Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: CASINOS (92%); RESORTS (90%); GAMING (90%); ANNUAL FINANCIAL RESULTS (72%); RESTAURANTS (68%); SHAREHOLDERS (60%); DOGS (72%)
COMPANY: MGM MIRAGE INC (63%); LAS VEGAS SANDS CORP (52%)
TICKER: MGM (NYSE) (63%); LVS (NYSE) (52%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS721120 CASINO HOTELS (63%); SIC7011 HOTELS & MOTELS (63%)
PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (52%); SHELDON G ADELSON (51%); KIRK KERKORIAN (51%)
GEOGRAPHIC: LAS VEGAS, NV, USA (93%) NEVADA, USA (93%) UNITED STATES (93%); CHINA (79%); MACAU (79%)
LOAD-DATE: August 3, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: Seemingly calm about an economic downturn, Steve Wynn is finishing a $2.3 billion casino resort. Some fear that high-end gamblers could start to cut back. (PHOTOGRAPH BY LAURA RAUCH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES) (pg.BU1)

CityCenter, a $9.2 billion project on the Las Vegas Strip, will include seven high-rise buildings on 76 acres. It is a joint venture of MGM Mirage and Dubai World, the Mideast investment fund. (PHOTOGRAPH BY LAURA RAUCH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)

The Encore casino hotel, Steve Wynn's latest venture on the Strip, is to feature penthouse baccarat tables for big spenders. (PHOTOGRAPH BY LAURA RAUCH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)

Mr. Wynn last October with his wife, Elaine, a director of Wynn Resorts. ''The thrill for him is still creating,'' she says. (PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER FOLEY/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY) (pg.BU8) CHART: FEWER SPINS OF THE WHEEL: In recent months, Las Vegas has been caught in the nation's economic downturn. Fewer people are visiting the city, and those who do visit are spending less money on hotels and gambling than they did last year. (Source: Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority) (pg.BU8)

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

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The New York Times
August 3, 2008 Sunday

The New York Times on the Web

Launch of Private Rocket Fails; Three Satellites Were Onboard
BYLINE: By JOHN SCHWARTZ
SECTION: Section ; Column 0; National Desk; Pg.
LENGTH: 813 words
A privately funded rocket was lost on its way to space Saturday night, bringing a third failure in a row to an Internet multimillionaire's effort to create a market for low-cost space-delivery.

The accident occurred a little more than two minutes after launch, and the two-stage Falcon 1 rocket appeared to be oscillating before the live signal from an on-board video camera went dead.

''We are hearing from the launch control center that there has been an anomaly on that vehicle,'' said Max Vozoff, a mission manager and launch commentator for Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, on a webcast of the event soon afterward.

Elon Musk, an Internet entrepreneur, founded the company, known as SpaceX, in 2002 after selling his online payment company, PayPal, to eBay for $1.5 billion. The company, based in Hawthorne, Calif., has been hailed as one of the most promising examples of an entrepreneurial ''new space'' movement, and has 525 employees.

In a statement read by a spokeswoman early Sunday morning during a teleconference with reporters, Mr. Musk said, ''It was obviously a big disappointment not to reach orbit'' on the flight. He referred to the first stage of the launching as ''picture perfect,'' but said, ''unfortunately, a problem occurred with stage separation, causing the stages to be held together. This is under investigation.''

The rocket was launched from the Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific at 11:34 p.m. Eastern time, after several hours of delays and one aborted launch attempt.

The first Falcon 1 launch, in March 2006, failed about a minute into its ascent because of a fuel line leak. A second rocket, launched in March 2007, made it to space but was lost about five minutes after launching.

On this flight, the Falcon carried three small satellites: one, called Trailblazer, for the Department of Defense, which was built as a kind of quick-turnaround demonstration. The two others were for NASA: PRESat, a small automated laboratory, and NanoSail-D, a test of the concept of using sunlight to push a thin solar sail and provide propulsion without propellant.

The rocket was also carrying the ashes of 208 people who had paid to have their remains shot into space, including the astronaut Gordon Cooper and the actor James Doohan, who played Montgomery ''Scotty'' Scott, the wily engineer on the original ''Star Trek'' television series. The service is called an ''Explorers Flight'' by the company that arranges them, Celestis, Inc. Last night the company's web page stated, ''The Explorers Flight mission appears not to have reached orbit tonight,'' and the Wikipedia pages of Cooper and Doohan had already been edited early Sunday morning to reflect the news.

