Thief Gets Away With Estimated $50 Million in Jewelry at a French Riviera Hotel

A jewel thief brandishing a gun entered an exclusive hotel along the French Riviera on Sunday morning, eluded security guards and well-heeled guests, and left with a glittering haul worth perhaps $50 million, according to the regional state prosecutor's office.

The theft occurred at the Carlton InterContinental Hotel along the Promenade de la Croisette in Cannes, a Mediterranean playground for the word's rich and famous.

It comes just days after the Swiss police announced that a member of the Pink Panther gang of jewel thieves had escaped from a prison in Switzerland. The gang, which has ties to the Balkans, is said to have hit hundreds of high-end boutiques all over the globe, making off with hundreds of millions of dollars in jewelry.

The theft had all the hallmarks of a Hollywood movie, including the set, the Carlton, where Alfred Hitchcock filmed "To Catch a Thief," the 1955 movie about a jewel thief prowling the French Riviera, starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. Reached by telephone, hotel officials would not comment.

Several news agencies, citing unnamed officials, estimated the value of the stolen goods at more than $50 million, but the officials cautioned that the estimate was preliminary.

Details of the theft were slow to emerge on Sunday. The police in Cannes and the nearby city of Nice, the regional hub, said by telephone that they had no information about the case. No suspects have been named.

News agencies said the stolen jewels were part of an exhibition put on by the Leviev diamond house. Calls made to Leviev were not answered on Sunday.

Around 11:30, a man wearing a cap, and with a scarf or bandanna over his face, entered the hotel carrying what appeared to be an automatic pistol, the office of the regional state prosecutor in Grasse told Agence France-Presse. He entered the exhibition while several people, including security guards, were there.

"Everything happened very quickly and without violence," the prosecutor's office said, according to A.F.P., which said the man made off with several bags full of jewels and watches.

The prosecutor's office said $50 million was "a provisional estimate" of the jewels' value, but might not be "trustworthy," Agence France-Presse reported. An inventory was under way Sunday, the office said.

Thieves have plied a lucrative trade in Cannes this year. In May alone, several million dollars' worth of jewelry was reported stolen in two separate robberies at luxury hotels during the Cannes Film Festival, which typically attracts a wealthy and bejeweled crowd.

In one episode, thieves stole a necklace by the Swiss jeweler De Grisogono reportedly worth $2.5 million. A week earlier, about $1 million in jewelry was taken from the room of an employee of Chopard, the Swiss jewelers.  

Other thefts elsewhere have been far more dramatic. In February, thieves dressed as police officers and armed with automatic weapons surrounded a plane packed with diamonds that was parked on the tarmac at the Brussels airport. In a matter of minutes, they were able to make off with tens millions of dollars in stones. The diamonds were later recovered and several arrests were made.

Perhaps the costliest theft in recent memory occurred in France in 2008. In a crime called the robbery of the century by French news media, a pack of thieves, some posing as women and at least one with a hand grenade, robbed the Harry Winston jewelry store in Paris of roughly $110 million worth of diamonds, rings and watches.

More than two years later, some of the diamonds were found in a drainpipe north of Paris.

Scott Sayare contributed reporting from Paris.

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5 Dead, Including Child, in Pa. Helicopter Crash

NOXEN, Pa. — A helicopter crash in a rugged, wooded area of northeastern Pennsylvania claimed the lives of five people, including one child, officials said Sunday.

The crash happened Saturday night after the pilot told air traffic controllers he was losing altitude, according to the county coroner.

Wyoming County coroner Thomas Kukuchka said the pilot contacted a nearby tower around 10:30 p.m. saying he would attempt to return to another airfield nearby.

"That's when he went off radar," Kukuchka said.

Although the names of those on board have not been released, Kukuchka said three men, a woman and a child were on board.

"It appears to be a father and son, a father and daughter and the pilot," he said.

Kukuchka did not release the ages of the victims. He said his office was trying to reach family members of the deceased in Leesburg, Va., Ellicot City, Md. and Kintnersville, Pa.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the helicopter took off from Greater Binghamton Airport in New York but officials there said it had actually originated at a smaller airfield nearby, Tri Cities Airport in Endicott. A phone message left at Tri Cities Airport was not immediately returned Sunday night.

State police and FAA personnel were still on the scene Sunday evening, according to Trooper Adam Reed, a state police spokesman. Additional details will be released as the investigation progresses, he said.

