Budget Issues a Concern for Williams in Second Term

As he begins his second term in office, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams says he plans to continue the initiatives of his previous term while coping with the severe budgetary deficiencies in his office.

Budget Issues a Concern for Williams in Second Term

As he begins his second term in office, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams says he plans to continue the initiatives of his previous term while coping with the severe budgetary deficiencies in his office.

Budget Issues a Concern for Williams in Second Term

As he begins his second term in office, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams says he plans to continue the initiatives of his previous term while coping with the severe budgetary deficiencies in his office.

Economix Blog: An Economy Stuck in Second Gear

Common Sense: Fair Play Measured in Slivers of a Second

Two seconds may not seem like much, but for high-speed traders with supercomputers, it’s plenty.

The difference was arresting. On Friday, just 500 shares of a leading Standard & Poor’s 500 exchange-traded fund traded during the first 10 milliseconds of the two-second window before the release of the University of Michigan data to Thomson Reuters’ regular clients, according to the market research firm Nanex. A year ago, on July 13, 2012, 200,000 shares traded during that 10-millisecond period, Nanex said.

Friday’s trading was all but “nonexistent,” said Eric Hunsader, founder of Nanex. “It was all about gaming the news, not the news itself.”

As an attempt to level the playing field for all investors, Mr. Schneiderman’s action clearly had an immediate effect. And he has said the settlement with Thomson Reuters is only a first step. While Thomson Reuters agreed to suspend the two-second advantage while his investigation continues, its regular clients get a five-minute jump on the general public, which gets the data at 10 a.m. Thomson Reuters pays the University of Michigan close to $1 million a year for the right to distribute the data.

The five-minute edge may well be the next target, since either everyone gets the information at the same time, or they don’t, whether the gap is seconds, minutes or hours. And Mr. Schneiderman has made it clear that Thomson Reuters isn’t the only target of a wide-ranging investigation.

The University of Michigan index falls into a broad category of private data that can move markets, or stocks in individual companies. About a dozen indexes compiled by private sources regularly affect markets; some of those are also released early. Other data is more industry-specific, but can also move sectors and individual stocks. Media companies have been trying to generate revenue and increase profits by charging fees for early access to all kinds of information.

All of this raises the question: Should everyone have access to market moving information at the same time? It turns out the answer is hardly self-evident.

For some market experts, the attorney general’s move is long overdue. Mr. Schneiderman is “a mile ahead of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has to be dragged slowly and grudgingly toward raising the standard of behavior,” said John Coffee, a professor and expert on securities law at Columbia Law School.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is also collecting data on Thomson Reuters’ practices, although officials at the agency have said their jurisdiction is limited. An S.E.C. spokesman declined to comment.

Mr. Schneiderman’s investigation is the latest in a long series of efforts to reduce both the reality and the perception that the nation’s securities markets are rigged to favor those who already have money, power and special access. A vast network of laws and regulations is aimed at creating a more level playing field for investors, like criminal laws that ban securities fraud and the S.E.C.’s Regulation Fair Disclosure, which requires companies to widely disseminate market-moving information about themselves. Consider also the simultaneous public release of government information like employment data and the Federal Reserve minutes.

The goal is not just fairness, but to make capital markets more robust by encouraging the public — not just professional speculators — to invest.

“The reason America’s markets are the best and strongest markets in the world is that individuals always believed they could get a fair trade,” Mr. Schneiderman told me this week. “If you did your research well, you weren’t at a disadvantage because of information you couldn’t possibly access. It wasn’t a rigged casino.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 12, 2013

An earlier version of this column erroneously included an index from the Institute for Supply Management among those that are released early to some users. The I.S.M.’s manufacturing data is released at 10 a.m. eastern time to all users, including clients of Thomson Reuters.

Second Thoughts on Safety of Avandia Stir a Dispute

Three years ago, in one of the more notable drug-safety scandals in recent history, the diabetes drug Avandia was all but banned from use in the United States after researchers found that thousands of people had heart problems after taking it. Today, it is a drug of last resort for people with diabetes who are so sick that a heart attack is worth the risk.

