It's Michigan vs. Massachusetts--and we're not talking about the NBA Eastern Conference Finals! Those states' pensions funds are hoping to lead a lawsuit against Bear Stearns over its fall. The Sun reports it's likely Michigan will be the lead state, since its $62 million in losses (pension fund participants were state employees like teachers, judges and cops) are bigger than Massachusetts' $21 million. The centerpiece of Bear Stearns news is the first Wall Street Journal......

Photograph of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke (left) testifying before the Senate Banking Committee by Susan Walsh/AP New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geither told lawmakers today, "What we were observing in U.S. and global financial markets was similar to the classic pattern in financial crises," as Federal Reserve officials defended why they helped JP Morgan rescue Bear Stearns from collapse. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee, "Given the exceptional......

Photograph of Bear Stearns' headquarters (center) and JP Morgan (right) by Mark Lennihan/AP With JP Morgan now offering $1.2 billion for troubled Bear Stearns, it's expected the deal will close on April 8. JP Morgan needed 50% of Bear Stearns shareholder approval, and the new $10/share price would give them 45% yes votes (5% is expected from bondholders); an analyst told USA Today the revised deal "virtually guarantees a yes vote at $10 per......

Photograph of Bear Stearns by Mark Lennihan/AP The NY Times reports "JPMorgan Chase was in talks on Sunday night for a deal that would quintuple its offer for Bear Stearns...in an effort to pacify angry Bear shareholders." Over a week ago, JP Morgan had agreed to pay $2/share for Bear Stearns stock, for a total payout of $236 million, but the new talks would raise the price to $10/share, making it a billion-dollar deal.......

Although the stock markets didn't tank yesterday (the Dow was up 21 points), it was a volatile day as Wall Street reacted to the bargain basement sale of Bear Stearns to JP Morgan. Naturally, this means the first lawsuit has been filed on behalf of shareholders who claim the investment bank "made false statement about the firm's financial condition." The employees are feeling the brunt of the pain: Besides their Bear Stearns stock plummeting in......

Photograph of newspaper distributor in London by Sang Tan/AP This is going to be a tough morning on Wall Street. World financial markets fell and are falling after yesterday's news that JP Morgan had purchased Bear Stearns for $2 a share, a grand price of $236 million for a company valued at $3.54 billion on Friday. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index fell 3.7%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 5.25%. Currnetly, London's FTSE 100 has......

Anthony Marshall has not only been indicted for alleged criminal mishandling of his mother Brooke Astor's estate - he's being called a "STONE COLD HEIR" by the Post for not properly maintaining his mother's grave. Ouch! A public spat with his own son over Astor's care led to an ultimate court settlement where Marshall ceded guardianship of Astor and her estate to JP Morgan Chase and Astor's friend Annette de la Renta. But after Astor......

Dare we say that Brooke Astor is rolling in her grave? Yesterday, it was reported that her son Anthony Marshall and his former lawyer Francis Morrissey would be indicted for criminal activity over the handling of her will. And this morning, Marshall turned himself in at the Manhattan DA's offices, to face charges of fraud, forgery and grand larceny. Or, as DA Robert Morgenthau said, "The indictment charges that Marshall and Morrissey took advantage of......

As the city and state start to get to work on West Side redevelopment, the Mayor said that one entity won't be getting tax breaks if it moves. Mayor Bloomberg was asked if Madison Square Garden would continue to get $10.9 million in tax breaks if it moves West to the Farley Post Office building (that's what a map in the draft Environmental Impact Statement notes). Bloomberg decisively said, "Not if I'm mayor they won't.......

After many attempts by World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein and state officials to keep brokerage Merrill Lynch downtown, the NY Times reports the firm "appears ready" to move to a new, yet-to-be built skyscraper on Seventh Avenue between 32nd and 33rd Streets. Currently Merrill Lynch has offices at 4 World Financial Center, and it seems that it wants "extra large trading floors." It's questionable whether a Midtown building to accommodate 11,000 employees would be......

"I feel I’m losing my mind. I wish I knew what was the matter with me. It would be better to die than go on feeling this way." - Anthony Marshall's recollection of what his mother Brooke Astor said in a 2000 letter Is there a smoking letter in the battle over recently deceased philanthropist and New York City social fixture Broke Astor? As her son Anthony Marshall and her court-appointed guardians battle over whether......

The only good thing about the battle over Brooke Astor's estate that is taking place in Westchester Surrogate Court is that Astor herself does not have to be privy to it. Her son Anthony Marshall accused custodians of the estate, Astor's friend Annette de La Renta and JP Morgan Chase, of a "malicious jihad." de la Renta and Chase were appointed to oversee the estate after there were some questions about whether Astor's will......

The Fire Department is investigating whether standpipes failed to bring firefighters water to help fight a seven-alarm fire that broke out on the 17th floor of the Deutsche Bank building on Saturday. The cause of the fire, which spread between the 14th and 26th floors of the lower Manhattan building, is also unclear, though the FDNY suspects it may have been caused by a cigarette or a faulty electrical panel. FDNY officials suspect that......

Maybe there is good reason to try to stay off Forbes' list of 400 wealthiest people. The Manhattan DA's office charged a 24-year-old Russian national with an elaborate identity ring that targeted rich Americans. Igor Klopov recruited people in the U.S., via sites like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com, to help him and he managed to steal $1.5 million from four people. But Klopov was nabbed during an attempt to take $10.7 million from Anthony Pritzker, of......

