

In this case, the creditor hopes to regain something equivalent to the debt and interest in the form of dividends and capital gains of the borrower. The "repayments" are therefore proportional to what the borrower earns and so can not in themselves cause bankruptcy. Once debt is converted in this way, it is no longer known as debt.

RIO DE JANEIRO – Signals from the black boxes of Air France Flight 447 are fading, weakening along with hopes of resolving what experts are calling one of history's most challenging plane crash investigations.
Emergency beacons attached to cockpit voice and data recorders are built to emit strong "pings" for 30 days after a crash before fading away, though experts said they could continue for as long as 45 days.
Wednesday marks Day 30 since the plane dropped out of the sky with 228 people on board in a remote area of the Atlantic far off Brazil's northeastern coast and from radar coverage. A burst of automated messages emitted by the plane before it fell gave rescuers only a vague location to begin their search.
"Without that starting point, the 'needle in the haystack' analogy would look like an easy assignment compared to this," said Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. "This is the most difficult accident in terms of recovery operations that I've ever seen."
Those hunting for the two black boxes said the search will continue. On Tuesday, Martine del Bono, spokeswoman for the French air accident agency leading the investigation, said it "is continuing the search" as long as there is a "reasonable" chance of locating the black boxes. She gave no final deadline.
U.S. Air Force Col. Willie Berges, the Brazil-based commander of the American military forces supporting the effort, has said searchers are likely to keep looking for 12 to 15 days beyond the crash's 30-day mark. The Americans are operating two U.S. Navy pinger locators that are being towed by French-contracted ships. A French nuclear submarine is scouring a search area with a radius of 50 miles (80 kilometers) in the area where the plane is thought to have crashed.
The logistics of recovering debris and remains from the Air France flight are complicated by its disappearance 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) off Brazil's mainland. Investigators should have an easier time recovering debris and clues in the crash of a Yemeni Airbus 310 with 153 people on board that went down Tuesday just nine miles (14.5 kilometers) north of the Indian Ocean island-nation of Comoros.
The black boxes emit an electronic tapping sound that can be heard up to 1.25 miles (two kilometers) away. While searchers for the Air France plane have detected some noise in the deep ocean, they have heard nothing from the flight recorders.
The Airbus A330 jet went down in the middle of the Atlantic shortly after midnight June 1. The crash date had been reported as May 31, as it was 11:14 p.m. on Brazil's mainland when the plane sent its last automated messages. But as searchers found debris and those messages were made public, it was clear the plane had crossed into a new time zone — and a new day — before it went into the ocean.
Without the crucial evidence the black boxes contain, investigators may never be able to determine definitively why the jet fell — despite the recovery of a substantial amount of wreckage and the remains of 51 people.
"The most you can do is a detailed forensic analysis of what affected the recovered items," Goelz said. "That may or may not give you a picture of what went on. But it isn't going to go to the cause of the accident, it will go to what happened after the event occurred."
With the recorders still missing, investigators are focusing on the automated messages sent by the plane minutes before it lost contact. One indicates the plane was receiving incorrect speed information from external monitoring instruments, which could destabilize the plane's control systems. Experts have suggested those external instruments might have iced over. Air France has now replaced the monitors, called Pitot tubes, on all its Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft.
But the mystery of what really caused the crash continues, leaving aviation safety experts unclear about what needs to be changed to stop a similar catastrophe in the future.
"Any time you have an accident that remains a question mark, it is a problem for the whole aviation community," Goelz said. "The aviation community and the public want to know what happened so we can prevent it from happening again."
___
Associated Press Writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

Armageddon. Apocalypse. Disaster: These are the words being used to describe California's staggering $24 billion budget deficit. With a midnight deadline to balance the budget, state lawmakers are facing a daunting task: Find a way to bridge the gap or start issuing $3 billion in IOUs this week to cover the bills.

Almost every state is suffering from the effects of the recession, but not every state accounts for 12 percent of the national gross domestic product. According to AP, if California goes down, so goes the nation: California's annual $1.7 trillion economy is the world's eighth-largest economy and provides a significant chunk of tax revenue for the government; California alone funds many social programs for the entire nation.