But now, in a highly unusual move, the Food and Drug Administration has decided to reopen the case on Avandia and will ask a panel of experts this week whether the agency must reconsider the restrictions on the drug.

That is just one of several options before the advisory committee, but lifting the limits would amount to a major policy reversal and could be a huge victory for the drug’s maker, GlaxoSmithKline. Avandia was once a top-selling drug, reaching more than $3 billion in sales in 2006 before controversy flared. It could also help rewrite one of the most embarrassing chapters in the F.D.A.’s recent history.

But critics, like Dr. Steven Nissen, the well-known Cleveland Clinic cardiologist who was the first to sound a public alarm about the drug, say it is far too dangerous to use in diabetes treatment. He said an analysis of more than 50 studies linked Avandia to an elevated risk of heart attack; one study linked the drug to more than 47,000 cases of heart attack, stroke or heart failure from 1999 to 2009.

Dr. Nissen and others contend that the F.D.A.’s decision to revisit the drug is more about saving face than protecting patients. “The efforts to whitewash this entire affair is really an unacceptable misuse of their regulatory role,” Dr. Nissen said. He added that he would be “horrified” if the panel were to recommend that the restrictions be removed. “The evidence against this drug is overwhelming,” he said.

Dr. Janet Woodcock, the F.D.A.’s top drug official, said the two-day meeting that begins on Wednesday was convened to weigh a review she requested in 2010 of an earlier clinical trial that Glaxo itself had conducted. Past findings were riddled with questions, she said, and the agency has an obligation to try to answer them.

“I made the decision last time about Avandia, and it’s not that it was an open-and-shut case,” she said in a phone interview. “What we’re trying to do here is resolve that uncertainty as much as we can with all the available data.”

The F.D.A. typically follows the recommendations of its advisory panels. While experts said widening access to the drug would be unlikely, many found it puzzling that it was even under consideration. The process and its outcome are likely to be among the most closely watched drug-safety cases in recent years.

Avandia’s troubles began in 2007, eight years after it was approved by the F.D.A., when Dr. Nissen published evidence showing that the drug raised the risk of heart attack by more than 40 percent. A Senate inquiry ensued, and the episode exposed what many said were serious gaps in the agency’s oversight of prescription drugs. It has reshaped the regulatory landscape for diabetes drugs at a time when the number of people with the disease is exploding: companies are now required to show that new drugs do not hurt the heart.

An estimated 26 million Americans have diabetes, a difficult disease to treat that often requires patients to try a variety of drugs. Spending on diabetes medications totaled $22 billion in 2012, according to IMS Health. The drug Januvia and a related drug, Janumet, both made by Merck, were the best-selling oral diabetes drugs in 2012, with combined global sales of $5.7 billion.

In 2010, European regulators removed Avandia from the market, and its use was severely restricted in the United States. That year, the F.D.A. ordered an outside review of Glaxo’s clinical trial, which had lasted six years and whose results were published in 2009.

It is that review, conducted by researchers at Duke University, that experts are being asked to consider this week. According to a preliminary summary posted on Glaxo’s Web site, the review found previously unreported cases of heart complications and deaths, but not enough to change the Glaxo trial’s conclusions that Avandia did not significantly raise the risk of cardiovascular harm. However, some outside experts have said that the Glaxo trial was seriously flawed. Some also question the independence of the Duke review, which was paid for by Glaxo.

Law School Offers A Second Chance to Rejected Students

One law school is giving applicants who don't make the initial admissions cut a second chance to prove they have what it takes. And it's doing it for free.

Postal Service Posts $1.9 Billion Loss in Second Quarter

Over all, the Postal Service reported operating revenues of $16.3 billion in the second quarter, an increase of $121 million, or 0.7 percent, which it attributed to strong growth in e-commerce deliveries and a small increase in standard mail, also known as junk mail. It is the first increase in revenue for the agency in five years.

