The Sappington Farmers Market, which filed for bankruptcy Friday, will remain open despite its troubles.
“The reorganization of Sappington Farmers Market will allow the store to remain open and viable,” said Nancy Smith, the market’s manager, in a written statement. “We feel this will position us to be successful in the future.”
Smith didn’t provide an interview.
The store, on Watson Road in Marlborough, has roots going back to the early 1980s and has been at its present location since 1995, where it has gained a loyal following of bargain hunters and proponents of local farming.
The store’s mission has long been to support area farmers by featuring their products.
In her statement released Saturday, Smith said the store would continue to feature local farmers and would continue distributing their products not only through the store but through schools, restaurants and a “mobile market.”
The store’s founder, Tessa Greenspan, sold it in 2008 to a cooperative of small-scale farmers known as the Missouri Farmers Union, which formed a company called Farm to Family Naturally LLC to buy the business.
Farm to Family Naturally, which does business as Sappington Farmers Market, was the organization that filed for bankruptcy on Friday.
Members of the original cooperative who purchased the store have since left, according to employees.
There was a time not so long ago that seeing a single wind turbine spinning in the distance was a novel experience for most people.
Not so much any more. There are now hundreds of wind turbines scattered across the province, representing 1,700 megawatts of wind capacity in Ontario alone
Forecasters say Rina has quickly strengthened into a hurricane off the coast of Honduras.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Monday that Rina was a Category 1 hurricane with top winds of 75 mph (120 kph) and was centered about 195 miles (314 kilometers) southwest of Grand Cayman.
Forecasters say the storm could become a major hurricane with winds topping 111 mph (179 kph) by late Tuesday quick cash.
The storm is forecast to bring at least 2 inches of rain over the Cayman Islands.
A New York businessman called a “mini-Madoff” because he was arrested weeks after the billion-dollar swindler was sentenced Friday to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $179 million in restitution _ money he doesn’t have.
Nicholas Cosmo, who apologized as he was sentenced, has had a gambling problem since high school, his lawyer said. He was arrested in January 2009 and pleaded guilty last year to mail and wire fraud.
“I’m going to be working until they put me in the grave,” said one of the victims, Ellen Gabriel, of Yaphank, N.Y., who did not address the court but wept throughout the hearing. The hairdresser said she lost $130,000 _ “my entire life savings.”
Gabriel added that she had researched before investing: “It’s not like we were stupid.”
Four victims did address the court.
“Everything that these people said about me, for the most part, is true,” said Cosmo, the former head of the Long Island-based Agape World and Agape Merchant Advance in New York City.
Agape solicited investors to fund short loans to help companies get temporary financing. Cosmo promised up to 80 percent returns but admitted using investors’ money for personal investments.
“It wasn’t my intention to ever hurt anyone. But I hurt them and I stand here as a guilty man,” Cosmo told the court. “I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart. I know that probably falls on deaf ears. There’s not a day that goes by that I am not ashamed for what I have done.”
Unlike the more notorious Bernard Madoff, who admitted cheating charities, celebrities and institutional investors out of billions, Cosmo targeted mainly blue-collar workers.
“He preyed on people’s personal relationships and trust,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Demetri Jones, who had urged a 40-year term. “The victims are everyman _ generations of families.”
The more than 4,000 victims include teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses and construction workers, Jones said. “They’re not banks. They’re not corporations. They’re people.”
Investors believed they would make returns as high as 80 percent a year from interest collected on short-term loans to businesses. But an investigation revealed that “much of the money paid back to investors … was actually money provided by subsequent investors” _ a Ponzi scheme.
Cosmo also spent 21 months in federal prison for a 1999 mail fraud conviction.
He had been free on $1.25 million bail until October 2009, when U.S. District Judge Denis Hurley revoked bail after finding Cosmo had violated bail conditions barring him from access to any computer or the Internet.
Cosmo “will bend the rules if he feels it will serve his interests,” the judge said at the time. “He is unlikely to abide by any condition or conditions of his release.”
The conspiracy involved enlisting star-studded bait in an exotic locale for a high-stakes job.
Heidi Fleiss, the infamous “Hollywood Madam,” sat among the fountains at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, pleading for a woman she didn’t know to help trap a man almost everybody in St. Louis knew.
The target: Ray Vinson, the homespun mortgage salesman whose twangy rendition of the “99-99″ suffix on his American Equity Mortgage phone number made him a staple of St. Louis radio and TV advertising.
The point: Vinson was embroiled in a nasty, high-stakes divorce, with tens of millions of dollars hanging on the decision of a St. Louis County judge.
The plan: To coax Pamela Brensinger, a former exotic dancer, to claim that she had an affair with Vinson and that he was a dangerous, abusive boyfriend.
The problem: Brensinger didn’t remember anyone named Ray Vinson.
The intrigue that September day in 2005 ran deep. Unknown to Fleiss, Brensinger’s husband, a driver for a Las Vegas escort service, sat at a nearby table, surreptitiously listening in. Unknown to Brensinger and her husband, private detectives who hired Fleiss were nearby payday advance.
