OSAKA, Japan (Reuters) ? Shareholders of scandal-hit Olympus Corp will file a lawsuit against the company as early as Monday, seeking more than 200 million yen ($2.6 million) in damages over the fall in its share price, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
($1 = 77.1200 Japanese yen)
(Reporting by Yoshiyuki Osada; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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Dante Autullo accompanied by his neurosurgeon Leslie Schaffer, left, shows the area of his injury during a news conference at Advocate Christ Medical Center Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, in Oak Lawn, Ill., a day after Autullo underwent surgery to remove a 3 1/4 inch nail lodged in his brain after accidentally shooting himself with a nail gun. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
Dante Autullo accompanied by his neurosurgeon Leslie Schaffer, left, shows the area of his injury during a news conference at Advocate Christ Medical Center Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, in Oak Lawn, Ill., a day after Autullo underwent surgery to remove a 3 1/4 inch nail lodged in his brain after accidentally shooting himself with a nail gun. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
This photo provided by Christ Medical Center & Hope Children's Hospital in Oak Lawn,, Ill. on Friday, Jan. 20, 2012 shows an X-ray of a nail embedded in Dante Autullo's brain. Autullo unknowingly shot a nail into his skull, and posted a picture of the X-ray on Facebook during his ambulance ride between hospitals for surgery. (AP Photo/Christ Medical Center & Hope Children's Hospital)
Gail Glaenzer, speaks about her fiance, Dante Autullo's injury in the lobby of Advocate Christ Medical Center Friday, Jan. 20, 2012 in Oak Lawn, Ill., a day after he underwent surgery to remove a 3 1/4 inch nail lodged in his brain after accidentally shooting himself with a nail gun. Autullo is listed in fair condition, and Glaenzer is still trying to process just how lucky the father of her four children was. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
Neurosurgeon Leslie Schaffer, left, smiles as his patient Dante Autullo, shows how he injured himself during a news conference at Advocate Christ Medical Center Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, in Oak Lawn, Ill. The two spoke a day after Autullo underwent surgery to remove a 3 1/4 inch nail lodged in his brain after accidentally shooting himself with a nail gun. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
Neurosurgeon Leslie Schaffer, left, smiles with his patient Dante Autullo, and Dante's fiance, Gail Glaenzer during a news conference at Advocate Christ Medical Center Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, in Oak Lawn, Ill. The trio spoke a day after Autullo underwent surgery to remove a 3 1/4 inch nail lodged in his brain after accidentally shooting himself with a nail gun. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
OAK LAWN, Ill. (AP) ? Dante Autullo was sure he'd merely cut himself with a nail gun while building a shed, and thought doctors were joking when they told him what an X-ray revealed: A 3 1/4-inch nail was lodged in the middle of his brain.
Autullo was recovering Friday after undergoing surgery at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where doctors removed the nail that came within millimeters of the part of the brain controlling motor function.
"When they brought in the picture, I said to the doctor 'Is this a joke? Did you get that out of the doctors joke file?'" the 32-year-old recalled. "The doctor said 'No man, that's in your head.'"
As he was rushed by ambulance to another hospital for surgery, he posted a picture of the X-ray on Facebook.
Autullo, who lives in Orland Park, said he was building a shed Tuesday and using the nail gun above his head when he fired it. With nothing to indicate that a nail hadn't simply whizzed by his head, his long-time companion, Gail Glaenzer, cleaned the wound with peroxide.
"It really felt like I got punched on the side of the head," he said, adding that he continued working. "I thought it went past my ear."
While there are pain-sensitive nerves on a person's skull, there aren't any within the brain itself. That's why he would have felt the nail strike the skull, but he wouldn't have felt it penetrate the brain.
Neither he nor Glaenzer thought much about it, and Autullo went on with his day, even plowing a bit of snow. But the next day when he awoke from a nap, feeling nauseated, Glaenzer sensed something was wrong and suggested they go to the hospital.
At first Autullo refused, but he relented after the two picked up their son at school Wednesday evening.
An X-ray was taken a couple hours later. And there, seeming to float in the middle of his head, was a nail.
Doctors told Autullo and Glaenzer that the nail came within millimeters from the part of the brain that controls motor function, and he was rushed by ambulance to the other hospital for more specialized care.
"He feels good. He moved all his limbs, he's talking normal, he remembers everything," Glaenzer said earlier Friday. "It's amazing, a miracle."
Neurosurgeon Leslie Schaffer acknowledged that Autullo's case was unusual, but not extremely rare. Schaffer said having a nail penetrate the skull is not like being shot in the head, noting that a bullet would break into multiple pieces.
"This (the nail) is thinner, with a small trajectory, and pointed at the end," he said. "The bone doesn't fracture much because the nail has a small tip."
Schaffer said the man's skull stopped the nail from going farther into his brain. He said he removed the nail by putting two holes in Autullo's skull, on either side of the nail, then pulled the nail out along with a piece of the skull.
The surgery took two hours, and the part of the skull that was removed for surgery was replaced with a titanium mesh, Hospital spokesman Mike Maggio said.