But postal officials said the service’s expenses of $18.2 billion, which included continuing debt, offset the modest increase in revenue. Joseph Corbett, the Postal Service’s chief financial officer, said it had nearly $50 billion in debt obligations.

Officials said the Postal Service continues to lose $25 million a day as it waits for Congress to pass legislation to overhaul the postal system.

The Postal Service has struggled as mail volume has declined, which it continued to do in the second quarter, to 38.8 billion pieces, down from 39.4 billion for the same period a year earlier, according to agency financial documents.

Revenue from first-class mail, which provides the bulk of Postal Service revenue, declined $198 million, or 2.7 percent, from the same period last year, with a decrease in volume of 713 million pieces, or 4.1 percent.

There were a few bright spots in the gloomy report. Revenue from advertising mail increased $96 million, or 2.4 percent, in the second quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, on a volume increase of 181 million pieces, or 1 percent.

Revenue from package deliveries continued to grow, up $267 million, or 9.3 percent, compared with the same period last year.

Postal unions praised the second-quarter numbers, saying the figures show the continuing viability of the Postal Service.

“This positive trend undermines the doom-and-gloom scenarios postal critics cite — and it shows the folly of reducing services to Americans, as the postmaster general seeks to do,” said Fredric Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers.

Postal officials said they were able to curb the losses by cutting back the hours at many post offices, reducing staff through attrition and consolidating about half of the service’s processing plants. But the agency said these actions were not enough to reduce its huge debt.

Patrick R. Donahoe, the postmaster general, said Congress should pass a postal overhaul bill that will give the service the flexibility it needs.

“We need comprehensive legislation to provide the Postal Service with a workable business model for today’s marketplace,” Mr. Donahoe said at a morning briefing on the service’s finances for its board of governors.

The Postal Service said it continued to suffer from a 2006 Congressional mandate that requires it to pay $5.5 billion annually into a health fund for its future retirees. The agency defaulted on two payments last year for the first time and said it would not be able to make payments into the fund this year because of its worsening finances. The Postal Service and postal worker unions said Congress needed to fix the requirement by lowering the amount of the payments and stretching out the length of time needed to pay it.

The service also said the continuing shift to electronic communication, including online bill paying and e-mail, was affecting its bottom line. To offset the losses in this area, postal officials have asked Congress for the authority to enter into new lines of business, like beer and wine delivery, from which it is currently prohibited. The Senate passed a postal overhaul last year, but a House version never made it out of committee. Congress has not set a timetable for work on a new bill.

Mickey D. Barnett, chairman of the Postal Service board of governors, said that in the absence of Congressional action the board has asked agency officials to take several steps to deal with the continuing losses.

The changes include renegotiating labor agreements with postal worker unions, administrative actions to reduce costs and, as a last resort, increasing prices on post office products.

“We’re looking at every option to close our widening budgetary gap,” Mr. Barnett said.

Business Briefing | Company News: A Second Nuclear Plant in Turkey Is Approved

The Civil War marked the end of the age when pitched battles determined the outcome of a conflict.

What recent evidence of cannibalism at Jamestown tells us about the earliest English settlements.

Italian Lawmakers, After Stalemate, Re-elect President to Second Term

The move raised the possibility that Mr. Napolitano, 87, could preside over the creation of a broad-based coalition after national elections in February split Parliament into three intractable factions and failed to yield a government even as Italy’s economy, the third-largest in the euro zone, continued to stumble.

The election of Mr. Napolitano, supported by both the main center-left and center-right parties, suggested that the two sides would now be more willing to negotiate the formation of a government. But it also infuriated the anti-establishment Five Star Movement of Beppe Grillo, which won a quarter of the recent parliamentary vote.

While he cannot prevent a grand coalition, one including both major parties, from forming, Mr. Grillo could complicate matters by stirring renewed anger against the old political establishment, which is in upheaval.