The company is also developing a larger rocket, the Falcon 9, with nine engines in the first stage. That vehicle is intended to provide cargo services to the International Space Station under a contract for NASA after the shuttle program winds down in 2010. SpaceX performed a successful test firing of the Falcon 9 engines at its facilities in McGregor, Tex., last week.

Charles Lurio, an independent space consultant, it should not be surprising to lose single-use rocket vehicles in the early stages of development, because their very design does not allow test flights. ''It's all or nothing once it leaves the pad,'' he said. ''But I hope SpaceX keeps trying,'' he said. ''They're very competent people.''

In Mr. Musk's statement, he insisted that the company will not be deterred and still has strong support from its backers. ''SpaceX will not skip a beat in execution going forward,'' he said, and added that the fourth flight, currently scheduled to take place in the fourth quarter of the year, and fifth flights are being prepared, and that he has given the go-ahead ''to begin fabrication of flight 6.''

And, he added, ''We are in very good financial basis here. We have the resolve, we have the financial base, and we have the expertise'' to identify the problem and go forward. ''There should be no question about that.'' In a version of the statement distributed to employees, Mr. Musk said that the company ''recently accepted a significant investment'' that, along with the company's current cash reserves, will ensure that ''we will have more than sufficient funding on hand to continue launching'' the Falcon 1 and the larger Falcon 9 vehicles.

In the teleconference, Diane Murphy, the company spokeswoman, said that the mood at the company's headquarters quickly switched from excitement and cheers at the seemingly successful launch to concern and then disappointment. But when Mr. Musk addressed the employees, she said, and told them that the company would move forward with the fourth flight, ''One of our employees immediately spoke up and said with great resolve, 'yes we will. We will get to orbit' -- and everyone sent up a cheer.''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: INTERNET & WWW (90%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (90%); SPACE EXPLORATION (89%); AEROSPACE RESEARCH (78%); SATELLITE INDUSTRY (78%); SPACE INDUSTRY (78%); INTERNET SOCIAL NETWORKING (78%); SPACE PROPULSION (78%); WEALTHY PEOPLE (78%); DELAYS & POSTPONEMENTS (76%); US FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (76%); WEBCASTS (74%); ELECTRONIC BILLING (73%); INVESTIGATIONS (72%); TELEVISION PROGRAMMING (50%); INTERNET BROADCASTING (78%)
COMPANY: CELESTIS INC (60%); PAYPAL INC (56%)
GEOGRAPHIC: CALIFORNIA, USA (56%) UNITED STATES (56%)
LOAD-DATE: August 4, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

526 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
August 3, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

Paid Notice: Deaths STRUHL, JOSEPH
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Classified; Pg. 30
LENGTH: 66 words
STRUHL--Joseph. 1921-2008. Loved by his wife of 60 years, Harriet, his sons and spouses, Kevin and Margie, Gary and Iva, Clifford and Wanda, Steven and Laurie, and his grandchildren, Abigail, Adam, Ben, Zach, Marisa, Isaac, Mika and Tessa. 1st Lt. USAF (WWII). Entrepreneur, Builder, Civic Activist, Artist, USTA Senior Tennis Champion. Proud of his family and generous to all. A wonderful life.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: DEATHS & OBITUARIES (88%); TENNIS (85%); SPORTS (85%)
ORGANIZATION: US AIR FORCE (56%)
LOAD-DATE: August 4, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
DOCUMENT-TYPE: Paid Death Notice
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

527 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
August 2, 2008 Saturday

Late Edition - Final

For Wealthy Brazilian, Money From Ore and Might From the Cosmos
BYLINE: By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO; Mery Galanternick contributed reporting from Rio de Janeiro.
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Foreign Desk; SATURDAY PROFILE; Pg. 8
LENGTH: 1252 words
DATELINE: SALVADOR, Brazil
''I AM connected to the divine, to these forces here,'' Joao Carlos Cavalcanti, the Brazilian mining magnate, said as he swept an arm out across the lily pad-covered lake behind his $15 million mansion.

