Disney CEO Bob Iger could take home $60-million bonus

Walt Disney Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Iger, who inked a two-year contract extension on Thursday, could depart the company in 2018 with a bonus of up to $60 million.

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the performance-based retention bonus is tied to Disney meeting certain operating income targets.

Iger's bonus would be triggered if the company were to generate cumulative operating income of more than $76.010 billion over the five-year period ending Sept. 29, 2018. The bonus escalates linearly.

The bonus maxes out at $60 million, which Iger would receive if the company generates cumulative operating income of more than $78.314 billion over the stretch.

The bonus is by no means guaranteed. For Iger to receive it, Disney's operating income would have to increase dramatically. For the five-year period from 2009 to 2013, the company generated cumulative operating income of $43.771 billion.

However, the company's annual operating income has increased considerably in recent years. In 2013, Disney's operating income was $10.724 billion, up 8 percent from a year earlier when it was $9.964 billion. It increased by 13 percent from 2011 to 2012.

Save for the prospective bonus, Iger will continue to receive the same annual compensation as under his previous contract. A large portion of his pay is tied to Disney's financial performance. For the fiscal year that ended Sept. 28, 2013, Iger's base salary was $2.5 million, but his total compensation was $34.3 million.

Iger has been chief executive of Burbank-based Disney, the world's largest entertainment company, since 2005. Iger's new contract runs through June 2018, and he is expected to leave Disney at that time.

Before signing the contract extension, he'd been set to vacate his post at the end of June 2016.

He told The Times on Thursday it has been a "privilege" to run Disney and said he relished "having more time to do that."

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British retail boss sorry for anti-French remarks

LONDON — It was a speech that got lost in translation.

The boss of British retail chain John Lewis apologized Friday for saying France is "in decline" and "finished."

The Times newspaper reported that managing director Andy Street had made the critical comments at an event for entrepreneurs in London this week.

It said he described France as "sclerotic, hopeless and downbeat," and said "nothing works and worse, nobody cares about it."

Street also described the Gare du Nord station in Paris — terminus for Eurostar trains from London — as "the squalor pit of Europe" and told his audience: "If you've got investments in French businesses, get them out quickly."

In a statement Friday, Street said his comments "were supposed to be lighthearted views, and tongue in cheek."

"On reflection I clearly went too far," he said. "I regret the comments, and apologize unreservedly."

The French embassy in London was unamused by the comments. It told the Times that France had the world's fifth-largest economy, with world-class public services, a first-rate health care system and higher workforce productivity than many other developed countries.

John Lewis operates upmarket department stores in Britain. It does not have any stores in France but is planning to launch a website for French customers.

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Palestinian university expels Israeli visitor

RAMALLAH, West Bank — The expulsion of an Israeli journalist from an academic conference hosted by a top Palestinian university has unleashed a fierce debate about academic freedom in the West Bank.

It is also shining a spotlight on the apparent radicalization of some young Palestinians who are disillusioned by years of failed peace efforts and have grown up with little contact with Israelis.

While Bir Zeit University has apologized to journalist Amira Hass, some student activists say they support her expulsion and want the school to rescind its apology. In Israel, officials say such attitudes violate the spirit of academic freedom.

Hass, who writes for the liberal Israeli daily Haaretz, is a popular figure in Ramallah, one of a few dovish Israeli Jews who live in the Palestinian city. In Israel, she is well known — and reviled by some— for her scathing criticism of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.

But when she attended a conference at Bir Zeit on Sept. 23, she ran into trouble when she listed Haaretz as her professional affiliation.

She said two professors asked her to leave. "They said, 'There is a law in the university that Israelis cannot enter the university,'" she said. One even told her that she should leave for her own safety. Hass, who said she has been to the university dozens of times previously, decided to leave.

"I was at that moment reminded of the image that Israelis commonly have of Palestinians: irrational hotheads," she wrote in Haaretz.

