Rupert Murdoch has entered a dark horse in high-stakes races before, and won. On Monday, the News Corp. media titan trots out the Fox Business Network.
Two years in the making, the channel will challenge General Electric Co.'s highly profitable CNBC network as it seeks to redefine business news for average Americans faced with increasingly complex decisions about their financial futures.

Murdoch already has knocked CNN off the cable news throne with Fox News Channel. Can he do the same to NBC Universal's profit machine, whose audience of affluent professionals is one of the most sought-after advertising targets?

"CNBC has a monopoly on an in-demand demographic, but never underestimate Murdoch," said Porter

Bibb, a managing partner at Mediatech Capital Partners, a financier of media businesses. "Success might take a while, but this is the right thing for them to do."

Fox defines success—aside from ratings—as expanding the business news audience by "demystifying" the subject, according to Kevin Magee, the Fox News executive vice president in charge of the new business channel. There are plenty of people not watching business news because it's presented in an "off-putting" way, he said.

Magee would not disclose the programming schedule, citing competitive concerns. But FBN's flashy Web site promises the network will cut through jargon to speak to the average investor, echoing comments by Murdoch last month that his channel

Americans Leonid Hurwicz, Eric S. Maskin and Roger B. Myerson won the Nobel prize in economics on Monday for developing a theory that helps explain how incentives and private information affect the functioning of markets.

Hurwicz, 90, is the oldest Nobel winner ever, according to the academy. "I really didn't expect it," said the Moscow-born researcher, an emeritus economics professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

The three winners "laid the foundations of mechanism design theory," which plays a central role in contemporary economics and political science, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

Essentially, the three men, starting in 1960 with Hurwicz, studied how game theory can help determine the best, most efficient method for allocating resources, the academy said.

Their research has helped explain decision-making procedures involved in economic transactions including, for example, what insurance polices will provide the best coverage without inviting misuse.

It has been used in everything from negotiations over labor issues to the auctioning of government bonds and has helped countries and companies better understand how markets function even when conditions are rocky.

Hurwicz told reporters he was surprised to have won the award.

"There were times when other people said I was on the short list, but as time passed and nothing happened I didn't expect the recognition would come because people who were familiar with my work were slowly dying off," he said.

Maskin, 56, is professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey; and Myerson, 56, is a professor at the University of Chicago in Illinois.

The 30 men, mostly Algerians, have been charged with membership of a terrorist organization, conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack and forgery.

The alleged mastermind Abderrahmane Tahiri, alias Mohamed Achraf, was extradited from Switzerland in April 2005.

Spanish authorities suspect Tahiri planned to ram a truck loaded with 1,100 pounds of explosives into the National Court in downtown Madrid.

"This was an organized and structured terrorist group, uncovered in November 2003, with radical Salafist tendencies, which defended the jihad (holy war) and intended carrying it out in Spain through violent actions such as that planned against the National Court and the persons within," according to the indictment.

"With that explosion, they hoped to kill the persons within (judges, clerks and public in general) and destroy the files held against the 'mujahedeen brotherhood' inside," the indictment said.

Investigating magistrate Fernando Grande-Marlaska said such an attack could have killed up to 1,000 people.

The prosecution is demanding sentences of between two and 46 years for the accused.

The trial is expected to last several months.

Police uncovered the alleged plot with the help of an unnamed informant who had lived with some of the accused.

In an initial investigation, Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon claimed Tahiri set up a cell known as the "Martyrs for Morocco" while he served time in a Spanish prison for credit card fraud between 1999 and 2002.

Garzon said the cell had links with other Islamic terrorists, including the group believed to be behind the March 11 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people.

Authorities said Clark violated a court order in August 2006 by placing several calls to his father-in-law. He had been charged with multiple counts of failure to comply with the order.

Clark's wife, Monica Rodriguez Gonzalez, filed for a domestic violence protective order in June 2006, claiming that Clark had abused her. The order prohibited Clark from having any contact with her and eight other people, including their child.

Clark was disqualified after reaching the finals of the popular TV show's second season in 2003 for failing to reveal a previous arrest.

He later accused "Idol" judge Paula Abdul of coaching him and initiating an affair. She denied his allegations, and Fox TV cleared Abdul of any wrongdoing.

Mr. Pitt has devoted his entire professional career, a period of more than 40 years, to the field of public finance. During his career, Mr. Pitt has worked extensively in virtually every area of public finance as either a bond lawyer or an investment banker in over 45 states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, involving several thousand financings.

He was initially associated with the Chicago law firm of Chapman and Cutler for five years, after which he was one of the founding partners of the Chicago law firm of Borge and Pitt. The firm operated as a public finance boutique for nearly 20 years with offices in Chicago and New York before merging with the national law firm of Katten Muchin & Zavis, now known as Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP.

After ten years with KMZ, rounding out 34 years as a practicing public finance lawyer, principally as bond counsel or underwriters' counsel, Mr. Pitt broadened the scope of his experience and began nearly ten years of public finance investment banking by joining First Chicago Capital Markets, Inc., which in 1998 merged with Banc One Capital Markets, Inc., where Mr. Pitt was a Managing Director and headed up municipal and investment grade corporate securities origination. In August 2000, he joined the Municipal Securities Group of PaineWebber Incorporated, now known as UBS Securities LLC, and was a Managing Director in the MSG's Healthcare Finance Group until June 2004, when he joined Morgan Keegan's Fixed Income Banking Group in its newly established Chicago Public Finance Investment Banking Office as a Managing Director. He remained there for three years and joined Greenberg Traurig in August 2007.

"It isn't everyday that you can add an industry legend. George has been a trendsetter and model of success in the public finance world for decades. His presence has already created excitement within our Chicago public finance practice and among our clients." said Keith J. Shapiro, Co-Managing Shareholder of the Chicago office.

Mr. Pitt earned his B.A. from Northwestern University and his J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law.

About Greenberg Traurig, LLP

Greenberg Traurig, LLP is an international, full-service law firm with more than 1,700 attorneys and governmental affairs professionals in the U.S., Europe and Asia. The firm is ranked seventh on The American Lawyer's Am Law 100 listing of the largest law firms in the U.S., based on number of lawyers.

Greenberg Traurig serves clients from offices in: Albany, NY; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Atlanta, GA; Boca Raton, FL; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX; Denver, CO; Fort Lauderdale, FL; Houston, TX; Las Vegas, NV; Los Angeles, CA; Miami, FL; Morristown, NJ; New York, NY; Orange County, CA; Orlando, FL; Philadelphia, PA; Phoenix, AZ; Sacramento, CA; Silicon Valley, CA; Tallahassee, FL; Tampa Bay, FL; Tokyo, Japan; Tysons Corner, VA; Washington, D.C.; West Palm Beach, FL; Wilmington, DE; and Zurich, Switzerland. Additionally, the firm has strategic alliances with the following independent law firms: Olswang, London and Brussels; Studio Santa Maria, Milan and Rome; and Hayabusa Asuka Law Offices in Tokyo.

For additional information, please visit the firm's Web site at www.gtlaw.com.