Those detectives were working with Joe Adams, a flamboyant private eye from St. Louis who was the bodyguard of Vinson’s estranged wife, Deanna Daughhetee.
Court records show that Adams enlisted Fleiss after Brensinger refused entreaties from other investigators. They presumed that a dancer couldn’t turn down Fleiss. And Brensinger didn’t.
In 2006, Daughhetee walked out of the courthouse in Clayton with the lion’s share of American Equity Mortgage. Later that year, she married Adams, whose vanity license plates once read “BYE RAY.”
They may have been done with Vinson, but he was not done with them. He filed a lawsuit in Las Vegas, claiming Adams, Brensinger and others had conspired to discredit him with a fabric of lies. The case plodded through the court system for the last few years.
Finally, two months ago, a jury
A strike deadline has now passed for Southern California grocery workers, but there is no word of any walkout just yet.
The three-day notice period required before calling a strike elapsed at 7:10 p.m. Pacific time Sunday, but union leaders said they intended to keep negotiating past the deadline.
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 spokesman Mike Shimpock said earlier Sunday that workers will stay on the job at least until midnight and possibly longer if talks are moving ahead.
Messages left for union and grocery representatives just after the deadline were not immediately returned.
Some 62,000 grocery employees have been working without a contract since March, while in discussions with negotiators for grocery chains Vons, Ralphs, and Albertsons.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
A union representing workers at three major grocery chains in Southern California distributed picket signs Sunday, as the clock ticked toward the end of a three-day notice period required before calling a strike.
Union negotiators intend to keep talking if a resolution appears to be in sight when the period ends at 7:10 p.m. They also stressed that members could keep working beyond that time.
“Our workers will stay on the job until at least midnight, and possibly longer if negotiations are moving ahead,” said Mike Shimpock, spokesman for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770, one of the unions representing the 62,000 workers seeking a new contract.
If little progress is made toward settling disagreements over health benefits, negotiators said they will tell members to walk off the job.
The grocery workers have been working without a contract since March, while in discussions with negotiators for The Vons Cos. Inc.; Ralphs Grocery Co., a subsidiary of The Kroger Co.; and Albertsons, owned by Supervalu Inc.
Representatives for the supermarket chains said last week they were disappointed that the unions had taken that step but remained committed to reaching an agreement.
Kendra Doyel, a spokeswoman for Ralphs, said Sunday the supermarkets remained hopeful a deal would be reached before the deadline.
Calls to representatives for Albertsons and Vons were not immediately returned.
A four-month strike and lockout that began in 2003 cost Ralphs and other grocery chains an estimated $2 billion.
Both sides in the current dispute announced in July that they had reached a tentative agreement on the employers’ contributions to pension benefits, but payments to the union health care trust fund remained a major sticking point.
Union members voted overwhelmingly to reject the health care proposal offered by the chains and to authorize their leaders to call a strike.
Union officials said they were responding to what they characterized as the chains’ delaying tactics when they issued the required 72-hour notice Thursday evening to cancel the contract extension under which they had been working.
Asian markets opened lower Tuesday after fears of a worsening global economy sparked a session of free-falling losses in Europe.
Oil prices fell to below $84 a barrel in Asia as investor fears of a recession in developed countries sent equities and commodities lower. The dollar was higher against the euro but lower against the yen.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index dropped 1.2 percent to 8,676.12. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was 1 percent down at 19,420.47. Australia’s S&P ASX 200 lost 1.1 percent to 4,095.50. South Korea’s Kospi index was 0.6 percent down at 1,774.73.
The slump in Asia comes a day after European shares booked sharp losses. Britain’s FTSE 100 closed the day down 3.6 percent to 5,102.58. Germany’s DAX tumbled a massive 5.3 percent to 5,246.18, and France’s CAC-40 plummeted 4.7 percent to 2,999.54.
A wave of negative sentiment was unleashed Friday by a government report that said the U.S. economy failed to add any new jobs in August. That caused European and Asian stock markets to sink sharply Monday.
The August jobs figure was far below economists’ already tepid expectations for 93,000 new U.S. jobs and renewed concerns that the U.S. recovery is not only slowing but actually unwinding.
U.S. hiring figures for June and July were also revised lower, adding to the gloom. The unemployment crisis has prompted President Barack Obama to schedule a major speech Thursday night to propose steps to stimulate hiring.
The health of the U.S. economy is crucial for the wider world because consumer spending there accounts for a fifth of global economic activity. The U.S. imports huge amounts from Japan and China and is closely linked at all levels with the European market.
Traders are hoping for signs that the Federal Reserve might take action at its September meeting to support the economy _ perhaps a third round of bond purchases, dubbed quantitative easing III or QE3.
Wall Street, which was closed Monday due to the Labor Day holiday, was bracing for losses Tuesday.
Benchmark oil for October delivery was down $2.47 to $83.98 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude last settled at $86.45 on Friday because U.S. markets were closed Monday for the holiday.
In London, Brent crude for October delivery was steady at $110.08 on the ICE Futures exchange.
