Posts (page 2)

By Zachary Gorchow and Naomi Patton
Free Press Staff Writers
May 2, 2008

A top aide to Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick warned the City Council today that Kilpatrick will implement “drastic cuts” in services [NB: What services? We don't have any services anymore, you witling!] if the council doesn’t approve a proposed deal to sell the city’s half of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.

Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams told the council the mayor would not support selling bonds to patch the $65-million hole in the 2007-08 fiscal year budget if the city doesn’t sell its half of the tunnel to a new authority run jointly by the cities of Detroit and Windsor. Under the deal, the city would transfer title on its half of the tunnel to the authority and the city of Windsor would in turn provide Detroit with $75 million.

But Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel said she wouldn’t bow to scare tactics. Cockrel said the deal may make sense, but is so complex and said the administration continues to provide information about it in a piecemeal manner at the last minute.

“I’m not going to get bullied into a transaction no matter how conceptually great it may be,” she said.

Adams responded that he wasn’t bullying anyone.

“I’m speaking to the hard fiscal realities in our city,” he said.

That prompted Cockrel to retort that instead of threatening to cut city services, the mayor should start “with all the family and friends with all the contracts in city government.”

Adams said he wanted to know what contracts to which Cockrel was referring.

“We’ll have that for you real soon,” Cockrel shot back.

In other work on the budget, Auditor General Loren Monroe told the council today he is concerned the budget's projected revenues are based on revenues such as the tunnel sale; a $25-million credit from the Police and Fire Retirement System pension fund; $22.3 million for the sale of surplus city-owned property; and $194.8 million in casino taxes.

The sales transactions have not be finalized, city officials have not completed negotiations for the pension fund credit, and the projected casino revenues were "overstated" by about $12.9 million, Monroe said.

When asked by Cockrel if the inclusion of these projected revenues in to the mayor's proposed budget really "translate in to a possible deficit," Monroe was noncommittal. The mayor’s office has said it expects the 2007-08 budget to end balanced, but the council’s Fiscal Analysis Division has projected a $113-million deficit.

Monroe said the budget "would be kind of risky based on those assumptions."

Legend of the Crystal Skulls	Volume 61 Number 3, May/June 2008
by Jane MacLaren Walsh

Along with superstars like Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, and Shia LaBeouf, the newest Indiana Jones movie promises to showcase one of the most enigmatic classes of artifacts known to archaeologists, crystal skulls that first surfaced in the 19th century and that specialists attributed to various "ancient Mesoamerican" cultures. In this article, Smithsonian anthropologist Jane MacLaren Walsh shares her own adventures analyzing the artifacts that inspired Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (in theaters May 22), and details her efforts tracking down a mysterious "obtainer of rare antiquities" who may have held the key to the origin of these exotic objects.

In 1992, this hollow rock-crystal skull was sent to the Smithsonian anonymously. A letter accompanying the 30-pound, 10-inch-high artifact suggested it was of Aztec origin. (James Di Loreto & Donald Hurlburt/Courtesy Smithsonian Institution)

Sixteen years ago, a heavy package addressed to the nonexistent "Smithsonian Inst. Curator, MezoAmerican Museum, Washington, D.C." was delivered to the National Museum of American History. It was accompanied by an unsigned letter stating: "This Aztec crystal skull, purported to be part of the Porfirio Díaz collection, was purchased in Mexico in 1960.... I am offering it to the Smithsonian without consideration." Richard Ahlborn, then curator of the Hispanic-American collections, knew of my expertise in Mexican archaeology and called me to ask whether I knew anything about the object--an eerie, milky-white crystal skull considerably larger than a human head.

I told him I knew of a life-sized crystal skull on display at the British Museum, and had seen a smaller version the Smithsonian had once exhibited as a fake. After we spent a few minutes puzzling over the meaning and significance of this unusual artifact, he asked whether the department of anthropology would be interested in accepting it for the national collections. I said yes without hesitation. If the skull turned out to be a genuine pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artifact, such a rare object should definitely become part of the national collections.

I couldn't have imagined then that this unsolicited donation would open an entirely new avenue of research for me. In the years since the package arrived, my investigation of this single skull has led me to research the history of pre-Columbian collections in museums around the world, and I have collaborated with a broad range of international scientists and museum curators who have also crossed paths with crystal skulls. Studying these artifacts has prompted new research into pre-Columbian lapidary (or stone-working) technology, particularly the carving of hard stones like jadeite and quartz.

Crystal skulls have undergone serious scholarly scrutiny, but they also excite the popular imagination because they seem so mysterious. Theories about their origins abound. Some believe the skulls are the handiwork of the Maya or Aztecs, but they have also become the subject of constant discussion on occult websites. Some insist that they originated on a sunken continent or in a far-away galaxy. And now they are poised to become archaeological superstars thanks to our celluloid colleague Indiana Jones, who will tackle the subject of our research in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Details about the movie's plot are being closely guarded by the film's producers as I write this, but the Internet rumor mill has it that the crystal skull of the title is the creation of aliens.