Glaenzer said Autullo hasn't really talked about how scared he was about what might have happened, but he did express a recognition about coming close to death.
"He was joking with me (after surgery), 'We need to get the Discovery Channel up here to tape this,'" she recalled him saying. "'I'm one of those medical miracles.'"
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After more than 6 years of marriage, the the supermodel will reportedly file for divorce this week. See more celeb pairs who are back to going solo.
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Mark Wahlberg was scheduled to be on one of the hijacked 9/11 planes, before he changed his flight to attend the Toronto Film Festival. That makes him incredibly lucky in our books -- but apparently, in his own mind, it was a missed opportunity to be an American hero. In a recent interview with Men's Journal, the actor claimed that he could have prevented the World Trade Center crash if he'd been on that fatal flight.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The number of Americans filing for new jobless benefits dropped to a near four-year low last week, pointing to some building up of momentum in the labor market and the economy.
But the upbeat economic outlook was dampened by other data on Thursday showing a drop in new residential construction in December after hefty gains the prior month.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits plunged 50,000 to a seasonally adjusted 352,000, the lowest level since April 2008, the Labor Department said.
That was the largest drop since September 2005 and took claims within spitting distance of the 350,000 mark that economists say would signal strong job growth.
The four-week moving average of claims, considered to be a better measure of labor market trends, dropped 3,500 to 379,000 last week. Analysts had expected initial claims to fall only to 385,000.
"We have to see if there are some seasonality issues involved here, but on the surface this number looks to be very positive and is pretty much consistent with other data we've seen recently that suggest improvement in underlying fundamentals in the U.S.," said Omer Esiner, chief market analyst at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange.
U.S. stock futures added to gains after the data, while Treasury debt prices widened losses.
Last week's claims data covered the survey period for January nonfarm payrolls and claims dropped by 14,000 between the December and January survey periods.
Payrolls increased 200,000 in December, with the unemployment rate dropping to a near three-year low of 8.5 percent.
The claims data builds on a rash of stronger-than-expected economic signals and could further temper expectations among some economists that the Federal Reserve could launch a fresh round of bond buying to spur the recovery.
The Fed meets next week and no policy action is expected, outside from the possibility the central bank may signal it will keep overnight rates pressed to zero for longer than had previously been expected.
But with continued signs of stress in the housing market, the U.S. central bank will stay very much in the picture.
Housing starts fell 4.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 657,000 units in December, the Commerce Department said in a separate report. Economists had expected housing starts to fall to a 680,000-unit rate.
Permits for future home construction slipped 0.1 percent to an annual rate of 679,000 units last month.
"Housing continues to bounce along at the bottom, suggesting that housing is not going to recover for several years to come. If we are relying on housing to drive this recovery it seems we will continue on this tepid path for a very long time," said Lindsey Piegza, an economist at FTN Financial in New York.
INFLATION STILL MUTED
In another report, the Labor Department said its Consumer Price Index was unchanged in December for a second straight month.
Core CPI - excluding food and energy - inched up 0.1 percent after rising up 0.2 percent in November. That was in line with economists' expectations.
Last month, overall inflation was held back by gasoline prices, which fell 2.0 percent - declining for a third straight month. Food prices rose a modest 0.2 percent after nudging up 0.1 percent in November.
Overall consumer prices rose 3.0 percent year-on-year after increasing 3.4 percent in November. That was in line with economists' expectations.
Core consumer prices were last month dampened by new motor vehicle costs, which fell 0.2 percent - the third straight month of declines. Prices for used cars and trucks dropped 0.9 percent, falling a fourth month in a row.
Apparel prices slipped 0.1 percent, indicating discounting by retailers to attract holiday shoppers. Apparel prices rose 0.6 percent in November.
But housing costs held up, with owners' equivalent rent rising 0.2 percent last month, reflecting the rising demand for rental apartments as the weak housing market pushes Americans away from home ownership. This category rose 0.1 percent in November.
In the 12 months to December, core CPI increased 2.2 percent after rising by the same margin in November. This measure has rebounded from a record low of 0.6 percent in October.
The Fed would like to see core inflation at 2 percent or a little under, although the price measure its follows most closely tends to run below the core CPI.
(Additional reporting by Jason Lange in Washington and Emily Flitter and Luciana Lopez in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
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ALEXANDRIA, Va. ? When Megaupload executives arrive in court to answer charges that they orchestrated a massive online piracy scheme, they'll be backed by a prominent lawyer who has defended Bill Clinton against sexual harassment charges and Enron against allegations of corporate fraud.
Washington attorney Robert Bennett said Friday that he will represent the company, which was indicted in federal court in Alexandria Thursday on copyright infringement and other charges.
The U.S. government shut down Megaupload's file-sharing website on Thursday, alleging that the company facilitated illegal downloads of copyrighted movies and other content. Seven individuals ? including the company's founder, who had his name legally changed to Kim Dotcom ? were also charged. Dotcom and three others were arrested in New Zealand; three others remain at large.
New Zealand police raided several homes and businesses linked to Dotcom and seized guns, millions of dollars and nearly $5 million in luxury cars, officials said.