A gentle breeze rustled through his thick white beard. Mr. Cavalcanti stood on the pier and closed his eyes for a moment. A uniformed servant, one of a staff of 15, hovered nearby with hors d'oeuvres and nonalcoholic drinks. She knew better than to disturb a man who meditates for three hours a day and constantly refers to himself as a ''mystical'' person who draws strength from ''the cosmos'' -- when he is not collecting expensive cars, fine paintings and other playthings.

Minutes later, as Mr. Cavalcanti made his way back up the hill, through his Thai- and Indonesian-inspired gardens with Buddhist statues, his cellphone rang. Another banker was calling, this one from Canada, eager to do business with one of Brazil's newest billionaires. Mr. Cavalcanti explained that he had big plans of his own, to form a ''world mining bank'' with Merrill Lynch and raise capital for exploration projects around the world.

This is the life of the nouveau billionaire in Brazil -- the life that Mr. Cavalcanti said he dreamed of from the age of 9 and from the time he immersed himself in biographies of Henry Ford, John Jacob Astor and John D. Rockefeller.

A geologist by training, Mr. Cavalcanti -- who goes by J.C. -- applied his knowledge and considerable gumption to discovering huge reserves of iron ore and other minerals. Today he pegs his net worth at $1.2 billion, placing him among the 20 richest men in Brazil. Before this year is out, he vows to have $1 billion in liquid investments, to go with his 39 cars, 10 homes and two airplanes.

Mr. Cavalcanti, 59, is a charter member of an emerging mega-rich group in Brazil, whose flourishing economy minted the third most millionaires last year, after India and China, according to a recent study by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini, the big consulting firm. He is among the newly wealthy benefiting from Brazil's boom in commodities like soybeans and iron ore.

The group includes Eike Batista, a mining and oil exploration entrepreneur who is worth $6.6 billion, according to Forbes. Mr. Batista, a college dropout and former champion powerboat racer, has boasted that he will become Brazil's richest man by next year.

Today, the list of Brazil's billionaires still has its bankers and industrialists. Indeed an industrialist, Antonio Ermirio de Moraes, chairman of Votorantim Group, which produces metals, papers, cement and electricity, is reckoned the wealthiest person in South America, with a fortune of some $10 billion. Just behind him is a financier, Joseph Safra, who runs Safra Group, a banking and investment conglomerate. Forbes pegs Mr. Safra at $8.8 billion.

Mr. Cavalcanti, the son of a railroad-track laborer, seemed highly unlikely to become a billionaire. He spent his early years in a rustic two-bedroom house in Cacule, a small farming town in Bahia State. At 24, he concluded that Bahia was too small for him, so he left for a consulting job in Sao Paulo with a German firm. He spent Sundays driving the wealthy neighborhoods, photographing mansions in Morumbi and in Jardim Europa and admiring the BMWs and Porsches in the showrooms.

''I always had a vision of what I wanted to have,'' he said.

LATER, he began prospecting on his own for minerals. By 2003, with cash to support his search drying up, he sold a beach house and an apartment to raise investment funds. The gamble paid off in 2004, when he discovered a huge iron ore reserve back home in Bahia. Other geologists had long given up on the area; the giant mining company Vale, which owned a magnesium reserve close by, had missed the iron deposit, Mr. Cavalcanti said.

By his telling, he discovered the reserve while driving at night mostly alone in a four-wheel-drive truck, relying on old regional maps dating from 1937.

According to mining industry publications, Mr. Cavalcanti later sold the reserve, which contains at least 1.8 billion tons of ore, to an Indian miner, Pramod Agarwal, for some $360 million. He does not dispute the reports.

''J.C. is a born entrepreneur,'' said Joao Cesar de Freitas Pinheiro, assistant general director for the National Department of Mineral Production. ''He had a vision that the market would improve, and he waited for an opportunity to explore when the prices got better, and he took it.''

Since then Mr. Cavalcanti has been on a spree. He said his 39 cars would fetch about $1 million, including a Ferrari, Maserati, Porsche and two BMWs. His love of cars extends to American classics like the 1959 Ford pickup truck parked at his home here. He said he was negotiating to buy a specially built Mercedes McLaren, price tag $1.4 million. (Only three Brazilians have a McLaren, he said, one of those being Mr. Batista.)