The author and Scott Whittaker, director of the Smithsonian's Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) Facility, examine the "Mitchell-Hedges Skull." Silicone molds of the skull's carved features were analyzed by SEM for evidence of tool marks. (James Di Loreto/Courtesy Smithsonian Institution)

These exotic carvings are usually attributed to pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, but not a single crystal skull in a museum collection comes from a documented excavation, and they have little stylistic or technical relationship with any genuine pre-Columbian depictions of skulls, which are an important motif in Mesoamerican iconography.

They are intensely loved today by a large coterie of aging hippies and New Age devotees, but what is the truth behind the crystal skulls? Where did they come from, and why were they made?

Museums began collecting rock-crystal skulls during the second half of the nineteenth century, when no scientific archaeological excavations had been undertaken in Mexico and knowledge of real pre-Columbian artifacts was scarce. It was also a period that saw a burgeoning industry in faking pre-Columbian objects. When Smithsonian archaeologist W. H. Holmes visited Mexico City in 1884, he saw "relic shops" on every corner filled with fake ceramic vessels, whistles, and figurines. Two years later, Holmes warned about the abundance of fake pre-Columbian artifacts in museum collections in an article for the journal Science titled "The Trade in Spurious Mexican Antiquities."

French antiquarian Eugène Boban with his collection of Mesoamerican artifacts at an 1867 Paris exposition. Among the objects on display were two crystal skulls. At his feet rest a pot and a battleaxe Boban exhibited as Aztec. Both are fakes. (Courtesy Jane Walsh/Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico City)

The first Mexican crystal skulls made their debut just before the 1863 French intervention, when Louis Napoleon's army invaded the country and installed Maximilian von Hapsburg of Austria as emperor. Usually they are small, not taller than 1.5 inches. The earliest specimen seems to be a British Museum crystal skull about an inch high that may have been acquired in 1856 by British banker Henry Christy.

Two other examples were exhibited in 1867 at the Exposition Universelle in Paris as part of the collection of Eugène Boban, perhaps the most mysterious figure in the history of the crystal skulls. A Frenchman who served as the official "archaeologist" of the Mexican court of Maximilian, Boban was also a member of the French Scientific Commission in Mexico, whose work the Paris Exposition was designed to highlight. (The exhibition was not entirely successful in showcasing Louis Napoleon's second empire, since its opening coincided with the execution of Maximilian by the forces of Mexican president Benito Juárez.)

One small crystal skull was purchased in 1874 for 28 pesos by Mexico City's national museum from the Mexican collector Luis Costantino, and another for 30 pesos in 1880. In 1886, the Smithsonian bought a small crystal skull, this one from the collection of Augustin Fischer, who had been Emperor Maximilian's secretary in Mexico. But it disappeared mysteriously from the collection some time after 1973. It had been on display in an exhibit of archaeological fakes after William Foshag, a Smithsonian mineralogist, realized in the 1950s that it had been carved with a modern lapidary wheel.

In 1886, the Smithsonian acquired a crystal skull that may have been a pre-Columbian bead re-carved in the 19th century. This catalogue entry shows the object at close to its actual size, and with a vertical drill hole through its center. (Courtesy of Paula Fleming Collection)

These small objects represent the "first generation" of crystal skulls, and they are all drilled through from top to bottom. The drill holes may in fact be pre-Columbian in origin, and the skulls may have been simple Mesoamerican quartz crystal beads, later re-carved for the European market as little mementos mori, or objects meant to remind their owners of the eventuality of death.

In my research into the provenance of crystal skulls, I kept encountering Boban's name. He arrived in Mexico in his teens and spent an idyllic youth conducting his own archaeological expeditions and collecting exotic birds. Boban fell in love with Mexican culture--becoming fluent in Spanish and Nahuatl, the Aztec language--and began to make his living selling archaeological artifacts and natural history specimens through a family business in Mexico City.

After returning to France, he opened an antiquities shop in Paris in the 1870s and sold a large part of his original Mexican archaeological collection to Alphonse Pinart, a French explorer and ethnographer. In 1878, Pinart donated the collection, which included three crystal skulls, to the Trocadero, the precursor of the Musée de l'Homme. Boban had acquired the third skull in the Pinart collection sometime after his return to Paris; it is several times larger than any of the others from this early period, measuring about 4 inches high. This skull, now in the Musée du Quai Branly, has a large hole drilled vertically through its center. There is a comparable, though smaller, skull (about 2.5 inches high) in a private collection. It serves as the base for a crucifix; the somewhat larger Quai Branly skull may have had a similar use.

