Reported violent crimes decrease Reported violent crimes decrease ADVERTISING WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of violent crimes reported to police decreased 3.8 percent last year to 1.2 million, the fifth straight year of declines, the FBI announced Monday. Meanwhile, the
Reported violent crimes decrease
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of violent crimes reported to police decreased 3.8 percent last year to 1.2 million, the fifth straight year of declines, the FBI announced Monday.
Meanwhile, the total number of property crimes reported to law enforcement agencies went down by 0.5 percent to 9 million, the ninth consecutive year that figure has fallen. Property crimes resulted in estimated losses of $156.6 billion.
The latest declines mark the continuation of a nearly two-decade drop in crime levels — a trend that almost no one in the field of criminology predicted, said Professor John Caulkins of Carnegie Mellon Heinz College.
The trend, said Caulkins, is a reflection of a range of many factors, including policing practices.
A drop in the number of people in the peak crime-age category of teens to 25-year-olds also contributed to the crime reductions, Caulkins said, but added that “if this were only a story of demographics, we would never have had this kind of substantial decline.”
Government figures released two weeks ago said that violent crime has fallen by 65 percent since 1993.
Twenty years ago, “there was a lot of hand-wringing about high crime levels” but “we’re way past the possibility that this is a lucky conversion,” Caulkins said.
Financial markets to be shut today
NEW YORK (AP) — Stock trading will be closed in the U.S. for a second day today as Hurricane Sandy bears down on the East Coast. Bond trading will also be closed.
The last time the New York Stock Exchange was closed for weather was in 1985 because of Hurricane Gloria, and it will be the first time since 1888 that the exchange will have been closed for two consecutive days because of weather. The cause then was a blizzard that left drifts as high as 40 feet in the streets of New York City. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq said they intend to reopen on Wednesday and would keep investors updated.
Much of the East Coast was at a standstill Monday as the storm approached. Mass transit and schools were closed across the region ahead of the storm hitting land, which was expected to happen later Monday.
Areas around New York’s Financial District were part of a mandatory evacuation zone. The storm surge is already pushing water over seawalls in the southern tip of Manhattan.
CME Group’s New York trading floor was closed, but its electronic markets for commodities were functioning. Crude oil fell 74 cents to close at $85.54 in electronic trading. CME said electronic trading for commodities would also be open today.
Toyota on top in consumer survey
DETROIT (AP) — And the winner is … Japan.
Japanese brands took the top seven spots in Consumer Reports’ annual reliability rankings, pushing aside their U.S. and European rivals. Toyota Motor Corp.’s Scion, Lexus and Toyota brands took the top three spots and the Toyota Prius C, a subcompact hybrid, got the best overall score. Mazda, Subaru, Honda and Acura were close behind.
The rankings, released Monday, predict the reliability of 2013 model-year vehicles based on surveys of Consumer Reports’ readers. This year, 800,000 people submitted information on 1.2 million vehicles from the 2010 to 2012 model years. The rankings are critical for auto companies, since Americans frequently cite Consumer Reports as a main source of car-buying advice.
Ford and Lincoln plummeted to the bottom of this year’s rankings because of persistent problems with glitchy touch screens and bumpy transmissions.
Refineries scale back amid storm
Associated Press
The biggest refineries in the Northeast shut down or throttled back on Monday in advance of Hurricane Sandy, and oil prices fell sharply as it appeared the massive storm will reduce demand.
Phillips 66 shut down its Linden, N.J. refinery, the second-biggest in the Northeast at 285,000 barrels per day. The biggest refinery in the area, Philadelphia Energy Solutions, was nearly shut. Most other big refineries in the Northeast were running at reduced capacity.
Sandy is powerful enough to down trees and powerlines and cause widespread flooding. Businesses could also be shut for days. If so, demand for gasoline and other oil products would drop sharply. The power outages and the shutdown of major cities “may take a toll on demand unlike anything we have seen before,” wrote Phil Flynn, a senior market analyst for Price Futures Group.
in a report on Monday. “The impact on demand may not last for hours but more than likely for days,” he wrote.
Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Services, said he expects the drop in demand for oil and refined products “will be about as significant as we’ve seen since Katrina made landfall” in 2005.
Crude oil prices fell $1, or 1.1 percent, to $85.32 a barrel in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The Nymex was closed on Monday because of the storm and evacuation in New York, but electronic trading continued.
