Times Hit by White Powder Scare

Air Force One backup planes flies low around Statue of Liberty

(NEWSER) - A photo op by the Defense Department caused buildings in lower Manhattan and New Jersey to be evacuated this morning, the New York Times reports. A backup for Air Force One flew low over Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty accompanied by two fighter jets. The deployment was coordinated with the city, the Pentagon said, but the low-flying plane brought back terrifying Sept. 11 memories. More»

Debt-laden paper enters sale-leaseback with investment firm

(NEWSER) - The New York Times Company has raised $225 million through a sale-leaseback of its Eighth Avenue skyscraper, it announced this morning. The deal gives investment firm WP Carey ownership of the Times' share of the Renzo Piano-designed headquarters, which the newspaper moved into in 2007. The company will then lease the real estate back at $32 a square foot, about half the going price of similar office space. More»

(NEWSER) - Rumors of the New York Times’ demise are greatly exaggerated, reports... the New York Times. “Despite some published alarms to the contrary, the company has positioned itself to ride out another year of recession, maybe two,” Richard Péréz-Peña writes in a review of his employer’s finances. The Times hopes to "fill the void" left as other papers fold or cut back, a so-called last-man-standing strategy. More»

(NEWSER) - White powder mailed to executives of the Wall Street Journal and to Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz is harmless, authorities say. Authorities have no suspects or motive, but the Journal notes that Dershowitz wrote an essay for the paper earlier this month defending Israel's assault on Gaza. The Journal got a dozen letters and evacuated two floors of its Manhattan offices this afternoon. Dershowitz got one letter at Harvard Law School. More»

More than a dozen NYC-based executives get envelopes with Tenn. postmark

(NEWSER) - The Wall Street Journal received more than a dozen envelopes filled with an unidentified white powder today, addressed to various New York-based executives at the newspaper. Police and hazardous-materials crews are investigating, according to a spokesman, and the floor used by paper execs and editorial-page employees has been evacuated. All envelopes bore the same Tennessee postmark. More»