Although it was not clear if weather played a role in the crash, Kukuchka said there were severe thunderstorms in the area Saturday night. The coroner and police said rough weather contributed to the difficulty of the search; the wreckage was located shortly before 2 p.m. Sunday.

The FAA said the helicopter was bound for Jake Arner Memorial Airport in Lehighton.

The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation, the FAA said.

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Bloomberg Media Recruits a New Chief From The Atlantic

Justin B. Smith, whose digital strategy swiftly transformed The Atlantic, one of the statelier media vessels around, is about to get a bigger boat.

Daniel Rosenbaum for The New York Times

Justin B. Smith, as president of Atlantic Media, developed a reputation as an aggressive promoter of digital media.

On Monday, Bloomberg will announce that Mr. Smith, the president of Atlantic Media, will be named chief executive of the Bloomberg Media Group. He will report to Daniel L. Doctoroff, chief executive of Bloomberg. Andrew Lack, who managed the media division for five years, will become chairman.

After joining The Atlantic in 2007, Mr. Smith developed a reputation as an aggressive promoter of digital media who was able to reconfigure a 156-year-old magazine into a genuine multiplatform property.

In a letter to the staff about Mr. Smith's departure, David Bradley, the owner of Atlantic Media, credited Mr. Smith with bringing the company to profitability for the first time under his ownership; doubling revenue; and creating a number of successful digital start-ups, including The Atlantic Wire and Quartz.

His quick results at the Atlantic Media Company drew the attention of executives at Bloomberg, who began talking to him at the end of last year.

"We know that every part of media is being disrupted by technology, and we need someone who understands that," Mr. Doctoroff said. "Justin can drive things forward here because he has an incredibly digital sensibility with a unique understanding of the confluence of journalism and multiple platforms."

The move will give Mr. Smith significant scale and a connection with Bloomberg's lucrative terminal business, which produces revenue that allows the company to invest aggressively in media properties. The company has had success in moving from a linear television business to a more diverse model of video distribution, while the acquisition of Businessweek gave Bloomberg an editorial cachet it historically lacked.

Even with those successes, the media division has long been treated as a marketing amenity for subscribers to the terminal business. Despite its recent growth, the media division has struggled to gain a consumer base for its properties, which include television, print, radio, mobile, events and digital media.

The company was heavily criticized several months ago after revelations that some of its reporters had used the Bloomberg terminals to gain access to data about its users, prompting Eric T. Schneiderman, attorney general of New York, to begin looking into the practice, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The company's assets — its success, its size and a hard-driving business culture — might make bringing about change difficult. But Mr. Smith said the fit was a natural one.

"If you look at the entrepreneurial roots of this company and its history of market disruption and innovation, I think it is the best positioned media company there is," he said. The theory that large companies cannot innovate, he said, "has not been historically true at Bloomberg." He added, "This is a company where you can take big risks with longer horizons."

Before joining Atlantic Media, Mr. Smith opened the American edition of the British newsmagazine The Week in 2001. Before that, he was head of corporate strategy for The Economist in London, Hong Kong and New York. He also founded Breaking Media, a collection of Web sites that includes Above the Law, Dealbreaker and Fashionista.

Mr. Smith has no experience in the television business and said he would work closely with Mr. Lack in that area. He said he was interested in creating new products, including ones aimed at the global market, while bringing additional digital muscle to Bloomberg's existing businesses.

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, met Mr. Smith at one of Atlantic Media's conferences and they became friends.

"How many people have really managed to be successful in digital media?" Mr. Schmidt said in a phone call. "Everyone has tried and few have been successful. Justin is one of them. He is moving very fast, but this is the next logical step. It's a serious gain for Bloomberg."

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 28, 2013

An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that the New York attorney general was investigating how reporters at Bloomberg had gained access to customer data. There is no formal investigation as this time.

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Body Found in Hudson Believed to Be 2nd Boat Crash Victim

The police said Sunday that a body discovered in the Hudson River by a Jet Ski rider was probably that of the second victim of a boat crash Friday night that also killed a bride-to-be. 

A 30-year-old man, Mark Lennon, had been missing since a speedboat he was aboard struck a construction barge just south of the Tappan Zee Bridge around 10:40 p.m. Friday. 

The crash killed Lindsey Stewart, 30, and injured the man she was to marry on Aug. 10, Brian Bond, 35. Mr. Lennon was to have been Mr. Bond's best man. 