In Hong Kong, where Megaupload is based, customs officials said they seized more than $42.5 million in assets. They said the company operated out of luxury hotel space costing more than $12,000 a day, and they seized high-speed servers and other equipment from the offices.
The shutdown and indictment generated headlines around the world in part because of the size and scope of Megaupload's operation. Sandvine, Inc., a Canadian company that provides equipment to monitor Internet traffic, said the website alone accounted for about 1 percent of traffic on U.S. cable and DSL lines. The site is even more popular in many foreign countries.
Bennett said that "we intend to vigorously defend against these charges" but declined to comment on the case in detail.
Bennett is best known for serving as President Bill Clinton's attorney when he was accused of sexual harassment by Paula Jones. He has also represented Defense Secretaries Clark Clifford and Caspar Weinberger.
Megaupload was no stranger to accusations that its website existed for the sole purpose of mass copyright breach. Before its website was taken down, Megaupload offered a more detailed defense of its operations, claiming in a statement that such accusations are "grotesquely overblown."
The company said it had a clear, easy-to-follow procedure if movie studios or other copyright holders saw that their products were being illegally shared on Megaupload, and said that it responded to those "takedown notices" as required by law.
"Of course, abuse does happen and is an inevitable fact of life in a free society, but it is curbed heavily and efficiently by our close cooperation with trusted takedown partners. It is just unfortunate that the activities of a small group of `black sheep' overshadows the millions of users that use our sites legitimately every day," the statement said.
Indeed, sites like megaupload.com, known as cyberlockers, can fulfill legitimate needs and are used every day by people looking for an efficient way to share or transfer large files that can't easily be sent by email.
In their indictment, however, federal prosecutors offered a detailed glimpse of the internal workings of the website. They allege that Megaupload was well aware that the vast majority of its users were there to illegally download copyrighted content.
According to the indictment, in a 2008 email chat session, two of the alleged coconspirators exchange messages, with one saying "we have a funny business . . . modern days pirates :)" and the other responds, "we're not pirates, we're just providing shipping services to pirates :)".
In another instance, one of the defendants allegedly laments in colorful language that an episode HBO's "The Sopranos" has been uploaded to site, but the dialogue is in French, limiting its appeal.
In fact, prosecutors allege that the entire website was specifically designed to encourage piracy. The website provided cash bonuses to users who uploaded content popular enough to prompt mass downloads ? such content was almost always copyrighted material.
Stefan Mentzer, an intellectual property partner with the White and Case law firm in New York, said it's likely that Megaupload will try to argue at least two defenses: One is that its service qualifies as a so-called "safe harbor" under Digital Millennium Copyright Act ? the federal law governing copyright infringement ? if they can show, for instance, that they had no actual knowledge that infringing material was on their system. Another possible defense would be jurisdictional ? specifically, that a case can't be brought in the Eastern District of Virginia against a Hong Kong-based company like Megaupload without evidence that they directed criminal activity related to the district.
But Mentzer said both defenses would be a challenge, given the evidence that prosecutors appear to have collected.
"The Department of Justice doesn't just cavalierly file these lawsuits," Mentzer said.
Federal prosecutors have made Internet piracy a priority in the last decade, especially in the Eastern District of Virginia, which can claim jurisdiction over many such cases because large portions of the Internet's backbone ? servers and other infrastructure ? are physically located in northern Virginia's technology corridor.
The vast majority of those cases have resulted in guilty pleas and prison time. On Friday, a day after announcement of the Megaupload case, a federal judge sentenced Matthew David Howard Smith, 24, of Raleigh, N.C., to 14 months in prison for his role in founding a website called NinjaVideo. That site was one of many shut down in 2010, at a time when it facilitated nearly 1 million illegal downloads a week.
NinjaVideo was what prosecutors called a "linking site" to Megaupload. Casual users of Megaupload would be unable to find popular movies and TV shows on the site without the proper links. Sites like NinjaVideo allowed users to easily search for the desired movies or music and provided the links that enabled them to download the content from Megaupload.
The other co-founder of NinjaVideo, Hana Beshara, was sentenced earlier this month to 22 months in prison. While she admitted guilt, she portrayed herself as a sort of Robin Hood of the online world, stealing from greedy movie studios to provide entertainment downloads to the masses in the form of free films, TV shows, videogames and music.
While the legal defense for piracy may be difficult, accused Internet pirates clearly have their supporters, as evidenced by the millions of people who use their sites as well as the response to Thursday's Megaupload shutdown. Within hours of the indictment being unsealed, the loose affiliation of hackers known as Anonymous caused temporary shutdowns of the Justice Department website as well as the websites of the Motion Picture Association of America and other industry groups that support a tougher piracy laws.
It could be months before the criminal case against Megaupload gets underway. The four defendants arrested in made an initial appearance in a New Zealand court Friday and are scheduled to make a second appearance on Monday. Authorities have said it could take a year or more to bring them to the U.S. if they fight extradition.
___
AP Business Writers Daniel Wagner in Washington and Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong contributed to this report.
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