Macabre Obsession
The 19th century was a period of keen fascination with skulls and skeletons in Europe. During the reign of Louis Napoleon (1852-1870), French artists created stereoscopic photographs, called Diableries, of miniature dioramas of skeletons at dress balls, libraries (below), conferences with the devil, and in amorous trysts. Wicked lampoons of corruption at Napoleon's court, they illustrate how popular skeletal imagery was when the first crystal skulls made their appearance. (Courtesy of Paula Fleming Collection)

A second-generation skull--life-size and without a vertical hole--first appeared in 1881 in the Paris shop of none other than Boban. This skull is just under 6 inches high. The description in the catalogue he published provided no findspot for the object and it is listed separately from his Mexican antiquities. Boban called it a "masterpiece" of lapidary technology, and noted that it was "unique in the world."

Despite being one of a kind, the skull failed to sell, so when Boban returned to Mexico City in 1885, after a 16-year absence, he took it with him. He exhibited it alongside a collection of actual human skulls in his shop, which he dubbed the "Museo Cientifico." According to local gossip, Boban tried to sell it to Mexico's national museum as an Aztec artifact, in partnership with Leopoldo Batres, whose official government title was protector of pre-Hispanic monuments. But the museum's curator assumed the skull was a glass fake and refused to purchase it. Then Batres denounced Boban as a fraud and accused him of smuggling antiquities.

In July 1886, the French antiquarian moved his museum business and collection to New York City and later held an auction of several thousand archaeological artifacts, colonial Mexican manuscripts, and a large library of books. Tiffany & Co. bought the crystal skull at this auction for $950. A decade later, Tiffany's sold it to the British Museum for the original purchase price. Interestingly, Boban's 1886 catalogue for the New York auction lists yet another crystal skull. Of the smaller variety, it is described as being from the "Valley of Mexico" and is listed with a crystal hand, which is described as Aztec. Neither of these objects can now be accounted for.

A third generation of skulls appeared some time before 1934, when Sidney Burney, a London art dealer, purchased a crystal skull of proportions almost identical to the specimen the British Museum bought from Tiffany's. There is no information about where he got it, but it is very nearly a replica of the British Museum skull--almost exactly the same shape, but with more detailed modeling of the eyes and the teeth. It also has a separate mandible, which puts it in a class by itself. In 1943, it was sold at Sotheby's in London to Frederick Arthur (Mike) Mitchell-Hedges, a well-to-do English deep-sea fisherman, explorer, and yarn-spinner extraordinaire.

Since the 1954 publication of Mitchell-Hedges's memoir, Danger My Ally, this third-generation, twentieth-century skull has acquired a Maya origin, as well as a number of fantastic, Indiana Jones-like tall tales. His adopted daughter, Anna Mitchell-Hedges, who died last year at the age of 100, cared for it for 60 years, occasionally exhibiting the skull privately for a fee. It is currently in the possession of her widower, but 10 nieces and nephews have also laid claim to it. Known as the Skull of Doom, the Skull of Love, or simply the Mitchell-Hedges Skull, it is said to emit blue lights from its eyes, and has reputedly crashed computer hard drives.

The Mitchell-Hedges skull, top, and the British Museum skull were the subject of a series of 1936 articles in which British Museum curator Adrian Digby and physical anthropologist G. M. Morant debated whether the two were based on the same original skull, which Digby posited was perhaps revered as a Mesoamerican "death god."

Although nearly all of the crystal skulls have at times been identified as Aztec, Toltec, Mixtec, or occasionally Maya, they do not reflect the artistic or stylistic characteristics of any of these cultures. The Aztec and Toltec versions of death heads were nearly always carved in basalt, occasionally were covered with stucco, and were probably all painted. They were usually either attached to walls or altars, or depicted in bas reliefs of deities as ornaments worn on belts. They are comparatively crudely carved, but are more naturalistic than the crystal skulls, particularly in the depiction of the teeth. The Mixtec occasionally fabricated skulls in gold, but these representations are more precisely described as skull-like faces with intact eyes, noses, and ears. The Maya also carved skulls, but in relief on limestone. Often these skulls, depicted in profile, represent days of their calendars.

French and other European buyers imagined they were buying skillful pre-Columbian carvings, partially convinced perhaps by their own fascinated horror with Aztec human sacrifice. But the Aztecs didn't hang crystal skulls around their necks. Instead, they displayed the skulls of sacrificial victims on racks, impaling them horizontally through the sides (the parietal-temporal region), not vertically.

I believe that all of the smaller crystal skulls that constitute the first generation of fakes were made in Mexico around the time they were sold, between 1856 and 1880. This 24-year period may represent the output of a single artisan, or perhaps a single workshop. The larger 1878 Paris skull seems to be some sort of transitional piece, as it follows the vertical drilling of the smaller pieces, but its size precludes it being a bead, or being worn in any way. This skull now resides in the basement laboratories of the Louvre, and the Musée du Quai Branly has begun a program of scientific testing on the piece that will include advanced elemental analysis techniques like particle induced X-ray emission and Raman spectroscopy, so we may know more about its material and age in the near future.