After Mr. Grillo called on his supporters to take to the streets, hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the Parliament building, many holding placards in support of Five Star’s candidate, Stefano Rodotà, a legal expert and former leader of the center-left, which nonetheless did not back him. Mr. Rodotà is “not part of the old guard,” said one protester, Anna Maria Vatrella, an unemployed social worker. “All the left knows how to do is to hold on to the power they have. They have no interest in change. They have no idea what it means to live as normal people do.”

Mr. Napolitano’s current seven-year term is up in May. Lawmakers on Saturday implored him to run for president after failing to agree on a candidate acceptable to a majority of Parliament in two days of voting, and after the implosion on Friday of the center-left Democratic Party.

“I cannot dismiss my responsibility toward the nation,” Mr. Napolitano said before the vote, which made him the first second-term president in Italy’s 67-year-old republic. He added that he expected the political parties that had called on him to show “a corresponding sense of responsibility.”

“We must look at the difficult situation of the country, the problems of Italy and Italians and the image and the institutional role of this country in the world,” he said in a televised statement after the vote and a meeting with the presidents of the lower house and the Senate.

Although a testament to the respect he commands among all parties, Mr. Napolitano’s re-election was a controversial solution that underscored the profound difficulties that Italy’s established parties face in adapting to new economic and social realities.

It was “not a sign of health of the Italian political system, even if the effect could be positive,” said Antonio Polito, a political commentator. “Our system is no longer able to produce a stable government. The parliamentary system is broken, and it has not been able to fix itself.”

Mr. Napolitano said in his statement that a possible government had not been discussed, but political analysts said a grand coalition was likely. Such a government is most likely to exist as long as it takes to push through urgent economic measures and some critical reforms, including a new electoral law.

If the currently antagonistic parties do not come together, Mr. Napolitano could also dissolve Parliament and call a vote, though analysts said that was less likely because new elections would probably produce a similar result unless the electoral law was changed.

In November 2011, Mr. Napolitano helped orchestrate the rise to power of the current caretaker prime minister, Mario Monti, after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi stepped down during a period of intense market turmoil. Mr. Monti’s yearlong technocratic government ended in December when Mr. Berlusconi’s party withdrew support.

In the February elections, the Democratic Party won a majority in the lower house but not in the Senate, and its leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, rejected Mr. Berlusconi’s proposal for a grand coalition.

Elisabetta Povoledo reported from Rome, and Rachel Donadio from Athens.

Second Mile Insurer Off the Hook for Sandusky's Legal Bills

An insurer of the charity started by convicted serial child molester Jerry Sandusky does not have to cover the former Penn State assistant football coach's legal bills, a federal judge has ruled.

Singapore Names Second Round of QFLP Firms

Singapore has awarded additional Qualifying Foreign Law Practice licenses to four international law firms out of 23 that applied.

Sidley Austin; Linklaters; Jones Day; and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher are the four firms that received QFLP status, Singapore's Ministry of Law announced Tuesday. Unlike other foreign firms, QFLP firms are allowed to practice local Singapore law in certain areas and directly hire Singapore-qualified lawyers.

The four new QFLPs join six firms that were awarded licenses when the program was first rolled out in 2008: Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Herbert Smith, Latham & Watkins, Norton Rose, and White & Case.

In deciding whom to name this time around, the ministry said it considered factors including the value of offshore work the firm's Singapore office would generate, the number of lawyers who would be based in Singapore, and the degree to which the Singapore office would serve as a regional headquarters.

The ministry did not name the unsuccessful applicants but firms that had previously said they were applying in this round include DLA Piper, Ashurst, and K&L Gates.

The QFLP scheme embodies the Singaporean government's desire to simultaneously make Singapore a regional hub for international law firms while avoiding complete domination of its local profession by foreign firms. Before the QFLPs were introduced, foreign firms were only permitted to practice local law through joint law ventures with local firms.

