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Nicolas Cage brought about his own financial ruin with a spending spree that included two castles, 15 palatial homes, a flotilla of yachts and a squadron of Rolls Royces, his former business manager said.
Samuel Levin, responding to a lawsuit Cage filed against him, said he warned the Oscar-winning actor that he could face bankruptcy unless he scaled back his lavish lifestyle.
Cage, one of Hollywood's highest-paid movie stars, sued Levin in October, charging that he "lined his pockets with several million dollars in business management fees while sending Cage down a path toward financial ruin."
"Cage discovered that he is now forced to sell major assets and investments at a significant loss and is faced with huge tax liabilities because of Levin's incompetence, misrepresentations and recklessness," Cage's lawsuit said. He asked the Los Angeles Superior Court for $20 million in damages from Levin.
Levin filed a counter-complaint this week demanding $129,000 owed to him by Cage for recent work on his tax returns. The filing also argued that Cage was "deeply in debt" when he started working for him in 2001 because Cage had "already squandered tens of millions of dollars he had earned as a movie star."
Levin said he warned Cage, whose given name is Nicolas Coppola, that he needed to earn $30 million a year "just to maintain his lavish lifestyle." He urged Cage to save "a cash cushion" of at least $10 million "to alleviate the financial pressure to take film roles that might be detrimental to his career," Levin's response said.
Several of Cage's recent movie roles have been seen by critics as "paycheck gigs" taken only because of his pressing debt.
Levin's filing claimed that starting in 2005 and then "with increasing urgency" over the next two years, he "implored Coppola to stop buying real estate and urged him to reduce his real estate holdings, warning Coppola that the financial press was filled with references to a 'real estate bubble.' "
He countered Cage's claim that the actor was left in the dark about his finances.
"Levin repeatedly warned Coppola that he was living beyond his means, urged him to spend less, and warned him that financial disaster loomed if he continued to spend uncontrollably," Levin's filing said.
"Levin described the folly of several other well-known entertainers who compulsively overspent their way into bankruptcy, and warned Coppola 'it could happen to you,' " the filing said.
Cage should have known about his debt because "he signed every check for every monetary transaction throughout the relationship," Levin said.
"Instead of listening to Levin, cross-defendant Coppola spent most of his free time shopping for high ticket purchases, and wound up with 15 personal residences, most of which were bought against Levin's advice," Levin's complaint said. "Likewise, Levin advised Coppola against buying a Gulfstream jet, against buying and owning a flotilla of yachts, against buying and owning a squadron of Rolls Royces, against buying millions of dollars in jewelry and art."
Cage's four yachts included one each for the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, Newport Beach, California, and Rhode Island, Levin said.
In 2007 alone, Cage's "shopping spree entailed the purchase of three additional residences at a total cost of more than $33 million; the purchase of 22 automobiles (including 9 Rolls Royces); 12 purchases of expensive jewelry; and 47 purchases of artwork and exotic items," Levin's filing said.
"Coppola also spent huge sums taking his sizable entourage on costly vacations and threw enormous, Gatsby-style parties at his residences," it said.
Levin's warnings that Cage was living beyond his means were not just ignored, but "at times Levin was rebuked for trying to restrain the outflow of cash," he said.
"The pinnacle" of Cage's spending spree was the purchase of two castles -- in England and Germany -- which Levin warned "were decrepit and needed huge expenditures," he said.
Cage's financial collapse came in 2008 when real estate values plunged and most of his residences turned "upside down, just as the global credit crunch made it impossible to cover Coppola's endless cash calls by borrowing more money," Levin said.
The case of Nicolas Cage versus Samuel Levin is set for a hearing in a Beverly Hills, California, courtroom on February 3, 2010, according to court records
Israel approved a construction plan Tuesday for hundreds of houses in a disputed neighborhood on Jerusalem's southern outskirts, quickly prompting criticism from Washington.
The Jewish state's Interior Ministry said it had approved the construction of 900 units in Gilo. The approval of construction moves forward the process for the project; it will now be opened to public objections.
Final approval will follow several other stages, and construction is probably several years away.
Washington said it was dismayed at the move.
"At a time when we are working to relaunch negotiations, these action make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a written statement.
"The U.S. also objects to other Israeli practices in Jerusalem related to housing, including the continuing pattern of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes. Our position is clear: The status of Jerusalem is a permanent-status issue that must be resolved through negotiations between the parties," Gibbs said.
"Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations."
President Obama entered office in January promising a new focus on the conflict. He appointed a Middle East peace envoy, George Mitchell, whose efforts have failed to break the deadlock.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to order a total freeze on all Jewish settlement construction on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, as the Obama administration originally demanded.
The United States has stepped back from that position, leading to uproar among Palestinians.
And the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, has threatened to resign, which could lead to the collapse of the Middle East peace process.
However, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat called it a U.S. "demand" that Israel stop its construction.