The 1878 Paris skull and the Boban-Tiffany-British Museum skull that appeared in 1881 are perhaps nineteenth-century European inventions. There is no direct tie to Mexico for either of these two larger skulls, except through Boban; they simply appear in Paris long after his initial return from Mexico in 1869. The Mitchell-Hedges skull, which appears after 1934, is a veritable copy of the British Museum skull, with stylistic and technical flourishes that only an accomplished faker would devise. In fact, in 1936 British Museum scholar Adrian Digby first raised the possibility that the Mitchell-Hedges skull could be a copy of the British Museum skull since it showed "a perverted ingenuity such as one would expect to find in a forger." However, Digby, then a young curator, did not suggest it was a modern forgery and also dismissed the possibility that his museum's own crystal skull was a fraud, as early twentieth-century microscopic examination did not reveal the presence of modern tool marks.

The skull that arrived at the Smithsonian 16 years ago represents yet another generation of these hoaxes. According to its anonymous donor, it was purchased in Mexico in 1960, and its size perhaps reflects the exuberance of the time. In comparison with the original nineteenth-century skulls, the Smithsonian skull is enormous; at 31 pounds and nearly 10 inches high, it dwarfs all others. I believe it was probably manufactured in Mexico shortly before it was sold. (The skull is now part of the Smithsonian's national collections and even has its own catalogue number: 409954. At the moment it is stored in a locked cabinet in my office.)

There are now fifth- and probably sixth-generation skulls, and I have been asked to examine quite a number of them. Collectors have brought me skulls purportedly from Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, and even Tibet. Some of these "crystal" skulls have turned out to be glass; a few are made of resin.

British Museum scientist Margaret Sax and I examined the British Museum and Smithsonian skulls under light and scanning electron microscope and conclusively determined that they were carved with relatively modern lapidary equipment, which were unavailable to pre-Columbian Mesoamerican carvers. (A preliminary report on our research is on the British Museum website, www.britishmuseum.ac.uk/compass). So why have crystal skulls had such a long and successful run, and why do some museums continue to exhibit them, despite their lack of archaeological context and obvious iconographic, stylistic, and technical problems? Though the British Museum exhibits its skulls as examples of fakes, others still offer them up as the genuine article. Mexico's national museum, for example, identifies its skulls as the work of Aztec and Mixtec artisans. Perhaps it is because, like the Indiana Jones movies, these macabre objects are reliable crowd-pleasers.

Impressed by their technical excellence and gleaming polish, generations of museum curators and private collectors have been taken in by these objects. But they are too good to be true. If we consider that pre-Columbian lapidaries used stone, bone, wooden, and possibly copper tools with abrasive sand to carve stone, crystal skulls are much too perfectly carved and highly polished to be believed.

Ultimately, the truth behind the skulls may have gone to the grave with Boban, a masterful dealer of many thousands of pre-Columbian artifacts--including at least five different crystal skulls--now safely ensconced in museums worldwide. He managed to confound a great many people for a very long time and has left an intriguing legacy, one that continues to puzzle us a century after his death. Boban confidently sold museums and private collectors some of the most intriguing fakes known, and perhaps many more yet to be recognized. It sounds like a great premise for a movie.

Jane MacLaren Walsh is an anthropologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Friday, May 2, 2008

TOKYO (AP) -- A Japanese civil servant was demoted for logging more than 780,000 hits on pornographic Web sites on his office computer over nine months, an official said Friday.

The man, a Kinokawa city government employee in western Japan, visited porn sites from June 2007 to February 2008, city official Tomiko Waki said. The man's name was withheld.

City officials said the number of hits discovered on his computer's internal log was so high in part because one click on certain types of pornographic sites registers multiple hits.

Despite his frequent porn viewing, none of his colleagues noticed his activities, which he apparently conducted throughout the workday.

"Each desk is set apart from each other," Waki said, adding that the man logged 170,000 hits on porn sites in July alone.

The man's supervisors discovered his extensive porn site visits after his computer became infected with a virus, prompting officials to examine his Web browser's history.

Along with the demotion, he received a 20,000 yen ($190) monthly pay cut, Waki said.

Friday, May 2, 2008

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- Charles Ray Fuller must have been planning one big record company.

The 21-year-old North Texas man was arrested last week for trying to cash a $360 billion check, saying he wanted to start a record business, authorities said. Tellers at the Fort Worth bank were immediately suspicious - perhaps the 10 zeros on a personal check tipped them off, according to investigators.

Fuller, of suburban Crowley, was arrested on a forgery charge, police said. He was released after posting $3,750 bail.