These JLVs were nonexclusive, and tensions invariably arose as each firm within the venture continued to freely work with other firms outside of it. Most JLVs involving major U.S. firms quickly collapsed, and most of the large U.K. firms pulled out the moment QFLPs became available. Clifford Chance and Allen & Overy, for instance, were both previously in JLVs with local firms WongPartnership and Shook, Lin & Bok, respectively.

Linklaters' successful QFLP application this time around followed the collapse last year of its JLV with local market leader Allen & Gledhill. The firms' decade-long arrangement fell apart when Allen & Gledhill decided to discuss a strategic alliance with Allen & Overy. Those talks ended without a deal, but the Singaporean government decided to make such tie-ups easier by permitting international law firms to own one-third stakes in local ones.

Though foreign firms are clearly interested in becoming QFLPs, those who have the status largely regard it as "nice to have" rather than a necessity. QFLP firms have hired relatively small numbers of Singaporean lawyers, most of whom are dual-qualified.

Square Feet: Idled City Airports Get a Second Life as Housing

Stapleton’s journey from in-town airport to one of the city’s newest planned residential communities began more than a decade ago when it was replaced by Denver International Airport, which was built 12 miles out of town in the middle of a vast prairie with no residential neighbors to be bothered by its noise. Repurposing a large civilian airfield like Stapleton had not been done before in the United States.

But over the last decade the mixed-use community that has been developed there and one like it in Austin, Tex., are seen as examples of how problematic properties can be successfully converted. And these developments are being closely watched, as growing demand for air travel puts pressure on other urban airports with little space to grow.

“Airport repurposing is a rare event driven by unique local circumstances,” said Chris Oswald, vice president for safety and regulatory affairs for Airports Council International.

In Malmo, Sweden, the Bulltofta Airport built in 1923 was used for commercial passenger service until the 1970s, when Sturup Airport was built and the Bulltofta site was turned into a shopping and entertainment complex. Hong Kong’s downtown Kai Tak, made obsolete in 1998 with the opening of the new Hong Kong International Airport, will soon be turned into a cruise ship port, stadium and residential community.

With the development less than halfway complete at Stapleton, 4,000 residences have already been sold and 13,000 people now call the community home.

The common thread for all these projects, Mr. Oswald said, is the availability of an alternative airport with greater capability. “The availability of such sites is very rare, and the combined political and financial will to make use of them is even rarer,” he said.

The land developers behind the Denver and Austin projects agree. For all the unique problems with turning highly specialized industrial property into a place people can call home, they could not have succeeded without cooperation from a multitude of entities, including politicians, bureaucrats and residents.

“It’s very important to have an alignment with all the interests in the very beginning,” said James Chrisman, senior vice president of Forest City Stapleton Inc. which is in year 12 of its 25-year development in Denver. “Projects go different directions, cities turn over. We’ve worked with three mayors, the economy changes,” he said. “You need a strong foundation of a plan and a vision that everyone is committed to, to survive all those ups and downs that occur.”

Forest City Enterprises agreed to buy nearly 4,700 acres from the city of Denver as the development proceeded. When complete it will include 8,000 single-family homes, 4,000 apartments, 12 million square feet of office and retail space and 1,100 acres of parks. Significantly for the city of Denver, the new community has helped to reverse declining property around Stapleton.

“You have to remember there were planes that were 15-20 feet above the houses,” Mr. Chrisman said during an interview in the developer’s office located not far from the site of the landing area he was describing.

“There was a landing strip on the other side. They were coming right over those houses and landing.”

In giving Stapleton a new purpose, Forest City joins with just a few other real estate companies. When the Robert Mueller Municipal Airport in Austin, Tex., closed in 1999, the California-based Catellus was hired to turn 700 acres of runway, terminal and parking into a similar mixed-use community called Mueller.

Second Circuit Strikes Key Provision of DOMA

A divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit yesterday held in Windsor v. United States, 12-2335-cv, that a federal law defining marriage as solely between one man and one woman violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.