The U.S. Department of Justice released the following:

Three leading electronics manufacturers “" LG Display Co. Ltd., Sharp Corp. and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. “"have agreed to plead guilty and pay a total of $585 million in criminal fines for their roles in conspiracies to fix prices in the sale of liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, the Department of Justice announced. Of the $585 million in fines, LG will pay $400 million, the second highest criminal fine ever imposed by the Department’s Antitrust Division.

Today’s charges were filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. The companies have agreed to cooperate with the Department’s ongoing antitrust investigation.

Thin-Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) panels are used in computer monitors and notebooks, televisions, mobile phones, and other electronic devices. In 2006, the worldwide market for TFT-LCD panels was approximately $70 billion. Companies directly affected by the LCD price-fixing conspiracies are some of the largest computer, television and cellular telephone manufacturers in the world, including Apple, Dell and Motorola.

“Today’s charges and criminal fines emphasize the commitment of the Department of Justice to crack down on international cartels,” said Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey.

LG Display Co. Ltd, a South Korean corporation, and its wholly-owned subsidiary, LG Display America Inc., a California company (LG), agreed to plead guilty to participating in a conspiracy from September 2001 to June 2006 to fix the price of TFT-LCD panels sold worldwide. During the conspiracy, LG Display Co. Ltd. was known as LG.Philips LCD Co. Ltd. (a joint venture between LG Electronics and Philips Electronics) and LG Display America Inc. was known as LG.Philips LCD America Inc.

Sharp Corp., a Japanese consumer electronics manufacturer, has agreed to pay a $120 million fine for its participation in separate conspiracies to fix the price of TFT-LCD panels sold to Dell Inc. from April 2001 to December 2006 for use in computer monitors and laptops; to Motorola Inc. from fall 2005 to the middle of 2006 for use in Razr mobile phones; and to Apple Computer Inc. from September 2005 to December 2006 for use in iPod portable music players.

Chunghwa, a Taiwanese TFT-LCD panel manufacturer, has agreed to pay a $65 million fine for its participation with LG and other unnamed co-conspirators in a conspiracy from September 2001 to December 2006 to fix the price of TFT-LCD panels sold worldwide.

“These price-fixing conspiracies affected millions of American consumers who use computers, cell phones and numerous other household electronics every day,” said Thomas O. Barnett, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department’s Antitrust Division. “These convictions, and the significant fines they carry, should send a clear message that the Antitrust Division will vigorously investigate and prosecute illegal cartels, regardless of where they are located.”

LG, Sharp and Chunghwa are each charged with price fixing in violation of the Sherman Act. Each violation carries a maximum fine of $100 million for corporations. The maximum fine may be increased to twice the gain derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims of the crime, if either of those amounts is greater than the statutory maximum fine.

LG Display Co. Ltd., based in Seoul, South Korea, reported $15.3 billion in revenue for 2007.

Sharp, based in Osaka, Japan, reported $34.2 billion in revenues for its fiscal year ending March 31, 2008, including $6.8 billion in revenue from LCD sales.

Chunghwa, based in Taoyuan, Taiwan, Republic of China, reported $4.8 billion in revenue for 2007.

These pleas are the result of a joint investigation by the Antitrust Division’s San Francisco Field Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in San Francisco. The plea agreements are subject to court approval.

Anyone with information concerning illegal conduct in the TFT-LCD industry is urged to call the San Francisco Field Office of the Antitrust Division at 415-436-6660.

A particularly gripping murder trial is getting underway in Boston, where a teenage son stands accused of beating his mother with a claw hammer, wrapping her in a sleeping bag, and leaving her to die in a closet two years ago.

Norton Cartright, then 19, now 21, faces a first-degree murder charge.

A Suffolk County homicide prosecutor walked a jury through how the Chelsea man allegedly murdered his mother in 2006.

“You’re going to hear some gruesome details, ladies and gentlemen,” Assistant District Attorney David Fredette said his opening remarks Monday.

Fredette said the defendant admitted to police that he did indeed strike 46-year-old Yolande Danestoir in the head with a hammer on Aug. 26, 2006, after a heated argument. Danestoir, the prosecutor said, had banned Cartright from her Reynolds Street home in the course of what he called a “volatile” relationship, then found him inside when she returned home from work that morning.

