the times | Saturday January 1 2022 41
Wo r l d
The landmark former headquarters of
a celebrated US car company is to be
demolished as Detroit seeks to “erase
the ruin porn from the city’s landscape”,
according to the mayor.
The 56-acre site that housed Amer-
ican Motors Corporation, maker of
once ubiquitous models such as the
Hornet, Pacer, Matador, Javelin and
Eagle, has passed through various
hands on the road to dilapidation, re-
flecting the demise of several classic car
companies since Detroit’s glory days.
Mike Duggan, mayor of Detroit, said
that the site would be bulldozed along
with the headquarters of Packard , once
the maker of luxury models such as the
Predictor.
“I am convinced within a couple of
years, you’re going to see a manufactur-
ing facility employing 300 or 400
people and a source of employment in
this neighbourhood instead of a source
of embarrassment,” Duggan said of the
AMC site, originally built in 1926 by
Kelvinator to make refrigerators. It in-
cludes an office complex at the front of
the building, with a three-story factory
and power plant at the back. Kelvinatorges relating to the 2019 pile-up. He told
his trial that his brakes failed as he
drove downhill in the foothills of the
Rocky Mountains. He hit vehicles held
up after an earlier crash, causing a
fireball that engulfed cars and melted
the road.
Prosecutors said that Aguilera-Me-
deros’s poor decisions contributed to
the tragedy. The judge in the case
imposed the 110-year sentence on
December 13 but said his hands were
tied by Colorado’s sentencing laws.
In a letter to the lorry driver, Polis, a
Democratic governor, said that while
Aguilera-Mederos was not blameless,
his sentence was disproportionate. He
hoped the case would lead to a discus-
sion about sentencing laws.ish billionaire owner of Phones4U,
were also in the bay.
The US Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention reports a “low level” of
Covid-19 in St Barts but Jonathan Roth-
berg, the scientist and entrepreneur
best known for DNA sequencing, is also
there in the Gene Machine, with its
own Covid testing laboratory.
Many of the celebrity sailors were on
the island to attend the Unicef Italia x
LuisaViaRoma Winter Gala.
The festival was held outdoors on the
patio of Eden Rock hotel, with a
performance by Dua Lipa. Many of the
guests, such as Mike Tyson, the former
heavyweight boxer, Dylan Penn, theactress and daughter of Sean Penn,
Leonardo DiCaprio, the actor,
remained masked during the
event.
Three more people on the
world’s top ten rich list were
already in the 12-digit club with
$100 billion before piling on a
few extra pounds. Bernard
Arnault, of the luxury goods
company LVMH, is at third
with $176 billion, Bill Gates,
the Microsoft co-founder, isfourth with $137 billion,
and Mark Zuckerberg,
chairman of Meta
Platforms (formerly
Facebook Inc), is sixth
with $128 billion. Arnault,
72, added $61 billion to his net
worth last year and remains
Europe’s richest man. Five
others joined the 100-billion
list, led by Larry Page on
$130 billion, up by $40 bil-
lion, thanks to the per-
formance of Alphabet,
parent company of Google.
Page, 48, co-founded Google
in 1998.Trucker jailed for 110 years
could be a free man in five
Keiran Southern
West Coast correspondentWreckage of Detroit becomes ‘ruin porn’
merged with Nash Motors, becoming
Nash-Kelvinator in 1936. In 1954, the
owners merged with Hudson Motors to
form AMC. It was the largest company
merger in US history at the time.
Chrysler bought the company in 1987
and used the site for years until moving
out in 1995.
“For the last 25 years, this has been
nothing but an eyesore and a drain on
the neighbourhood,” Duggan said. It
had been “so stripped down by past
owners that nothing is salvageable”.
He added: “Before we’re done, we’re
going to have this same announcement
at the Packard Plant and get rid of the
rest of the blight in this city.”