In an interview, Hass said she has received messages of support from many Palestinians. Hundreds signed a petition saying they were shocked by the expulsion, calling her a courageous defender of Palestinian human rights.

Ghassan Zaqatan, a prominent columnist, called the treatment of Hass "shameful."

Bir Zeit expressed regret and said it will work with students and faculty to help them understand university policies that "oppose discrimination based on identity."

The university "takes pride in observing the academic boycott of Israel," but this applies to institutions, not individuals like Hass who have "distinguished themselves by being on the side of justice and humanity," Bir Zeit said in a statement.

The affair has been hotly debated on campus. On Thursday, the student council demanded the university withdraw its apology. "We say that any Israeli Zionist is not welcome in Bir Zeit University," said Mustafa Mustafa, head of the student council.

He said that Israel should cease to exist, and "if Amira really supports the Palestinian struggle against the occupation, she needs to leave the country."

Baraa al-Qadi, another activist, said that while the general student body is apathetic, most student leaders reject the efforts by the Fatah-led Palestine Liberation Organization to pursue peace with Israel.

Ghassan Khatib, a senior university official, said the school has no official policy banning contact with Israelis, and plans to invite Hass back. He said that while he personally favors interaction with Israelis, the current attitude on campus is that "supporters of the occupation" should not be welcomed.

He said he could not remember the last time an Israeli official had spoken on campus and could not envision leaders of moderate Israeli parties being invited. Students are "willing to listen to views they are not happy with, but when it comes to the occupation, it's another category," he said.

Khatib, a former Palestinian government spokesman, blamed the downfall of Israel's "peace camp" for the hardening of Palestinian attitudes. "For the new generation in Palestine now, it is extremely difficult to notice the existence of any peace camp in Israel, which weakens the argument of the need for dialogue and interaction," he said.

Dovish Israeli political parties advocating broad withdrawals from lands occupied since 1967 have seen their fortunes tumble following a Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s, repeated failures in peace negotiations and three wars against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Palestinians are disillusioned by two decades of failed negotiations, and the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, occupied lands they seek for their independent state.

The political impasse is accompanied by growing separation.

Since a second Palestinian uprising began in 2000, Israel has imposed a number of restrictions that prevent most Palestinians from entering Israel and bar Israelis from Palestinian areas in the West Bank.

That contrasts sharply with the situation 20 years ago when thousands of Palestinian workers came to Israel on a daily basis, and many Israelis visited the West Bank for shopping, eating and sightseeing.

In consequence few young people on either side have much contact with the other — unless it is during clashes between the Israeli army and Palestinian demonstrators.

Bir Zeit is considered the best university in the West Bank, and it has long been a center of political activism. Last year, protesters angry over British policies in the Middle East blocked the British consul general from entering the campus and forced him to cancel a speech.

Academic boycotts are nothing new to Israel. University associations in the U.S., Britain and elsewhere have attempted — and sometimes succeeded — to cut off ties with Israeli counterparts.

Israel's committee of university heads said it rejects any academic boycott.

Israel's Hebrew University, for instance, maintains a number of partnerships with the Palestinians, including a collaborative training program that trains dentists from the West Bank and a master's degree in public health that accepts Palestinian students.

Uri Savir, a former Israeli peace negotiator, said he believes the young Palestinians who reject contact with Israel arel a small but vocal minority.

But he warned that the continued failure by both sides to reach a peace agreement would only strengthen these voices. "The longer the time that there is no realistic horizon of the two-state solution, the secular minority of extremists will either go with Hamas or grow within the Fatah," he said.

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Federman reported from Jerusalem.

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Nearly century-old Lawrence business closes

LAWRENCE, Mass. — A nearly 100-year-old fish market in Lawrence is closing its doors for good later this month.

Siblings Tom Pappalardo and Mary Pappalardo-Raymond say they are getting old and want to step aside, and no one in their family wants to take over the business. The Boston Fish Market was founded in 1919 by their grandfather.