Fuller said his girlfriend's mother gave him the check to start a record business, but bank employees who contacted the account's owner said the woman told them she did not give him permission to take or cash the check, according to police.

In addition to forgery, Fuller was charged with unlawfully carrying a weapon and possessing marijuana, Fort Worth police Lt. Paul Henderson said.

Officers reported finding less than 2 ounces of marijuana and a .25-caliber handgun and magazine in his pockets, police said.

Fuller couldn't be located for comment by The Associated Press on Friday because there were no phone listings for him in the Fort Worth area.

No Serious Injuries Reported

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Harvard Square was closed and five buildings evacuated early Friday when several manholes exploded and burned in Cambridge.Crews were called to the scene near Massachusetts Avenue and Dunster Street about 2:30 a.m. after a cable malfunction sparked the explosions and electrical fires.

Flames roared out of several manholes and smoke was seen coming from three other manholes nearby. The immediate area was closed as part of a safety precaution as the thick black smoke billowed high into the air above the square."We're checking the surrounding buildings ... no smoke or any carbon monoxide readings have been found in the MBTA, so that's why we're letting that stay open," a Cambridge fire chief said.There were no immediate reports of any injuries, but the university's Holyoke Center, which includes an infirmary, was evacuated. Three patients were transferred."We were just trying to do our work, do our duties to get out of here and the fire alarms went off," one worker said.Au Bon Pain restaurant was kept closed, as was Cambridge Savings Bank.Pedestrians watched the fireworks in amazement."This is a little scary. Really scary," one woman said."This is crazy. The morning commute is totally thrown off," another bystander said.Fire crews could not douse the flames. They said they had to wait for the fires to burn themselves out."It's too big of a risk because electricity does follow water," a firefighter said.Officials ended up cutting the power that was feeding 13,000 volts of electricity to underground cables, fueling the blazes.NStar said 700 customers were without electricity as a result of the blasts. Most of the businesses around the square were closed.The manhole fires had a significant impact on morning traffic, with road closures on JFK Street, Brattle and Mt. Auburn streets and delays on Memorial Drive.Buses were detoured around Harvard Square for most of the morning, but were allowed to resume their regular routes at about 10 a.m. The MBTA continued to run Red Line trains through the square after it was determined that it was safe to do so. MBTA officials reopened the main entrance to Harvard Station at about 10 a.m.Motorists were advised to seek alternate routes.

By BEN EVANS
1 May 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Judiciary Committee threatened Thursday to subpoena former White House adviser Karl Rove if he does not agree by May 12 to testify about former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman's corruption case.

In a letter to Rove's attorney, committee Democrats called it "completely unacceptable" that the Republican political strategist has rejected the panel's request for sworn testimony even as he discusses the matter publicly through the media.

"We can see no justification for his refusal to speak on the record to the committee," the letter states. "We urge you and your client to reconsider ... or we will have no choice but to consider the use of compulsory process."

Committee Democrats are investigating whether Rove and Republican appointees at the Justice Department influenced Siegelman's prosecution to kill his chances for re-election. It is part of a broader inquiry into whether U.S. attorneys were fired for not aggressively pursuing cases against Democrats.

Siegelman, a Democrat who served one term as governor after being elected in 1998, was convicted in 2006 on bribery and other charges and sentenced to more than seven years in prison. He was recently released on bond pending appeal.

Last year, Alabama attorney and one-time Republican campaign volunteer Jill Simpson, told the committee under oath that she heard conversations among GOP operatives in 2002 suggesting that Rove was pushing the Justice Department to pursue a conviction against Siegelman. She also has said Rove asked her in 2001 to find evidence that Siegelman was cheating on his wife.

Rove, who frequently worked in Alabama politics before orchestrating President Bush's White House campaigns, has denied having anything to do with the case. In a recent magazine article, he called Simpson a "complete lunatic" and said he had never heard of her.

The career prosecutors who handled Siegelman's case also have denied any political influence.

Thursday's threat marks the latest development in a lengthy standoff between President Bush and Congress over testimony from current and former White House staffers.

The committee has issued or threatened subpoenas to more than half a dozen administration officials and is suing White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential counsel Harriet Miers for refusing to comply with subpoenas on the U.S. attorney firings.

The White House has generally maintained that their testimony is off-limits from congressional oversight under executive privilege.

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, maintains that Rove must defer to that position. But as the White House has offered on other matters, Luskin wrote the committee this week that Rove would discuss the Siegelman case on the condition that his comments not be under oath and not be transcribed.

Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., and several other lawmakers rejected the offer, saying such an interview "will not permit us to obtain a straightforward and clear record."

Chunks of concrete drop onto streets, sidewalks, but little is done about it
BY BILL McGRAW
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
May 2, 2008

It was a nice spring day last week when John Irvin walked past the hulking old Packard plant on East Grand Boulevard in Detroit.