Last December he and his wife, Renilce, 55, moved into a home straight out of Gone With the Wind. Recently she showed off the $3 million in artwork they bought to fill three walls, all by Brazilian painters, including Ismael Nery and Flavio de Carvalho. The Brazilian landscaper Gilberto Elkis designed the home's sculpted gardens for a fee of $1 million.

Mr. Cavalcanti recently bought a $15 million Hawker 900 plane with a longer range than his Learjet, enabling him to make nonstop trips to Europe and the United States.

THE son of Italian immigrants, Mr. Cavalcanti said he was building a home in the family's native Tuscany, which will become his 11th residence.

For all his lavish possessions, Mr. Cavalcanti described himself as a disciplined soul who long ago forsook the playboy life for a deeply spiritual one. He does not drink alcohol or smoke. He described soccer, the passion of most Brazilians, as ''a waste of time.'' He said he detested Carnival, the annual street bacchanal for which Salvador is widely known.

He met his wife at a family wedding when he was 12 years old. He said they shared a passion for studying spiritual gurus that spanned the gamut. The library of his Salvador home is filled with books from authors like Joel S. Goldsmith, the American Christian Scientist.

With his thick beard, his wavy white hair and his habit of talking with his eyes closed, Mr. Cavalcanti looks the New Age part. At home in Salvador, he meditates most mornings at 3 a.m., sitting in a Buddhist chair in the backyard with his arms outstretched while soothing music plays. Sometimes his cat Felicity joins him.

He and his wife say all living things should be protected. Mr. Cavalcanti said he spurned a deal with a mining entrepreneur in 2004 after the man crushed a large ant with his fist at a Salvador restaurant. ''I told him I would no longer do business with him,'' Mr. Cavalcanti said. ''He thought I was crazy.''

He said he planned to become a major philanthropist, along the lines of Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates. The Cavalcantis have established a foundation to protect abandoned animals, some 2,000 dogs and 500 cats so far. Mr. Cavalcanti said he also planned to open a cancer treatment hospital for children.

The trappings of wealth notwithstanding, he said he remained an explorer at heart. Early last month he decided it was time to return to the field and to the search for more mineral deposits.

''I need to discover new reserves that can generate more wealth, more employment,'' he said. ''I need to go back to being J.C. in the country again.''
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: WEALTHY PEOPLE (90%); BANKING & FINANCE (88%); BUDDHISTS & BUDDHISM (78%); IRON MINING (78%); RELIGION (73%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (72%); GEOLOGY & GEOPHYSICS (71%); PAINTING (69%); CONSULTING SERVICES (66%); OIL EXPLORATION (66%); OIL & GAS EXPLORATION (66%); BIOGRAPHICAL LITERATURE (65%); PROFILES & BIOGRAPHIES (65%)
COMPANY: VOTORANTIM PARTICIPACIONES SA (60%); MERRILL LYNCH & CO INC (55%); CAPGEMINI SA (52%)
TICKER: MLY (LSE) (55%); MER (NYSE) (55%); 8675 (TSE) (55%); CAP (PAR) (52%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS541512 COMPUTER SYSTEMS DESIGN SERVICES (52%); SIC7379 COMPUTER RELATED SERVICES, NEC (52%); SIC7373 COMPUTER INTEGRATED SYSTEMS DESIGN (52%)
PERSON: DAVID DAVIS (56%); JAY ROCKEFELLER (54%)
GEOGRAPHIC: BRAZIL (99%); SOUTH AMERICA (95%); INDIA (79%); CHINA (79%)
CATEGORY: Business and Finance
Joao Carlos Cavalcanti
LOAD-DATE: August 2, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO (PHOTOGRAPH BY JOAO PINA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)
DOCUMENT-TYPE: Biography
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

528 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
August 2, 2008 Saturday

Late Edition - Final

If We Are What We Eat, Let's Be Kind
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Editorial Desk; LETTERS; Pg. 14
LENGTH: 860 words
To the Editor:

Re ''A Farm Boy Reflects'' (column, July 31):

Hats off to Nicholas D. Kristof, who takes note of the trend represented by the animal welfare proposition on the ballot in California this fall.

While this legislation would be an important step in transforming inhumane animal production, we must also call for change on the federal level, where the farm bill subsidizes this sector to the tune of billions of dollars.