Tom Pappalardo is 68 and tells The Eagle-Tribune  he wants to retire. Mary Pappalardo-Raymond is 53 and has a career as a nurse.

They have sold the business but are not quite sure what the new owners have planned, but doubt it's a fish market.

The owners say the business has changed. All the seafood they sold 40 or 50 years ago used to be caught locally. Now most is imported.

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Information from: Eagle Tribune (North Andover, Mass.), http://www.eagletribune.com

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Push by workers for paid sick days gathers steam

BOSTON — For a majority of Americans, a sick day is just that — a day to stay home, rest up and get better before returning to work. But supporters of a Massachusetts ballot question say for many low-income workers, getting sick means losing pay and perhaps even their jobs.

If approved by voters, the proposal would allow workers to accrue up to 40 hours of paid sick time in a given year, earning one hour for every 30 hours they put in. Companies with ten or fewer employees would be exempted, as would those with equally or more generous sick leave policies in place.

While sponsors say it would be the nation's strongest sick time law, business groups view it as a short-sighted, one-size-fits-all approach that ignores economic realities facing many employers.

Workers could take time off to care for themselves or a sick family member, though employers could demand a doctor's note for absences longer than three days.

Gabrielle Monteiro, 23, of New Bedford, said she once felt pressured by a supervisor to go to her job at a Laundromat just hours after being treated for a lung infection in a hospital emergency room.

"It was obvious that I was sick," said Monteiro, now a student at University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and a volunteer for Raise Up Massachusetts, a coalition of unions and community groups spearheading the November ballot drive.

"If this law were in place, I think people would be able to take the time they need for themselves or their loved one without running the risk of threats or being fired," she said.

According to the most recent estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 61 percent of private sector workers receive paid sick time. But the numbers vary dramatically based on type of employment and average earnings, with managerial and office workers twice as likely to have paid sick leave as those in the service industry.

Among the top 10 percent of wage earners, nearly 9 in 10 had paid sick time; among the lowest ten percent, only 1 in 5 could say the same.

California Gov. Jerry Brown recently signed a law that would require most employers to provide up to three sick days a year. Connecticut, the only other state with a paid sick leave law, exempts businesses with fewer than 50 employees. Several cities, including New York, also have laws in effect.

Advocates frame it as an "economic justice" issue, paired with recent efforts to boost the minimum wage nationally and in states. It takes barely three unpaid sick days to threaten the ability of a typical low-wage worker to afford groceries, rent and other necessities, said Vicki Shabo, vice president of the National Partnership for Women & Families.

Opponents in Massachusetts contend a paid sick time law would dump another expensive mandate on small businesses.

While employers in office settings can generally cover for sick workers without bringing in additional staff, the same is not true for many small businesses, including some who might be required by law to maintain certain staffing levels, according to Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts.

Those companies would have to pay both the sick worker and a replacement, he said.

"Where the real concerns lie is with small businesses that don't have the ability and frankly don't have the flexibility and financial wherewithal to really absorb all of the costs that we are looking at here," said Hurst.

The measure could also have implications for taxpayers, opponents note, since the Massachusetts proposal — unlike the California law — would not exempt home health care aides who often work for state-funded contractors.

Deb Fastino, co-chair of Raise Up Massachusetts — which led a successful effort to boost the state's hourly minimum wage from $8 to $11 over the next three years — counters that a sick time requirement would benefit businesses by reducing employee turnover and contagion.

"We all know when people go in sick, they're not very productive," Fastino said.

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JPMorgan breach heightens data security doubts

LOS ANGELES — New details on a cyberattack against JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s computer servers this summer add to increasing doubts over the security of consumer data kept by lenders, retailers and others.

The New York-based bank disclosed Thursday that the breach compromised customer information pertaining to roughly 76 million households and 7 million small businesses.

Among the customer data stolen were names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses, though only customers who use the websites Chase.com and JPMorganOnline and the apps ChaseMobile and JPMorgan Mobile were affected, the bank said.