“On August 25 two years ago, Yolande Danestoir went to work from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 a.m. at Youville Hospital,” Fredette said. “The next time Yolande Danestoir was seen was 10 days later when her body was pulled from that closet, wrapped in a bed sheet and stuffed in a sleeping bag.”

Cartright has since told authorities that he tried to reach his mother by phone after her murder, but prosecutors say they have evidence that Cartright actually used his mother’s cell phone after they say he killed her — to call his girlfriend, they say.

Days later, Chelsea police were investigating after Danestoir hadn’t been seen at work. They smelled something coming from the bedroom closet.

“What they smelled smelled to them like rotting flesh,” Fredette said. When they opened it, however, there was nothing inside. Investigators believe that Cartright had placed the body in that closet first, and then moved it to another closet off the apartment’s kitchen.

They went to that kitchen closet, in which furniture and other items were stacked almost to the ceiling, prosectors said.

“As the detectives took item after item from that closet, the smell got stronger and stronger,” Fredette told the jury. “They pulled out a sleeping bag and found [Danestoir's] decomposing body.”

Cartright was taken to Chelsea police headquarters and questioned about his mother’s murder. That’s when they say he confessed on tape. That tape will be played at trial.

“What you’re going to hear, ladies and gentlemen, is going to be chilling,” the prosecutor said. “The defendant says she threw something at him. He says he threw something at her. He described the head of a hammer. He threw the hammer again …. Then wrapped her up and put her in the closet. Later he heard some noises coming from the closet, so he throws some chairs on top of her to keep her from moving around.”

Fredette said a claw hammer stained with Danestoir’s blood and DNA was recovered from the rafters of her basement.

“All of the evidence is going to point to one person, ladies and gentlemen,” he told the jury. “The defendant – Norton Cartright.”

Cartright was indicted for first-degree murder on December 14, 2006.

I realize this is the biggest message I’ve ever sent out to the staff, so I’ll break it down for you:

1. Expanding food coverage
1.5 MEETING!
2. Redesigned section pages
3. LOCAL
4. News coverage
5. Editors changing jobs
6. Our new intern

First of all, I’m happy to announce that we’re going to be expanding our food and drink coverage, adding regular content from John Forrester, who started at the Globe on the same day as me “way back in the day.” He’s the past editor-in-chief of the Suffolk Journal, and we’re lucky to have him.

He gave us a few stories last year, ( http://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/culturefashion/2007/03/irish-eats-shepherds-pie/ ) and I’ve been badgering him ever since.

You’ll be hearing from him soon, because John has set up a Blast meet-up on November 12 in Boston. More on that soon.

Second big announcement: I have completely redesigned the Culture page. http://blastmagazine.com/culture/

I’ll be coding variations of our Food and Entertainment pages over the next few weeks. It takes a full day to do each page, so bear with me.

Please give me feedback on this! It will be vital as I do the rest of the sections.

Third big announcement: Blast is going local. Ok, maybe not totally local. But we’ve decided to base ourselves in the Northeast U.S., where we (mostly) live. That’s mainly Boston, New York, and then Philly for our sports guys. This will not change anything in a negative way — we won’t be removing anything, but we’ll be adding something very important that ties into the fourth announcement.

Fourth announcement, Blast is covering news. You’ve seen the amazing stylings of Sachin Seth and his Terra Blog http://blastmagazine.com/terra/ as our first foray into world news coverage. It’s been an amazing success and is drawing a ton of traffic. We’ll be creating a News Page on the site and incorporating a redesigned Boston/Local page that we’ll be promoting much more (JP, take notes). We’ll also incorporate the Terra Blog, and taking World News, People, and Enterprise out of Culture, and putting them into the news section. We’ll also add our Business section, which never really took off. We’re also adding a national and legal/crime news sub-section.

We’re not just going to cover news for the sake of covering news. We’re taking specific topics like cyber crime, privacy law cases, and topics that appeal to our Generation Y audience. For example: http://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/technology/2008/10/fbi-major-cyber-attacks-in-the-rise/

And we’ll have a few new contributors to announce next month and at the meeting that are looking forward to tackling this section.