Irvin, 52, passed the shattered glass, garbage and other debris that has spilled out of the eviscerated building. But as he approached Concord Street, he came upon the most ominous sight of all -- hundreds of chunks of concrete scattered across the sidewalk, lawn and street.

The concrete falls from the covered bridge that connects the north and south sections of the giant plant. Some pieces are as small as pebbles. Some are 4-foot slabs too heavy to lift. Most are in between.

Irvin looked around and came to a logical conclusion: "It's a dangerous situation," he said. "Somebody's going to get hurt."

PATRICIA BECK/DFP

The bridge spans East Grand Boulevard. The city's department of Public Works had sectioned part of the street, but cars and people pass with no warning of the danger.

The bridge, made of brick and concrete, is about 150 feet long and 35 feet wide. It spans the boulevard one story above the roadway and contained the Packard assembly line until the auto company departed in 1956. Much of the concrete appears to have fallen from the raggedy edge at the top of the bridge, but cracks and signs of wear are evident on many other sections.

The bridge interior is rusting and rotting, like the rest of the plant. Firefighters from the nearby engine house say scrappers have cut out some support beams from inside the bridge, and they fear it could collapse someday.

After some chunks fell in December, the city's Department of Public Works sectioned off part of the boulevard with yellow caution tape. The chunks continue to fall, though, and cars and people pass every day with no warning. One tiny piece fell while the Free Press was on the scene last week.

Is falling concrete a problem? Is anyone concerned about the cracks? Does someone in a position of authority worry that a pedestrian or motorists might get conked or crushed? Is the owner of the plant concerned about liability?

Just asking.

"It's on our radar," said James Canning, a spokesman for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

City officials have completed an inspection of the plant and are preparing to issue violation and correction orders, Canning said. They could go before the City Council to ask that the plant be put on a demolition list.

"The owner needs to redevelop or tear down this dangerous building," Canning said.

The owner is Bioresource Inc., which emerged with title to the property last year after a long and complicated legal battle. Bioresource's attorney, Barry Steinway, did not respond to phone calls and e-mails. In a previous interview, he said negotiations are under way that could result in a sale and transformation of the property but provided no details.

State records show Bioresource has not filed an annual report since 2000 and was declared dissolved by the state in 2003. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1997. Canning said Bioresource has not paid city taxes since it bought the plant in 1987.

The Packard plant is immense: 47 buildings on 38 acres and 3 1/2 million square feet, the equivalent of five Cobo Centers. Today, it is home to one business, a small chemical-processing firm.

The plant is a major attraction, mainly for young urban explorers. But it also is dangerous: Roofs and floors in some buildings have collapsed, and girders and I-beams have been stolen by scrappers. Water seeped out of the building's east side last week.

Some passersby suggested nobody in power cares because the plant is in a poor neighborhood.

"I think they need to tear it down before it hurts somebody," said Michole Bacon, 26. "I see the pieces in the street. That's crazy."

By ARON HELLER
The Associated Press
Friday, May 2, 2008

JERUSALEM -- Police questioned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Friday in an investigation of campaign donations by a U.S. citizen - the fifth high-profile probe involving the Israeli leader whose popularity has badly suffered because of the repeated charges of corruption.

Olmert's office predicted he would weather the latest storm, but it threatened to further weaken his hold on power and potentially derail peace talks with Palestinians.

With a court-imposed gag order limiting information about the investigation, it isn't clear what allegations police are looking into, but Israeli law restricts how much politicians can get from donors. Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's son, Omri, is in jail for receiving donations that far exceeded the ceiling.

Olmert was questioned under caution, indicating police believed their interrogation could result in an indictment. If Olmert was indicted, he would have to resign. A decision on formal charges was at least months away.

Investigators arrived at Olmert's official residence in Jerusalem at midmorning and questioned him for 90 minutes, police said. Police would not disclose further information, citing the gag order.

Olmert's office said the questions dealt with donations raised by an American citizen between 1999 and 2002, before Olmert became prime minister. The money was meant to finance elections for the mayorship of Jerusalem and primaries in Olmert's former political party, Likud, the office said.

Olmert, a former Jerusalem mayor, was elected prime minister two years ago and heads another party, Kadima.

"The prime minister answered all of the investigators' questions on the subject, and will continue to cooperate with all legal authorities to the extent he is required to do so," the statement from Olmert's office said.

Another statement from Olmert's office Thursday said he "is convinced that with the discovery of the truth in the police investigation, the suspicions against him will dissipate."

Olmert is already a suspect in several corruption affairs involving real estate deals and questionable political appointments. He has been questioned several times in the past by police but has never been charged.

Labor party lawmaker Shelly Yachimovich, a member of Olmert's governing coalition, called the scope of charges swirling around the prime minister "unprecedented" and said he should suspend himself immediately.

"It has been proven beyond any doubt that the prime minister can't be under serial investigations and also suspected of crimes and also lead the country," she told Israel Radio.

