Word: rackets
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...down in destructive glee, a two-inch, 27 ounce steel chrome sizing ball oscillating dangerously in his sweaty palm. All around him in a happy cornucopia of wanton destruction lay the mangled, twisted remains of a tin of cookies, a beer can, a memo board, a squash racket, a small toaster oven and the Sunday Times...
Trying to determine if the racket came from an engine problem, the captain reduced power on all four engines, although it would have been safer to check one of them at a time. The loss of speed took the Electra close to its stall point, but the first officer was not monitoring airspeed and altitude as he should have been. The plane stalled and struck the ground. The NTSB criticized the lack of crew coordination and concluded dryly, "The captain attempted both to determine the cause of the vibration and fly the airplane simultaneously, which he was unable...
When the speeches were over and Jennie's name invoked once more, but surely not for the last time, the small crowd filed out to watch the much advertised implosion. The dynamite made a racket, and smoke issued from the crumbling front of the building. The comedians turned away as bulldozers began to crunch the sides of the playhouse. In profile, the yellow machines appeared to grin, as sharks do when they attack an obsolete old whale...
...recording van. "It was the most significant information regarding the structure and function of the Commission that has ever been obtained from electronic surveillance," declared Ronald Goldstock, chief of the Organized Crime Task Force. After building his own case against the Lucchese family for a local carting-industry racket, Goldstock alerted Giuliani to the broader implications of using the evidence to attack the Mob's controlling Commission...
...current wave of Mob trials has benefited as well from the number of former gangsters who have proved willing to violate the Mafia's centuries-old tradition of omerta (silence) and provide evidence against their former partners. Racket victims are less fearful than before of testifying. Nationwide, says Giuliani, "we've got more than 100 people who have testified against Mafia guys." To be sure, many witnesses are criminals facing long sentences; they have a strong self-interest in currying favor with prosecutors...