US – Saturday, July 4
National
Assets go into trust for family
Details of Michael Jackson’s will began to emerge Wednesday with all of his multimillion-dollar estate being placed in a family trust, even as plans for his highly anticipated funeral remained sketchy.
 
International
Last will of Michael Jackson
I, MICHAEL JOSEPH JACKSON, a resident of the State of California, declare this to be my last Will, and do hereby revoke all former wills and codicils made by me. 
 
The Word
The Beckhams’ island getaway
GOSSIP. According to the Sun, David Beckham is planning a trip to Necker Island, Richard Branson’s private island hideaway, to celebrate his 10th wedding anniversary with Victoria Beckham. And the best part? It only costs $51,000 a night to have the whole island to themselves.
 
Movies
The gangster of Hollywood
FEATURE. Johnny Depp doesn’t know what time it is. Though he technically calls an adorable village in France home and owns an island in the Caribbean, the mercurial actor spends so much time working that his internal clock is all out of whack.
 
 
Business
Sales pressure seen hurting consumers
Consumer and labor groups demanded Bank of America Corp. and other lenders reform their sales practices so that workers under pressure to meet sales quotas do not saddle customers with costly and unnecessary products.
 
Consumer Trends
Got smart-phone envy?
You’re in an elevator, on the subway or waiting in a line, and while those around you are tapping away on their BlackBerrys and iPhones, you take out your plain old cell phone and can’t help but feel a little … inadequate. Worry no more. Here are a handful of phones and programs that will help you quash those feelings of cell phone shame.
 
Published 20:27, September the 23rd, 2008
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Wall St. executives pay price of failure

Crash destroys CEO stock values. Still, they won’t starve

 The financial crisis has taken a big bite out of Wall Street pay packets with top bankers losing hundreds of millions of dollars as share prices collapse.

The chief executives of Wall Street’s biggest banks get the lion’s share of their pay in stock and stock options.
Dick Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers – forced into bankruptcy last week – lost more than $740 million as the Lehman share price fell from a 52-week high of $67.35 to almost nothing.

Fuld held 11 million Lehman shares, according to  the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, lost nearly half a billion to the credit crunch.

Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain saw his holdings lose more than $51 million while Morgan Stanley’s John Mack lost more than $123 million in value on paper.

David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s, the New York based credit rating agency, said: “Shareholders want to make sure that a chief executive runs the bank well and makes the share price go up. The easiest way to do that is to make sure his pay rises and falls depending on the success or failure of the company. Here we see what happens when the company fails.”

Still, Goldman's Blankfein had a total pay package worth more than $67 million last year.

Fuld, who received a bonus of more than $35 million in his last year, made so much as CEO that he is under pressure to return some of his fortune to shareholders who lost everything.