Scary times indeud

The chief executive of the multi-billion pound Lloyd’s of London has publicly admitted that the world’s leading insurance market is prepared for a collapse in the single currency and has reduced its exposure “as much as possible” to the crisis-ridden continent.

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House lawmakers will consider an international proposal next week to give the United Nations more control over the Internet.

The proposal is backed by China, Russia, Brazil, India and other UN members, and would give the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) more control over the governance of the Internet.

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The high mortality rate in Mexico’s drug war has seen women progress quickly in the shadowy underworld of the cartels and they are increasingly taking on key management roles, a new book says.

“Female Bosses of Narco-Traffic,” by Arturo Santamaria, a researcher at the Autonomous University of the State of Sinaloa, traces the ascent of women in drug trafficking organizations.

“The narco-traffickers will become stronger as a result of this,” wrote Santamaria. “They will be more difficult to fight because the women appear to be acting smarter.”

An estimated 50,000 people have been killed since 2006 in a government crackdown on organized crime that has set off turf wars among rival groups even as they fight off the Mexican military’s counter-narcotics units.

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Carlos Slim sees Europe’s debt crisis as a “good moment” to apply his strategy of investing in times of turmoil, said the billionaire’s son, America Movil SAB (AMXL) Co- Chairman Carlos Slim Domit.

America Movil, controlled by the elder Slim, announced a $3.4 billion bid to increase its stake in former Dutch phone monopoly Royal KPN NV (KPN) earlier this month. While the acquisition would be Slim’s first major European foray, it follows a longstanding pattern, his son said. America Movil tries to stay as efficient and financially sound as possible so that it can quickly capitalize on fresh opportunities, he said.

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Wait, what? This makes far too much sense…

Greece’s New Democracy party placed first in all six opinion polls published in the country today as its leader Antonis Samaras said the cost of leaving the euro area would be greater than staying in the shared currency.

New Democracy, which supports Greece’s international bailout agreements, led by a margin of as much as 5.7 percentage points over Syriza, the main party opposed to implementing the terms of financial aid packages, according to a poll by Kapa Research SA for To Vima newspaper.

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International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde says she has more sympathy for deprived children in sub-Saharan Africa than for many of those facing poverty in Greece.

Greek parents have to take responsibility if their children are being affected by spending cuts and “have to pay their tax,” Lagarde said in an interview with the U.K.’s Guardian.

“I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education,” Lagarde told the newspaper. “I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help” than people in Greece.

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A plan to build Australia’s largest brothel is poised to overcome local government opposition in a victory for Sydney’s sex industry over creeping regulation.

The A$12 million ($11.7 million), three-story extension to the Stiletto brothel near the city center can be approved once client numbers are capped, Commissioner Susan O’Neill of the Land & Environment Court of New South Wales said in Sydney May 25. She asked for submissions from lawyers on how to limit customers before giving final approval.

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There’s so much trouble at the NYT, it’s kinda hard…

 The tension between Robinson and Gonzalez, with Sulzberger in the middle, seemed to signal a shift at the paper. The relationship between Robinson and Sulzberger began “cooling” through the period that Gonzalez was emerging publicly, say people familiar with the matter. And when Sulzberger fired Robinson in December, out of the blue, giving her an astounding exit package of nearly $24 million, some top executives at the newspaper thought that the influence of Gonzalez was decisive. It was a scenario that appealed to those relish­ing a catfight between “Arthur’s women,” but it is not quite the true story.

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Several media outlets have again pulled or edited already-published articles about the activities of President Barack Obama’s daughter, even though the stories appeared to pose no active security risk to the first family.

On Thursday, 14-year-old Malia Obama attended a concert by the British boy band One Direction at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, Va., flanked by Secret Service agents who attempted unsuccessfully to blend in with the crowd of mostly pre-teen girls.

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Boolish….

Job growth probably picked up in May after the weakest gain in six months, and the U.S.unemployment rate held at a three-year low, signs of gradual improvement in the labor market, economists said before reports this week.

Payrolls climbed by 150,000 workers after a 115,000 gain in April, according to the median forecast of 68 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News ahead of Labor Department figures due June 1. Manufacturing cooled and household purchases increased, other data may show.

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t 4:09 a.m. on May 12, Chinese national Ma Chi sped through a Singapore stop light in his $1.4 million Ferrari 599 GTO and slammed into a taxi, killing himself and two others and sparking a wave of anti-foreigner sentiment.