JPMorgan stressed that there's no evidence that the data breach included account numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers or dates of birth. It also noted that it has not seen any unusual customer fraud stemming from the data breach.

The server breach follows data thefts that have hit financial firms and major retailers this year, adding to consumer concerns over the risk of identity theft and fraud.

The Chase heist is even more disturbing than the recent retail breaches because banks are supposed to have fortress-like protection against intruders, said Gartner security analyst Avivah Litan.

"This is really a slap in the face of the American financial services system," Litan said. "Honestly, this is a crisis point."

JPMorgan Chase, the nation's biggest bank by assets, has been working with law enforcement officials to investigate the cyberattack.

The bank discovered the intrusion on its servers in mid-August and has since determined that the breach began as early as June, spokeswoman Patricia Wexler said.

"We have identified and closed the known access paths," she said, declining to elaborate.

She also declined to comment on whether JPMorgan has been able to determine who was behind the cyberattack on its servers.

In response to the data breach, the company has disabled compromised accounts and reset passwords of all its technology employees, Wexler said.

In a post on its Chase.com website, the bank told customers that it doesn't believe they need to change their password or account information. It also noted that customers are not liable for unauthorized transactions when they promptly alert the bank.

The breach is yet another in a series of data thefts that have hit financial firms and major retailers.

Last month, Home Depot said that malicious software lurking in its check-out terminals between April and September affected 56 million debit and credit cards. Michaels and Neiman Marcus also have been attacked by hackers in the past year.

A data breach at Target in December compromised 40 million credit and debit cards. TJX Cos.'s theft of 90 million records, disclosed in 2007, remains the largest data breach at a retailer.

Chase's assurances that it hasn't found any evidence of the personal data being misused shouldn't be misinterpreted as a reason to rest easy. The information still could be used in a variety of ways to rip off people in the months and years ahead.

That means consumers and business owners need to be more vigilant than ever, making sure to pore over their financial statements each month for any sign of suspicious activity. People also should be more leery than ever of unsolicited phone calls from purported bank representatives, emails fishing for their financial information and even uninvited guests knocking at their doors.

"You have to be paranoid now. You can't slack off," Litan said. "There is no such thing as data confidentiality anymore. Everything is out there."

Jamie Dimon, the bank's CEO, said in this year's annual report that despite spending millions on cybersecurity, JPMorgan remained worried about the threat of attacks. By the end of this year, the bank estimates that it will be spending about $250 million annually on cybersecurity and employing 1,000 people in the area.

In August, the FBI said that it was working with the Secret Service to determine the scope of recent cyber attacks against several American financial institutions.

Last month, JPMorgan began notifying customers that it would reissue credit or debit cards in the wake of the data breach at Home Depot. Wexler said the bank doesn't plan to reissue cards as a result of the breach of its servers, noting that customer account information was not stolen.

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AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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Baker Chocolate complex has sweet condos

If you're looking for an alternative to the Hub's astro­nomical condo prices, you may want to stop looking along the Charles River and set your sights on the Neponset.

The Baker Chocolate complex, a 14-acre village of brick factory buildings along the Neponset River in Dorchester's Lower Mills, has some new high-end condos that start at just $450,000. Owners have access to an indoor lap pool with a hot tub, a fitness facility, a conference room and a dog park. Units come with deeded parking out back and condo fees include heat.

The Lofts at Lower Mills were transformed into one- and two-bedroom market-­rate apartments with historic preservation tax credits five years ago, and now Hub owner Winn­ Develop­ment has been converting them to condos as the credits expire.

Three buildings are being transitioned into 77 condos, with 58 of them in a six-story Romanesque Revival building built in 1891 and known as the Baker Mill. The developer is adding hardwood floors, some updated appliances, and even opening up some unused loft spaces on the top floor.

The condos have 13-to- 18A-foot-high wood-beam ceilings, tall windows, exposed brick walls and lots of original detailing.

