Morning News and Stuff

Music Hall
Music Hall

City Leaders have decided that they don't need to sell Music Hall to a private organization in order for the historic building to receive tax credits toward its renovation. Mayor Mallory on Sunday told The Enquirer that selling the building was not part of any discussion he's willing to have. While city leaders hope a public-private partnership like that which has renovated Washington Park can help update the building, organizers with the Music Hall Revitalization Co. say some donors willing to contribute to the private renovation of the building will not contribute to the project while it is city owned. On Saturday, the Music Hall Revitalization Co.'s leader, Jack Rouse, resigned.

First they had a giant bridge built over their neighborhood. Now the residents of Lower Price Hill who live near the Sixth Street viaduct hope construction crews can take it down without causing too many clouds of lead paint dust to cover their homes. The viaduct is being replaced by a new structure currently under construction south of the existing one.

Ohio's second of four new casinos is set to open in Toledo next week. Cleveland's casino opened last week, while Columbus' Hollywood Casino is scheduled to open this fall with Cincinnati's Horseshoe in-line for an early 2013 unveiling.

Jury selection in the trail of former Goldman Sachs/Procter & Gamble board member Rajat Gupta began today in federal court in Manhattan. Gupta is accused of insider trading stemming from a 2008 phone call that authorities have already used to convict hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, who is currently serving an 11-year sentence. From the AP:

Rajaratnam has been the biggest catch so far in a wide-ranging insider-trading investigation by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara that's resulted in more than two dozen prosecutions of white collar defendants. But based on Gupta's standing in the world of finance, his trial could draw more attention — and a potential conviction could resonate farther.

Aside from his role at Goldman Sachs, the Indian-born Gupta is the former chief of McKinsey & Co., a highly regarded global consulting firm that zealously guards its reputation for discretion and integrity.

Gupta, 63, is also a former director of the huge consumer products company Procter & Gamble Co., a pillar of American industry and one of the 30 companies that make up the Dow Jones industrial average. P&G owns many well-known brands including Bounty, Tide and Pringles.

Researchers have created a national registry of wrongful conviction exonerations that has identified 873 faulty convictions during the past 23 years that have been recognized by authorities. The registry's founders say the collection is only a fraction of such convictions and that it demonstrates a serious problem with America's criminal justice system.

"What this shows is that the criminal justice system makes mistakes, and they are more common than people think," said University of Michigan law professor Samuel Gross, the registry's editor. "It is not the rule, but we won't learn to get better unless we pay attention to these cases."

Mitt Romney is having some trouble getting conservative donors to back his campaign. Meanwhile, Obama continues to talk about Romney's business dealings.

The John Edwards jury is still in deliberations today trying to determine whether the former Democratic presidential candidate conspired to violate election laws while hiding an extramarital affair during his campaign. Prosecutors say Edwards solicited more than $900,000 from a 101-year-old woman named Rachel “Bunny” Mellon and a Texas lawyer to hide a child from his wife, who had cancer at the time.

Protests continued in Chicago today during the final day of the NATO summit.

Apparently 25 percent of American teens have diabetes or pre-diabetes, up from 9 percent in 1999-2000.

People in Asia and the western U.S. last night got to see a solar eclipse that looked like a ring of fire.

The private rocket scheduled to launch a commercial space capsule was forced to abort its mission on Saturday but is scheduled to fly up into space on Tuesday.