Like the Big Three automakers, California may be "too big to fail." If the state implodes, the ripple effect could slow the entire nation's recovery from the recession. Burt P. Flickinger, a retail consultant, tells AP:

"California is the key catalyst for U.S. retail sales, and if California falls further you will see the U.S. economy suffer significantly."

How did California dig itself such a huge hole? The recession certainly didn't help, but Time's Kevin O'Leary writes that California's financial troubles can be traced back to the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978. An antitax measure, Prop 13 makes it extremely difficult to raise taxes or pass a budget unless a 2/3 majority in both state houses agree — a virtually impossible task. California Rep. Zoe Lofgren tells Politico:

"If we [in Congress] had to do what the California legislature does, we would never send a bill to the president of the United States,” she said.

If the political wrangling over the budget isn't resolved by midnight tonight, Californians will be feeling the pain on every level, big and small. Just a few of the proposed spending cuts:

— State employees will be forced to take another day of unpaid leave a month, in addition to the two days leave they were forced to take starting in December. (NYT)

— Funding for the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement will be slashed by $20 million. The "little-known unit" has played a key role in several of the state's high-profile cases: The bureau's agents helped arrest Scott Petersen for the murder of his wife and unborn child, and their investigation led to charges in Anna Nicole Smith's overdose death. (AP)

— 80 percent of state parks would be closed, 25 in the Bay Area alone, including several beaches along the peninsula. Park visitors spend an estimated $2.6 billion a year in and near state parks, but closing the parks would save only .26 percent of the $24 billion deficit. (SF Chronicle)

— Education funding would be reduced by $5.3 billion. School districts have already laid off 30,000 employees. Class sizes are expected to surge from 20 to 30 students and many after school programs, arts and music classes will be cut. A national education survey conducted this year ranked California 47th in per-student spending. (AP)

— Gov. Schwarzenegger is proposing to eliminate the state's $1.3 billion welfare program. Frank Mecca, the head of the County Welfare Directors Association of California, tells Time, "California could become the only state in the First World without subsistence benefits for poor children."

So far, the government is using a "wait and see" approach to California, or as a recent Politico headline stated more bluntly — "Washington to California: Drop dead." Earlier this month, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the administration would "monitor" the situation, but that California's "budgetary problem unfortunately is one that they're going to have to solve."

(Think you can do a better job at balancing the state budget than the governor or state lawmakers? The Los Angeles Times is letting the common folk try their hand with a "You balance the budget" interactive.)

- Lili Ladaga

Yahoo! News bloggers compile the best news content from our providers and scour the Web for the most interesting news stories so you don't have to.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) –
Bernard Madoff was sentenced on Monday to 150 years in prison -- the maximum penalty the judge could give him for "extraordinarily evil" crimes in Wall Street's biggest and most brazen investment fraud.

Fleeced investors in the courtroom cheered and applauded as the judge handed down the penalty.

Madoff, 71, stood passively with his hands clasped at his waist, showing no reaction when he heard the sentence that will send him to prison for the rest of his life.

The former nonexecutive chairman of the Nasdaq stock market has been jailed in a Manhattan cell since he pleaded guilty to 11 charges including securities fraud, money laundering and perjury in March.

"Here the message must be sent that Mr. Madoff's crimes were extraordinarily evil," U.S. District Judge Denny Chin said in rejecting defense pleas for a lenient, 12-year sentence. "The breach of trust was massive.

"I simply do not get the sense that Mr. Madoff has done all that he could or told all that he knows."

The gray-haired money manager was dressed in his signature dark gray suit, white shirt and tie instead of a prison jumpsuit.

The disgraced financier sat passively throughout the hour-and-a-half hearing as his victims called him a "beast," an "animal" and a "lowlife."

He apologized to them, at one point turning toward the 250 people in the courtroom.

"I will live with this pain, with this torment, for the rest of my life," he calmly said. "I live in a tormented state knowing the pain and suffering I have created."

Madoff, who has been accused of bilking investors worldwide out of as much as $65 billion, said, "In my business, when you make a trading error, you're expected to make a trading error, it's accepted. My error was much more serious. I made an error of judgment."

CAUGHT OUT BY FINANCIAL CRISIS

Madoff's December arrest came as investors were feeling the brunt of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s Great Depression.

The case has triggered widespread criticism of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which has been accused of missing red flags that could have brought the curtain down on his asset management business.