We took a look at model Unit B-601, a 2,000-square-foot one-bedroom-plus duplex that's on the market for $660,000. The sixth-floor unit's living room has soaring 18A-foot ceilings and a large multipart arched window that overlooks the river. Its one bedroom, reachable by a newly added steel and wood staircase, is a remarkably large 750 square feet. The unit has two full bathrooms with glass-enclosed showers and a soaking tub, an in-unit washer/dryer, a dining room/den space and an open kitchen with quartz countertops, wood cabinets and stainless-steel appliances.

The Baker complex is within a short walking distance of Dorchester's Lower Mills retail area and Milton Village just across the Neponset, but it feels self-contained. Out back there's the picturesque Baker Dam and you can connect with Neponset River Walk that leads down to the Pope John XXIII park. There's a Red Line trolley stop to Ashmont just across the street, making for an easy city commute.

"It's got a neighborhood feel, and it's affordable," said Jonathan Keith of Keith Brokerage in Canton, who is exclusively marketing the units. The building was rehabbed into apartments by his family's construction company.

Condo fees range from $600-$900 a month, and include gas heat from a central system. Owners also get access to the complex's renovated lap pool and fitness facility.

"We're attracting a lot more empty nester buyers than we thought we would," said Keith, who said 32 units have closed. "We're getting people from suburbs like Hingham and Cohasset who want to be close to the South Shore but are looking for a city feel. The complex has really developed into a friendly neighborhood with a great mix of people."

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Company proposes a safer Zohydro to FDA

The maker of the controversial painkiller Zohydro is seeking federal approval of a harder-to-abuse version, but its lawsuit against the state is "ongoing," even though a judge struck down Massachusetts' ban of the drug and some of the subsequent restrictions the state put on it.

San Diego-based Zogenix said it has submitted a supplemental application to the Food and Drug Administration for a new form of Zohydro extended-release capsules that is more difficult to snort or inject. If it is approved, as the company expects, in the first quarter of 2015, the drugmaker would replace the current version of Zohydro in the second quarter.

The company still, however, is challenging U.S. District Judge Rya W. Zobel's July 8 decision upholding a state Board of Registration in Pharmacy regulation requiring that only pharmacists handle Zohydro in a drug store.

"That legal action is ongoing in federal court, and the company will provide additional updates as it moves through the process," Zogenix said yesterday in a statement.

A hearing on the company's complaint is expected in December.

"Our office has urged the FDA as well as manufacturers to make abuse-resistant and tamper-resistant formulations of their drugs, especially potent opioids," Christopher Loh, a spokesman for Attorney General Martha Coakley, said in a statement yesterday. "That continues to be an important tool in the fight against abuse and a minimum safeguard that should be employed by manufacturers of painkillers."

The FDA approved Zohydro last October. But in late March, Gov. Deval Patrick declared a public health emergency because of a growing number of opiate overdoses and banned the prescription and sale of hydrocone-only drugs, of which Zohydro is the only one.

The company sued, arguing that it was being singled out unfairly, and in April, Zobel lifted the ban. Within days, the boards of registration in medicine and pharmacy and the Board of Registration of Physicians Assistants passed regulations placing restrictions on how the drug could be prescribed and sold.

In July, Zobel struck down a requirement that doctors or physicians assistants certify in a "letter of medical necessity" that "other pain management treatments have failed" for a patient who has been prescribed Zohydro.

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Correction: Wrong Sperm-Lawsuit story

CLEVELAND — In a story Oct. 1 about a woman being inseminated with the wrong sperm, The Associated Press reported erroneously the number of women who sued. Only one sued, not two.

A correct version of the story was sent Oct. 2. A corrected version is also below:

White Ohio woman sues over sperm from black donor

Ohio woman sues after receiving sperm from a black donor instead of a white donor

By MARK GILLISPIE

Associated Press

CLEVELAND (AP) — An Ohio woman has sued a Chicago-area sperm bank after she became pregnant with sperm donated by a black man instead of a white man as she'd intended.

