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Profit Boost Perks Up Wal-Mart Shares
Business Law Info | 2007/10/11 13:36

Wal-Mart (WMT) shares climbed 3% Thursday after the giant retailer surprised Wall Street by boosting its earnings estimate for the third quarter, despite tepid sales.

The Bentonville, Ark., company said it now expects to make 68 cents to 69 cents a share for the quarter, up from its previous forecast of 62 cents to 65 cents a share. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected earnings of 63 cents a share.

The company said it had improved expense controls at its Wal-Mart Stores division, which expanded profit margins. That helped offset relatively meager sales growth.

Wal-Mart said same-store sales rose 1.4% from a year ago in September, at the lower end of its forecast for a 1% to 3% rise. Analysts expected a 1.8% increase in same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year.

Sales in established Wal-Mart stores inched up 0.8%, and those at warehouse-club operator Sam's Club jumped 4.4%.

"Overall, apparel and home remain soft. Company research reinforces that customers remain concerned about their finances, especially the cost of living," Wal-Mart said. "In addition, unseasonably warmer weather in much of the country, coupled with tighter consumer spending, negatively impacted key seasonal categories."

The report came as many retailers reported sluggish sales for September, including Wal-Mart rival Target (TGT) and department-store chains like J.C. Penney (JCP) and Macy's (M) . While several chains attributed the drop to warmer-than-average weather, the companies are also dealing with inventory missteps and the threat of tighter consumer spending.



Gore to learn whether he'll win Nobel Peace Prize
Legal World News | 2007/10/11 12:32
They say they love his advocacy for the environment, his intellect and sense of humor. The people urging Al Gore to run for president have not persuaded him to do so — not yet anyway.

The latest salvo from those hoping Gore would reprise his 2000 run for the White House came in a full-page ad in The New York Times sponsored by draftgore.com, which says it is a group of grass-roots Democrats. Gore has said repeatedly, if not definitively, that he is not planning to seek the presidency.

"Your country needs you now — as do your party and the planet you are fighting so hard to save," said Wednesday's ad, which group founder Monica Friedlander of Oakland, Calif., said cost $65,000.

Despite no overt campaigning for the presidency, Gore was backed by 12 percent of Democrats in this month's Associated Press-Ipsos poll. That's down from 20 percent in June, but enough to tie for third with former Sen. John Edwards, well behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and just trailing Sen. Barack Obama.

"Doggone him," Pat Sutton, 69, a Gore supporter and homemaker from Lincoln, Neb., said of Gore's non-candidacy. "That's the kind of president I want, who's willing to stand up to the hard stuff. And there's a lot of hard stuff out there."

"He's far and away more intelligent than the others," said Jason Thompson, 36, an environmental health inspector in Fort Myers, Fla. "I like his environmental stand, I think he's the more sincere of the candidates, and I think he got hosed in his first election" when George W. Bush defeated him in 2000 in a disputed election.

Longtime political aide Roy Neel, who runs Gore's office in Nashville, Tenn., said the former vice president is focusing on prompting action against global warming. He said he has seen no signs Gore is contemplating a race.

"He's making no plans, and we're doing nothing," said Neel, adding, "He's not ruled it out in the future."

Asked what "the future" meant, Neel said, "Sometime later than today."

Donna Brazile, campaign manager for Gore's bitter 2000 loss to Bush, said she believes he will not run — this time.

"He's very comfortable and committed" to his work on global warming, she said, and to business pursuits that include Current TV, a cable network he helped found. She would not rule out a future presidential run.

"Al Gore should be viable for the rest of his life" as a candidate, she said.

Gore has been in the public eye this year, particularly in February when the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" about his efforts to educate about global warming won the Oscar for best documentary. Current TV also captured an Emmy.

Friends hope a crowning third award will come later this week, when the Nobel Prize for peace is announced.



Supreme Court lets H-P/Compaq suit proceed
Class Action News | 2007/10/11 09:46

A class-action lawsuit alleging Compaq Computer Corp. sold defective computers can proceed, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday. Compaq, which was founded in 1982 and bought by Palo Alto-based Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) in 2002, was sued by Oklahoma residents who said the company sold defective computers and then refused to repair or replace them.

In June 2003, the state gave class-action status to the case which grew to include 1.7 million people who bought similar computers.

H-P is a major employer in Roseville.



Lawsuit accuses Mattel of insider trading
Lawyer Blog News | 2007/10/10 23:49

Attorneys for a Michigan pension fund alleged in a shareholder lawsuit filed Wednesday that Mattel Inc. has misled investors by delaying the reporting of defects in its toys to federal regulators. The lawsuit, filed in Delaware's Court of Chancery, also accuses three current members and one former member of Mattel's board of directors of engaging in illegal insider trading by dumping more than $33 million in stock before the company's massive toy recalls this summer.

Since August, Mattel has announced three separate recalls of some 21 million toys because of dangers to children from lead paint or from tiny magnets that can be harmful if swallowed.

Attorneys representing the Sterling Heights, Mich., police and fire pension fund allege that Mattel knew about the defects for months but failed to report them to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, as required by federal law. They allege that the company has withheld information about its products from the commission for years in order to prop up sales and avoid fines, thereby artificially inflating the value of Mattel's shares and breaching their fiduciary duties to shareholders.