It was not known where Madoff will serve his sentence for what prosecutors described as a worldwide fraud of small and wealthy investors, charities and financial institutions.

Judge Chin heard wrenching statements from nine of Madoff's victims, some of whom said they had lost their life savings, were forced to sell their homes, or had to apply for government assistance to buy food.

"I only hope that his prison sentence is long enough so that his jail cell will become his coffin," said Michael Schwartz, 33, who said his family had been robbed of savings earmarked for the care of his mentally disabled brother.

The White House said that the judge had sent a strong signal to those who handle other people's money.

"My guess is that that message will be heard loud and clear," said President Barack Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Madoff was arrested in December after his two sons told authorities that he had confessed to them that his investment empire was a sham.

Prosecutors have said that Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities showed $65 billion in customer accounts weeks before his arrest, but the trustee winding down the firm has so far only been able to collect $1.2 billion to return to investors.

As much as $170 billion flowed through the principle Madoff account over decades. Madoff was symbolically ordered to pay that amount in restitution.

While a much lower sentence would have sent Madoff to prison for life, Chin said he deserved the maximum, typically handed down to organized crime bosses.

"The fraud here was staggering," the judge said.

One law professor said she was surprised by the sentence but uncertain whether it would serve as a deterrent.

"I'd love to think that the mini-Madoffs out there would think that what happened today has something to do with them, but I suspect most of them do not," said Jayne Barnard of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Madoff's lawyer said no decision had been made on whether to appeal the sentence.

None of Madoff's relatives came to court. They have not attended any of his prior court appearances.

The judge said he had not received a single letter on Madoff's behalf, testifying to any good deeds or charitable works. "The absence of such support is telling," Chin said.

Madoff's wife Ruth, 68, has not been charged with any crimes but she has been vilified by defrauded investors, shunned by friends, and pursued by the media. Breaking her long silence, she said in a statement on Monday that she had been "betrayed and confused" by her husband's scam.

"From the moment I learned from my husband that he had committed an enormous fraud, I have had two thoughts -- first, that so many people who trusted him would be ruined financially and emotionally, and, second, that my life with the man I have known for over 50 years was over," she said.

Madoff has said he acted alone. The only other person charged criminally is his outside accountant.

Madoff's brother, Peter, and his sons, Mark and Andrew, were executives in his firm's brokerage unit. They have said that they were not aware of or involved in the crooked asset management side.

Madoff and his wife have agreed to the sale of three luxury properties and other assets and valuables. Proceeds from asset sales will be distributed to defrauded investors.

Ruth Madoff will be left with $2.5 million, after forfeiting claim to some $80 million in assets including the couple's Manhattan penthouse apartment.

Madoff told investors in the courtroom that he could offer no excuses, saying he tried to undo his crimes but "the harder I tried, the deeper a hole I dug for myself."

Investors said the apologies left them cold.

"There's something very pathological. He is still making excuses for himself," said George Nierenberg, 57.

(Reporting by Grant McCool, Martha Graybow, Daniel Trotta, Mike Erman and Christine Kearney; Editing by John Wallace, Toni Reinhold)

JERUSALEM – Human Rights Watch charged Tuesday that Israeli pilots failed to verify targets of drone aircraft at least six times during the Gaza war, firing missiles that killed at least 29 civilians.
Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst with the group, charged that drone operators had fired before making sure their targets were actual threats.
He called drones the most precise weapons available.
"We should not find so many civilian casualties from these incidents," he said.
A spokesman for the Israeli military said it acted only against military targets during the war in December and January and that Human Rights Watch investigators had been taken in by the "Gazan propaganda system."
Drones are operated by remote control by pilots watching their targets on a video monitor. Their use has risen sharply in recent years because of their ability to hit targets with relatively great accuracy without placing a pilot in danger. American forces have been using drones along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Israel has not acknowledged using pilotless planes for airstrikes but Palestinian witnesses and defense experts have reported seeing Israeli drones attacking targets on the ground.
Israel launched its three-week war against Gaza in late December to halt rocket attacks on its southern communities. Some 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, were killed, according to Gaza health officials and human rights groups. Israel puts the death toll closer to 1,100 and says the vast majority of the dead were militants.
Thirteen Israelis were also killed.
Israel has acknowledged loosening its rules of engagement in Gaza to minimize military casualties. Rights groups have accused Israel of using disproportionate force and failing to protect civilians.
Human Rights Watch investigated what it said were six drone strikes for its report: three that hit children playing on Gaza rooftops and three others that hit an elementary school serving as a refugee center, a group of students at a bus stop, and a metal shop near a refugee camp.
In each case, the report claims, high-resolution video from the drones should have told operators there were no gunmen in the area.
The group is calling on Israel to investigate and punish drone operators who didn't exercise enough caution and to release videos of drone strikes.
Human Rights Watch said it verified the six attacks by investigating the strike sites and interviewing witnesses soon after the war ended. They found a particular type of shrapnel and a neat dispersion of the missile parts consistent with a drone-fired Israeli Spike missile, Garlasco said. An independent Norwegian defense analyst confirmed those findings, the group said.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem claims 87 Gaza civilians were killed in more than 40 drone strikes during the war, but Human Rights Watch investigated only six of those attacks.

