By wire sources
Egypt’s Islamist
parties winning big
CAIRO — Final results on Saturday showed that Islamist parties won nearly three-quarters of the seats in parliament in Egypt’s first elections since the ouster of authoritarian president Hosni Mubarak, according to election officials and political groups.
The Islamist domination of Egypt’s parliament has worried liberals and even some conservatives about the religious tone of the new legislature, which will be tasked with forming a committee to write a new constitution. It remains unclear whether the constitution will be written while the generals who took power after Mubarak’s fall are still in charge, or rather after presidential elections this summer.
In the vote for the lower house of parliament, a coalition led by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood won 47 percent, or 235 seats in the 498-seat parliament. The ultraconservative Al-Nour Party was second with 25 percent, or 125 seats.
The Salafi Al-Nour, which was initially the biggest surprise of the vote, wants to impose strict Islamic law in Egypt, while the more moderate Brotherhood, the country’s best-known and organized party, has said publicly that it does not seek to force its views about an appropriate Islamic lifestyle on Egyptians.
Record profit doesn’t equal bigger bonus
NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, posted a record profit for 2011. That didn’t translate into a bigger bonus for CEO Jamie Dimon. Morgan Stanley’s latest quarterly results topped expectations as the bank trimmed costs and cleaned up problems dating from the financial crisis. But CEO James Gorman saw the value of his stock awards for the year fall by half.
Across their ranks, Wall Street banks are curbing bonus pay for last year’s performance, which was marked by big drops in stock prices and still-hefty costs for mortgage-related problems.
3-inch nail removed from Ill. man’s brain
OAK LAWN, Ill. — Dante Autullo was sure he’d merely cut himself with a nail gun while building a shed, and thought doctors were joking when they told him what an X-ray revealed: A 31/4-inch nail was lodged in the middle of his brain.
Autullo was recovering Friday after undergoing surgery at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where doctors removed the nail that came within millimeters of the part of the brain controlling motor function.
“When they brought in the picture, I said to the doctor ‘Is this a joke? Did you get that out of the doctors joke file?'” the 32-year-old recalled. “The doctor said ‘No man, that’s in your head.'”
As he was rushed by ambulance to another hospital for surgery, he posted a picture of the X-ray on Facebook.
Autullo, who lives in Orland Park, said he was building a shed Tuesday and using the nail gun above his head when he fired it. With nothing to indicate that a nail hadn’t simply whizzed by his head, his long-time companion, Gail Glaenzer, cleaned the wound with peroxide.
Crews contain Reno fire that claimed 29 homes
RENO, Nev. — As rain helped crews surround a brush fire that destroyed 29 homes and forced thousands to flee, the family of the blaze’s only known fatality said Saturday that prosecuting the man who admitted to starting it wouldn’t “do any good.”
June Hargis, 93, was found dead in a studio apartment next to her daughter’s home in Washoe Valley, where the fire started Thursday.
Sheriff Mike Haley said her cause of death has not been established, so it’s not known if it was fire related. No other fatalities or major injuries were reported.
Fire officials say an “extremely remorseful” elderly man admitted Friday to accidentally starting the fire when he improperly discarded fireplace ashes outside his home in the valley’s north end.
By wire sources