Free Republic

JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s biggest bank, will provide $100 million to help debt-ridden Detroit with housing repairs, blight removal, job training and economic development projects over the next five years, according to two people with direct knowledge of the plans. The investment, a mix of loans and grants, will add to a growing pile of money from outside private institutions as the city nears the final, painful stages of the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy proceeding. Detroit filed for bankruptcy protection in July, with an estimated $18 billion in long-term debt. This summer, a federal judge will decide whether to approve...

The quantum revolution Mike Lazaridis expects is grand enough. Inventing the mythical quantum computer, which the BlackBerry billionaire has set as the primary goal of his massive investment in the southern Ontario technology hub known as Quantum Valley, could create a trillion-dollar market that Canada stands to dominate. He says the question is when, not if. The scientists say years, not decades. But this is just the part he thinks he can predict. “There is a quantum revolution coming, an industrial revolution,” he said. “It’s audacious.”

A New York couple have been charged with defrauding a wealthy musician to the tune of $20 million (£12.3 million) after he innocently visited their computer servicing company to have a virus removed from his laptop. The hard-to-believe story started started in 2004 when moneyed pianist Roger Davidson asked Mount Kisco computer store owners Vickram Bedi, 36, and his Icelandic girlfriend Helga Invarsdottir, 39, to rid his computer of a virus. On learning of Davidson's wealth, the pair are alleged to have concocted an elaborate social engineering scam that defrauded him of somewhere between the $6 million the police have...

Pricing for the pure gold case first shown at the Sony Pret a PSP event earlier this year has been set — and it ain't cheap. The case, designed by the wife of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, will run you $35,000. Available this holiday season, the Baby Phat by Kimora Lee Simmons PSP case is made out of a pound of gold, alligator skin, and is encrusted with seven carats of yellow and black diamonds.

I have NEVER been a fan of Jesse Jackson. But when he can get the biased liberal anti-Terri media - to report the words, Terri's starvation is "immoral" and an "injustice," -- as he did today -- then I have to thank him. I just called his office in the Chicago area; told them I have not been a supporter of his, but I thank him for standing up for Terri. RainbowPush: ph: 773-373-3366 info@rainbowpush.org

The top-of-the-line iPod music player from Apple Computer can hold four solid weeks of music. But what if you just want a little peace and quiet? As it turns out, Apple sells that too - sounds of silence for 99 cents. Steve Halberstadt of Raleigh, N.C., made such a purchase last week after discovering that Apple's iTunes store, the Web's leading downloadable music outlet, had added "The Whitey Album," a 1995 release by Ciccone Youth, a jokey side project of the rock band Sonic Youth. The album's second track album, "Silence," consists of 63 seconds of exactly that. (The band...