The crash, caught on camera by another cab and viewed more than 7 million times on the Internet, prompted ministers to try to defuse public anger over immigration policies and the rising wealth gap that caused the ruling party’s worst performance since independence in last year’s general election. Within days of the crash, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean urged people on his Facebook page not to “blame all foreigners.”

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Duke University men’s lacrosse coach John Danowski still talks to recruits’ parents about the stripper party that led to false rape allegations six years ago.

University of Virginia coach Dom Starsia won’t grant interview requests about a former player who beat his girlfriend to death two years ago. Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala says a survey that showed lacrosse players are the biggest users of illicit drugs among college athletes was “deeply concerning.”

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For the latest sign of a U.S. housing rebound, Toll Brothers (TOL) Inc. Chief Executive Officer Douglas Yearley points to Hoboken, New Jersey: A couple torn between two condos last month at the sales office for its Hudson Tea complex decided to think about it over lunch. When they returned an hour later, both units were gone.

“People feel like now is the time to buy and they aren’t isolated to one building in Hoboken,” Yearley said in a May 23 conference call with analysts after the Horsham, Pennsylvania- based luxury homebuilder reported that quarterly orders for new homes surged 47 percent. “Confidence is up. The interest rates are there and they’ve been waiting so long to move on with their lives that they came out this spring.”

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THE American marriage, it seems, is on the rocks. The common line — true or not — is that half of all marriages in this country end in divorce.

So here comes a plucky entrepreneur from, of all places, the Netherlands, with a wild, you’ve-got-to-be-joking plan to profit from the sorry state of so many American unions.

It’s called Divorce Hotel, and the idea is this: Check in on Friday, married. Then, with the help of mediators and independent lawyers, check out on Sunday, divorce papers in hand, all for a flat fee.

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Are you ready for a Facebook browser that integrates the social networking behemoth into your online life more than ever? That’s exactly what could be on the way soon, according to one report.

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FUCKING CANNIBALS IN MIAMI!!!!!

One man was shot to death by Miami police, and another man is fighting for his life after he was attacked and his face allegedly half eaten, by a naked man on the MacArthur Causeway off ramp, police said.

This is absolutely ludicrous!

udge Lanny Moriarty, who sentenced her, said when Tran appeared in his court last month for truancy, he gave her a warning, reported KHOU.com. But when she continued to miss classes, he issued a summons and arrested her in open court.

Tran’s case of truancy is unusual, however, because she’s a highly-successful student who takes advanced placement and dual credit college level course, according to KHOU.com.

Moreover, she said her parents divorced and moved away from the city of Willis. She now works a full-time job and a part-time job to support an older brother who attends college and a younger sister who lives with relatives in Houston. She currently lives with the family of one of her employers.

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So even if Jamie Dimon was completely at fault, you really couldn’t remove him from much of his wealth.

Trusts often are funded with liquid assets such as stocks and bonds, and may be appealing because individuals who establish them may also take distributions if they need to, while the assets are generally out-of-reach from future creditors. They won’t offer protection if a defendant creates a trust after a potential claim has already arisen.

Directors and officers increasingly are being named in investor lawsuits. About 64 percent of federal securities class- action suits filed in 2011 named board members as defendants, compared with about 35 percent in 2008, according to New York- based PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Asset-protection trusts are sometimes used to supplement their liability coverage, also called directors and officers insurance.

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A good perspective as to the current psychology of investors in this volatile market.

Patricia Arroyo, 53, a psychologist and executive coach in Boston who manages her own investments, said, “What shakes my investor confidence more than the glitches is to see all the institutional investors, insiders and favored clients get all the advantages in these situations.”

After Facebook said on May 9 that growth in advertising had failed to keep up with user gains, analysts at some banks underwriting the deal cut their earnings estimates, said people familiar with the process. The new estimates were relayed to institutional investors.

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As he clambered out of bed and onto his feet one morning late last year, Miguel Angel Cardona, 62, felt his body betray him. His head grew so heavy it pulled him tumbling back down.

“You feel fuzzy, like you’re drunk,” recalls the grandfather of nine, who’s spent most of his life in Segovia, a gold-mining town in northwestern Colombia. In the days that followed he noticed numbness in his hands and fingertips. He lost 12 pounds, no longer able to stomach the meat, rice and fried plantains his wife sent with him to work each day at a single-shaft mine on the edge of town. He worked with drums filled with mercury, water and crushed stone to process gold. Cardona suspected his job was poisoning him, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its May 28 issue.

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