Officials with El Segundo, Calif.-based Mattel did not immediately respond to a telephone call and e-mail seeking comment on the lawsuit.



Bush Pushes Congress on 'No Child' Law
U.S. Legal News | 2007/10/10 15:24
President Bush said that he's open to new ideas for changing the "No Child Left Behind" education law but will not accept watered-down standards or rollbacks in accountability. The president and lawmakers in both parties want changes to the five-year-old law — a key piece of his domestic policy legacy, which faces a tough renewal fight in Congress. "There can be no compromise on the basic principle: Every child must learn to read and do math at, or above, grade level," he said in a statement Tuesday from the Rose Garden that was directed at Congress and critics of the law. "And there can be no compromise on the need to hold schools accountable to making sure we achieve that goal."

The law requires annual math and reading tests in grades three through eight and once in high school. Schools that miss benchmarks face increasingly tough consequences, such as having to replace their curriculum, teachers or principals.

Earlier, Bush and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings met with civil rights leaders, educators and advocates for minority and disadvantaged students.

Almost everyone agrees the law should be changed to encourage schools to measure individual student progress over time instead of using snapshot comparisons of certain grade levels.

There also is broad agreement that the law should be changed so that schools that miss progress goals by a little don't face the same consequences as schools that miss them by a lot.

There are, however, deep divisions over some proposed changes, including merit pay for teachers and whether schools should be judged based on test scores in subjects other than reading and math.

Opponents to some of the legislative proposals come from the conservative and liberal wings of Congress.

National Urban League President Marc Morial, who was in the meeting with Bush, said the law hasn't been funded even to the levels authorized in the original legislation. But he and others did not lay the blame entirely at Bush's feet.

"Both Congress and the president should make the collective funding of this act a priority," Morial said.

Morial said he and others also talked to Bush about addressing the disparity in the amount of money committed to educating children in different parts of the country, and about strengthening a provision in the law calling for after-school services to help children who fall behind.

Bush listed several ways for enhancing the law:

_Give local leaders more flexibility and resources.

_Offer other educational options to families of children stuck in low-performing schools.

_Increase access to tutoring programs.

_Reward good teachers who improve student achievement in low-income schools.

_Expand access to advanced placement courses.

_Improve math and science instruction.

The president noted national test results released last month that showed elementary and middle schoolers posting across-the-board gains in math and more modest improvements in reading. But he also noted that nearly half of Hispanic and black students still do not graduate from high school on time.



Man Pleads Guilty to 2nd Kidnapping
Criminal Law Updates | 2007/10/10 15:20
A former pizzeria manager said Tuesday that he attempted to kill a boy he kidnapped and held captive in his apartment, but the child persuaded him not to do it.

Michael Devlin, 41, pleaded guilty to kidnapping, sexually assaulting and attempting to murder Shawn Hornbeck, and received multiple life sentences. He pleaded guilty Monday to kidnapping another boy, and is expected to enter more guilty pleas in other courts.

During Tuesday's hearing, Devlin — standing just feet away from Shawn's weeping parents — admitted in graphic detail how he abducted Shawn in 2002. He described the point at which the boy apparently turned from being an abduction victim to a captive forced to stay alive by following Devlin's horrific orders.

After Shawn was abducted at gunpoint while riding his bike in rural Washington County, Devlin took the then-11-year-old to his apartment in suburban St. Louis where he repeatedly sexually assaulted the boy. Days later, Devlin took Shawn back to rural Washington County in his pickup truck, apparently intent on killing him.

He said he pulled Shawn from his truck and began to strangle him. Shawn resisted.

"I attempted to kill (Shawn) and he talked me out of it," Devlin said.

Devlin stopped the choking, but then sexually assaulted the boy again. Prosecutors said it was at that point that Shawn told Devlin he would do whatever was asked of him in order to stay alive.

"This boy made this contract, this deal with the devil, only to survive," Washington County prosecutor John Rupp said.

Devlin kidnapped William "Ben" Ownby in January, and police who found Ben four days after he was taken were shocked to discover a 15-year-old Shawn in Devlin's apartment.

Devlin pleaded guilty Monday to one charge of child kidnapping and one charge of armed criminal action in Ben's abduction.

Prosecutors said the combined pleas mean Devlin will not be eligible for parole until he is more than 100 years old. He was sentenced to three life terms plus 60 years in prison Tuesday, in addition to a life sentence he received Monday.

Rupp said he was satisfied with the sentences Devlin received.

"You heard it from his own mouth. You've heard what kind of a monster he is," Rupp said after the hearing.

Devlin's defense attorneys and Shawn's parents declined to comment Tuesday. Devlin was expected to plead guilty later Tuesday in St. Louis County to 71 felony charges, including kidnapping and sexual assault, and was to appear in federal court in St. Louis by Wednesday.

Devlin's attorneys have said he accepted a plea deal after reviewing the massive body of evidence collected by state and federal authorities. The boys' families said they were relieved because the pleas will spare the teens from testifying and reliving the ordeal.

"Nothing good could have come from a trial," said defense attorney Michael Kielty. "The evidence ... is just absolutely overwhelming."

While it is The Associated Press' policy not to identify suspected victims of sexual abuse in most cases, the story of Shawn and Ben has been widely publicized and their names are well known.



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