"The demand to halt construction by religion is not legal in the United States or in any other free place in the world," he said in a written statement Tuesday.
"I do not presume that any government would demand to freeze construction in the United States based on race, religion or gender, and the attempt to demand it from Jerusalem is a double standard and inconceivable."
Asked whether the construction had come up when Mitchell met in London with Israeli negotiators, U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said he didn't want to get into the "substance of these negotiations. It's sensitive," he said, adding that some Israeli press reports did say that the issue was raised in the meetings.
But he said he wouldn't "steer" reporters "one way or the other on it."
The construction approval comes days after the Palestinian Authority's prime minister said the group is moving forward to build the institutions needed to manage an independent Palestinian state even as peace talks remain stalled.
In a policy paper published in August, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad laid out a plan to create "a de facto state apparatus" within two years, spurring speculation about whether a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood was forthcoming. But on Sunday, Fayyad said that his state-building process was different from a declaration of statehood.
"Getting ready for statehood and statehood proclamation are two different things," he said. "What we in the Palestinian Authority are concerned with is Part A of this, which is to prepare for that eventuality."
Fayyad's August proposal defined a vision for a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital.
He said a decision on statehood would not fall to the Palestinian Authority but to the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The Palestinian Authority was created to administer the Palestinian territories as part of the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO. As a representative of the Palestinians, the PLO was granted observer status at the United Nations in 1975.
The prime minister also indicated that the Palestinians may turn to the United Nations to give its support to a resolution backing the creation of a Palestinian state.
Suicides among soldiers this year have topped last year's record-breaking numbers, but Army officials maintain a recent trend downward could mean the service is making headway on its programs designed to reduce the problem, Army officials said Tuesday.
Since January, 140 active-duty soldiers have killed themselves while another 71 Army Reserve and National Guard soldiers killed themselves in the same time period, totaling 211 as of Tuesday, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, U.S. Army vice chief of staff, told reporters at a briefing Tuesday. But he said the monthly numbers are starting to slow down as the year nears its end.
"This is horrible, and I do not want to downplay the significance of these numbers in any way," Chiarelli said.
For all of 2008, the Army said 140 active-duty soldiers killed themselves while 57 Guard and Reserve soldiers committed suicide, totaling 197, according to Army statistics.
The Army is still trying to tackle why soldiers are killing themselves.
"We still haven't found any statistically significant causal linkage that would allow us to effectively predict human behavior. The reality is, there is no simple answer -- each suicide case is as unique as the individuals themselves," Chiarelli said.
He also said there were troubling new statistics showing an increase in suicide rates among young soldiers who have never deployed, another factor puzzling Army researchers.
The New York Police Department executed search warrants Tuesday at some offices of The New York Times, The New York Daily News, The New York Post and El Diario newspapers and at a labor union, with authorities saying they were conducting investigations into "business activity."
Local media reports categorized the action as searches of the newspapers' circulation offices in connection with an investigation of the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers' Union of New York.
Deputy Police Commissioner Paul J. Browne confirmed the searches to CNN but neither he nor other city officials would elaborate on the investigation or discuss Tuesday's actions.
District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said in a statement, "Today police officers executed search warrants obtained by the District Attorney's office at locations including the offices of a number of print media organizations and a labor union.
"The investigation solely concerns business activity and practice and is completely unrelated to the content of any publication. The investigation is continuing. We can offer no further information at this time."
Reached by phone, the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers' Union's secretary-treasurer, Steven Goldstein, said that the union was not commenting.
Suzi Halpin, a spokesperson for The New York Post, declined to comment. Calls made to The New York Daily News and El Diario were not returned.
Diane McNulty, a spokeswoman for The New York Times, said that police executed a warrant to search the office of an employee at College Point in the Queens section of New York, but that, "The New York Times Company is not a target of the investigation."
When Laura Douglas-Brown got to work on Monday, she saw a note on the door.
"It is with great regret that we must inform you that effective immediately, the operations of Window Media LLC and United Media LLC have closed down." It asked employees to return Wednesday, adding, "Please bring boxes and/or containers that will allow you to collect all your personal belongings at one time."
And with that, Douglas-Brown lost her job at Atlanta, Georgia-based Southern Voice -- the South's main newspaper for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities -- where she has worked for more than 12 years.
Southern Voice, which was in print for more than 20 years and had a 100,000 circulation, was one of several gay newspapers and magazines, including the Washington Blade and South Florida Blade, that were shut down Monday when their parent companies, Window Media and United Media, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
"Certainly we knew finances were tight, but none of us were expecting this today," said Douglas-Brown, who spent her day greeting staffers at the office so they wouldn't find the note alone.
Calls to corporate offices of the parent companies were not immediately returned Monday.
Douglas-Brown said that an investment group, Avalon Equity Fund, owned the majority of Window Media, the country's largest gay and lesbian newspaper publisher. She said employees had heard that Avalon was in receivership with the federal Small Business Administration, which allows the agency to sell the company's assets to satisfy its loans.