In currencies, the euro weakened to $1.4074 Tuesday from $1.4187 in New York late Friday as worries mounted about Greece’s ability to meet requirements set by international lenders to stave off a massive default on the country’s debts.
The dollar weakened to 76.82 yen from 76.87 yen. Last month, the dollar fell under 76 yen, which was a new post-World War II high for the Japanese currency.
Oil rose above $85 per barrel Tuesday on encouraging economic news from Asia and Europe. Benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude rose $1.02 to finish at $85.44 per barrel in New York. Brent crude, which is used to price oil produced abroad, increased $1.08 to $109.44 per barrel in London.
Prices rose following reports of better-than-expected manufacturing activity in China and Europe. And stocks rose in the U.S. ahead of an expected announcement from the Federal Reserve on Friday to further stimulate the nation’s economy.
The positive news was offset by reports of more unrest in Libya’s capitol as the Gadhafi regime appeared near collapse.
An end to the country’s six-month rebellion would clear the way for oil exports to resume, but analysts cautioned that it will likely take more than a year for oil to begin flowing at levels that would affect prices.
“Crude from Libya is going to be a story for 2012 or 2013. Not today,” said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service fast cash loans.
Fighting during the last six months has all but stopped activity in Libya’s oil fields. The country previously supplied about 1.5 million barrels per day for world markets. That’s roughly 2 percent of daily global oil demand.
Meanwhile, U.S. gas pump prices rose Tuesday to a national average $3.572 per gallon, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. A gallon of regular is 86.4 cents more expensive than the same time last year.
In other energy trading, heating oil rose 3.18 cents to end at $2.9425 per gallon and gasoline futures added 4.15 cents to finish at $2.8766 per gallon. Natural gas rose 10.4 cents to end the day at $3.993 per 1,000 cubic feet.
The leaders of France and Germany said Wednesday that they want the heads of the eurozone countries to elect the president of a new “economic government” who would direct regular summits to respond to the continent’s financial crisis.
For many in the markets, the proposal fell short of hopes: a grand plan to save the euro and, in particular, a sign the eurozone was moving toward a single bond issued by the 17 countries.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel outlined their proposals in a letter to Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council. They said that they hoped Van Rompuy would get the job.
The two leaders, who met in Paris on Tuesday, called the twice-yearly summits “the cornerstone of the new economic government of the eurozone.”
However, heads of the eurozone governments already hold summits, though not regularly scheduled ones, under the chairmanship of Van Rompuy. The first was in 2008.
Sarkozy and Merkel also raised the politically sensitive issue of pensions, saying eurozone states should rapidly implement structural reforms, including changes in “retirement policy.” They did not elaborate.
As global stocks fell, shares in stock exchange operators were hit particularly hard on news the two leaders want to introduce a tax on financial transactions. Deutsche Boerse slid 3.7 percent and the London Stock Exchange Group PLC was down 4.7 percent. Merkel and Sarkozy said the two countries’ finance ministers would come up with a proposal by September that would be forwarded to the European Commission.
A transaction tax _ a small percentage taken from foreign exchange and share transactions, for instance _ has been proposed as a source of money to pay for bank bailouts. But European Central Bank head Jean-Claude Trichet says it would only work if introduced globally. The U.S. is also against the idea.
Yusuf Heusen, senior sales trader at IG Index, said the news was hurting the shares. “It’s worth bearing in mind, however, that this is simply a proposal and there are many hurdles to be overcome, but without doubt it’s going to be squarely in focus in the weeks and months ahead.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said the proposals would bring a “higher level of commitment” to efforts to stabilize budgets and fight debt payday loan online. Yet Wednesday’s letter seemed to back away from the boldest proposal Sarkozy had put forward a day earlier _ the creation of a eurozone economic government. The letter gave few details and described it primarily as a reinforcement of current policies.
Former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt told VRT radio the biannual summits would “absolutely not create an economic government,” and called the proposal window dressing.
A prominent opposition lawmaker in Germany was equally unimpressed.
“What has been proposed here isn’t a European economic government, but that Mr. Van Rompuy will be allowed to give an occasional report to Ms. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy,” Juergen Trittin, a co-leader of the Greens’ parliamentary group, told Radio Eins.
Analysts said the proposals would do little to pull Europe out of its quagmire.
“It’s all very long-term stuff, which is why the outcome’s been quite disappointing,” said Jennifer McKeown, a European economist at Capital Economics. “It doesn’t address the current problems.”
She said Sarkozy and Merkel had avoided the only real solution: a close fiscal union in which struggling countries could receive aid quickly without long negotiations. The eurobond would be one likely outcome of a closer union and would allow weaker countries to borrow more cheaply since the bonds would be backed by the entire eurozone. It might, however, raise costs for a powerhouse like Germany.
Sarkozy and Merkel said Tuesday that a eurobond might eventually be created, but not in the near future. Eurobonds are viewed with suspicion in Germany, where critics say they would encourage other countries to continue running up debt.
Without such a move, the eurozone is doomed, said McKeown.
“The likely outcome is the eurozone ceases to exist,” she said, though the stronger core countries, like Germany, the Netherlands and France, might continue to band together.
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