QUOTE OF THE DAY
"It's terrible to see somebody's children come out of that house this way." Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., resident Bob Alexander, on seeing bodies removed from a house destroyed in a fire that killed seven college students Article, this page
Merrill Lynch CEO's departure expected
NEW YORK - Stan O'Neal, the chief executive of Merrill Lynch & Co., was reportedly close to resigning Sunday amid broad criticism for leading the world's largest brokerage to its biggest quarterly loss since it was founded 93 years ago.
In a week that included an $7.9 billion write-down related to subprime mortgages and O'Neal's unauthorized overture to sell the company to retail bank Wachovia Corp., the board of Merrill Lynch reached a broad consensus Friday for his dismissal, according to several media reports.
He would become the highest-ranking casualty of the global credit crisis that swept through Wall Street's biggest investment banks during the third quarter.
An announcement of his departure was expected as soon as Sunday evening or this morning, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
A Merrill Lynch spokesman declined to comment Sunday.
Lawyers seek stay on executions
CHICAGO - The American Bar Association, concluding a three-year study of capital punishment systems in eight states, found so many inequities and shortfalls that the group is calling for a nationwide moratorium on executions.
In a study to be released today, the attorney organization said that death-penalty systems in Indiana, Georgia, Ohio, Alabama and Tennessee in particular had so many problems that those states should institute a temporary halt to executions immediately until further study can be conducted.
"After carefully studying the way states across the spectrum handle executions, it has become crystal clear that the process is deeply flawed," Stephen Hanlon, chairman of the association's Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project, said in a statement.
The study also focused on death-penalty systems in Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania, but did not find the same serious conditions as cited in the other five. The association says it does not take a position either for or against the death penalty.
The study found "significant racial disparities" in the imposition of the death penalty, inadequate indigent defense programs, failures in crime laboratories and a lack of uniformity in identification procedures as well as in the recording of interrogations of suspects.
Iowa Democrats set Jan. 3 for caucuses
DES MOINES, Iowa - Iowa Democrats voted Sunday to move their leadoff precinct caucuses to Jan. 3, the same date Republicans picked earlier this month, letting both parties continue the tradition of meeting on the same night.
The state's precinct caucuses had been scheduled for Jan. 14, but the parties decided to move them up under pressure from other states rushing to the beginning of the primary calendar.
The move, confirmed by party spokesman Chris Allen, means the major remaining question about the calendar is the New Hampshire primary, originally scheduled for Jan. 22.
New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner has said only that he would schedule that primary no later than Jan. 8.
Both Gov. Chet Culver and Sen. Tom Harkin, the state's top two Democrats, had pushed for the Jan. 3 date, and Iowa Democratic chairman Scott Brennan last week made that recommendation to the party's state Central Committee, which approved it Sunday night.
"As a practical matter, I think it will maintain Iowa's first-inthe nation status," Brennan said after the vote.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 10/29/2007