Ms. Stewart's body was found floating just offshore Saturday. The man's body was found about a mile away, Sheriff Louis Falco of Rockland County said in a news conference on Sunday.

The medical examiner was working to confirm the identification, Mr. Falco said. 

The driver of the boat, Jojo K. John, 35, has been accused of driving the vessel while intoxicated. He was charged on Saturday with vehicular manslaughter and vehicular assault.

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Five Are Killed in Pennsylvania Helicopter Crash

The crash was believed to have occurred on Saturday night after radar and communication contact with the helicopter was lost, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The helicopter had taken off from central New York State with five people on board, the F.A.A. said.

Trooper Adam Reed confirmed that five people died in the crash near Noxen, in Wyoming County, but said he did not have additional information on the victims.

He said inclement weather had hampered search efforts.

Personnel from the State Police and the F.A.A. were at the scene on Sunday night, according to Trooper Reed. There was no immediate response to a message left for the Wyoming County coroner.

The F.A.A. said the helicopter took off from Greater Binghamton Airport, but officials there said it had left from a smaller airfield nearby, Tri Cities Airport in Endicott.

A phone call to Tri Cities Airport was not immediately returned on Sunday night.

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3 Are Killed in Bus Crash in Indiana

INDIANAPOLIS — A bus carrying teenagers home from a church camp crashed Saturday after exiting an interstate in Indianapolis, killing three people and sending 26 others to hospitals, officials said.

Lt. Ato McTush of the Indianapolis Fire Department said the dead included a man and a woman, but he did not have information about the third victim.

Witnesses said the bus came speeding off Interstate 465 on Saturday afternoon, struck a retaining wall as it tried to round a curve and overturned. A local TV station, WTHR, reported that the bus driver told witnesses his brakes had failed.

A witness, Duane Lloyd, told the TV station that he heard a loud noise behind him as he was traveling near the intersection and saw the crash.

"I heard a skid, I looked back, I see this bus in the air and people falling out of the bus," Mr. Lloyd said. "I could have gone my whole life without seeing that."

The bus was carrying 40 passengers who are members of Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Indianapolis

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Netanyahu Agrees to Free 104 Palestinians

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel announced Saturday that he had agreed to release 104 Palestinian prisoners, most of whom have served 20 years or more for attacks on Israelis, to pave the way for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in Washington in the coming days.

Mr. Netanyahu took the unusual measure of issuing what he called "an open letter to the citizens of Israel" to explain the contentious move, which many Israelis oppose, ahead of a cabinet vote on Sunday.

Reports of a prisoner release had been circulating for weeks, but this was the first confirmation by the prime minister of the number expected to be freed. Mr. Netanyahu's letter did not give any details regarding the identities of those to be released or the timing, but said the release would be carried out in stages after the start of negotiations and in accordance with their progress.

The talks were expected to begin Tuesday after months of intense shuttle diplomacy by Secretary of State John Kerry.

Mr. Netanyahu began his letter, which was posted on the prime minister's Web site and disseminated through the Israeli news media, with an acknowledgment of the unpopularity of the gesture, which many Israelis view as a painful concession with nothing guaranteed in return.

"From time to time prime ministers are called on to make decisions that go against public opinion — when the matter is important for the country," he wrote. He added that the decision "is painful for the bereaved families, it is painful for the entire nation, and it is also very painful for me. It collides with the incomparably important value of justice."

On Friday, Yediot Aharonot, an Israeli newspaper, published an impassioned open letter to Mr. Netanyahu from Abie Moses, whose pregnant wife and 5-year-old son, Tal, were fatally burned in a firebomb attack on their car in April 1987. Mr. Moses said that faced with the likely release of their killer, Mohammad Adel Hassin Daoud, "the wounds have reopened; the memories, which we live with on a daily basis, turn into physical pain, in addition to the emotional pain of coping daily with the nightmare."

Mr. Moses added, "In our opinion, if his release will lead to attaining of peace, let him be released outside the boundaries of Palestine, exiled and never allowed to see his family members again, just as we cannot see ours."

Over the years, thousands of Palestinian prisoners have been exchanged for Israeli soldiers who had been taken captive, or for the bodies of abducted soldiers. During his previous term in office, Mr. Netanyahu reached an agreement with Hamas, the Islamist militant group that governs Gaza, and exchanged more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who had been held captive in Gaza for five years.

An Israeli government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said many of those who remained in Israeli jails, like the 104 now chosen for early release, had been involved in particularly gruesome acts.