This is a big deal for Blast, because we always wanted to have a NEWS component that was separate from the magazine, and now we have it.

Going forward, it’s very important to push the concept of three totally different components to BLAST. There’s “The Issue” and “The Magazine” — our monthly content and regularly updated push content in our sections. There’s “The Blogs” — controlled directly by the writers. And “The News” which straddles the line between both.

The next announcement is that we’re realigning our editors. — Just bear in mind that this doesn’t mean that anyone is limited to only working within their sections. We all write everything, and we all help each other out.

Bessie King, who added culture and fashion to her repertoire when Dan Peleschuk went to Ukraine, will become the Culture Editor on November 1. She will oversee Culture, Fashion, Beauty, Politics, Automotive, Art, Love, Sex, Book Reviews and Travel in this diverse, vital section of the magazine. She will also be the editor in charge of our new “Literary” section ( http://blastmagazine.com/the-literary ) which takes original and public domain literature and features it for our readers.

Terri Schwartz will be elevated to Entertainment Editor on November 1. Terri proved herself after covering E3 and Comic-Con for Blast in California. She’s already built up a network of connections and recruited new writers, who you’ve seen this month. She will oversee Music, Movies, Celebrities (including an upcoming Celeb Gossip blog, shhhh, it’s still a secret) and that “Twilight” page that gets SO MANY freaking hits and comments, it’s not even funny. In her capacity, she is doing a ton of work with opinion pieces and reviews, so she will be contributing to the Technology section as well by helping out managing some of the video game reviews.

Joe Sinicki remains Technology Editor. This section is one of our main draws, and we’re hesitant to make any changes. I will say that we’ve flirted with the idea of making Technology more of a science and hard tech section and pulling video games and video game reviews into their own section. That’s not happening right now though.

Liz Raftery is still second in command. She’s the ace in the hole; one of the best writers and reporters I’ve ever worked with. Even the editors have to go through her when they want to put something on the cover. She’s also responsible for Enterprise, The Blast Interview, and we’re working her into News.

Micah and Perry are still sports. Though I’m sure they’d rather be in charge of world news.

That leaves me. In addition to the design and coding, I managing the staff and oversee Tech and Sports. I also manage the blogs, Food, Retro, Shoebox, and I will take point on News until someone takes it off my hands.

The rough, loose reporting structure has Terri and Bessie reporting to Liz for copy editing and guidance and Joe and Micah/Perry reporting to me.

That is just meant to give you a general overview of how a story goes from reporting to live on the site. Two sets of eyes need to see any non-blog post before we post it.

Last but not least, Blast took on an intern this semester. Liz McClendon is a student at Virginia Tech. She’s especially interested in Twilight and Literature, so she’ll be adding to The Literary and will be a big part of our News coverage going forward.

We’ve had a great few months, and the things we’re putting into place are going to take Blast to the next level.

And it’s all because of you.

John

Last night on ABC News, they shared a great cartoon explaining the credit crunch. If you didn’t see it here it is to check out: ABC Video on the Credit Crunch

So for those of you who are invested in the markets, today is not looking good for you. Then again, the past few days have not been so good for many people especially if you do your banking with any of the failing banks that seem to be popping up left and right.

This afternoon, the US House of Representatives failed to pass a $700 Billion bailout plan that was the result of a weekend of compromises with the White House. The measure failed with a vote of 228 to 205. By the closing bell the DOW was down 700 points in what is now being referred to as Black Monday.

Now, I’m no economic major, and I’m still trying to figure out how this affects me, the country as whole, one thing I do know is that this is probably not a good sign.

The House and Senate were scheduled to recess until November 4th to give members time to campaign at home, however, both houses were in session for much of the weekend. The measure, though it had the support of the administration, failed to garnish support from many House Republicans and Democrats alike. House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) blamed the failure on Speaker Pelosi’s partisan floor speech minutes before the vote opened. The house is currently in recess until Thursday when they will reconvene in hopes of passing a similar measure.

While party politics are a given in Washington and hard to get past, both parties need to come together to pass a measure that not only helps the financial sector but doesn’t leave the American Public paying for it for years to come. Until Thursday, keep your assets frozen (perhaps literally?) and hope for the best?