GENEVA (Reuters) –
The world's airlines lost more than $3 billion in the first quarter of 2009, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Tuesday, maintaining its estimate for full-year losses of $9 billion.

In its latest snapshot on the industry, the Geneva-based lobby said weak travel demand and lower freight volumes in the global recession had bled revenues for major carriers, in "a significant deterioration from last year."

"This deterioration was before the recent rise in fuel prices," IATA said, warning the 30 percent increase in oil and jet fuel prices since early May would squeeze airline cash flows further in coming months.

Both oil and jet fuel prices have risen almost $20 a barrel in the past two months, and are now 75 percent higher than their low point at the end of 2008, the Financial Monitor report said.

"Airlines have not yet felt the full impact of this oil price rise," it said.

But it said it was not changing its previous 2009 loss forecast of $9 billion, which follows revised 2008 losses of $10.4 billion.

On Tuesday, U.S. crude traded around $72 per barrel.

IATA, which represents more than 200 airlines, also said carriers trying to fly fewer flights to save costs during the downturn have not managed to cut capacity in line with shrinking air transport demand.

Leading airlines have been seeking mergers and acquisitions to help build scale and shield themselves against continued market weakness until the global economy recovers.

Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) swallowed rival Northwest Airlines last year to create the world's largest airline, and European carriers have also consolidated with Deutsche Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) agreeing to buy Austrian Airlines and Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA) scooping up Alitalia.

British Airways (BAY.L) is also in merger talks with Iberia (IBLA.MC), and Singapore Airlines (SIAL.SI) has said it is eyeing acquisitions in China and India.

(Reporting by Laura MacInnis; Editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Dan Lalor)

NEW YORK (Reuters) –
A U.S. federal jury returned a $1.67 billion verdict against Abbott Laboratories (ABT.N) in a patent suit brought by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) related to arthritis treatments, the drug companies said on Monday.

An Abbott spokesman said the company would appeal the verdict delivered in Marshall, Texas.

The case involves Humira, Abbott's newer blockbuster drug that blocks tumor necrosis factor, or TNF, and which competes with Johnson & Johnson's older blockbuster medication Remicade.

The company said in a statement it was pleased with the ruling, which showed its patent was "both valid and infringed." Remicade sales were $1.03 billion in Johnson & Johnson's first quarter.

Abbott spokesman Scott Stoffel told Reuters: "We're disappointed at this verdict, and we are confident in the merits of our case and that we will prevail on appeal."

Humira is a fully-human antibody, meaning it does not have any mouse components, Stoffel said. Remicade, on the other hand, is partly made from mouse DNA.

"Only when Humira was nearing its approval in 2002 did J&J amend the patent at issue in this litigation to claim it had discovered fully-human antibodies in 1994," Stoffel said.

"J&J acknowledged at trial that it did not start working on a fully human antibody until 1997 -- two years after Abbott discovered Humira and one year after Abbott filed its patent applications for Humira."

A spokeswoman for the Johnson & Johnson unit involved in the case, Centocor Ortho Biotech Inc, would not comment beyond the brief statement.

Schering-Plough Corp (SGP.N) has the overseas rights to Remicade. Merck & Co Inc (MRK.N) aims to buy Schering-Plough later this year, and to inherit those rights.

Johnson & Johnson, however, is battling Merck before an arbitrator, claiming it will gain overseas market rights to Remicade if Merck completes its acquisition of Schering-Plough.