"The goal here is to augment the political dialogue with confidence-building measures," the official said, adding that the cabinet was expected to approve the release. In moves meant to appease the more right-wing elements in the government, the cabinet is also expected to discuss legislation for a referendum on any peace deal and to set up a special ministerial committee to deal with the negotiations.

But the prisoner issue is the one that has inflamed passions on both sides. Palestinians view these long-serving prisoners, convicted before the signing of the Oslo peace accords in 1993, as political prisoners whose release is long overdue.

A Palestinian official involved in the negotiations process, who could speak only on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate diplomacy under way, said the Palestinian side had given a list of all 104 pre-Oslo prisoners to Mr. Kerry, who conveyed it to the Israelis. Israel had previously balked at including 22 prisoners who are Arab citizens of Israel or residents of East Jerusalem. Israeli officials have so far refused to say whether those objections have been dropped.

"This is the biggest achievement we will have had this year," the Palestinian official said.

He said the first group was expected to be released in August, and the rest within six months.

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J.J. Cale, Musician and Songwriter, Dies at 74

J. J. Cale, a musician and songwriter whose blues-inflected rock influenced some of the genre's biggest names and whose songs were recorded by Eric Clapton and Johnny Cash among others, died on Friday in La Jolla, Calif. He was 74.

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

J. J. Cale died on Friday in La Jolla, Calif. Mr. Cale was best known as the writer of "Cocaine" and "After Midnight," songs made famous by his collaborator, Eric Clapton.

A sortable calendar of noteworthy cultural events in the New York region, selected by Times critics.

Mr. Cale suffered a heart attack and died at Scripps Memorial Hospital around 8 p.m. on Friday evening, a statement posted on his Web site said.

He is best known as the writer of "Cocaine" and "After Midnight," songs made famous when they were recorded by his collaborator, Eric Clapton.

A multi-instrumentalist, Mr. Cale often played all of the parts on his albums, also recording and mixing them himself. He is also credited as one of the architects of the 1970s Tulsa sound, a blend of rockabilly, blues, country and rock that came to influence Neil Young and Bryan Ferry, among others. He won a Grammy Award in 2007 for an album with Mr. Clapton.

"Basically, I'm just a guitar player that figured out I wasn't ever gonna be able to buy dinner with my guitar playing," Mr. Cale told an interviewer for his official biography. "So I got into songwriting, which is a little more profitable business."

John Weldon Cale was born in Oklahoma in 1938. He recorded "After Midnight" in the mid-1960s, according to the biography, but had retreated to his native Tulsa and "given up on the business part of the record business" by the time Mr. Clapton covered it in 1970. He heard it on the radio that year, he told NPR, "and I went, 'Oh, boy, I'm a songwriter now. I'm not an engineer or an elevator operator.' "

Mr. Cale released an album, "Naturally," in 1972, to capitalize on that success, and continued to tour and release new music until 2009. But he declined to put his image on any of his covers and kept his vocals low amid the instruments on his recordings. He developed a reputation as a private figure and a musician's musician while his songs were covered by Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Band, Deep Purple and Tom Petty, among others.

"I'd like to have the fortune," he said in his biography, "but I don't care too much about the fame."

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 27, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the first name of one of the musicians who was influenced by the Tulsa sound. He is Bryan Ferry, not Brian.

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Amid Protests, Inmates Escape From Libyan Prison

Reuters

Protesters ransacked the headquarters of the liberal National Forces Alliance in Tripoli on Saturday.

BENGHAZI, Libya — More than 1,000 prisoners escaped from a prison near here on Saturday, security officials said, after a wave of political assassinations and attacks on political offices across Libya.

The mass escape from the Queyfiya prison took place early Saturday after a series of marches in a number of Libyan cities protested the assassinations and the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been blamed for recent political killings. It was not clear whether the inmates had received inside help.

Libya's prime minister, Ali Zeidan, said in a televised news conference on Saturday that local residents had broken the inmates out of the prison.

"The prison was attacked by the citizens who live nearby, because they don't want a prison in their region," he said. "Special forces were present and could have got the situation under control by using their arms, but they had received orders not to use their weapons on citizens, so the citizens opened the doors to the prisoners." Mr. Zeidan said he had ordered the border with Egypt to be closed to prevent the inmates from fleeing there.

But security officials here, speaking on the condition of anonymity, vehemently denied the assertion that residents had incited the prison break. The officials said it had started with a fracas and shooting among military police officers inside the prison, leading to a fire that allowed the inmates to escape. The inmates were mostly common criminals, not the militants who are blamed for much of the violence here, officials said.