After months of negotiations, JP Morgan Chase will announce plans to build a 42-story tower at Ground Zero. Government officials had been trying to entice the third-largest bank in the world to move downtown, as a sign the area would flourish once all the construction is complete. Chase wanted incentives and subsidies, much like the $650 million Goldman Sachs incentive deal, in order to be convinced to move downtown, but officials were wary. From......

The demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building next to Ground Zero has been halted after officials are still unable to determine how a several-foot-long section of pipe fell from the deconstruction site and crashed through the roof of a neighborhing firehouse, injuring two firefighters. The incident occurred yesterday morning and investigators are still wondering how a 15-foot section of steam pipe from the irreperably damaged office tower fell through the roof of the firehouse,......

Former president Bill Clinton announced the Clinton Climate Initiative during the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit yesterday. The CCI is an ambitious program to help 15 cities (Bangkok, Berlin, Chicago, Houston, Johannesburg, Karachi, London, Melbourne, Mexico City, Mumbai, New York, Rome, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Tokyo, and Toronto) renovate/retrofit buildings with more energy efficient products. Clinton has managed to get ABN AMRO, Citi, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase, and UBS to each put up $1......

Jeremy Olshan created this map, the Twin Towers Diaspora, which gives an interesting overview of where former tenants of the World Trade Center have moved after September 11, 2001. Some have stayed in Manhattan, but others have moved to the outer-boroughs and out of the state. You can click on the markers to see the company name and where the company was originally located in the WTC. Tenant Wise has a list (as of......

A man was arrested for stealing $3.6 million - and the money was from a city bank account! Unemployed social worker Tracy Ball used the money to buy jewelry from TV-and-online retailer Jewelry Television; then he'd pawn the jewelry for cash to pay bills - and some other luxury items. When he was arrested at his Brooklyn home, the AP reported that investigator found him with "two huge plasma televisions, $35,000 in cash, and several......

Most people suspeced as much, but when it's coming from the bank that's investigating the issues, it's all the more damning: The NY Times reports that JP Morgan Chase is looking into whether $14 million worth of "cash, property and stocks" was "improperly obtained" by Anthony Marshall from his ailing 104 year old mother, Brooke Astor. After the drama and accusations of Marshall refusing to buy his mother non-skid socks, leaving her nurses to do......

Brooke Astor's son, Anthony Marshall, who has been accused of abusing his guardianship of his mother's millon dollar estate for his gain - while skimping on her medical care - struck back with his own court filings. Marshall denies his care amounted to elder abuse and said he was being victimized by claims. Marshall doesn't want JP Morgan Chase, who along with Astor friend Annette de la Renta was made a temporary guardian of the......

Now that the media has been able to see the papers in the battle over Brooke Astor's care, it turns out that Supreme Court Justice John Stackhouse has made some decisions about the ailing philanthropist's care. When Astor's grandson, Philip Marshall, accused his father, Anthony Marshall, of mishandling Astor's estate - with Anthony spending money on his own dealings, not his 104 year old mother - temporary guardiandship of Astor went to her friend Annette......

We know all about hiding money in the bed mattress or in the coffee can. But in your sock drawer? That's so obvious. But a Brooklyn man did just that when he stole $100 million worth of checks from JP Morgan. Gregory Halley worked at a Brooklyn mail room facility and stole the checks, getting cash in return for them. Police found "40 stolen checks worth $4 million stuffed in his socks " when they......

"Her bedroom is so cold in the winter that my grandmother is forced to sleep in the TV room in torn nightgowns on a filthy couch that smells, probably from dog urine." When you read something like that, the last thing you'd expect is that it would describe Brooke Astor, the millionaire philanthropist, but, in fact, it's an affidavit from her grandson about her current, terrible conditions. And what's more, Philip Marshall says his father......

- A man helping a friend (who was on crutches) across the street was hit and killed by a car - The six men who are suspected of beating a man to death in Chelsea may be connected to other robberies - Now it can piss off weekenders: Amtrak loses power again - You know how The Sopranos' Vito lost a lot of weight this past season? Well, now there's a disagreement over how......

Sometimes we think that Con Ed is just pretending to be incompetent to keep us on our toes. We mean, did they really manage to lose 15,000 Con Edison employees W-2 forms? In preparation for its taxes the utility was supposed to send two cartridge tapes containing all of its tax information in a package to JP Morgan Chase in Binghamton. But the Post is reporting that by March 10 it became clear there......

If people are looking for another opportunity to protest against the cruel doings of Fifth Avenue co-op boards, the NY Post presents a possible cause. A JP Morgan vice-president is suing 965 Fifth Avenue's co-op board for discrimination, saying that he was turned down for a co-op because he's Mexican and his son has Down syndrome. Pedro Gonzalez de Cosio says he has the money, plus offered to put two years worth of maintenance charges......

Choire Sicha...

Newsday/AP report that a JP Morgan treasurer embezzled $4.5 million from Columbia University and other accounts. She was sentenced to 7 years in jail through a guilty plea, but in my book, that's not enough. Who the hell do these white-collar criminals think they are? Hats off to whoever realized $4.5million was missing, but what's also sick is that I could imagine Columbia, with the huge endowment it does have, might not have noticed it......