However, "We had been told the impact on us would be minimal and that the company would be sold," she said.
Calls to Avalon's offices in New York went unanswered Monday.
Kevin Nass, the editor of the Washington Blade, the nation's the oldest gay newspaper and second-largest by circulation, said when he arrived to work at 8 a.m. Monday, he was met by two corporate officers, notifying him that his paper would be shut down immediately.
"The bottom line was they filed for Chapter 7, which means liquidation," Nass said. "I think a lot of us expected a Chapter 11 reorganization ... but they didn't go that route and I guess the creditors wanted out."
He said the Blade's staff of more than 20 employees would meet Tuesday to discuss their options.
"There's never been more news, more need of this niche," he said, noting that topics like same-sex marriage and the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy put gay publications in demand. The Blade, established in 1969, had a 33,000 circulation.
"The audience is there, the need has never been greater," he added, saying his team planned to launch a new, independent publication.
Douglas-Brown agreed, saying, "It's a tremendous loss. ... None of these publications have been shut down for a lack of stories."
The Federal Reserve announced proposed rules Monday to implement the gift card provisions of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009.
The Fed's rules would restrict fees and expiration dates for gift certificates, store gift cards and general-use prepaid cards.
MaUnder the credit card law enacted in y, Congress directed the Fed to implement these rules.
Specifically, the Fed said the rules would prohibit issuers from charging dormancy fees on cards unless they have been inactive for at least a year. After that, issuers are limited to one fine per month.
The rules would also prevent issuers from charging fees for monthly maintenance, balance inquiry, transactions, reloading, and at the point of the sale.
The Fed's proposal also prevents cards from expiring sooner than five years after the funds are loaded and issued or sold.
The Fed will accept comments from the public for the next 30 days, after which it can revise the proposed rules. The Fed must issue finalized regulations by Feb. 22, and they will be effective by Aug. 22.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who authored the gift card reforms included in the credit card act, said in a statement that the Fed's rules "are the right step, but it would be far better for them to take effect in time for this holiday shopping season. We will continue to push the Fed to speed up the effective date so that we end abuses by gift card issuers as soon as possible."
0:00 /2:33The cost of hidden feesvidConfig.push({videoArray: ["/video/news/2009/10/30/n_Hidden_fees_cnolan.cnnmoney.json"], collapsed:false});
According to the National Retail Federation, more than 55% of adults said they would like to receive gift cards this holiday season, but more than 12% will not give them as presents because they are too concerned about fees and expiration dates.
American Express (AXP, Fortune 500) announced in September that it will stop deducting the monthly $2 dormancy fees that it had charged after a year of inactivity on all its "general purpose" gift cards.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The U.S. Postal Service reported a $3.8 billion loss in the 2009 fiscal year, and plans to propose to Congress in 2010 that it drop Saturday delivery.
The agency already reduced expenses by $6 billion during the year ended Sept. 30.
Those measures included eliminating 40,000 jobs, however the cash-strapped agency still employs over 712,000 people. The Postal Service also reduced overtime hours and lowered transportation-related costs.
Additionally, the USPS lowered the payments it made for retiree health benefits by $4 billion in fiscal 2009.
"To say this was a difficult year might be a bit of an understatement," said the USPS chief financial officer Joseph Corbett, on a conference call with the media. Corbett blamed the agency's difficulties on the recession and "the continued migration [of customers] to electronic means."
Big changes
Corbett also said on the call that the Post Office will formally propose to Congress that it drop Saturday delivery. "We need more flexibility in our delivery schedule. We've talked a number of times about reducing from 6 to 5 days of service," he said.
That move alone would save $3.5 billion. But even a 5-day delivery schedule won't be enough to put the USPS into the black, Corbett said. So the agency will also propose to Congress that it reduce the $5.5 billion in annual payments to pre-fund retiree health benefits that it is slated to make until 2016.
Ongoing losses
This is the third year in a row that the agency has posted a loss; it lost $2.8 billion in fiscal 2008, and $5 billion in 2007. The USPS is a self-supporting government agency that receives no tax dollars. It relies solely on the sale of postage and products and services to generate sales.
The Postal Service reported operating revenue of $68.1 billion, down 9% from last year, while its operating expenses fell to $71.8 billion, down 7% from 2008.
The service's total mail volume plunged by more than 25 billion pieces, or 12.7%, to 177.1 billion pieces. That drop was twice as much as any mail volume decline in the Postal Service's history.
There is a strong correlation between unemployment and mail volume, according to Corbett, which means that mail volumes will continue to decline as the unemployment rate climbs
Nicolas Cage brought about his own financial ruin with a spending spree that included two castles, 15 palatial homes, a flotilla of yachts and a squadron of Rolls Royces, his former business manager said.