Both Merck and Schering-Plough were not immediately available to comment on the implications of the jury's verdict.

(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson and Jonathan Spicer)

Animal protection advocates call attention to the pet overpopulation "crisis" in the United States. According to the Humane Society of the United States, 3-4 million dogs and cats are euthanized each year in the country and many more are confined to cages in shelters. This crisis is created by nonneutered animals (spayed/castrated) reproducing and people intentionally breeding animals.

In the United States, there has been extensive media coverage of the recall. There has been widespread public outrage and calls for government regulation of pet foods, which had previously been self-regulated by pet food manufacturers. The United States Senate held an oversight hearing on the matter by April 12. The economic impact on the pet food market has been extensive, with Menu Foods losing roughly $30 Million alone from the recall. The events have caused distrust of most processed pet foods in some consumers.

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Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music and literature. The meaning of art is explored in a branch of philosophy known as Aesthetics.

Traditionally, the term art was used to refer to any skill or mastery. This conception changed during the Romantic period, when art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science".[2] Generally, art is made with the intention of stimulating thoughts and emotions.

Canvas Art

MALMO, Sweden (AFP) –
A double by Sandro Wagner rounded off a stunning 4-0 success for Germany over England in the European Under-21 championship final to give them their first success in the tournament.

The Germans - who added this title to the ones presently in the hands of their Under-17 and Under-19 compatriots - also scored through Gonzalo Castro and the hugely impressive Mesut Ozil.

It was England's first appearance in the final since 1984 and brought to an end a run of having not lost open play in 21 matches and gave German coach Horst Hrubesch echoes of his major success as a player with the then West Germany in the senior 1980 European final over Belgium.

England Under-21 coach Stuart Pearce revealed he would stay on for the next campaign for the 2011 finals and try and improve on this performance.

"Just before the semi-final I signed a two year deal," said Pearce, who was suffering another disappointment against Germany having as a player lost to them in the 1990 World Cup semi-final - he missed one of the penalties in the shootout - and then again in the Euro '96 semi-finals.

"I enjoy where I work, my employers and the players I work with. Why would you walk away from that," added Pearce, who will also continue to work with England senior coach Fabio Capello, who was unable to attend the final having been at the Confederations Cup in South Africa.

England started brightly with Adam Johnson whipping in a couple of dangerous crosses while James Milner - who was playing his 46th and final Under-21 international - delivered a great freekick from the left only for Martin Cranie to head over under pressure.

Lone England forward Theo Walcott - all the other specialist strikers were suspended - then broke free seizing on Aston Villa midfielder in the third minute but shot wide.

Germany got in their first effective attack just after the quarter hour mark when the impresssive German captain Sami Khedira linked up well with Ozil but Micah Richards was on hand to deflect the shot away for a corner.

Ozil it was who created Castro's goal with a beautifully weighted pass which evaded Cranie and the German slotted it past Scott Loach, who had come in for the suspended first choice 'keeper Joe Hart.

The Germans looked to be in control of the match and deservedly doubled their lead in the just after half-time as he misjudged Ozil's long range freekick and he managed to only get a hand on it and see it spin into the net.

"The ball can react abnormally sometimes," said Hrubesch charitably of the Watford 'keeper's blunder.

England had to go for broke and midfielder Lee Cattermole came closest to reducing the deficit just before the hour with a finely-struck shot which clipped the crossbar.

England kept the pressure up and in the 62nd minute the impressive Milner turned leftback Sebastian Boenisch inside out and passed the ball to Johnson who failed to take advantage from three metres out.

Ozil was tormenting England all night and he set up Germany's third goal as he broke down the middle - right back Cranie was being treated for an injury - and his delightful pass outside to Wagner saw him shoot the ball between Loach's legs.

It made amends for a dreadful howler only minutes before when he failed to net from a metre out following another gem of a pass from Ozil.

However, he redeemed himself completely when he scores his second, a beautifully curled effort which gave Loach no chance and rounded off a humiliating night for England.

NEW YORK (Reuters) –
General Motors Corp (GMGMQ.PK) is heading to bankruptcy court on Tuesday to seek approval to sell its assets to a "New GM" in a plan to reinvigorate the automaker under U.S. government ownership.

GM is seeking approval for the sale from U.S. bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber just 30 days after filing for Chapter 11. Under the deal, brokered by the Obama administration's autos task force, the company would sell its assets under Section 363 of the bankruptcy code to a "New GM" and continue to operate its best assets, like Chevrolet and Cadillac, while gaining access to billions in funding from the U.S. Treasury.

GM's old assets would remain behind in bankruptcy court to be liquidated.

The deal faces several objections from bondholders and those concerned about the fate of its dealers, but no competing bidders have emerged as an alternative to the U.S. government's $60 billion financing for GM, including a proposed equity investment of $50 billion that would give the U.S. Treasury a 60 percent ownership stake.

If the sale goes through it would mark the second big win this month for the Obama administration's autos task force, which successfully brokered the sale of Chrysler LLC to a group led by Italy's Fiat SpA (FIA.MI). The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for that deal to go through on June 9.

"I think it is going even perhaps more smoothly than Chrysler, which is kind of interesting considering how much bigger GM is than Chrysler," said Stephen Lubben, a bankruptcy professor at Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey.

"Chrysler cleared the path for it and they're using pretty much the same strategy," he added.

GM said in court documents that the sale would avoid a "systemic failure" for the U.S. auto industry and that it is the only way to provide "a genuine opportunity for the business to survive and thrive in an economically viable entity."

The company has shut 13 of its U.S. assembly plants for up to 11 weeks as part of a bid to cut production and run down inventory while it seeks approval of the sale in bankruptcy court.

The company plans to shed dealer contracts and has deals to sell brands like Hummer and Saturn that will not be carried over to the new company. It also plans to shed the Pontiac brand and GM said on Monday that it would cut operational ties with a Northern California auto plant it had operated in a joint venture with Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T).

UPHILL BATTLE FOR CHALLENGERS

While dozens of objections have been filed in the bankruptcy case, some have already been resolved or withdrawn, and challengers to the deal could face an uphill battle since the same court has already approved the Chrysler sale.

"I think Judge Gonzalez kind of made life easier for Judge Gerber here," Lubben said, citing the New York bankruptcy judge who approved Chrysler's sale and the several higher courts that backed his decision.

"People basically know the Second Circuit has already largely blessed this structure," he added.

GM has said more than 50 percent of its bondholders support the deal and also argued that the sale would maximize recovery for its stakeholders. Under the plan, the U.S. government would take a 60 percent stake in the newly formed company, the United Auto Workers union would have a 17.5 percent stake, the Canadian government would own about 12 percent, and GM bondholders are expected to get about 10 percent.

A group of small bondholders, which calls itself the "Unofficial Committee of Family & Dissident GM Bondholders," have said they do expect to mount a challenge to the sale. They filed court papers last week saying they may seek to call GM CEO Fritz Henderson and Harry Wilson of the U.S. Auto Task Force to take the stand as witnesses as they mount their case.

While Judge Gerber has said the group is free to make its case in court, last week he rejected its request to become an "official committee," blocking the group's attempt to gain more funding to mount a legal battle.

Several other individual bondholders -- some representing themselves -- have filed objections to the sale, along with the State of Texas which is claiming that the sale illegally challenges state laws on dealerships, and a group representing about 300 Americans with lawsuits against GM for alleged product defects.

GM, however, resolved a key objection from nine state attorneys general over the weekend, saying in court papers that the "New GM" would accept liability for future product defects. The company also said it would address objections raised by over 20 of its parts suppliers.

The case is In re: General Motors Corp, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 09-50026.

(Reporting by Emily Chasan; Editing by Richard Chang)

SAN'A, Yemen – A Yemeni aviation official says the Yemeni Airbus 310 that crashed off the Comoros islands in the Indian Ocean had 142 passengers and a crew of 11 Yemenis on board.
Yemeni civil aviation deputy chief Mohammed Abdul Qader says the majority of the passengers were from the Comoros.
Those on board included families with children. The plane crashed before landing in Moroni, on the main island of Grand Comore, early on Tuesday morning. Many passangers were returning from Paris.
Abdul Qader says bodies have been spotted off the archipelago and that a rescue and search effort was under way.
The Comoros is an archipelago of three main islands situated about 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometer) south of Yemen, between Africa's southeastern coast and Madagascar.