Word: sec
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Space shuttle Endeavour's launch was aborted just 1.9 sec. before liftoff. The problem was an overheated fuel pump in one of the ship's giant rocket engines. It was the fifth mission scrubbed on the launching pad in 64 flights...
...Securities and Exchange Commission has cracked down on a company that turns life insurance policies into cash for dying AIDS patients. In U.S. District Court Thursday, the SEC charged Life Partners Inc. of Waco, Texas -- the largest of 30 players in the game -- with selling unregistered securities to investors. The SEC says Life Partners offers terminally-ill patients cash up front for the rights to more valuable death benefits from their life insurance policy. Life Partners -- which denies close parallels to the securities trade -- then sells the insurance rights to investors. Critics call the $300 million market "death futures"; advocates...
...late 1970s, CIA officers treated Polyakov more like a teacher than an informant. They let him call the shots about meetings and dead drops. CIA technicians built him a special, handheld device into which information could be typed, then encrypted and transmitted in a 2.6-sec. burst to a receiver in the U.S. embassy in Moscow. And Polyakov often copied documents using film that could be developed only with a special chemical known to him and his handlers; if processed normally, it would come out blank...
...statement in no way captures the anguish of the long list of claimants in the class actions who found their losses not suitable to their investment need. But it's notable for its use of the word wrong, which comes perilously close to the confession Prudential sidestepped with the SEC...
...mechanics performed extra work on cars that didn't need it. Sears settled with the State of California and offered $50 rebate coupons. Then there's Salomon Brothers, whose enthusiastic bond department hoodwinked Uncle Sam by buying more government bonds than it was entitled to. Salomon settled with the SEC for $290 million. Finally, there's Prudential Securities, the brokerage arm of the Rock of Gibraltar, which paid $370 million to settle a multitude of claims from investors who were coaxed into buying some trendy limited partnerships, which limited them to big losses...