LITTLE ROCK — Warren Buffett, 80, the billionaire investor, said in his annual letter to shareholders that his “trigger finger is itchy” for takeovers after cash holdings at his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. climbed to $38.2 billion.
Leslie Janous, a bookkeeper in Knoxville, Tenn., pleaded guilty to stealing $4 million from her employer, precious-metals broker Scancarbon, and using it to finance a luxury lifestyle that included a lavish “Sweet 15” party for her daughter.
Al Raimi, 29, a lead transportation security officer at Newark Liberty Airport in New Jersey, admitted that he and his supervisor regularly stole money from travelers’ bags during security screenings and could face up to 10 years in prison at his June 6 sentencing.
Luigi Manocchio, 83, who is accused of being the former leader of the New England mob, pleaded innocent to federal extortion and conspiracy charges in Providence, R.I., and a judge ordered him kept in custody until a bail hearing this week.
Lilla Kozlowski
said her condominium association, citing a no-lawn-decorations rule, told her to remove a 3-foot-tall statue of the Virgin Mary from her Hilliard, Ohio, yard or face a $50 fine, after the board said it decided it was time to “clean things up” in the complex.
James Morris, 26, who taught music at University High School in Orange City, Fla., was charged after investigators say he pawned instruments that belonged to students and the school and made $825 between October and January.
Pope Benedict XVI
urged doctors to protect women from the “deception” that abortions might solve social or economic difficulties or health problems, telling the Vatican’s bioethics advisory board, the Pontifical Academy for Life, that “abortion solves nothing.”
Mike McGinn, Seattle’s mayor, a bicycling enthusiast who had borrowed his wife’s bike to ride to work and it was stolen, tweeted: “I know I’ve been encouraging people to ride bikes more, but I didn’t mean u could ‘borrow’ my wife’s bike w/o asking.”
Harry Lysons, a cigar fancier on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, has agreed to light up on the street from now on or pay $2,000 per smoke in a deal struck with next-door neighbors Russell and Amanda Poses, who had complained that fumes from Lysons’ apartment made their playroom and dining room unusable and their children sick.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/27/2011