Gideon Saar, a lawmaker in the opposition Likud, which has a big lead over Olmert's party in opinion polls, urged Labor to quit the Olmert-led government of "serial suspects" - a move that could cause the government to fall and force early elections.

"Olmert is the most-investigated prime minister in the history of Israel, and he is surrounded by people whose are related to the greatest number of criminal affairs in the history of Israel," Saar said.

Yoel Hasson, a Kadima lawmaker, came to Olmert's defense.

"From past experiences, we know that all the investigations started with a lot of noise and ended with nothing," he said. "The political system should not get hysterical and take brash political actions that will unsettle the government."

Israel's attorney general has ordered two criminal investigation into suspicions that Olmert acted improperly while he was trade minister. He is also suspected of improprieties in the purchase of a house in Jerusalem.

In November, police recommended closing another case involving allegations that he tried to steer a government bank sale in the direction of supporters.

Some of Olmert's close political allies have also had legal troubles. His finance minister had to step down under embezzlement suspicions, and another - now the country's vice premier - was convicted of sexual misconduct for forcibly kissing a female soldier.

By JIM ABRAMS and LAURIE KELLMAN
The Associated Press
Friday, May 2, 2008

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve and other regulators initiated steps Friday to end "unfair and deceptive" credit card industry practices assailing consumers who are already struggling to cope in a bad economy.

The proposed rules would be the biggest clampdown on the industry in decades, aiming at protecting people from credit card companies that arbitrarily raise interest rates or don't give borrowers adequate time to pay their bills.

The proposals would also restrict such lender practices as allocating all payments to balances with lower interest rates when a borrower has balances with different rates. The Fed board voted Friday to approve the recommendations.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the proposed rules "are intended to establish a new baseline for fairness in how credit card plans operate." Consumers using credit cards "should be better able to predict how their decisions and actions will affect their costs," he said.

Lawmakers who have demanded tougher controls on the credit card industry were generally positive about the proposed rules, as were consumer groups. But some questioned whether the changes would be strong enough and soon enough to help the millions of households struggling with credit card debt.

The Fed drew considerable criticism for its slow response to abuses that contributed to the subprime mortgage crisis.

"These steps are a significant improvement," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the Banking Committee and a leader in legislative efforts to make credit card companies more forthcoming about the interest rates they charge. "While they can still go further, the Fed deserves credit for acting, particularly for banning some awful practices rather than relying solely on disclosure."

Last year the Fed proposed rules that would make credit card bills and solicitations easier to understand, but Friday's proposals go well beyond those in tightening interactions between the industry and consumers.

"At first blush, this does seem to be good news for credit card holders," said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., author of pending legislation addressing some of the same credit card abuse issues. "However, it remains to be seen if these proposals will go far enough."

The banking industry opposes the changes, and says they could lead to higher interest rates. The rules could be finalized by the end of the year.

The proposed new rules would prohibit:

- Placing unfair time constraints on payments. A payment could not be deemed late unless the borrower is given a reasonable period of time, such as 21 days, to pay;

- Unfairly allocating payments among balances with different interest rates;

- Retroactively raising interest rates on pre-existing balances;

- Placing too-high fees for exceeding the credit limit solely because of a hold placed on the account;

- Unfairly computing balances in a computing tactic known as double-cycle billing;

- Unfairly adding security deposits and fees for issuing credit or making credit available;

- Making deceptive offers of credit.

The agencies said the proposed rules also would require federal credit unions to give consumers a chance to opt out of an overdraft protection program. And they would prohibit those institutions from charging a fee for an overdraft caused by a hold placed on consumer's funds when a person uses a debit card.

Ken Clayton, senior vice president of card policy for the American Bankers Association, described the proposed changes as "aggressive regulatory intervention in the marketplace that will result in higher prices and less consumer credit."

"If card companies cannot fully reflect risk, then millions of consumers with good credit histories will end up with higher rates," the ABA's president and CEO, Edward L. Yingling, said in a statement.

"It's unfortunate that the industry continues to buck the immense groundswell of support that is building for credit card reform," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who has introduced consumer protection legislation in the House. She said the Fed endorsement of provisions in her bill "puts to rest the credit card companies' assertion that reform will somehow harm consumers or the economy."

The Consumer Federation of America estimates that credit card debt held by consumers is about $850 billion, some four times what it was in 1990. The group says the average debt for those 58 percent of card-holding households that do not pay their balance in full every month is about $17,000.

Travis Plunkett, legislative director for the federation, said the rules were a "good-faith effort by the Federal Reserve to curb some of the most significant abuses that have been hurting credit care users for over a decade." He singled out the practice of lenders increasing interest rates on a borrower because of a supposed problem with another creditor or a drop in the borrower's credit score.

The Fed is acting in conjunction with the National Credit Union Administration and the Office of Thrift Supervision.