Jennifer Cramblett was five months pregnant and happy with her life in April 2012. She and her partner had married months earlier in New York, and within days of their nuptials she had become pregnant with donor sperm at a fertility clinic in Canton.

Cramblett, 36, and her partner, Amanda Zinkon, 29, were so elated that they called Midwest Sperm Bank LLC outside Chicago to reserve sperm from the same donor in the hope that Zinkon would someday also have a child.

But that's when Cramblett received some disturbing news, says a lawsuit filed Monday against Midwest Sperm Bank in Cook County, Illinois. She learned from an employee at the sperm bank that she had been inseminated with sperm from No. 330, a black donor, and not No. 380, a white donor she and Zinkon, who are white, had chosen.

"How could they make a mistake that was so personal?" Cramblett said during a telephone interview on Wednesday.

According to the lawsuit, her excitement about the pending birth was replaced with "anger, disappointment and fear."

"They took a personal choice, a personal decision and took it on themselves to make that choice for us out of pure negligence," Cramblett said.

Telephone calls to Midwest Sperm Bank were not returned on Wednesday. It's unclear who the sperm bank's attorney is.

Cramblett said she and Zinkon love their 2-year-old daughter, Payton, very much and wouldn't change anything about her. But they are concerned about raising her in the predominantly white community where they live.

The lawsuit said they had moved from Akron to Uniontown for better schools and to be closer to Cramblett's family. She said that as a lesbian she has felt the sting of prejudice but doesn't know what it's like to be mistreated because of her skin color.

The lawsuit says Cramblett also is worried about how Payton will be treated in her "all-white, and often unconsciously insensitive family."

Therapists have recommended that Cramblett, Zinkon and Payton move to a more a racially diverse community with good schools, the lawsuit said.

Cramblett said she decided to sue to prevent the sperm bank from making the same mistake again. The lawsuit says the sperm bank has no electronic record-keeping and no quality controls that would have prevented it from sending the wrong sperm to fertility clinics.

The lawsuit seeks a minimum of $50,000 in damages. Cramblett's attorney, Tim Misny, said some of the compensation would pay for ongoing counseling.

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GM issues 2 more recalls for SUVs, mini cars

DETROIT — General Motors announced two more recalls Friday, pushing its total for the year to 71, affecting almost 30 million vehicles in North America.

The biggest of the new recalls covers just over 430,000 Cadillac SRX and Saab 9-4X SUVs, mainly in North America. The company says some rear suspension nuts may not have been tightened properly. That could cause the toe link adjuster to separate from the suspension, possibly causing a crash.

The recall affects SRXs from the 2011 through 2015 model years and Saabs from the 2011 and 2012 model years. GM says the problem has caused three crashes and two injuries.

Dealers will inspect the SUVs and install a new assembly if needed. Unsold SRXs are being checked to make sure the nuts are tightened properly.

The other recall covers nearly 94,000 Chevrolet Spark mini-cars from 2013 through 2015 in the U.S. and Canada. Rust can cause a secondary hood latch to stick, and the hood can open unexpectedly, blocking the driver's vision and causing a crash. GM says it knows of no crashes or injuries from the problem.

Dealers will replace the latch when parts are available. GM has told dealers not to sell about 13,000 cars on their lots until the repairs are made.

The company found out about the problem in March when it got reports of three latches corroding prematurely in the United Kingdom. In all three cases, the hood opened while the cars were being driven, according to documents GM filed with U.S. safety regulators. The company also received 10 warranty complaints in the U.S. for rusted latches.

GM traced the problem to an anti-corrosion coating on the latch that didn't meet company specifications. The coating was changed at the factory on July 31.

General Motors Co. shares edged up 31 cents to $33.49 in morning trading Friday. Its shares had fallen almost 19 percent so far this year through Thursday's close.

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