In the past decade, for instance, we have doled out more than $3 billion in direct subsidies to large-scale livestock producers. And thanks to federal corn and soybean subsidies, factory farms saved an estimated $3.9 billion a year between 1997 and 2005, totaling nearly $35 billion, according to researchers at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University.

It's time that our tax dollars no longer finance the inhumane conditions -- for workers and animals and the climate -- of factory farms. Anna Lappe

Brooklyn, July 31, 2008

The writer is a co-founder of the Small Planet Institute.

To the Editor:

Nicholas D. Kristof's column broke my heart. As a recent convert to vegetarianism, I found that it reinforced my feeling that the eating of living, thinking, emotional creatures is just plain wrong.

The fact that geese mate for life, and that the mate of the poor goose that was slaughtered would step forward, was enough to make me swear off meat forever, if I hadn't already.

As a country, we place so little value on the creatures that give up their lives to satisfy our hunger. Since our food is delivered to us on a bun or in big bags of frozen parts, it's easy to eat it and not think about what it was or how it was killed.

If people had to see what these animals are subjected to or take an active role in their deaths, I believe many more people would think before they eat. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen any time soon.

We pay lip service to more humane treatment of the animals that we eat, but how many of us look beyond the label on the package of chicken cutlets?

Bernard Burlew

New York, July 31, 2008

To the Editor:

While I am grateful for Nicholas D. Kristof's thoughtful exploration of animal rights, I was astonished to read that he continues to eat animals, like geese and pigs, for which he obviously has such affection and respect.

Doesn't he realize that he does not have to engage in this voluntary activity, which causes moral conflict for himself and suffering for the animals?

Mr. Kristof is attuned to issues of human suffering and injustice. I hope he also knows that choosing a meat-based diet contributes to environmental devastation, involves a disproportionate use of the earth's resources and causes untold health problems.

I encourage him, and everyone who has been moved by his reflective column, to try going vegetarian full or part time, and dig into a plate of something more delicious, more compassionate and more healthy for us all.

Susan Beal

Brooklyn, July 31, 2008

To the Editor:

Nicholas D. Kristof wants animals to be raised for human consumption in the kind and generous manner of his boyhood farm, a way that certainly seems nicer to the animals than mean ol' modern industrial-style farming.

But one consequence that Mr. Kristof doesn't note is that meat prices would certainly be substantially higher. And for poor people, higher prices would mean less meat in their diets.

While the comfortably affluent always seem to prefer archaic forms of production and commerce, such as that to be found in a quaint Vermont (or Oregon) village, those of us who live in the real world understand that efficiency and productivity, as well as trade, are what make life better for the vast majority of people in the world.

Mark Nuckols

Moscow, July 31, 2008

To the Editor:

Nicholas D. Kristof's column has been haunting me since I read it. I imagine my own horror if my husband were to be brutally taken from me and slaughtered after our years of caring for each other and sharing our lives.

We empathize with our fellow humans when they endure mental or physical torture and condemn the cruel barbarians that inflict it.

We know that animals suffer as well. It would be a testament to our humanity if we could at least acknowledge that fact and show some kindness toward the creatures that we imprison to feed our appetites.

Maybe someday our legislators in New York will have the courage to follow in the footsteps of the states Mr. Kristof mentions. I look forward to casting my vote for compassion.

Janet Treadaway

New York, July 31, 2008

To the Editor:

I, too, am a farm boy. I grew up on a dairy and hog farm in central Massachusetts. Although we knew that our animals were destined for the tables of America, we were taught by our parents to respect and provide them with creature comfort while they were in our care.

I have visited many of the grotesque factory farms that now corrupt our rural landscapes. Government animal rights regulations may help. But compassion and civil sense from the large farm entrepreneurs might be more helpful. Jules L Garel

Columbus, Ohio, July 31, 2008

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: TRENDS (90%); LETTERS & COMMENTS (90%); FACTORY FARMS (90%); ANIMAL FARMING & BREEDING (90%); AGRICULTURAL LAW (78%); AGRICULTURAL SUBSIDIES (78%); LEGISLATION (77%); ANIMAL RIGHTS (77%); ANIMAL WELFARE (77%); LIVESTOCK RESEARCH (75%); MEAT FREE DIETS (74%); GOVERNMENT GRANTS & SUBSIDIES (71%); EDITORIALS & OPINIONS (59%); RESEARCH (54%); MAMMALS (77%)