By GARDINER HARRIS
The New York Times
Published: April 28, 2008

Drug and medical device companies should be banned from offering free food, gifts, travel and ghost-writing services to doctors, staff members and students in all 129 of the nation’s medical colleges, an influential college association has concluded.

The proposed ban is the result of a two-year effort by the group, the Association of American Medical Colleges, to create a model policy governing interactions between the schools and industry. While schools can ignore the association’s advice, most follow its recommendations.

Rob Restuccia, executive director of the Prescription Project, a nonprofit group dedicated to eliminating conflicts of interest in medicine, said the report would transform medical education.

“Most medical schools do not have strong conflict-of-interest policies, and this report will change that,” Mr. Restuccia said.

The rules would apply only to medical schools, but they could have enormous influence across medicine, said Dr. David Rothman, president of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University.

“We’re hoping the example set by academic medical colleges will be contagious,” Dr. Rothman said.

Drug companies spend billions wooing doctors — more than they spend on research or consumer advertising. Medical schools, packed with prominent professors and impressionable trainees, are particularly attractive marketing targets.

So companies have for decades provided faculty and students free food and gifts, offered lucrative consulting arrangements to top-notch teachers and even ghost-wrote research papers for busy professors.

“Such forms of industry involvement tend to establish reciprocal relationships that can inject bias, distort decision-making and create the perception among colleagues, students, trainees and the public that practitioners are being ‘bought’ or ‘bribed’ by industry,” the report said.

A group of influential doctors decried these practices in a 2006 article in The Journal of the American Medical Association, and said that medical schools should ban them. In the article’s wake, the medical college association created a task force.

With Dr. Roy Vagelos, a former Merck chief executive, serving as the task force’s chairman and the chief executives of Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Amgen and Medtronic on the roster, some who advocate for greater restrictions on industry influence in medicine predicted that the report would be weak.

They were wrong.

In addition to the gift, food and travel bans, the report recommended that medical schools should “strongly discourage participation by their faculty in industry-sponsored speakers’ bureaus,” in which doctors are paid to promote drug and device benefits.

It recommended that schools set up centralized systems for accepting free drug samples or “alternative ways to manage pharmaceutical sample distribution that do not carry the risks to professionalism with which current practices are associated.” It suggested that schools audit independently accredited medical education seminars given by faculty “for the presence of inappropriate influence.” And it said the rules should apply to faculty even when off-duty or away from school.

Speakers’ bureaus and drug samples are pillars of the industry’s marketing operations, and many medical school professors have resisted efforts to restrict them. Only a handful of medical schools presently bar faculty members from serving on speakers’ bureaus, so if this recommendation is widely adopted, it could transform the relationship between medical school faculty and industry, and it could change substantially the way medical education is routinely delivered.

Indeed, the chief executives of Pfizer and Eli Lilly dissented from the report’s recommendation regarding speakers’ bureaus.

“We continue to believe that these types of programs, which are subject to clear regulations regarding their content, can be worthwhile educational activities,” wrote Jeffrey B. Kindler of Pfizer and Sidney Taurel of Lilly.

David Beier, an Amgen senior vice president, wrote a letter that endorsed the report’s recommendations but disagreed with some of its text “because we have a different view about the accuracy concerning representations about the motives of the participants in industry-academic interactions.”

Ken Johnson of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said his group would review the report.

“Providing physicians — and medical students — with timely, accurate information about the medicines they prescribe clearly benefits patients and advances healthcare throughout the United States,” Mr. Johnson said.

Dr. Robert J. Alpern, dean of the Yale School of Medicine, said that the university presently had no limits on participation in company speakers’ bureaus, but that because of the medical college association’s report he was thinking of taking them on.

“I don’t have a problem with doctors making $3,000 or $5,000 a year on the side,” he said, “but it’s a totally different thing when it’s $80,000.” Even more distasteful, Dr. Alpern said, is that the slides used in many of these presentations are created by drug makers, not the speakers.

“That’s like ghost-talking,” Dr. Alpern said.

Dr. Arthur S. Levine, dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, said that when he graduated from medical school in 1964, Eli Lilly gave him his first doctor’s bag, and Roche gave him an Omega watch for being valedictorian. He still has the watch.

But this year’s graduating class of doctors at Pittsburgh will not be allowed to accept any of these gifts, and the daily pizza lunches brought by drug companies are gone, he said.

Julie Gottlieb, assistant dean of policy coordination for Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said Hopkins had adopted some of the association’s recommendations and was considering others.

“This report is bound to influence our deliberations,” she said.

Dr. Vagelos, formerly of Merck, said that the report’s recommendations were certain to face resistance among faculty who liked the present system.

“The outcome of this for the industry is that those companies that are strong in science will always be welcome at medical colleges and others won’t,” Dr. Vagelos said.