"It was a dispute with the military police that the prisoners mistook for an uprising, so they started smashing things and setting things on fire to be released," said a member of a top joint security operation in Benghazi. "What do you expect? Prisoners saw an opportunity to escape, and they took it."

The security official said several escapees had returned on their own, reasoning that they were safer behind bars than in the street, where they feared reprisals from relatives of their victims.

The prison break followed a day of extraordinary violence, even by the standards of Libya, which is overrun by heavily armed militias unwilling to come under government control. Assassins shot five people dead on Friday in Benghazi and Tripoli, the capital. Among the dead were security officers and a prominent lawyer, Abdul-Salam al-Musmari, a harsh critic of the Brotherhood and the militias, He was also known for his role in helping instigate Libya's 2011 revolution against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Mr. Musmari, who was shot in the heart while leaving a mosque in Benghazi, was the first victim in a long string of recent assassinations who was neither a military official nor a figure from the Qaddafi government.  

Hundreds gathered in Tripoli after dawn prayers on Saturday and denounced the killing of Mr. Musmari, The Associated Press reported. They set fire to tires in the street and demanded the dissolution of Islamist parties.

Protesters appeared to be inspired by events in Egypt, where millions took to the streets on Friday to answer an appeal from the top military commander, who said he wanted a mandate to fight "terrorism" by supporters of the country's ousted president, Mohamed Morsi. Mr. Morsi is allied with the Islamist-led Brotherhood. On Saturday, the Egyptian military killed at least 72 people in a ferocious attack on Islamist protesters, the deadliest attack by the security services since the 2011 revolution.

"We don't want the Brotherhood; we want the army and the police," Libyan protesters chanted, The A.P. reported, repeating a slogan used in Egypt.

Last week, rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Tripoli, and at a Tripoli hotel where government figures live, though no one was killed. A bomb detonated at a police station in Benghazi, the eastern city where Islamist militias remain powerful and where the United States ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans were killed last year in an assault on a diplomatic compound by heavily armed militants.

Mr. Zeidan said that an investigation had begun into Mr. Musmari's killing and that a foreign criminal investigation team would join Libyan investigators in Tripoli and Benghazi on Monday, but he did not offer further details.

Human Rights Watch urged the Libyan government to "conduct a prompt and thorough investigation" of Mr. Musmari's death.

"Libya's fragile transition is at stake if political killings go unpunished," said Nadim Houry, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. "This makes investigating al-Musmari's murder all the more urgent."

Robert F. Worth contributed reporting from Cairo.

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Weiner’s Campaign Manager Quits After Latest Revelations

According to two people told of the decision, the campaign manager, Danny Kedem, no longer wished to oversee Mr. Weiner's bid for New York mayor after a week of bruising revelations about the candidate's latest online conduct. The two people, who have close ties to the campaign, did not want to be identified because they were disclosing confidential conversations.

Mr. Kedem, 31, informed Mr. Weiner of his decision in the last 24 hours, the two people said.

Mr. Kedem and a spokeswoman for Mr. Weiner's campaign declined to comment.

The move suggests that even as Mr. Weiner vows to press ahead with his candidacy, there are mounting doubts about its political viability within his own campaign.

Mr. Weiner's staff was jolted by his admission last week that his habit of sending raunchy online photographs and messages to women had persisted long after he resigned from Congress in 2011. The disclosures clashed with Mr. Weiner's claims that he had been rehabilitated after undergoing therapy and his suggestion that such behavior had long ago stopped.

Mr. Kedem had helped guide Mr. Weiner's candidacy, originally considered a long shot, to the top of the polls in the mayoral field before last week.

Not long ago, Mr. Kedem made clear he had no qualms about his new job. He sent an e-mail to dozens of his associates in late June seeking volunteers and financial contributions for Mr. Weiner's mayoral bid. "I am really proud to work for Anthony," he wrote.

His departure is a hit to a campaign that was short of experienced staff members, because of Mr. Weiner's scandal and his reputation as difficult boss.

Before working for Mr. Weiner, Mr. Kedem had managed the re-election of John DeStefano Jr. to a 10th term as mayor of New Haven in 2011, according to his online profile, and worked on Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.

Michael M. Grynbaum contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 28, 2013

An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect age for Danny Kedem. He is 31, not 30.

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