Packard’s 325,000 sq m plant ceased
production in 1958 but enjoyed a brief
renaissance in the 1990s as a venue for
illegal raves before being abandoned to
paintballers and graffiti artists.United States
David Charter Washington
A lorry driver convicted of causing a
fiery crash that killed four people has
had his 110-year prison sentence
slashed after outrage over the severity
of the punishment.
Jared Polis, the governor of Colora-
do, shortened Rogel Aguilera-Meder-
os’s sentence to ten years after an online
petition for clemency drew five million
signatures. He will be eligible for parole
after five years. Prosecutors expressed
disappointment, saying that Polis’s
decision went against the wishes of the
victims’ families.
Aguilera-Mederos, 26, was convicted
of vehicular homicide and other char-It’s been another tough year for the
99.99 per cent. But not so bad for the
super-yacht fraternity besieging the
more exclusive Caribbean islands.
The world’s ten richest people added
$402 billion to their fortunes last year.
Unsurprisingly, given his space ven-
tures and the soaring share price of his
Tesla car company, Elon Musk, 50, was
the top performer, making an annual
gain of $121 billion to establish himself
as the richest person with a net worth of
$277 billion, according to the end-of-
year Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The South African entrepreneur
leapfrogged last year’s wealthiest per-
son, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon,
who has spent the past week coming to
terms with this disappointment by
holidaying on the Caribbean island of
St Barthélemy, commonly referred to
as St Barts, with Lauren Sánchez, his
journalist girlfriend.
There may have been something on
his mind because Bezos, 57, forgot his
passport, as the Times Diary disclosed
yesterday. No matter, after flying into
nearby St Martin he was allowed to stay
on board his yacht while his private jet
flew back to fetch the document.
The world’s second-richest man was
photographed shirtless and lounging in
the sun with Sánchez, 52. The couple
were later photographed enjoying a
PDA — public display of affection —
aboard the Rising Sun, the $400 million
yacht owned by David Geffen, the pro-
ducer and film studio executive who
made his fortune as a music mogul.
This gathering of the super wealthy
caused an ocean jam in the exclusive
waters of St Barts. Despite being leaders
in their chosen fields, however, these
members of the elite were left in the
shade by the Eclipse, the
$700 million yacht that be-
longs to Roman Abram-
ovich, 55, the Chelsea
Football Club owner. With
its nine decks, 18 cabins, 100
crew, 50ft swimming pool
dance floor combo and
space for three helicop-
ters it dwarfed the ves-
sels near by. Not to be
wholly outdone, Jan
Koum, the WhatsApp
founder, has two boats
moored off the island —
the $220 million
Moonrise and its
$20 million sister ship,
Power Play.
Moored next to
Abramovich’s super-
yacht is his old
one, Le Grand
Bleu, valued at
$150 million,
which he sold
in 2016 to
Eugene Shvi-
dler, his busi-
ness partner.
Yachts
owned by
Ann Walton
Kroenke,
heiress to
the Walmart
fortune, and John
Caudwell, the Brit-Standfirst line one
Standfirst line two
Standfirst line one
Standfirst line two
SAINT-BARTHÉLEMYGustaviaST BARTSCorossolColombier6 ODESSA
Owner Leonard Blavatnik
Price $80m Length 157ft3 POWER PLAY
Owner Jan Koum
Price $20m Length 181ft5 MOONRISE
Owner Jan Koum
Price $220m Length 327ft
49.22am local time
yesterdayBillionaires’ playground
North Atlantic Ocean22ECLIPSE
Owner Roman Abramovich Price $700m Length 533ft1
LE GRAND BLEU^1
Owner Eugene Shvidler Price $150m Length 370ft34LADY JORGIA
Owner Patrick Dovigi
Price $90m Length 243ft52,000ftWhatever floats your boat in St Barts
United States
David Charter, Joshua Thurston
The abandoned Packard factory has
become an example of “ruin porn”Dua Lipa and left, Jeff Bezos
and Lauren Sánchez are
among visitors to St BartsX17ONLINE; LEVENT KISI; ALI BALLI/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES