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ny0080185
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2015/02/01
|
Love, the Other Letdown
|
Blizzards — or feared blizzards, like this week’s storm — tear us from our daily lives. In that, they are like love. They also tend to be fickle, blowing in quickly and dissipating just as fast. These poems about Monday evening’s storm and its relationship to romance (or the lack thereof) were found in the Missed Connections section of newyork.craigslist.org. They are printed verbatim, with only line and stanza breaks added; their titles are the subject headings. Big Empty Space Tonight, I did not go sledding. Because there’s nobody who wants to. And going sledding alone Isn’t fun anymore. (snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow) Am I alone in this city of nine million? And this smaller city of 2.5 million? (and again snow snow snow snow snow snows it will all melt one day and then what?) You, yes: you; used to come with me but you are a flake. Perhaps a snowflake now, for all I know. Dream of Iceland Again? This storm just makes me think of you and the blizzard last March that spread three feet of snow all over my hometown. You were around, watching it swirling over the lake from your hotel window. One of my biggest regrets from last year is that we never went out in it. There are only so many blizzards to experience in a lifetime, and I wish I had spent that one with you, playing in the snow ... Souls I have read your postings. Thank you. I am safe. I am fed. I have drink and nicotine. I have a man taking care of me for the blizzard. He showers the love from his heart. You are busy ... Perhaps spring will rear its beautiful head soon. LIRR 1:40 Babylon Blizzard Crowded Train You are the beautiful Asian (?) girl with gorgeous mesmerizing eyes. We were both packed in the middle of the crowded Babylon train that left Penn at 1:40 on the blizzard day. You were with a friend, at one point you talked about being excited to see Lucas and that last night you did FaceTime. Your eyes caught my attention as you were trying to squeeze on to the train, I’m glad you made it. Even though it was an uncomfortable ride, I’m happy I got to stare at your beauty. I was 99% sure if somehow we got too close I would’ve kissed you and you would’ve been fine with that. Please, respond to this if you felt anything at all. I know you’re married because I saw a ring, but that’s not going to stop me from wanting to get to know you. You have black Coach glasses and you took them off half way to Jamaica. I’m the guy standing close enough to you I could’ve easily kissed you, so you should know who I am. Please write back and tell me what I was wearing or what my hair looks like. I know you got a good look because I saw you peek.
|
Snow Snowstorms;Poetry
|
ny0077550
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2015/05/01
|
New Owner for The Moscow Times and Vedomosti
|
MOSCOW — A Finnish media company on Thursday said it would sell its one-third stake in Vedomosti, Russia’s most influential business newspaper, as well as ownership of The Moscow Times, the country’s only English-language daily, to a Russian buyer. The deal, announced Thursday by the Finnish company, Sanoma, is the first in what is expected to be a wave of sales or restructurings in the Russian news media as foreign companies adjust their Russian assets under a new law that limits them to a 20 percent stake. Lawmakers adopted the legislation last year, saying it was needed to ensure Russia’s national security. Vedomosti, which regularly publishes investigations and opinion pieces critical of the government, has been a focus of official ire. Both Pearson, publisher of The Financial Times, and News Corp., which owns Dow Jones, also own 33-percent stakes in the newspaper, which by law they will be required to reduce by 2016. In a statement , Sanoma said it began the process of selling its holdings in Russian news media in 2013, before the law was adopted, in order to focus on its “core markets.” “We are confident that these iconic titles are in good hands and will continue to develop as some of Russia’s leading media titles,” the company’s group president and chief executive, Harri-Pekka Kaukonen, said in a statement. No price was given for the deal, but the company said it booked a capital gain of $8.9 million before currency translation adjustments. The buyer was Demyan Kudryavtsev, a veteran Russian media manager and former business partner of Boris Berezovsky, who died in 2013. Mr. Kudryavtsev served as the general director of the Kommersant publishing house from 2006 until 2012. Acquisitions in Russian news media, particularly those that involve politically sensitive publications, have raised concerns that the Kremlin could be inserting loyal businessmen to help dull critical reporting. Oleg Kashin, a Russian journalist, defended Mr. Kudryavtsev’s record at Kommersant, saying that he had maintained independence at the newspaper under successive oligarch owners despite external pressure. “There were no forbidden topics, there was no censorship,” Mr. Kashin said. Mr. Kudryavtsev left Kommersant in 2012 amid scandal when an editor was fired for a magazine cover with an image of a voting ballot defaced with an offensive message to President Vladimir V. Putin. Yet, Mr. Kudryavtsev’s purchase of Sanoma’s stake also raised a question about where he had found the money to buy all of the Finnish company’s investments. “I know Demyan,” said Leonid Bershidsky, the founding editor of Vedomosti, who now lives in Berlin. “He is a good poet and a smart guy, but he doesn’t have that kind of money, and if he did, he’d think of a better investment than a minority stake in an independent paper in Russia, of all places.” In an interview with the Russian news agency RBC on Thursday, Mr. Kudryavtsev said that the money was his own and that he had not approved his purchase of Vedomosti with the Kremlin. The deal also ended 23 years of uninterrupted foreign ownership of The Moscow Times, which was founded by the Dutch publisher Derk Sauer in 1992. Mr. Sauer, who sold the newspaper to Sanoma in 2008, said by telephone from the Netherlands that Mr. Kudryavtsev’s main challenge would be making the paper profitable. “I urged them to find an owner who supported it from an idealistic point of view because it is important that The Moscow Times stays alive,” he said. At the newspaper, the editor in chief, Nabi Abdullaev, welcomed news of the deal, saying it had put an end to “a certain atmosphere of suspense and lack of certainty about the future.” “I am glad it happened,” Mr. Abdullaev wrote in response to written questions. “With the law on the ownership already adopted, it doesn’t make sense to be concerned that much about the ‘foreign-Russian’ thing, but more about the ‘which Russian’ variant.”
|
Russia;Newspaper;Sanoma;Vedomosti;Moscow Times;Demyan Kudryavtsev;Mergers and Acquisitions;Finland
|
ny0186311
|
[
"technology",
"internet"
] |
2009/03/12
|
Google Voice May Threaten Other Phone Services
|
SAN FRANCISCO — Google stepped up its attack on the telecommunications industry on Thursday with a free service called Google Voice that, if successful, could chip away at the revenue of companies big and small, like eBay, which owns Skype, telephone companies and a string of technology start-up firms. Google Voice is an expanded version of a service previously known as GrandCentral, a start-up that Google acquired 20 months ago. It is intended to simplify the way people handle phone calls, voice mail and text messages . The service will initially be made available only to existing GrandCentral subscribers; Google says the general public will be able to use it in the coming weeks. Google Voice allows users to route all their calls through a single number that can ring their home, work and mobile phones simultaneously. It also gives users a single and easy-to-manage voice mail system for multiple phone lines. And it lets users make calls, routed via the Internet, free in the United States and for a small fee internationally. Analysts singled out the Internet calling features as the aspect of the service that is potentially most disruptive to established companies. While inexpensive Internet calls have become commonplace, Google’s potential to reach a mass audience could make a difference, some analysts said. “I would consider Google to have the potential to change the rules of the game because of their ability to bring all kinds of people into their new tools from their existing tools,” said Phil Wolff, the editor of Skype Journal. But in Skype, the dominant player in Internet calling, Google will find a formidable competitor. The service, which is free when people call other Skype users and carries slight fees for calls to regular phones, has 400 million registered users and is adding 350,000 users a day, eBay said. The company is focused on enhancing the service’s video and videoconferencing capabilities. “Skype is light years ahead in terms of video, simultaneous chat and voice, and the installed base is huge,” said Ross Sandler, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets. “I don’t think they have anything to worry about.” In a presentation to investors on Wednesday, Josh Silverman, Skype’s president, said that “chat and voice will become table stakes” in Internet telephony. “People will make their choice of communication software based on who makes the richest video experience.” EBay has acknowledged that Skype does not have synergies with other parts of eBay, signaling that it may try to sell the service in the months ahead. Internet calls work differently on Google Voice than on Skype. Rather than starting a call from a computer, a specialized phone or an application on a mobile device, Google Voice users call into their voice mail service from any phone. Once there, they can push a button to get a dial tone and call a different number. As such, the service is not set up to handle video calls, though Google offers simple video-chatting capabilities through Google Talk, its instant-messaging service. For international calls to landlines in a handful of major countries, Google Voice is marginally cheaper than Skype, while Google Voice calls to international mobile phones are as much as a third cheaper than Skype’s. Vincent Paquet, a co-founder of GrandCentral and now a senior product manager at Google, said that fees from Internet calls would probably play an important role in subsidizing the free service, which for now will not carry advertisements. “We can generate enough revenue from international calling to support the service,” he said, noting that Google Voice was now running on Google’s servers and could operate at very low cost. Analysts said it was not clear how much domestic or international calling business Google Voice could take from telephone companies. Google, which makes software for cellphones, is already at odds with several telecommunications companies over policy issues and over who will control the quickly growing revenue generated by mobile Internet services and advertising. Some of Google Voice’s other features, like voice mail transcription services, are offered for a fee by start-ups like Spinvox and PhoneTag. And conferencing capabilities are sold by some telecommunications providers, but they are also available free through some online services. Google Voice may raise more hackles with privacy advocates, and perhaps regulators, than it does with competitors. The service would allow Google, which already collects vast amounts of data about the behavior of Internet users, to gather information on their calling habits. “It raises two distinct problems,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “In the privacy world, it is increased profiling and tracking of users without safeguards. But the other problem is the growing consolidation of Internet-based services around one dominant company.”
|
Google Inc;Internet Telephony;Telephones and Telecommunications;Computers and the Internet
|
ny0133841
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2008/03/31
|
Fans Concerned About Steroid Use and Believe It’s Widespread, Poll Shows
|
Despite a contentious off-season, in which he found himself linked to the use of performance-enhancing drugs, Roger Clemens is drawing more support from baseball fans than Barry Bonds , according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The poll also found that fans — those who said they followed baseball fairly closely — say that it matters to them if players use performance-enhancing drugs and that the news media are more diligent about covering drug use in baseball than they are in football. The poll also asked fans to estimate how many major leaguers use steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs; 34 percent said they thought at least half of the players did, 36 percent said about a quarter did, and 22 percent said only a few players did. On the issue of Clemens and Bonds, fans were asked whether they thought they should be eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame. Both players have found their achievements on the field tarnished and their credibility questioned because of continuing legal cases and accusations that they used performance-enhancing drugs. Of those polled, half said Clemens should be eligible for the Hall, and 44 percent said the same of Bonds. To be eligible for the Hall of Fame, a player must be retired for five seasons. Bonds and Clemens are not signed for the 2008 season. If they do not play again, they will become eligible for the Hall the same year. To be inducted, each would need to be named on 75 percent of the ballots cast by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Those who were polled were not asked about induction, only eligibility. No matter how the current legal issues for Bonds and Clemens play out, there is a good chance that their eligibility for the Hall will not be affected. The 45-year-old Clemens, with 354 career victories, is being investigated by federal authorities seeking to determine whether he committed perjury when he testified before Congress that he had not used performance-enhancing drugs. Bonds, 43, holds the major league record with 762 home runs; he is now under indictment on charges that he lied to a federal grand jury about his connection to performance-enhancing drugs. Their situations are similar, but some poll respondents saw distinctions in follow-up interviews after the poll was completed. “Everybody knows that Barry Bonds was on steroids, but it has yet to be proven that Roger Clemens was,” said Johnny Todd, 56, who lives in Conway, S.C., and owns a car-repair business. Todd said if it was proved that Clemens used steroids, then he should not be in the Hall of Fame, either. Susan Haynes, 43, who lives in Stamford, Conn., and owns a gardening business, said she thought that steroids helped hitters more than pitchers. She was, therefore, more willing to consider Clemens a Hall of Fame candidate than Bonds. “I still believe Clemens is among the best, and I don’t think the steroids have that much of an impact.” she said. “Even if he did do it, I don’t think it affected his performance that much. It’s not like hitting.” Nino Tozzi, 63, who lives in Jupiter, Fla., and builds swimming pools, sided more with Bonds. “Barry Bonds didn’t necessarily lie like Roger Clemens did to Congress,” he said. “I know he might have been evasive, but Roger Clemens, in my opinion, is flat-out lying.” The poll findings also illuminated significant differences among fans based on education level and income. Those with a college education and those earning more than $50,000 a year were more likely to say Clemens and Bonds should not be eligible for the Hall of Fame than those who did not have a college education or earned less than $50,000 a year. The poll found that over all, 53 percent of those who identified themselves as fans said that it mattered a lot to them if a player used steroids. Twenty-nine percent said it mattered a little, and 16 percent said it did not matter at all. Nearly half (45 percent) of those who identified themselves as fans agreed that the news media came down harder on Major League Baseball on the issue of steroids than it did on the N.F.L. Only 5 percent said the news media were harder on the N.F.L. “I think we have a bias because baseball is traditionally the national pastime,” said John Davis, 67, a retiree who lives in Myrtle Beach, S.C. “We’re harder on things that we have a greater respect for. Or at least did have a greater respect for.” Jeff LaBond, 43, who lives in Chesterfield, Mich., and is seeking a degree in industrial maintenance, said, “Maybe baseball is getting so much coverage simply because there are baseball players in front of Congress.” He added: “But I don’t think it’s Congress’s business to get involved. It’s not a government issue. It’s up to the owners and the union to police their own.” The poll was a nationwide telephone survey that was conducted March 15-18 with 1,067 adults, of whom 492 said they were very interested or somewhat interested in baseball. The margin of sampling error for baseball fans is plus or minus four percentage points. Those polled were also asked to identify a favorite player. Derek Jeter finished first, with 1 in 10 fans naming him. A Yankees teammate, Alex Rodriguez, finished second.
|
Clemens Roger;Baseball;Bonds Barry;Steroids;Public Opinion
|
ny0144204
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2008/10/28
|
U.S. Airstrike Kills 20 People in Pakistan
|
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — An American drone aircraft hit a militant compound in South Waziristan on Sunday night, killing 20 people, including two important local Taliban commanders known for their attacks against American soldiers in Afghanistan, a senior government official and a local resident said Monday. One of the dead commanders, Eida Khan, was wanted by the Americans for his cross-border attacks from bases in Waziristan, the government official said. The other commander, Wahweed Ullah, worked with Arabs who were part of Al Qaeda, the local resident said. Mr. Ullah, in his late 20s, was known as an ideologically committed fighter who specialized in attacks against Americans in Afghanistan, the resident said. The drone launched a missile attack on a compound in the village of Manduta, close to Wana, the capital of South Waziristan, about 20 miles from the border with Afghanistan. Mr. Khan and Mr. Ullah, as well as two brothers of Mr. Khan, were affiliated with the militant network of Jalaluddin Haqqani, a senior Taliban figure with close connections to Al Qaeda, said the official and the local resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The strike was part of an escalating campaign by the Bush administration to hit the Taliban and their Qaeda backers at their bases in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The attack appears to have been the 19th by a remotely piloted Predator aircraft in the tribal areas since the beginning of August. In the first seven months of 2008, there were five such strikes. The Bush administration has intensified the drone attacks after backing away from using American commandos for ground raids into the tribal belt. A ground assault on Sept. 3 produced an angry public riposte from the chief of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who said he would defend Pakistan’s borders “at all costs” against such intrusions, an unusually strong statement from one ally to another. Mr. Ullah, who was usually in North Waziristan, was believed to have been visiting the compound in Manduta to pay his respects to the families of those killed in an American drone strike on Friday on a madrasa in North Waziristan run by Mr. Haqqani. The people killed in the North Waziristan strike came from the area around Manduta, in South Waziristan, the government official and the local resident said. Mr. Khan was well known to the Pakistani authorities. He was arrested in 2004 and jailed until last year, when he was released during an exchange of prisoners, the government official said. While the drone attacks appear to be more acceptable to the Pakistani authorities than ground incursions, government officials have complained about the intensity of the strikes and the Americans’ choice of targets. The Americans were concentrating on Taliban and Qaeda forces that attack American and coalition troops in Afghanistan but were ignoring militants operating in Pakistan, a senior Pakistani official in the administration that oversees the tribal region said Monday. “The Americans are not interested in our bad guys,” the official said. He was referring in particular to Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani Taliban leader, who Pakistani authorities say is responsible for planning many of the suicide bombings in the country in the last 18 months. The Pakistani Army is fighting the Pakistani Taliban in Bajaur, another part of the tribal region to the east of Waziristan, and that conflict appeared to be on the verge of spreading Monday after a suicide bomber rammed his car into a checkpoint operated by paramilitary forces in the Mohmand region. The attack was the first in Mohmand, an area adjacent to Bajaur. It killed nine guards at the checkpoint, the government said. The Pakistani Army has said it plans to launch a campaign against the Taliban in Mohmand once it has completed its mission in Bajaur. The conflict in the tribal region was discussed at a government-sponsored gathering of tribal leaders from Pakistan and Afghanistan in Islamabad on Monday. The meeting is part of a dialogue initiated last year by President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. The emphasis at the meeting was on talks between those Taliban willing to renounce violence and the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan. That the gathering took place was seen as a sign that the new Pakistani government was willing to participate in a process that had been largely ignored by the former president, Pervez Musharraf. The foreign minister of Pakistan, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, echoing a parliamentary resolution last week that encouraged dialogue with willing militants, said, “There is an increasing realization that the use of force alone cannot yield the desired results.”
|
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV);Pakistan;United States Armament and Defense;Taliban;Afghanistan War (2001- )
|
ny0285029
|
[
"us"
] |
2016/09/16
|
California Moves to Allow Undocumented Immigrants to Buy Insurance
|
LOS ANGELES — In a move that is sure to draw the ire of Republicans, California officials are asking the Obama administration this week to approve a plan that would allow undocumented immigrants to buy health insurance on the state’s public exchange. Officials say that up to 30 percent of the state’s two million undocumented adults could be eligible for the program, and that roughly 17,000 people are expected to participate in the first year, if the plan is approved. But the proposal faces serious hurdles in Washington, where it must be approved by the Treasury and the Health and Human Services Departments. During debates over health care in his first term, and again when Congress considered an immigration overhaul in 2013, President Obama made it clear that health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act would not go to immigrants who are living in the United States illegally. And two provisions of the health care law limit coverage to residents who are here legally. But advocates of California’s initiative argue that the plan should be approved under what is known as an “innovation waiver,” which allows states to have provisions of the federal law modified, because no federal dollars will be used to fund the program. “This really represents the next step in health for all,” said State Senator Ricardo Lara, a Democrat and the author of the bill, who was in Washington this week to garner support for the measure. “We’re simply asking Washington to allow California to once again allow more people to pay into the system. We’re reaffirming once again our desire to make affordable preventative care available to everyone and our belief that health care is a human right not a privilege.” California is the first state to propose such a plan. Immigrants living here illegally represent the largest share of the uninsured in California, and public health officials have been working for years to find ways to provide them with preventive health care. California already offers immigrants more care than other states do. Many counties here provide some basic care through community clinics. And children who are undocumented can now receive Medi-Cal, the state’s public health insurance for low-income residents, under a law that took effect this spring. More than 135,000 children have enrolled so far, but public health officials estimate that the number of those eligible is even higher. Many so-called mixed households, in which some family members are here legally and others are not, have been reluctant to sign up, fearing that they would put themselves at risk for deportation, health officials say. “We have been saying to people, ‘We can sign up your child, but we can’t sign you up,’” said Anthony Wright, the executive director of Health Access California , an advocacy group. “There’s a symbolic issue of having a state agency that cannot serve an important part of society, even when they are ready to use their own resources.” Mr. Wright said that he believed the administration would approve the plan because the state was no longer receiving federal subsidies for the operation of its health insurance exchange, Covered California, which is widely seen as one of the best-run exchanges in the country. Michael F. Cannon, the director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute and a frequent critic of the health care law, said, “Obama has already broken promises about the law, and doing this would be another broken promise.” While undocumented immigrants should have the right to purchase health insurance on the private market, they should not be allowed to do so on public exchanges, Mr. Cannon said, adding: “This certainly has the potential to become a welfare magnet. You could easily imagine families with high medical expenses moving to California.” While the proposal will probably meet resistance in Washington, it is widely supported in California, where public health advocates have been laying the groundwork for such a policy for years. Several Republicans in the State Legislature voted to approve the measure in June, and Gov. Jerry Brown signed it into law in July. Covered California then drafted an application for the waiver, which it will submit to the federal government this month. This week, the state’s Democratic congressional delegation wrote a letter urging the Obama administration to approve it. A federal decision on the waiver application could take several months, officials said. “They have guaranteed there would be no cost to the federal government, so there’s no reason not to do this,” said Representative Zoe Lofgren of San Jose, who is the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration. “Republicans might rant and rave away, but this is the next logical thing to do if the state wants it.” Allowing undocumented immigrants to buy health insurance could also save the state money in the long run, Ms. Lofgren and other advocates say, because it would decrease the reliance on emergency rooms. Chona de Leon, the chief operating officer at Eisner Pediatric and Family Medical Center in Los Angeles, said that many of the uninsured families the clinic saw routinely avoided doctor visits until they wind up in an emergency room. “They just wait until they are really sick, and it ends up being more expensive for everybody,” Ms. de Leon said. Since undocumented children began receiving insurance through Medi-Cal, more families have been coming in for immunizations and well-child visits, she said. But their parents are still reluctant to see a doctor, she said. “They want to stay healthy and they don’t have any way of doing it.”
|
California;Illegal Immigration;Health Insurance;Obamacare,Affordable Care Act;Covered California
|
ny0268840
|
[
"technology",
"personaltech"
] |
2016/04/27
|
Keeping Sanity in Your Twitter Feed
|
Q. What is the difference between muting and blocking someone on Twitter? A. Mute and Block are ways to better control what you see in your Twitter feed, but they differ in how your account appears to others on the service. Which one you use typically depends on the level of annoyance you are getting from the Twitter user in question. Invoking the Mute command on an account stops that person’s tweets from appearing in your Twitter timeline, but it does not alert the other user that you have stopped receiving the posts. You still appear in that person’s list of followers. Muting an account can be useful for tuning out political screeds from relatives or employers, ignoring obsessive posts about a topic you do not care about, avoiding spoilers from “Game of Thrones” and similar situations. You still see mentions and replies made by that person in your Notifications area. When you use the Block command on an account, you stop following that user and that user cannot follow you. The person is not notified of your move but can see the blocked status on your Twitter profile page. You do not get notifications when the blocked account mentions you, nor can the blocked account do things like send you direct messages. Blocking an account is often a way to deal with focused harassment on Twitter. Twitter also includes a Report command under the menu button on individual tweets and account profile pages. That option should be used for violations and intrusions like abusive behavior, harmful content and account impersonation. You can also use it to contact Twitter concerning suicide threats. The site’s online Help Center has a guide for reporting specific types of violations , including spam .
|
Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry;Cyberharassment,Online harassment
|
ny0276637
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2016/02/14
|
How Ute Lemper, German Chanteuse, Spends Her Sundays
|
With her sultry stage persona and “ sharp vocal claws ,” as a review in The New York Times put it, the German chanteuse Ute Lemper doesn’t project the vibe of an Upper West Side mom. But on Sundays — when she’s not presenting cabaret classics by Kurt Weill or her latest song cycle, “ The 9 Secrets ,” a setting of Paulo Coelho’s “Manuscripts Found in Accra” — she’s just that. “The rock-solid foundation of my life is my family, and I enjoy very much being with my kids and seeing them happy,” Ms. Lemper said, adding, “It’s only onstage that I am the glamorous lady.” Ms. Lemper, 52, lives in two apartments on different floors of a West 76th Street building with her husband, the percussionist and producer Todd Turkisher, 56; their children, Julian, 10, and Jonas, 4; and, when they are home from college, her two children from a previous marriage, Max, 21, and Stella, 19. RISE, RELAX My little ones wake me up around 8, and we spend a good hour just chilling — reading the paper, watching some news, the kids playing — things we can’t normally do during the week. Then we take Zacky for a walk. He’s a miniature poodle bought by Stella seven years ago. Now that she’s in college, of course, we have to take care of him. Image Ms. Lemper with her 4-year-old son, Jonas. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times BRUNCH FOR ALL AGES Slowly, the little ones shake my two college kids, if they’re home for the weekend, out of their beds after Saturday night’s partying. Then we all go to brunch in the neighborhood. We like Artie’s Delicatessen , the famous old Jewish diner that our family’s been going to for years. MY LITTLE TUSCANY We own the rooftop apartment and terrace of our building and have the most incredible view: the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings in Midtown, Central Park on our left, Riverside on our right. I have a lot of plants outside, with lights on them. I call it my little Tuscany. And it’s the best haven for my creative work. Since I’ve had this place, I’ve written three song cycles. Sometimes on Sundays I’ll rehearse, though I try not to. In better seasons, we have barbecues and Ping-Pong tournaments with the neighbors. Image The family at the American Museum of Natural History. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times EARTH AND BEYOND We’ve gone to the American Museum of Natural History with both generations of kids. We love watching movies in the newly renovated planetarium or studying the history of the universe. Afterward, we’ll hang out in the park in front and let the little ones waste their energy. FAMILY BAND Sometimes the kids do jam sessions with us. Max really likes to play the guitar. My husband has many percussion instruments and an upright bass, and Stella, Julian and Jonas can bang on those. I play piano or sing, or I bang on the instruments too. Image Playing music on a recent Sunday. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times NOT YOUR MOTHER’S WARDROBE Stella has inherited everything that by the time I was 45 was way too sexy and inappropriate. All my cool stage clothes — the leather pants, jackets, minis, boots. She has a huge wardrobe, but she always needs a pair of jeans. I also really like to go with Stella to Pinky and get a pedicure. That’s our girl time. We talk, or don’t talk. JUST THE TWO OF US In the evening, I like to sit alone with my husband and drink a glass of wine. I also really love to go to a jazz club with him. My older kids babysit the little kids once in a while because they owe us for the money their dream colleges are costing. I have to beg for it on my knees, but when it happens, it’s fabulous. BOOKS, TALK, MUSIC We have a time just before bed where everyone sits on the couch and reads. I treasure that moment when the TV is off and we’re hanging out or talking or listening to music. We very much like R&B from the ’70s. The other day my son put an Earth, Wind & Fire record on, and I just went, “Louder, louder, louder.” FLUCTUATING RITUALS I might stay up until midnight. But lately I’m so tired by 10 that if I don’t have work or social obligations, I love to get into bed and read my book and have a good glass of wine and fall asleep.
|
Music;Upper West Side Manhattan;Ute Lemper
|
ny0137370
|
[
"technology"
] |
2008/05/17
|
Frustrating the Pirates
|
DISPENSING with the bluster that normally surrounds the issue of pirated movies and music, Anders Bylund of Ars Technica tries to appeal to business sense in arguing that media companies should stop suing their potential customers and instead try to serve them ( arstechnica.com ). Media piracy will always be with us. But the pirates, Mr. Bylund writes , “can be beaten — it happens all the time — but not primarily by means of legal threats and lawsuits.” Rather, he says: “You subjugate these rebels with the tools of free enterprise. Piracy is just another business model, and the pirates will lose and go away when you come up with a better model.” Consumers make buying decisions based on three factors, according to Mr. Bylund: “price, convenience and quality.” Pirates will always win on price (free), but media companies can and do beat them on the other factors. Among the examples he cites is the cable channel Comedy Central, owned by Viacom ( comedycentral .com ). The Web site offers the complete archives of “The Daily Show” and makes them searchable. Hulu, owned by NBC and Fox, offers many television shows and some movies with limited (and short) advertisements ( hulu .com ). All are offered in high-quality video. But it should not stop there, Mr. Bylund says. “Figure out an ad-supported model if you can, or charge less than a dollar per episode. Let people burn it to DVD or play the file on iPhones for a buck.” Eventually, “piracy will force all the big-time content producers to move in this kind of direction,” Mr. Bylund says. “Capitalism, properly applied, will beat the rebels every time.” A GREAT TIME WASTER Slate does not mean to insult anyone when it says that this week’s package on procrastination “will appeal to every single person reading the magazine.” Even if you are not a procrastinator, maybe you long to be. Or, failing that, you surely know someone who procrastinates. And if you are a can-do, industrious type, Daniel Gross’s “Lazy Money” guide to investing in companies that appeal to procrastination — purveyors of tobacco, coffee, Web sites, online video and even this newspaper — might be for you ( slate .com ). Other articles in the package include “Procrastinators Without Borders: Do the Japanese Waste More Time Than We Do?” by Heather Smith; “Like There’s No Tomorrow: How Economists Think About Procrastination,” by Ray Fisman; and a manifesto, “Procrasti-Nation: Workers of the World, Slack Off!” THOSE DARNED KIDS “Web 2.0” has forgotten about the Internet, according to Allan Leinwand, a venture capitalist writing at GigaOM. All the social networks, big blog sites, video hosts and wikis out there may yawn when “router-hugging relics of the past century” tell them they need to pay attention to basics, Mr. Leinwand says. But when things break down, they will wish they knew as much about the Internet’s underlying technology as they do about Python, Ajax and all the other software that is used to create Web 2.0 sites. Those error messages that routinely show up on MySpace and AllMusic could well be thanks to a young programmer’s lack of adequate Web 1.0 knowledge ( gigaom .com ). HAPPENS ALL THE TIME A frequently asked question that was posted until recently on the child labor section of the Georgia Department of Labor’s Web site read: “I am a 17-year-old teacher with a Ph.D. in physics. I am married and have a child. Do I need a work permit?” The bizarre made-up question was finally removed, but still shows up in Google’s cache, and a screen shot can be found at tinypic .com . DAN MITCHELL
|
Counterfeit Merchandise;Suits and Litigation;Recordings and Downloads (Audio);Recordings and Downloads (Video);Computers and the Internet;Television;Motion Pictures
|
ny0021978
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2013/09/19
|
Bills Like What They See in E.J. Manuel’s Promising Start
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E J Manuel was 25-6 as a starter at Florida State. He led the Seminoles to four consecutive bowl victories and ended his career with a 66.9 completion percentage, the best in the storied program’s history. Yet he was considered by many prognosticators to be near the bottom of the top tier of quarterback prospects for the 2013 draft. It was an analysis that stung Manuel, who has size (6 feet 4 inches, 237 pounds), arm strength and mobility. He felt unfairly overlooked. “I’m sure he felt like that,” his father, Erik, said by phone from his home in Chesapeake, Va. “We would have conversations about that.” Erik Manuel remembered one talk several months before the April draft that ended with his son vowing, “Dad, I’m going to be the first quarterback taken.” The more teams familiarized themselves with Manuel, the more enamored they became. He has a work ethic and meticulousness that comes, at least in part, from his father, a former supply analyst for the Air Force now employed in the hazardous materials unit of the Department of Defense. He possesses an air of professionalism stemming from his godfather, Bruce Smith, a Hall of Fame defensive end who played for the Bills. He also had a life experience that provided him with a mature perspective: his mother, Jackie, received a diagnosis of breast cancer before his senior season and underwent difficult but successful treatment. “As the process went on, it is not just about athletic ability and arm strength,” said Mike Mayock, an analyst for NFL Network. “It’s what kind of kid is he? Is he a gym rat? Do we trust him? They kept crossing off those boxes and saying, ‘Yeah, we like him.’ ” The Bills apparently liked him most of all. They chose Manuel with the 16th pick in the draft, making him the first quarterback taken. The next one, Geno Smith, went to the Jets with the 39th pick. Since Jim Kelly ended his Hall of Fame career in 1996, Buffalo has had a rotating cast at quarterback. Todd Collins, Rob Johnson, Doug Flutie, Alex Van Pelt, Drew Bledsoe, J. P. Losman, Kelly Holcomb, Trent Edwards and Ryan Fitzpatrick have all started at least eight games since the Kelly era. The Bills hope that with Manuel they have finally found a quarterback who can help them end a string of 13 consecutive seasons without reaching the playoffs, the N.F.L.’s longest postseason drought. On Sunday at MetLife Stadium, Manuel and the Bills will face Smith and the Jets. Each rookie has a 1-1 record as a starter, but the similarity ends there. Manuel, despite missing the final two preseason games to have minor surgery on his left knee, has completed 68.2 percent of his passes (45 of 66) for 446 yards with 3 touchdowns and an interception for a passer rating of 95.9. Smith, slowed much of the preseason with a sprained right ankle, has converted 53.4 percent of his throws (39 of 73) for 470 yards with a touchdown and 4 interceptions for a 55.2 passer rating. Manuel, perhaps in a sign of how quickly he recognizes defenses and processes information, has been sacked just once so far, for a loss of 9 yards. Smith has been sacked nine times, for 67 yards in losses. Manuel, in an interview during training camp in Pittsford, N.Y., said of the challenge of righting a team that finished at the bottom of the A.F.C. East with a 6-10 record last season: “I look forward to it. I don’t necessarily see myself as a savior or anything. I just want to come in and help.” Manuel is doing that. He finished an 80-yard, nine-play drive with a 2-yard touchdown toss to Stevie Johnson with two seconds remaining when rallying the Bills to a 24-23 victory at home against the Carolina Panthers on Sunday. He made it sound routine, too. “We knew the situation; I didn’t feel nervous or anything like that,” Manuel said after the game. “We’ve practiced it time and time again. I’ve been in two-minute situations before, not just in the N.F.L. in practice, but in college, and we’ve won games like that before.” Although Manuel completed 27 of 39 passes for 296 yards with one touchdown and one interception against Carolina, Doug Marrone, the Bills’ first-year coach, said: “There’s a lot of things that we have to clean up with him. There are a lot of mistakes that are out there that he committed that we don’t expect him to make.” According to Marrone, Manuel welcomed his criticism. “The one thing about E J is he’s hard on himself,” Marrone said. “We like that in our players.” Doug Whaley, in his first year as the Bills’ general manager, was drawn to Manuel by that quality and others that cannot be measured by a stopwatch or a scale. “He has a presence about him,” he said. “Most successful quarterbacks in the N.F.L. have a presence about them.” Whaley added, “Not only has he validated that point, but he’s shown us this isn’t too big for him, being the face and future of the franchise.”
|
Bills;E J Manuel;Geno Smith;Jets;Football
|
ny0004961
|
[
"sports",
"hockey"
] |
2013/04/30
|
Blackhawks’ Jonathan Toews Continues to Measure Up to Captain Serious Nickname
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CHICAGO — Jonathan Toews celebrated his 25th birthday on Monday by sitting at his locker after Blackhawks practice, a bank of cameras trained on him, a host of microphones in his face and a cacophony of questions hurled at him. He spoke in his familiar Western Canadian accent and with the same measured tones as always. “We know what we’re up against,” he said on the eve of Chicago’s first playoff game. “This is our real season.” Toews’s words, accompanied by an unflinching stare into a sea of inquisitive faces, seemed to hang in the air for a split second. “That’s Jonathan,” said Denis Savard, who coached Toews when he entered the league with the Blackhawks in 2007. “He’s young, but he has a presence. When he talks, you listen.” The Blackhawks enter the postseason with the league’s best record, having completed a splendid but condensed 36-7-5 season. When the puck drops Tuesday night at United Center for Game 1 against the Minnesota Wild, Chicago will begin its quest to become the first Presidents’ Trophy winner to capture the Stanley Cup since the Detroit Red Wings in 2008. A roster loaded with talent takes its cues from Toews, its steely-eyed captain. Toews sounds like an elder statesman even if he does not look the part. The beginning of his playoff beard is little more than a bit of stubble on his sideburns. His smooth cheeks lack the roughness of a grizzled veteran. They give off more of a Justin Bieber-esque teenager vibe. But this is Toews’s fifth year wearing the “C” on his No. 19 jersey. Most athletes mature as they grow up. Toews, who earned the nickname Captain Serious, has done the opposite: he has grown into his maturity. After Toews’s rookie season, Blackhawks management met with him during the team’s annual off-season fan convention. At a downtown hotel, Toews was told he would be the team’s captain at the ripe age of 20, the third youngest in league history. “To be honest, we had talked about it his rookie year, but we decided to wait,” Blackhawks General Manager Stan Bowman said. “He responded in typical Jonathan Toews fashion. He said, ‘I’m honored, and I’ll make us proud.’ ” The Blackhawks advanced to the Western Conference finals that season, their first trip to the playoffs in six years. The next season, Chicago won the Stanley Cup, its first since 1961, led by Toews and his fellow young standouts Patrick Kane, Patrick Sharp and Duncan Keith. The last two years have been a bit turbulent for Toews and his team. Twice the Blackhawks squeaked into the playoffs and lost in the first round. Last season, Toews battled concussion-related symptoms and missed much of the second half of the season. Attempting to drive to United Center one day, he crashed his car into a steel support beam for Chicago’s elevated train. His burning competitive streak and intensity, the very qualities that had made him a leader, did not mesh well with rest and recovery. “When you’re younger, you try to control every little detail,” Toews said. “You’re trying to score the winning goal every night, but that’s not going to happen. It takes time to learn that.” Toews said he hoped he had mellowed enough to lose his nickname. Despite the central casting look and demeanor of a straight man in a comedy routine, he insisted Captain Serious was an incomplete portrayal. “I don’t like it at all,” he said. “Guys have known for a few years that’s how they can push my buttons.” Ryan Duncan, a teammate and roommate of Toews at the University of North Dakota, can vouch for him. “I’ve seen him watch ‘Family Guy’ and laugh his face off,” Duncan said. “With age, he’s loosened up, and that’s a good thing.” As Toews has found perspective off the ice, his play on it has reached another level. He is a Hart Trophy contender this season, among the N.H.L.’s leaders in a litany of statistics. He is tied for the most even-strength goals (19), tied for second in face-offs won (559) and third in plus/minus rating (28). Toews has always shone brightest on the biggest stages. At the World Junior championships, he scored three straight goals in a shootout to propel his team to victory. He scored Team Canada’s first goal against Team USA in the 2010 Olympic final. Perhaps his most memorable moment in a Blackhawks uniform was an incredible short-handed goal to force overtime in Game 7 of a 2011 first-round playoff series against Vancouver. On Tuesday night, Toews will attempt to create a new slate of magic moments. He fully expects to because, as he said, that is what captains do. “It’s the type of responsibility you want,” he said. “You take pride in that.”
|
Ice hockey;Chicago Blackhawks;Jonathan Toews
|
ny0126157
|
[
"business"
] |
2012/08/01
|
Housing Finance Agency Rebuffs Freddie and Fannie on Easing Debt
|
WASHINGTON — The independent federal agency that administers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said on Tuesday that it would not let the mortgage companies offer debt forgiveness to borrowers, again rejecting the entreaties of the Obama administration. The Federal Housing Finance Agency said it had concluded after months of study that up to half a million homeowners could benefit from such a program, and that taxpayers might save $1 billion because aid recipients would be more likely to continue making mortgage payments. But the agency’s acting director, Edward J. DeMarco , said the benefits most likely would be much smaller — too small in his judgment to offset potential costs, including the risk that some borrowers would stop making payments in pursuit of a better deal. Offering debt forgiveness “would not make a meaningful improvement in reducing foreclosures in a cost-effective way for taxpayers,” Mr. DeMarco said in a statement Tuesday . The announcement is a direct rebuff to the Obama administration, which has pressed Mr. DeMarco for more than a year to let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac join nearly every other major mortgage company in offering debt forgiveness to borrowers who owe more than the value of their homes. On Tuesday, the Treasury Department immediately called for the agency to reconsider. “I do not believe it is the best decision for the country,” Timothy F. Geithner , the secretary, wrote in a public letter to Mr. DeMarco. The decision also infuriated Congressional Democrats, while Republicans rallied to the agency’s defense. “The administration put incredible political pressure on Director DeMarco, and he deserves praise for standing up for the best interests of the American people,” said Representative Spencer Bachus, an Alabama Republican who is chairman of the House committee that oversees the agency. The importance of debt forgiveness in preventing foreclosures and reviving economic growth has been a contentious issue since the start of the housing crisis six years ago. Research shows that borrowers whose mortgage debts exceed the value of their homes on average are less likely to keep making payments. Some economists also argue that high levels of debt are impeding consumer spending, the nation’s primary economic activity. But debt forgiveness is more expensive than other methods of reducing a borrower’s payments, like deferring a portion of the debt or reducing the interest rate, in part because the lender is forgoing the chance to benefit if housing prices recover. Moreover, as the generosity of aid increases, so does the incentive to seek help. And there is a final consideration that weighed heavily in the analysis that the housing agency published Tuesday: After years of debate, many borrowers have slipped beyond the reach of help. The agency noted that most of the half-million homeowners it counted as candidates for debt forgiveness had not made a mortgage payment in more than a year. The agency estimated that 74,000 to 248,000 borrowers might successfully obtain a debt reduction. In the best case, it estimated that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could collect another $500 million in mortgage payments. But it cautioned that the low end of the range was more likely, resulting in a much smaller financial benefit. And it noted that the entire benefit could be erased if as few as 3,000 borrowers decided to stop making payments in the hopes of qualifying for debt forgiveness. “The projected impact,” Mr. DeMarco told reporters, “could be negative for taxpayers or it could be positive, depending on the assumptions.” But given his assessment of the costs, he said, it was clearly not large enough. In reaching this conclusion, Mr. DeMarco flatly rejected the administration’s efforts to change his longstanding opposition by offering to pay the bill. The housing agency is charged by Congress with minimizing the cost of bailing out Fannie and Freddie, which were seized by the government in 2008 to preserve their role as the primary source of financing for new mortgage loans . The administration’s mortgage modification program offers incentives to lenders who forgive a portion of the borrower’s debt, and in January, the White House tripled the incentive as direct inducement to Mr. DeMarco. The agency said Tuesday that the companies could reap $2.7 billion, increasing the total savings from debt forgiveness to as much as $3.6 billion. But Mr. DeMarco in effect rejected the administration’s helping hand, insisting Tuesday that the only important number was the total cost to taxpayers. The details of the analysis did little to assuage the agency’s critics, who noted the agency’s math still seemed to suggest that taxpayers could benefit. “It is incomprehensible that Mr. DeMarco would reject the chance to save up to a billion dollars in taxpayer funds while helping nearly half a million homeowners stay in their homes,” said Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland . Analysts also see little evidence that existing incentives for principal reduction have lured borrowers to default, although Mr. DeMarco said he feared that a highly publicized announcement by Fannie and Freddie might produce a different result. The agency also sketched some proposals on Tuesday that it said would benefit homeowners. One potentially significant change could encourage mortgage companies to loosen lending standards by limiting their responsibility if they sold the loans to Fannie and Freddie — the standard method of raising money for more loans — and the borrower eventually defaulted. Federal Reserve officials have said that the current standards significantly impede the availability of loans. The agency said that a new standard would be published by September.
|
Edward J DeMarco;Federal Housing Finance Agency;Federal National Mortgage Assn Fannie Mae;Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp Freddie Mac;Subprime Mortgage Crisis,2008 Financial Crisis;Mortgage loan;US Economy;Barack Obama
|
ny0121852
|
[
"us"
] |
2012/09/20
|
Number of Children Exposed to Violent Crime Drops
|
Exposure to violence has a profound effect on children, making them more prone to emotional problems like depression and anxiety and increasing the chances that they will either become victims of violence themselves or commit crimes in later life. But a new government report suggests that the number of children in the United States who are exposed to violent crime has dropped precipitously in the last two decades, a decline that one expert termed “breathtaking.” From 1993 to 2010, the number of children living in households where another member had been a victim of a nonfatal violent crime decreased by 68 percent, to 2.8 million from 8.7 million, according to the report, released on Wednesday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The crimes included domestic violence, rape, sexual assault and robbery. Of the children exposed to the violent victimization of a household member in 2010, 1.6 million were under age 12. The exposure to violent crime was greatest in households headed by an unmarried adult, single-parent households, households with incomes under $15,000 a year and those in urban areas, the report found. Exposure to simple assault was more common than exposure to more serious violent crimes. The report was based on an analysis of data from the annual National Crime Victimization Survey, which collects information about crimes against people 12 and older, including crimes not reported to the police. David Finkelhor, the director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire and an expert on child abuse, said that in his view, the decreasing number of children exposed to violence was “breathtaking” and “big news.” “It shows something very impressive,” he said, “a decline of two-thirds in a measure of something considered very important to social well-being and sense of safety.” The decrease corresponds with an overall drop in violent crime over the last two decades. But it also comes in tandem with substantial declines in other indicators of childhood distress, including teenage suicide, bullying, and physical and sexual abuse, a number of studies have shown. Surveys indicate that children report feeling safer at school than they did in the past and are less likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors. Teenage pregnancy is at a historic low. What is behind the changing numbers is less clear. Policing techniques and incarceration policies undoubtedly play a role in dropping crime rates. But Dr. Finkelhor said large societal changes were also likely contributors, including the growth of prevention programs that increase awareness; the advent of cellphones, which make it easier to summon help; and the use of medications to treat depression and other psychiatric problems. Janet Lauritsen, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said she thought another factor might be the increasing effectiveness of services available to victims and potential perpetrators of crimes, “everything ranging from violence against women to child abuse.” There is no question that “children are much better off than they were in the early 1990s,” she added. The sharpest drop in children’s exposure to violence occurred from 1993 to 2001, the report found, with the decline then continuing at a slower rate. Callie Rennison, a criminologist and professor of public affairs at the University of Colorado Denver, said the report had some limits because the National Crime Victimization Survey was not specifically designed to measure children’s exposure to violence. But the decreasing trend is clear, she said, and although more work needs to be done, the decline is “great news for the United States.” “It’s this really positive loop for children and adults,” Dr. Rennison said. “If we’ve got fewer children being exposed, then they are less likely to expose their own children or to possibly be in households where there are children and exhibit these behaviors.”
|
Children and Childhood;Domestic Violence;Crime Rates;Bureau of Justice Statistics;Crime and Criminals
|
ny0229345
|
[
"science"
] |
2010/07/13
|
Insects as Model Animals
|
Jeremy Niven spends his days at Cambridge University running locusts across ladders and through mazes, trying to figure out how bugs think. Dr. Niven, 34, studies the evolution of brains and neurons in insects and other animals, like humans. We spoke during a break in last month's World Science Festival in New York, where he was a guest presenter, and then again later via telephone. An edited version of the two conversations follows: Q. YOUR RESEARCH SUBJECTS ARE LOCUSTS. SOME PEOPLE MIGHT SAY, “LOCUSTS, YUCK!” WHY STUDY THEM? A. I think locusts are sweet. When you get used to them, they are actually quite nice. Actually, I find that working with invertebrates opens your mind. Insects don’t perceive the world the way we do. Trying to understand them makes you think more about why we see the world as we do. Many animals have different sensors and receive different energies. Birds have ultraviolet vision. So do bees. They can see things we don’t. One learns respect for their capacities. But the other thing is that insects in general and locusts in particular are admirable because they permit us to gain new information about nervous systems. With insects, we can actually study neural circuits and see how what happens in the neurons relates to behavior. Q. SO INSECTS ARE YOUR MODEL ANIMAL? A. Yes. You see, with mammals, their nervous systems are very complex and everything you look at is more difficult to connect to behaviors. There are so many neurons in their brains — where do you even begin? How do you associate what’s going on in the neuron with what’s going on in the animal? Now, in insects, there are fewer neurons and so they can be identified more easily. Of course, insect brains don’t work in the exactly same way a human brain does. But there is more overlap than many realize. It’s a consequence of evolution that animals have used the same biological tricks to get what they need from the environment. They mix and match different molecular components to build the system they need. So you can find the same components in a locust’s nervous system as in human. We just have more of it. Q. YOU’VE DONE AN EXPERIMENT WHERE YOU PLACED LOCUSTS ON A LADDER THAT HAD JIGGLING RUNGS. YOU THEN WATCHED HOW THEY WORKED THEIR WAY ACROSS THIS TRICK LADDER. WHAT WAS THE POINT? A. I wanted to know how locusts used their vision to coordinate their limbs in a changing situation. This research involved learning how insects combine visual information with decision making and motor patterns. With locusts, we’ve long thought they used their limbs to feel things gradually or that they used their antennae to sense the environment, much like a blind person with a cane. But with our experiment, we showed they use their vision to make a kind of guesstimate of distance. Then they jump. Many insects use an approximate approach. So they teach us that many behaviors that a psychologist might describe as very complicated, an insect can do with very few neurons, and by making a few rough guesses. Q. WHY SPEND TIME LEARNING THIS? A. We have not discovered yet the neural circuits in humans that are involved in reaching for objects. However, we might be able to work that out in locusts. We already know that it doesn’t take a huge brain to accurately control the limbs. These insects do it. There are all kinds of possibilities for robotics and for rehabilitative medicine in these studies. Q. OVER YOUR CAREER, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY HAS BEEN YOUR MOST SIGNIFICANT FINDING? A. In 2007, we were able to study how much energy neurons used and we quantified it. We studied different types of insect eyes — from tiny fruit fly eyes to huge blowfly eyes. In each creature, we worked out how much energy it takes for neurons in the brain to process information. What we learned was that the more information a fly’s eye needed to process, the more energy each unit of information consumed. That means that it’s bad, in the evolutionary sense, for an animal to have a bigger brain than it needs for survival. It’s like having a gas-eating Ferrari, when what you really need is Honda Civic. Q. SO BIG BRAINS ARE NOT ALWAYS AN ADVANTAGE? A. Bigger is better if you want to produce enormously complicated behavior. But in evolution, brains evolve by selection. There always is pressure on animals to produce behaviors for as little energy as possible. And that means for many animals, smaller brains are better because they won’t waste energy. You know, there’s this pervasive idea in biology that I think is wrong. It goes: we humans are at the pinnacle of the evolutionary tree, and as you get up that tree, brain size must get bigger. But a fly is just as evolved as a human. It’s just evolved to a different niche. In fact, in evolution there’s no drive towards bigger brains. It’s perfectly possible that under the right circumstances, you could get animals evolving small brains. Indeed, on some islands, where there’s reduced flora and fauna, you’ll see smaller versions of mainland species. I would argue that their brain size has been reduced because it saves energy, which permits them to survive in situations of scarcity. They also might not need big brains because they don’t have natural predators on the islands—and don’t have to be as smart because there’s nothing to avoid. Q. SPEAKING OF ISLANDS, WHEN AN APELIKE FOSSIL WAS DISCOVERED ON THE INDONESIAN ISLAND OF FLORES IN 2003, A GREAT CONTROVERSY BROKE OUT AMONG ANTHROPOLOGISTS. SOME SAID THIS THREE-FOOT TALL SMALL- BRAINED CREATURE WAS A NEW SPECIES OF HOMINID — A HUMANLIKE PRIMATE. OTHERS CLAIMED IT WAS AN EARLY HUMAN WITH A BRAIN DEFORMITY. WHY DID YOU JUMP INTO THE FRAY? A. Because I thought it was a hominid. This thing about its being a human ancestor with a diseased brain never made much sense. The people who insisted it was a deformed early human couldn’t believe that it was possible to have such a huge reduction in brain size in any hominid. Yet, it’s possible to get a reduction in brain size of island animals as long as the selection pressure is there. There’s nothing to stop this from happening, even among hominids. Q. SO WHY WERE OTHER SCIENTISTS INSISTING THAT FLORES MAN WAS A DEFORMED HUMAN? A. Because there’s this idea that nature moves inexorably towards bigger brains and some people find it very difficult to imagine why if you evolved a big brain — as ancient hominids had — why you would ever go back to a smaller one. But evolution doesn’t really care. This smaller brain could have helped this species survive better than an energy-consuming bigger one. The insects have shown us this. Q. GETTING BACK TO INSECTS. DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE DISLIKE THEM SO? A. I think probably because in the near past, we associated insects with disease. That’s a big part of it. On the other hand, Darwin loved insects. There’s a wonderful quote from him, where he’s talking about the marvelous brains of ants, and he says that they may be more marvelous than the brains of humans or monkeys because they are tiny and to be able to do so much behavior with such tiny brains, I can’t help but agree.
|
Niven Jeremy;Insects;Brain;Nerves and Nervous System;Science and Technology;Research
|
ny0046735
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2014/11/05
|
Adrian Peterson Agrees to Plea Deal in Child-Abuse Case
|
Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson agreed to a plea bargain Tuesday, reducing his felony child-abuse charges to a single charge of reckless assault, a misdemeanor that comes with a $4,000 fine and an order to perform community service. Peterson, 29, appeared in court in Conroe, Tex., and pleaded no contest to the reduced charge in front of Judge Kelly W. Case, who accepted the plea. Peterson was accompanied by his lawyer, Rusty Hardin, and the hearing was finished in a matter of minutes. The plea ended a case that stemmed from Peterson’s being accused of disciplining his 4-year-old son with a switch in May at his home in Spring, Tex. He was initially charged with one count of reckless or negligent injury to a child, a felony. The reckless-assault charge made no mention of a child’s involvement. The trial on the initial charge had been set for Dec. 1 , and few expected any result that would allow Peterson to return to the Vikings this season. Now the N.F.L. must decide if it plans on further punishment than the eight games Peterson has missed, albeit with pay, while he remained on the commissioner’s exempt list. The Vikings initially were going to allow Peterson to play after he was indicted on Sept. 11, but they reversed course after a loud public backlash. The team, which has a bye this week, has not yet commented on Peterson’s status or whether he will return this season. EX-GIANT FACES CHARGES The former Giants and Tampa Bay Buccaneers player Luke Petitgout was charged Tuesday with assault and sexual assault in New Jersey. The charges were filed in Pascack Joint Municipal Court. Prosecutors did not immediately respond to an email seeking details about the charges. Petitgout was being held, with bail set at $50,000, in the Bergen County jail. His lawyer, Patrick J. Jennings, said he expected Petitgout to be released soon. Petitgout had a misdemeanor harassment case against him dropped in New York last year after his wife accused him of hitting her. (AP) POLAMALU OUT Steelers safety Troy Polamalu will miss Sunday’s game against the Jets with a sprained right knee. (AP)
|
Football;Adrian Peterson;Child Abuse;Luke Petitgout;Troy Polamalu;Minnesota Vikings
|
ny0129254
|
[
"business",
"global"
] |
2012/06/21
|
For Spain, Accusations of Lagging on Reforms
|
MADRID — Spain plans to release on Thursday two independent reports on the condition of the country’s banks, which the government has said it is awaiting to help determine how much of its bailout offer of 100 billion euros it actually needs. A ballpark figure of about 60 billion euros, or $76 billion, is already widely assumed. And any subsequent, deeper audit of the murky loan portfolios of the most troubled Spanish banks is likely to take time that the Spanish government simply does not have. Spain is being accused of dithering over the details of the bailout process at a time when the financial markets are eager to know what steps the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy wants to take to fix the underlying problems of its banking system. “I don’t think Mariano Rajoy’s government will be capable of restoring investor confidence because too much has been lost already, and constant standoffs with Angela Merkel over timing and conditions are only making things worse,” said Edward Hugh, an economist based in Barcelona, referring to the German chancellor. Eventually, he predicted, “Spain will need a full bailout and very strict conditions and monitoring.” The latest test of market sentiment will come Thursday, when the Spanish Treasury plans to sell as much as 2 billion euros ($2.5 billion) in bonds, even as its borrowing costs reach record levels. However fragile the euro zone looks, European interdependency is one reason Spain’s borrowing costs fell some on Wednesday. The decline came amid reports that Prime Minister Mario Monti of Italy and other European leaders were scrambling to come up with a new and larger financial solution to the European debt crisis before the situation worsened for Italy and other fragile economies. In such a context, “a strong statement from the Spanish government detailing how it intends to reform its banks is what is needed now,” said Tony Anderson, a partner in London at the law firm Pinsent Masons. “Otherwise we have another leaking bucket to refill and no one able to agree on the size of the bucket or the size of the holes.” Whatever the findings are Thursday, the Spanish government has insisted that it will not shut crippled institutions. That stance has already prompted a dispute with Joaquín Almunia, Spain’s representative in the European Commission, who suggested this month that Spain close at least one of its failed banks. The stress test results, expected on Thursday, will do little to shed light on how the Spanish government plans to overhaul its most troubled banks, but they are not a pointless exercise, Mr. Hugh said. “They will give markets a number to work around, and that in itself has a value.” That 60-billion-euro figure was reflected in a separate analysis published Wednesday by Fitch Ratings, the credit agency. Fitch estimated a capital shortfall for the domestic loan portfolio of Spanish banks of 50 billion to 60 billion euros ($63.5 billion to $76 billion) under a favorable simulation, but that figure could rise to 90 billion to 100 billion euros ($114 billion to $127 billion) under worse conditions — along the lines, say, of the banking collapse in Ireland. The reports are being put together by Oliver Wyman and Roland Berger, two consulting firms retained by the Spanish economy ministry in May, giving them just a month to work out how much extra capital the banking sector would need to stay afloat. They were hired after troubles arose at Bankia, a giant mortgage lender nationalized in early May that is in line to receive 19 billion euros ($24 billion) of the rescue capital offered by Europe. The hiring process was also clouded by a last-minute decision to appoint Roland Berger, a leading German firm but one with little previous experience in Spanish banking, instead of the investment firm BlackRock, because of concern about a possible conflict of interest with BlackRock’s fund management activities. In addition to working under a tight deadline, the two firms have also had to rely on data from the Bank of Spain rather than go through the banking portfolios themselves. The risk such a secondhand approach presents were demonstrated last month by Bankia, when it restated its 2011 accounts. A profit of 309 million euros reported in February suddenly became a loss of 3 billion euros, the largest in Spanish banking history. The credibility of stress tests has also suffered considerably from flawed efforts to use them earlier in the debt crisis , most notably by the European Banking Authority. The authority gave clean bills of health to Irish and Spanish banks, whose losses subsequently turned out to be significant enough to require bailouts. “Unfortunately there is no easy solution — stress tests have become a key part of the tool kit in dealing with the reshaping of banks,” said Nils Melngailis, a managing director in London at Alvarez & Marsal, a consulting firm that was involved in assessing Greek and Irish banks. But such stress tests, he added, “need to be carefully calibrated to be credible.” The reports issued Thursday are expected to divide Spanish groups into different categories, one of which will indicate institutions that cannot survive without further rescue financing. Armed with the new estimates of capital requirements, the government is expected to move swiftly to negotiate the final terms of the European rescue package. Mr. Rajoy has remained defiant as bond investors push up Spain’s borrowing costs. “The fundamentals of the Spanish economy remain well above the risk premium and the debt cost that is being paid at this moment,” he told reporters at a news conference Wednesday after the conclusion of the meeting of leaders of the Group of 20 in Mexico. Spanish debt has become even less attractive lately because investors wishing to trade Spanish government bonds through LCH.Clearnet, the largest clearing house in Europe, will have to put up additional money for margin requirements. Investors trading Spanish 10- to 15-year debt, for example, must now put up 14.7 percent of the value of the securities in a margin account, compared with 13.6 percent previously, the clearing house said Tuesday. Higher margin requirements mean investors must commit more capital to a transaction, reducing their overall funds for investment. The Spanish government also separately hired four firms to audit the accounts of the 14 largest Spanish banks, encouraging them to actually examine the banks’ books to pick up on the kind of auditing failures that surfaced at Bankia. Those audits, though, are not expected to be completed until the end of July.
|
Spain;Madrid (Spain);Europe;European Union;European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- );Banking and Financial Institutions
|
ny0265557
|
[
"technology"
] |
2016/03/20
|
Farhad and Mike Parse Virtual Reality Tech and the Apple Standoff
|
Each Saturday, Farhad Manjoo and Mike Isaac, technology reporters at The New York Times, review the week’s news , offering analysis and maybe a joke or two about the most important developments in the tech industry. Farhad: How’s it going, Mike? I just got back from South by Southwest, which everyone cool calls “South By.” But I’m not cool. I call it “South by Southwest.” Mike: I’m incredibly cool, so I call it “By.” You wouldn’t understand. Farhad: On to this week’s tech news. Sony unveiled a virtual reality add-on for the PlayStation 4, making it the latest in a string of companies trying to get gamers to part with their money this year. The good news for gamers is that Sony wants less money than other virtual reality companies: The PlayStation VR will sell for $400 when it’s released, and it works with the PS 4 that many gamers already have, while the Oculus Rift sells for $600 and requires a $1,000 PC. The bad news: Sony’s ships in October, while the Oculus will be in gamers’ grubby hands by the end of this month. Mike: As with most new tech, I’m pretty sure the first generations of all of these gadgets are going to be bad. I’m doing my usual thing of waiting a few years for the hardware to get cheaper and the tech to get better. Meanwhile, I will bide my time in actual reality. Farhad: That’s bad news for all of us. On another front, Google is giving its war robots the boot. You know those fearsome-looking bots you’ve seen lifting weights and performing other tricks in a series of viral videos? Well, apparently they make for good videos but not good business. According to Bloomberg , Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is looking to sell Boston Dynamics, the military robot subsidiary, because the company isn’t likely to produce any revenue anytime soon. That was the reported reason, anyway; I wonder if Google execs’ real worry was that these robots could one day turn against their masters. Mike: Yeah, those definitely were freaky . Still, the “isn’t likely to produce revenue anytime soon” reasoning sounds strange. Doesn’t Google lose money on most of the wacky things it tries out? I’m suspicious. Farhad: Also, a V.C. was sued by a woman claiming sexual abuse and a lot of unsavory details came spilling out in the legal documents . In other words, business as usual for the venture capital industry. But hey, it’s been at least two weeks since we talked about the Apple-F.B.I. case, so we’re due for an update. Our Apple-obsessed colleagues had a blockbuster article this week — according to their reporting , some of Apple’s most prized engineers would rather quit their jobs than help the government break into the security systems guarding the iPhone. I wasn’t surprised to hear this; security engineers tend to be a principled bunch . But I think nontechies will find this a bit hard to swallow. I bet a lot of people are going to accuse these guys of being divas or simply grandstanding. What do you think? Mike: Honestly, this kind of idealism seems to jibe with my limited experience with security engineers. It seems as though if you’re into information and computer security, it’s not just a job, it’s a way of life. These people take the principles of keeping information safe incredibly seriously. Think about it: Their job is to make secure a product that holds our most intimate secrets — our texts to friends and family, our emails to co-workers and bosses, our frowny face emojis to our loved ones — and then offer that product to hundreds of millions of people. Moreover, it’s not just another nifty feature on the phone, like 3D Touch or whatever. This is one of the marquee selling points of the newest generations of the iPhone under the leadership of Tim Cook, Apple’s chief since 2011. As our colleagues have written about at length , the idea of personal privacy and the right to hold our information safe against thieves is personally important to him. I imagine he instills that sense of duty in the teams responsible for this. Farhad: Right. And I don’t think it’s just the principles they worry about, but it’s also the practical effect on the security of Apple’s devices. The security engineers who would be tasked with helping the F.B.I. break into this phone probably best understand the dangers of doing so — especially the danger that the code to break into this phone could slip into unwanted hands. It’s like asking a locksmith to create a master key for every house in the neighborhood; sure, you’ll probably be able to find a few who’ll do it, but most will tell you that it goes against their professional code, for the very simple reason that it’s very dangerous. Mike: One other thing: I don’t know how much of this is marketing (probably a lot), but from Apple’s early days, the company under Steve Jobs styled itself as a countercultural influence — products made by and for the “rebellious” lot. Do I think Apple’s campus is flooded with a bunch of radical hippies? Probably not. It’s a corporate behemoth — the most valuable company in the world — so it’s sort of hard to argue for “counterculture” when the iPhone is omnipresent in our society today. Still, that influence, or streaks of it, had to have to trickled down in the organization over the years. Maybe we’re seeing a little bit of that. Farhad: This still leaves the puzzle of what happens if Apple’s engineers refuse to comply. You could compare this situation to that of civil servants who refuse to carry out laws they find objectionable — like Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who felt her religious views prevented her from signing gay marriage certificates. She was jailed for contempt for that refusal; the case was eventually resolved when Ms. Davis said she would not interfere with her deputies’ signing gay marriage licenses. But the Apple case is different because there aren’t a lot of other people who can step in for Apple’s security engineers. This isn’t a matter of simply signing a piece of paper; the people who would have to carry out a court order would need very specific expertise regarding the security of Apple’s phones. If they refuse to comply en masse, what happens? Things are likely to get pretty interesting. Anyway, we’ll see — until then, I’ll be perusing the schedule for next’s year’s “By.” See, I’m cool! Mike: Uh, no. Bye!
|
Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry;Apple;iPhone;Virtual reality;Alphabet
|
ny0188013
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2009/04/30
|
Police Uniforms Seized in Raid on Manhattan Garment Factory
|
When state labor investigators raided a clothing manufacturer near the Flatiron Building on Tuesday night, they were surprised by what they found. Dangling on hangers, ready for delivery, were rows of dress uniforms — complete with the familiar insignia, the gold buttons, the deep blue fabric — intended for use for formal occasions by New York City police officers. Those uniforms, and others destined for hospitals, hotels and a local university, were among roughly 400 pieces of clothing seized by the State Department of Labor , along with the equipment used to produce the clothing. It was the first use, officials said, of a 2006 law that allows the state to seize goods and equipment from garment manufacturers charged with multiple violations of labor standards. The uniforms were confiscated from a factory at 45 East 20th Street run by the Forest Uniform Corporation. A contractor the company works with, Technical Garment USA, at 251 West 39th Street, is also accused of violating labor laws. The department said it would release the goods if the companies paid $500,000 in back wages and damages to 16 current and former workers, though an alternative legal settlement might be negotiated. The state labor commissioner, M. Patricia Smith , said the raid signaled a more aggressive approach to companies that violate minimum-wage and overtime rules, particularly in an industry known for widespread abuses. She compared repeat offenders to children. “Our message to these employers is simple: Instead of sending you to your room or taking your toys away, we’re taking control of your garments and, for Forest Uniform, of your machinery,” Ms. Smith said. According to investigators, Technical Garment had for a time required employees to fill out two sets of time cards: a false set showing a Monday-to-Friday schedule of 40 hours of work or less, and real cards detailing workweeks that often stretched 80 hours without a day off. Eventually the company disposed of the second set, instead tracking the actual hours worked in a notebook kept locked in an office, investigators said. Employees were coached to lie to labor officials during their routine visits, the department said. In late 2008, however, an employee approached investigators and detailed the true working conditions. Because the companies had violated other state labor rules more than twice in the past three years, officials were able to make use of the 2006 law. The companies will have a chance to appeal the new citations before the items are auctioned. Forest Uniform, which did not respond to a telephone request for an interview, has been one of six companies authorized by the Police Department to produce the dress uniforms, which are worn at funerals and other special occasions, for sale to police officers, who receive a $1,000 annual clothing allowance. The company, which has made the uniforms since 1992, was immediately removed from that list after the police were told of the matter. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said that quality was the main factor in authorizing a supplier. “That is our primary consideration,” he said. “We are going to leave the other issues to the Department of Labor, which obviously they are addressing today.”
|
Labor;Search and Seizure;Police Department (NYC);Uniforms
|
ny0235438
|
[
"us"
] |
2010/01/30
|
Verdict Is Guilty for Killer of Abortion Doctor
|
WICHITA, Kan. — In the end, it took jurors 37 minutes on Friday to convict Scott Roeder , an abortion opponent, of first-degree murder in the death of George R. Tiller , one of the few doctors in the country to perform late-term abortions. Mr. Roeder, who admitted in court to shooting Dr. Tiller in May and who said he felt it was the only way that he could halt the deaths of babies, stared straight ahead and showed no reaction at the verdict, which carries a sentence of life in prison. For Wichita, it appeared to be a final chapter in the struggle over abortion that has focused on this city for three decades. Dr. Tiller, 67, who grew up here and had provided abortions here since the 1970s, had been attacked before (he was shot in both arms in 1993) but refused to stop his work and drew patients from all over the country. After his murder, his family closed the abortion clinic, leaving Wichita, so long a magnet for the debate, with no such facility. But elsewhere around the country, the debate over abortion continued. Nationally, abortion-rights supporters lauded Mr. Roeder’s conviction, saying it sent a powerful, unambiguous message to those who commit violence against abortion providers. But the trial, they said, also pointed up an urgent need for more law enforcement and further investigation into those who conspire to such violence. The federal Department of Justice has said it is investigating whether others were also involved in the killing of Dr. Tiller. “They need to take this investigation to the next stage,” said Katherine Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation , who attended the trial. “We don’t have rigorous-enough enforcement.” The case divided abortion opponents. Leaders of the best-known national groups had denounced Mr. Roeder’s acts. But some others who say they believe the killing of an abortion provider can be justified had portrayed the trial as unfair, and said they were disappointed by the outcome. They also asserted that the result might breed more violence. “People had said if he were acquitted it would be open season on doctors,” said Michael Bray, who served time in prison for a conspiracy involving abortion clinic bombings in the 1980s and who also attended Mr. Roeder’s trial. “But if you want to see what’s going to stimulate people to do something, you’re inviting more of the same by not giving him a fair trial.” Serving as the only witness in his own defense, Mr. Roeder, 51, of Kansas City, Mo., took a highly unusual step on Thursday: he admitted to jurors that he had planned for many years to kill Dr. Tiller, that he had gone to the doctor’s church carrying a gun several times until he ultimately succeeded. On May 31, Mr. Roeder admitted, he walked into the church and shot Dr. Tiller point-blank in the forehead. Mr. Roeder testified that he believed that all abortions amounted to murder and that Dr. Tiller was breaking abortion laws. Mr. Roeder’s defense team had hoped the judge in the case, Warren Wilbert, would instruct jurors that they could take into account Mr. Roeder’s motive and consider a lesser conviction of voluntary manslaughter if they believed he held, as Kansas law states, “an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force.” But the judge ruled that the circumstances did not meet the requirements for such a conviction, and jurors on Friday were essentially given two choices: convict Mr. Roeder of pre-meditated murder or send him home. Mr. Roeder will be sentenced in March; the conviction carries a life sentence, but prosecutors say they hope to ensure that he is not eligible for parole for 50 years. He was also convicted of aggravated assault for aiming his gun at other church members as he fled. Mr. Roeder’s defense team plans to appeal. The three-week trial was extremely tense, and security measures extremely tight. In addition, a tiny courtroom left abortion-rights leaders sitting, silently, beside those who say violence against abortion providers can be justified. Throughout, Dr. Tiller’s widow, Jeanne Tiller, sat in the front row, sometimes leaning against family members, other times looking down, her face in her hands. Family lawyers issued a statement on her behalf, describing the verdict as just. “At this time, we hope that George can be remembered for his legacy of service to women,” the statement said, “the help he provided for those who needed it and the love and happiness he provided us as a husband, father and grandfather.” Reflecting the split over this case among some abortion opponents, Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, which has headquarters here, said he was appalled by Mr. Roeder’s admissions, which he deemed “cold, calculated and despicable,” and unsurprised by the verdict. The anti-abortion movement itself, Mr. Newman said, had not been on trial here. “Pro-life is a vibrant, relevant movement in America,” he said. “Scott Roeder is not.” But Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue (who is in a dispute with Mr. Newman over the rights to the group’s name), described the trial as a “scam” because, he contended, Mr. Roeder had not been permitted to “really tell his side of the story.” By not allowing Mr. Roeder to present, for example, descriptions and images of aborted fetuses, Mr. Terry said, jurors could not fully understand why he had killed Dr. Tiller.
|
Roeder Scott;Murders and Attempted Murders;Abortion;Decisions and Verdicts;Tiller George R
|
ny0131951
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2012/12/21
|
Narendra Modi, Polarizing Indian Politician, Gains Power
|
NEW DELHI — The polarizing leader of the western state of Gujarat, Narendra Modi , inched closer on Thursday to becoming the leading political challenger to India ’s dominant Gandhi family by winning a resounding re-election as chief minister. “My biggest dream is to serve my masses, my people,” Mr. Modi said in a speech before a cheering throng that eventually began to shout “Delhi, Delhi, Delhi,” and then amended that to “P.M., P.M., P.M.,” signaling a hope that he wins the post of prime minister in national elections scheduled for 2014. Mr. Modi had campaigned in the Gujarati language, but he gave his widely televised victory speech in Hindi — a clear sign that his intended audience extended well beyond his 60 million constituents. His message in the speech, as it has been throughout his campaign, was that he has brought wealth to Gujarat, which lies on the coast of the Arabian Sea, by encouraging economic development. His party won 115 seats in the state legislature. Although a decline of two seats, it is nonetheless a comfortable majority in a house of 182 seats. Mr. Modi is a prominent politician in the Bharatiya Janata Party , which for years tried to win elections by uniting the country’s Hindu majority — in part by demonizing its Muslim minority. Indeed, shortly after Mr. Modi came to power a decade ago, riots convulsed Gujarat and cost the lives of about 1,000 people, mostly Muslims. Mr. Modi has been accused of not doing enough to stop the riots and of possibly of encouraging them, making him one of the most divisive figures in Indian politics. He has since sought to broaden his national appeal by softening his overt Hindu nationalism and instead claiming the mantle of good governance and economic growth. In a country where new corruption scandals seem to emerge every month and economic growth has slowed, that message may have broad resonance. But whether minorities and moderate Hindus in the rest of India will forgive or forget the government failures during the 2002 riots is very much of an open question. Indeed, some leading members of the Bharatiya Janata Party have resisted Mr. Modi’s rising prominence because they fear that he will cost the party votes among religious minorities. Nitish Kumar, the powerful chief minister of Bihar in the northeast, has promised to withdraw his support for the Bharatiya Janata Party if it selects Mr. Modi as its prime ministerial candidate for 2014. That would reduce the party’s chances of gaining a majority in the national Parliament, but whether Mr. Kumar would follow through on his threat is uncertain. Mr. Modi’s role in the 2002 riots has long been a concern for governments in the West. The United States refuses to provide Mr. Modi with a visa. But as he grows into a national political figure, more Western countries may rethink their refusal to talk with him in an official capacity. In October, Britain ended a 10-year diplomatic boycott of Mr. Modi when its high commissioner met with him for 50 minutes. India’s religious, caste and regional differences have increasingly splintered the country’s politics. Since Hindus represent 80 percent of the electorate, they could dominate national politics if they managed to overcome the caste differences that divide them. But caste has long been the dominant nexus of Indian politics. The Bharatiya Janata Party has led the national government for only one period, from 1998 to 2004. Leaders of the party said that Mr. Modi had solidified his place as one of India’s most important politicians, although top party officials refused to speculate on whether he would be its candidate for prime minister in 2014. “This shows the people’s confidence and trust in the B.J.P. and Narendra Modi’s leadership,” said Dhansukh Bhanderi, a top party official. Mr. Modi’s opponents played down the importance of his victory. Palaniappan Chidambaram, India’s finance minister and a leader of the governing Indian National Congress Party , said in a televised interview that he thought it had done well on Thursday because Mr. Modi had not managed to expand his political dominance in Gujarat. In a related political development, it was announced Thursday that the Congress Party had defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party in state assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh, a hilly state in the Himalayas. The victory was an important balm to the Congress Party, which has been buffeted in recent years by corruption allegations and the rise of regional parties. The election in Himachal Pradesh was between two political leaders who have traded control over the state between them for decades. Virbhadra Singh, 78, of the Congress Party, is now expected to become the state’s chief minister, a post he has already held four times. Prem Kumar Dhumal, 68, will resign after having served two nonconsecutive terms as chief minister.
|
India;Elections;Politics and Government;Modi Narendra;Bharatiya Janata Party
|
ny0096641
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2015/01/14
|
Europe Focuses on Emerging Threats From Smaller Crews of Terrorists
|
LONDON — The horrors of the Paris shootings , after similar assaults recently by gunmen in Canada and Australia, have underscored for European leaders the need to find ways to blunt an emerging new element of terrorism: the lone actor , or small group of actors, whose plans are hard to detect. There continue to be threats of carefully orchestrated raids by large terrorist groups, started and planned from abroad, like the attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and the bombings in Britain on July 7, 2005. In part because of the success of international intelligence agencies in detecting such complicated plots, however, there has been a sharp increase throughout Europe in what Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain this week called “a sort of roving firearms terrorist attack.” These acts do less damage and kill fewer people than large-scale attacks, but they inspire significant fear and create high-profile propaganda that helps recruitment and fund-raising for affiliated extremist groups. Media-conscious militants now often wear GoPro cameras to create high-quality videos that can be shown online. “The threats we have dealt with recently include traditional Al Qaeda plans for large-scale attacks, with concerns about explosives hidden in tablets and computers,” a former British intelligence official said. “But over the last two years, we have also seen an increase in the actions of individuals and small groups, and we have to worry about that, too.” Complicating the problem for intelligence services, the former official said, is that “more citizens have had direct contact with jihad in Syria and Iraq, not just in Yemen.” As many as 5,000 Europeans, the head of Europol said on Tuesday , have traveled to Syria to join the fighting there. The growing number of potential troublemakers is compounded, the former intelligence official said, by a diminished ability to track them. “We have less intelligence capacity in the wake of Edward Snowden’s leaks,” he said, referring to the former contractor for the National Security Agency who exposed many of its eavesdropping activities. “The tactics that are being used by terrorists make it harder, too.” After a series of attacks by individuals or small groups across Europe, governments are pressing for more powers to gather intelligence from modern means of communication like Internet sites, including social media. Germany wants to revoke the ID cards of those suspected of traveling to join jihadist groups. In France, there is now a debate about increased surveillance powers, through something of a French Patriot Act . Even as the episodes in Paris were playing out last Thursday, Andrew Parker, director of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5, called for more authority to monitor communications. Threats are increasing, he said, as terrorist arrests rise sharply, and “three U.K. terrorist plots” that could have led to deaths were disrupted in recent months. The Links Among the Paris Terror Suspects and Their Connections to Jihad Where their lives intersected and what may have influenced them. “My sharpest concern,” Mr. Parker said, “is the growing gap between the increasingly challenging threat and the growing availability of capabilities to address it.” His speech added to the long-running debate here about how to balance the right of privacy with the obligation to provide security for citizens. Mr. Parker warned, as Mr. Cameron did on Monday in Nottingham, that intelligence agencies should have the legal means to intercept the encrypted communications of suspected terrorists. Mr. Cameron promised to ensure there would be no areas online where terrorists, criminals and pedophiles could hide. But the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats, immediately criticized the proposal on privacy grounds. “The hardest problem” for the intelligence services, said the former British intelligence official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, is “what we call ‘target acquisition,’ figuring out who these people are, rather than investigating known targets.” That effort, he said, requires cooperation from technology companies, which have been pressured to protect privacy since the N.S.A. leaks. “That just isn’t there anymore as a consequence of Snowden,” the former official said. Robert Hannigan, the director of G.C.H.Q., Britain’s electronic intelligence agency, recently accused the technology companies of providing “command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals.” Lone actors or small groups communicate less, or more often in person, and many have become more careful in using telephones and the Internet. Family ties help them, too. Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, the brothers killed in a police raid after being identified as suspects in the Paris attacks, would have been able to converse without raising much concern, experts said, because calls between brothers are not unusual. Sometimes, family members radicalize one another. The brother and sister of Mohammed Merah, who killed seven people in Toulouse in 2012 while targeting soldiers and Jews, were more radical than he was. Similar circumstances surrounded the Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche, who killed four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in June after his return from Syria, said Camille Grand, director of the French Foundation for Strategic Research. “Small groups with limited logistics are a major problem,” Mr. Grand said. Even if they are on a watch list, “when they decide to act, unless you have an informant or what security people call ‘exquisite intelligence,’ with a phone call that says tomorrow is the day, you can’t monitor and follow everyone full time.” Shashank Joshi, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said that a lone wolf, or a small group known as a wolf pack, operating without formal control from abroad, created enormous problems. The acquisition of a weapon — even a Kalashnikov rifle, which costs less than $2,500 on the black market, much less knives and a meat cleaver like the ones used in the attack on a British soldier, Lee Rigby, in 2013 — is unlikely to set off the kind of alarms that ordering tons of chemicals might. And there are a variety of new communications channels, like WhatsApp and Snapchat, some of which encrypt their data. But more power to monitor would mean more data to sift, Mr. Joshi said, and would require more money and staffing. “We shouldn’t confuse powers with resources,” he said. Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute, has studied lone actors, and he said they were often known to the police “but haven’t yet crossed the threshold of concern, so they’re in the background, a lower priority.” The suspects in Paris were not lone wolves — like Mr. Rigby’s killers or Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in Oslo in 2011 — but were long-term radicals who had been largely inactive, Mr. Pantucci said. “If they’re never the leader, never the principal, at some point you don’t focus on them,” he said. “They don’t set off intelligence tripwires.” In a study of 119 lone-actor terrorists in the March 2014 Journal of Forensic Sciences, Paul Gill, a lecturer at University College London, and his co-authors found that there was “no uniform profile” of lone actors, although they often spoke beforehand about their grievances, beliefs and even their intention to commit violence. The study also found that their acts “were rarely sudden and impulsive” and that they “regularly engaged in a detectable and observable range of activities with a wider pressure group, social movement or terrorist organization.” That finding would suggest that traditional police work within target communities is vital to detecting a potential attack. At this point, Mr. Gill said in a telephone interview, there are eight to 10 such attacks a year, and he expects the number to increase. Lone actors are difficult but not impossible to detect, Mr. Gill said. “There are weaknesses in these lone actors that create opportunities for counterterrorism,” he said. A study that he did for the United States Department of Homeland Security found, to his surprise, that “in 60 percent of the cases, the individuals had leaked very specific information about the plots they were about to go on,” telling families and friends what they were going to do, Mr. Gill said. Many of them, he said, try to be dramatic so the attack will be remembered, because the propaganda value is as important as the amount of damage. He mentioned the Rigby killing, which claimed a single victim but was done in a very public space. Some of the scene and comments by one of the perpetrators were recorded and then broadcast. “He learned his script and spoke into the phone camera, with his bloody hands, and that imagery will always be remembered,” Mr. Gill said. “So they provide a script for other lone actors to follow.”
|
Europe;Terrorism;Government Surveillance;Spying and Intelligence Agencies
|
ny0031420
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2013/06/24
|
Scottish Schools Focus on More Than Just Tests
|
EAST DUNBARTONSHIRE, Scotland — In this leafy subdivision outside Glasgow, the hallways of Bishopbriggs Academy were buzzing from a production of the musical “Bugsy Malone” that took place the night before. Inside Kathryn Macleod’s English class, a group of 12-year-olds was watching a clip from the film version of Louis Sachar’s novel “Holes,” paying close attention to the actress Patricia Arquette. After making notes on Ms. Arquette’s character and comparing her performance with the novel, the students each composed a director’s note for the actress. Down the hall, Lauren Neilson’s science students were boiling red cabbage over Bunsen burners as part of a lesson about measuring acidity. In the same week that Britain’s education minister, Michael Gove, announced yet another measure to make the national exams taken by high school students in England more rigorous, their counterparts in Scotland were taking a curriculum in which national exams for 16-year-olds had been abolished. In recent years, schools in Britain, like those in the United States, have struggled under an increasing burden of testing and assessment designed to improve quality and to enforce some version of national standards. Critics of such changes have pointed to the success of Finland, which despite imposing many fewer tests on its students has consistently performed well in exams of the Program for International Student Assessment, organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the association of free market democracies. Perhaps English parents and policy makers would do better to turn their attention slightly less far north. Education in Scotland has long been run differently from the rest of Britain. While schools in England encouraged students to specialize, Scottish schools traditionally aimed for a greater breadth of knowledge. Scottish secondary education lasts six years, ending with a single set of national exams known as Highers and administered by a single exam board; English students take G.C.S.E.’s — the exams that Mr. Gove keeps trying to change — at 16 and then A-levels before going to a university, with schools having a choice of three exam boards for each subject. Scottish university degree programs last four years, compared with three years in England and Wales. In England, the current government and its predecessor put increasing emphasis on using standardized testing to determine which schools were underperforming. Based on these measures, they closed some schools, put others on “special measures” and turned yet others into “academies” answerable to the Education Ministry rather than the local authorities. Scotland is taking another road. “When the Scottish Parliament came into being in 1999, we realized our schools were not performing as well as they should,” the Scottish education minister, Michael Russell, said in an interview. “Our students were overexamined, our schools were overinspected and the curriculum was too bitty, too divided up and too shallow.” Image The Bishopbriggs Academy and other schools in Scotland are taking a more interactive, less exam-driven approach to education than those in England. Credit Robert Ormerod for The International Herald Tribune In 2005, Scotland introduced the Curriculum for Excellence. While education in England became increasingly prescriptive — with public debate on precisely what students were expected to know and whether, for example, there ought to be a greater focus on kings and queens, or the history of the British empire — the Scottish decided to pay more attention to how subjects were taught. “It felt like you were always lurching from one set of exams to the next,” said Bill Maxwell, the chief executive of Education Scotland, the government agency charged with carrying out the curriculum. “So we decided it would be better to spend less time jumping through hoops, making the syllabus more flexible and more interdisciplinary.” Starting with kindergarten, the curriculum has progressed through the system one year at a time, and has just reached Stage 4, for the 16-year-olds who, until this year , would have taken Standard Grade exams. Students still take exams in as many as 15 subjects but those are pass/fail and set by their teachers. The curriculum is designed to encourage students to make connections between subjects; the emphasis is on debate and discussion rather than memorization. Gordon Moulsdale, head teacher at Bishopbriggs, is adamant that the changes have meant no loss of rigor. “I don’t believe for a minute that Curriculum for Excellence is touchy-feely or that we are watering down standards,” he said. In February the school — in a neighborhood Mr. Moulsdale described as “aspirational but within two or three miles of some of the poorest areas in Europe,” or about three to five kilometers — received four “excellent” ratings from Scottish inspectors. “Some people believe that increasing assessment increases standards, but we’ve moved away from that,” said Barry Smedley, the school’s deputy head. “It used to be that only students who did well on exams were thought of as the smart ones. But we’ve learned that there are different kinds of smart, different kinds of intelligence.” The changes mean a slightly longer school week, and more time for music, drama, sports and community service: precisely the areas that have been squeezed in England by the need to prepare students for so many exams. Beth Livingstone, a senior who plans to study English and history at the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, said students appreciated having so many choices. “In English, we are reading Dickens,” she said. “But we also had time for trips.” Image Lauren Neilson at Bishopbriggs Academy. In February, the school received four “excellent” ratings from Scottish inspectors. Credit Robert Ormerod for The International Herald Tribune The curriculum does demand more from teachers. “You can’t just take an old textbook, open it, and work through to the end,” Ms. Macleod said. “Teachers and pupils are both expected to be more creative.” Using the Scottish expression for “outside,” Mr. Moulsdale said, “A lot of the learning here happens outwith the classroom.” Students are encouraged to write, but also to make things, give oral presentations and staging performances. “We’re trying to develop higher-order thinking skills, not just to regurgitate facts,” Mr. Moulsdale said. With her students “constantly actively thinking,” Ms. Macleod said she found teaching the curriculum “more enjoyable.” Larry Flanagan, the general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, the largest Scottish teachers’ union, said that “we believe the new curriculum offers much for Scotland’s pupils.” But while the union welcomes “freeing teachers to deliver a learning experience that was more engaging and relevant for pupils,” he added, there is also “significant concern about the level of resources that have been put in place.” Mr. Flanagan said union members had asked the government to delay applying the secondary school portion of the curriculum to give teachers and students more time to prepare for the new Highers, scheduled to be introduced next year. But he added that there was “no appetite” for “the more selective, competitive and test-driven approach being promoted by Mr. Gove in England.” Mr. Gove, who was born and educated in Scotland, did not respond to requests for comment. In Ms. Neilsen’s class, the cabbage had been boiled and students were putting drops of purple liquid in plastic trays. “I want you to use words from Bloom’s Taxonomy to define the success criteria for this experiment,” she said, pointing to a chart showing a pyramid that rose from “remembering” and “understanding” to “analyzing, evaluating and creating.” One boy proposed, “We want to analyze how red cabbage can be used as an indicator.” Mr. Smedley, the Bishopbriggs deputy head, said: “The idea is to make our objectives explicit. Students need to know not just what we want them to do, but why we are asking them to do it.” Will Scotland’s experiment succeed? Mr. Russell, the education minister, contends that it already has. “Before, we were operating under a 19th-century definition of education, which was about restricting access and passing exams,” he said. “There was a tendency to define the success of a system by how many people failed the tests. In the 21st century, I think that’s ridiculous, and we’ve moved beyond that kind of thinking here in Scotland.”
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Scotland;Education;Tests;Great Britain;K-12 Education;England
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ny0103209
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2012/03/02
|
Santorum, Free-Market Defender, Used to Aid Steel Industry
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WASHINGTON — As he seeks the Republican nomination for the presidency, Rick Santorum has presented himself as a defender of the free market and opponent of bailouts for Wall Street and the auto industry, saying he has been consistent in putting his principles ahead of political pressures. But as a congressman and then a senator from Pennsylvania, his record often defied those principles when it came to defending the interests of a political and economic powerhouse in his state: the steel industry. Again and again, as Big Steel faced crippling competition from abroad during the 1990s and early 2000s, Mr. Santorum joined Democratic and Republican lawmakers from steel-producing states to seek special protection in Washington for the industry, including direct subsidies, trade tariffs and import quotas. At the time, Mr. Santorum and other allies of the industry said that a flood of low-priced imports unfairly undercut American steel producers and, in the process, threatened a sector that was vital to the nation’s economic security. “It’s important to have a vibrant domestic source of steel,” he said in a 2001 interview with The New York Times. He added that allowing the steel industry to falter “would put this country on a path to overdependence, similar to oil, on foreign sources.” But critics, including free-market advocates, said that it was difficult to reconcile the policies Mr. Santorum pursued in Congress with the campaign-trail stance he has taken against government meddling in the marketplace. “We did not think of him as a free trader when it came to steel,” said Lewis E. Leibowitz, the counsel for the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition, a group of steel-purchasing companies that opposed the policies Mr. Santorum backed on the grounds that they would raise the cost of steel products for American consumers. While it is hardly unusual for a senator to come to the aid of an employer back home, Mr. Santorum’s work on behalf of the steel industry is being raised in the election as he seeks to distinguish himself as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. Mr. Santorum’s campaign did not respond to several requests for comment. His record became an issue last week during the Republican presidential debate in Arizona, when Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, criticized him for having voted in favor of a “bailout” for the steel industry. Mr. Santorum benefited directly from the relationship he established with steel. In his 16 years on Capitol Hill, he received nearly $350,000 in campaign donations from the steel industry, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research organization. Mr. Santorum’s strong support for steelmakers dates back to his earliest days in the House, where he served from 1991 to 1995 representing a district outside Pittsburgh in a region that had been hurt by the decline of the industry. In November 1993, for example, he pushed the Clinton administration to back antidumping rules to protect the steel industry in return for his vote to approve landmark free trade legislation that the administration was trying to push through Congress. But Mr. Santorum failed to convince the administration. “It got to where the White House was not returning our calls,” he told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I guess they feel they have the votes some other place.” In the end, Mr. Santorum wound up voting against the North American Free Trade Agreement, which ultimately passed. “You have to stare in the face of the folks you represent,” he said at the time, explaining his decision. He pushed on other fronts, too, particularly with the Clinton administration’s refusal to aggressively pursue antidumping cases against foreign steel producers that the industry and its allies were demanding. In June 1999, he was among a bipartisan group of lawmakers from steelmaking states who got behind a bill to impose tight quotas on foreign steel, even as the Clinton administration and its allies warned that the legislation would lead to protectionism . After being approved in the House, the bill was defeated in the Senate. Mr. Santorum appears to have taken a more prominent role in advocating on the industry’s behalf with the change from a Democratic administration to a Republican one in 2001. In an interview, former Representative Phil English, a Republican from Pennsylvania who once led the Congressional steel caucus, said Mr. Santorum was a main figure within the group in advancing its cause with the new Bush White House. The role fell to Mr. Santorum, he said, because he had good relationships within the White House. In particular, Mr. Santorum worked to persuade the Bush administration to impose tariffs on imported steel — a move that some Bush aides felt would undercut the president’s standing as a free trader. In the end, President George W. Bush approved temporary tariffs in March 2002 on imported steel from certain countries, saying it would give domestic producers “breathing room,” even as critics accused him of trying to bolster his political standing in industrial states like Pennsylvania that he had failed to win in 2000. Mr. English said the role Mr. Santorum played in lobbying the administration had often been overlooked by the very people who benefited. “He was on good terms with them,” he said, referring to Bush officials. “Senator Santorum was never given credit for this effort by the steelworkers.” But a year later, Mr. Santorum found himself on the opposite side of the Bush administration, which was attempting to repeal a law on tariffs imposed because of antidumping cases pursued by steelmakers and other industries. The law had diverted the tariff revenues from the Treasury to the industries, and many trading partners of the United States had decried it, saying that that it encouraged American industries to pursue the cases by rewarding them with a government subsidy. But Mr. Santorum joined dozens of other senators, Republicans and Democrats alike, who sent a letter defending the law and urging the Bush administration to support it.
|
Santorum Rick;Steel and Iron;Protectionism (Trade);Presidential Election of 2012;Republican Party;Primaries and Caucuses;Pennsylvania;United States Politics and Government;International Trade and World Market
|
ny0020180
|
[
"us"
] |
2013/07/12
|
Texas Democrats, Seeking Resurgence, May Struggle for Footing in 2014
|
When Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, announced this week that he would retire from statewide politics after more than a dozen years at the helm, a cheer went up in the office of the Dallas County Democratic Party. “Somebody said, ‘Let’s have a party,’ ” said Darlene Ewing, the chairwoman of the group. “When you’ve got 12 of the worst years in the history of Texas, it’s time to celebrate the ending of it.” So a soiree was planned, complete with party hats, cake and drinks. But when the last piece of cake is polished off and the final toasts are made, Texas Democrats may not be much better off politically than they were before the invitations went out. Some political observers argue that the Democrats could be worse off, now that they have lost their favorite piñata. The leading contender to succeed Mr. Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott, also a Republican, is every bit as conservative as the governor. But Mr. Abbott, who is expected to declare his candidacy on Sunday, does not carry the baggage that Mr. Perry accumulated during an often tumultuous tenure in the governor’s office — not to mention Mr. Perry’s gaffe-plagued presidential run last year. Mark P. Jones, a political scientist at Rice University, said that 2014 is looking like yet another blowout year for Republicans, which means more dashed Democratic hopes of turning Texas blue, or even gaining a statewide toehold. Democrats have not won a statewide office since 1994. “Democrats were going to lose every statewide race in 2014 with Rick Perry running, and they are going to lose in 2014 without him running,” Mr. Jones said. “If a Democrat does poorly, this sends a signal to the national Democratic Party that the blue food in Texas isn’t ready to pick.” (Rice University is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.) Hopes of a Democratic resurgence in Texas soared after this year’s first special session when State Senator Wendy Davis, Democrat of Fort Worth, helped stop an abortion bill with a filibuster and an assist from protesters who disrupted the proceedings with their screams. It was a temporary victory: the Republican-led Legislature is on the verge of passing the same legislation in a second special session. But the fight energized the moribund Democrats, and activists are urging Ms. Davis to run for governor next year. She would face long odds against Mr. Abbott, who has a huge war chest and support from the same Republican grass-roots machinery that propelled Mr. Perry to one victory after another. Democrats might also lose Ms. Davis’s hard-fought Senate seat, the only one seen as competitive under the current district maps, if she were to give it up to run for governor. In an interview in her office at the Capitol this week, Ms. Davis said it was a privilege to be mentioned as a possible candidate for governor. Wearing a bright orange dress, the unofficial color of the abortion-rights protesters, Ms. Davis said she would be “very disappointed” if Democrats did not field a serious candidate for governor. Image Activists are urging State Senator Wendy Davis, center, a Democrat who helped stop a vote on an abortion bill, to run for governor next year. Credit Callie Richmond for The Texas Tribune “I don’t know whether it’s me, but I do think it’s terribly important that we have a general election dialogue and debate,” she said. “I really do, particularly because this is an open seat now, and it just brings a new opportunity for those sorts of conversations.” She said she would decide in the next few weeks whether to run. If she does not run, it is hard to imagine another Texas Democrat with the same stardom and fund-raising potential who could step up. Texas has ambitious Democrats, like Mayor Julián Castro of San Antonio; his twin brother, United States Representative Joaquin Castro of San Antonio; State Senator Kirk Watson of Austin; and United States Representative Marc Veasey of Fort Worth. But none of them has signaled a desire to run statewide in 2014. Given the beating that Democrats have taken over the last two decades, it is no surprise that they are staying out of the ring. Still, if no serious Democratic contender jumps in next year, the party will have given a pass to Republicans at a time of upheaval up and down the ballot. For the first time in several years, most of the major statewide offices will have no incumbent. Texas voters last saw an open contest for governor in 1990, when Ann Richards beat Clayton Williams, a Republican, in a race the party had been favored to win. The last open contest before that was in 1968, when two Democratic titans, President Lyndon Johnson and Gov. John Connally, stepped aside. Tanene Allison, a spokeswoman for the Texas Democratic Party, said that right now, the party was focused on the current special session. “The crucial thing to be paying attention to right now is standing up for women’s rights,” Ms. Allison said. “As we move beyond a legislative focus, we will pivot more so onto the campaign and making public announcements for candidates in the coming months.” In the meantime, a group of former organizers for President Obama has started Battleground Texas , a high-profile effort to make the state competitive again. On paper, Texas is ripe for a Democratic challenge. It is the only reliably Republican state where minorities outnumber whites, and a recent study found it had the lowest voter turnout in the country in 2010. Estimates have also shown that 40 percent or more of the growing Hispanic population, which has traditionally favored Democrats, is not registered to vote. Many longtime Democratic operatives are urging candidates and voters to look past the conventional wisdom. Last year in Missouri, Representative Todd Akin, a Republican, was considered a safe bet as he challenged Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat who was seen as endangered. But after Mr. Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape,” he lost in by a healthy margin. Texas history is littered with upsets. In 1978, the state’s popular attorney general, John Hill, beat the incumbent governor, Dolph Briscoe, in the Democratic primary. The election came at a time when Democrats dominated Texas politics in the way that Republicans do now, and Mr. Hill seemed such a shoo-in for the general election that people began calling him “Governor Hill.” But the wealthy oilman Bill Clements beat him and became the first Republican-elected Texas governor since Reconstruction. Glenn W. Smith, a Democratic consultant and former aide to Ms. Richards, said it would be “folly” for Democrats to sit on the sidelines at a time when so many opportunities have opened up. “If Democrats sit and wait for a safe bet at some date in the future, that date will never come,” Mr. Smith said. “They’ve got to make it happen.”
|
Texas;Democrats;State Legislature elections;Rick Perry
|
ny0276521
|
[
"sports",
"soccer"
] |
2016/02/12
|
A Sevilla-Barcelona Final in Copa del Rey
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Sevilla will play Barcelona in the Copa del Rey final on May 21 after drawing, 2-2, with Celta Vigo, advancing by 6-2 on aggregate. ■ Arsenal of England’s Premier League will face the best of Major League Soccer in the M.L.S. All-Star Game in San Jose, Calif., on July 28, M.L.S. announced. (REUTERS)
|
Soccer;Barcelona Soccer Team;Sevilla Soccer Team
|
ny0161037
|
[
"business"
] |
2006/04/27
|
PepsiCo Profit Rises on Overseas Sales
|
PepsiCo said yesterday that its first-quarter profit rose 12 percent on demand for soda in Asia and Europe and SunChips snacks in the United States. Net income increased to $1.02 billion, or 60 cents a share, exceeding analysts' estimates. A year earlier, earnings were $912 million, or 53 cents. Sales climbed 9.4 percent, to $7.21 billion. PepsiCo's revenue growth has outpaced that of its larger rival Coca-Cola for eight consecutive quarters as it focuses on overseas markets, noncarbonated drinks and healthier snacks. International sales jumped 12 percent, to $2.38 billion, after it expanded marketing for Pepsi in China and added new flavors of Walker snacks in Britain. In the United States, PepsiCo increased sales of chips, Gatorade sports drinks and Aquafina water, while soft drink sales volume fell 1 percent. International beverage volume rose 16 percent on demand for Pepsi and other sodas in China, the Middle East, Argentina and India. Pepsi shares rose 43 cents, to $57.93.
|
PEPSICO INC;PEPSICO INC;SOFT DRINKS;COMPANY REPORTS
|
ny0073162
|
[
"us"
] |
2015/03/25
|
Oklahoma: More Products Are Recalled Over Listeria Fears
|
A food-borne illness that contributed to the deaths of three people has been traced to a second production facility operated by Blue Bell Ice Cream, a company spokesman and health officials said Tuesday. A three-ounce cup of ice cream contaminated with listeriosis was traced to a plant in Broken Arrow, Okla., the spokesman, Gene Grabowski, said. He said the cups with pull-tab lids are not sold in retail locations and are shipped in bulk to institutional accounts in 23 states. Blue Bell expanded a recall announced this month to include three flavors that come in the cups: chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. Ten products recalled earlier were from a plant in Brenham, Tex., where the company is based. The recall began when five people who had been patients at Via Christi St. Francis hospital in Wichita, Kan., became ill with listeriosis. Three died. Three organic food companies that use spinach have recalled items in recent days over concerns of possible listeria contamination. Amy’s Kitchen, based in Petaluma, Calif., recalled about 74,000 cases of frozen and prepackaged products. Rochester-based Wegmans Food Markets is recalling roughly 12,540 packages of organic spinach. Carmel Food Group of Hayward, Calif., recalled certain Rising Moon Organics frozen ravioli.
|
Food Safety;Ice cream;Blue Bell Ice Cream;Recalls and Bans;Listeriosis;Food;Oklahoma;Listeria monocytogenes
|
ny0194902
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2009/11/24
|
Runaway With Asperger’s Syndrome Spent 11 Days on Subway
|
Day after day, night after night, Francisco Hernandez Jr. rode the subway. He had a MetroCard , $10 in his pocket and a book bag on his lap. As the human tide flowed and ebbed around him, he sat impassively, a gangly 13-year-old boy in glasses and a red hoodie, speaking to no one. After getting in trouble in class in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and fearing another scolding at home, he had sought refuge in the subway system. He removed the battery from his cellphone. “I didn’t want anyone to scream at me,” he said. All told, Francisco disappeared for 11 days last month — a stretch he spent entirely in subway stations and on trains, he says, hurtling through four boroughs. And somehow he went undetected, despite a round-the-clock search by his panicked parents, relatives and family friends, the police and the Mexican Consulate. Since Oct. 26, when a transit police officer found him in a Coney Island subway station, no one has been able to fully explain how a boy could vanish for so long in a busy train system dotted with surveillance cameras and fliers bearing his photograph. But this was not a typical missing-person search. Francisco has Asperger’s syndrome , a form of autism that often causes difficulty with social interaction, and can lead to seemingly eccentric behavior and isolation. His parents are Mexican immigrants, who say they felt the police were slow to make the case a priority. “Maybe because you might not understand how to manage the situation, because you don’t speak English very well, because of your legal status, they don’t pay you a lot of attention,” said Francisco’s mother, Marisela García, 38, a housecleaner who immigrated in 1994 and has struggled to find ways to help her son. The police, however, say they took the case seriously from the start, interviewing school officials and classmates, canvassing neighborhoods and leafleting all over the city. Francisco says his odyssey wound through three subway lines: the D, F and No. 1 . He would ride a train until its last stop, then wait for the next one, wherever it was headed. He says he subsisted on the little he could afford at subway newsstands: potato chips, croissants, jelly rolls, neatly folding the wrappers and saving them in the backpack. He drank bottled water. He used the bathroom in the Stillwell Avenue station in Coney Island. Otherwise, he says, he slipped into a kind of stupor, sleeping much of the time, his head on his book bag. “At some point I just stopped feeling anything,” he recalled. Though the boy’s recollections are incomplete, and neither the police nor his family can retrace his movements in detail, the authorities say that he was clearly missing for 11 days and that they have no evidence he was anywhere but the subway. For his parents, the memories of those 11 frantic days — the dubious sightings, the dashed hopes and no sleep — remain vivid. “It’s the most terrible thing,” his mother said in Spanish. Just what propelled Francisco to take flight on Oct. 15 is unclear. Administrators at his school, Intermediate School 281, would not comment. But Francisco said he had failed to complete an assignment for an eighth-grade class, and was scolded for not concentrating. After school, he phoned his mother to say he was heading home. She told him the school had called and she wanted a serious talk with him. His first impulse was to flee. He walked eight blocks to the Bay Parkway station and boarded a D train. It seemed a safe place to hide, he said. When he did not arrive home, his mother started to panic. In January, after another problem at school, Francisco had left home and ridden the subway, but returned after five hours. “We thought this time it would be the same,” Ms. García said. “But unfortunately it wasn’t.” Her husband, also named Francisco Hernandez, went to the nearest subway station and waited for several hours while she stayed at home on Bay 25th Street with their 9-year-old daughter, Jessica. After midnight, the couple called the police, and two officers from the 62nd Precinct visited their apartment. The next morning, Mr. Hernandez, 32, a construction laborer, borrowed a bicycle and scoured Bensonhurst. He and his wife separately explored the subway from Coney Island to Midtown Manhattan. They had been trying to help their son for years. Born in Brooklyn, Francisco grew up a normal child in many ways, his mother said, earning mostly passing grades and enjoying drawing and video games. But he had no friends outside school, and found it difficult to express emotions. A gentle, polite boy, he spoke — when he did speak — in a soft monotone. In 2006, his parents had him evaluated at a developmental disabilities research clinic on Staten Island, where his Asperger’s was diagnosed. The clinic’s chief neuropsychologist concluded that Francisco struggled in situations that demanded a “verbal or social response.” “His anxiety level can elevate, and he freezes in confusion because he does not know what to do or say,” the doctor wrote. After he disappeared, his parents printed more than 2,000 color leaflets with a photo of Francisco wearing the same red hoodie; friends and relatives helped post them in shops, on the street and throughout the subway in Brooklyn. The family hand-lettered fluorescent-colored signs. “Franky come home,” one pleaded in Spanish. “I’m your mother I beg you I love you my little boy.” Francisco said he never saw the signs. He lost sense of time. He was prepared, he said, to remain in the subway system forever. No one spoke to him. Asked if he saw any larger meaning in that, he said, “Nobody really cares about the world and about people.” Sightings were reported. An image of a boy resembling Francisco had been captured by a video game store’s security camera, but he turned out to be someone else, the police said. A stranger called Mr. Hernandez to say he had spotted Francisco with some boys at a movie theater in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. A search turned up nothing. Ms. García said one detective told her the boy was probably hiding out with a friend. She replied that her son had no friends to hide out with. Frustrated, the parents sought help from the Mexican Consulate. Officials there contacted the Spanish-language news media, which ran brief newspaper and television reports about Francisco, and called the police — “to use the weight that we have to encourage them, to tell them that we have an emergency,” a consular spokesman said. Six days after Francisco’s disappearance, on Oct. 21, the case shifted from the police precinct to the Missing Persons Squad , and the search intensified. A police spokeswoman explained that a precinct must complete its preliminary investigation before the squad takes over. The squad’s lead investigator on the case, Detective Michael Bonanno, said he turned the focus to the subway. He and his colleagues blanketed the system with their own signs, rode trains and briefed station attendants. About 6 a.m. on Oct. 26, the police said, a transit officer stood on the D train platform at the Stillwell Avenue station studying a sign with Francisco’s photo. He turned and spotted a dirty, emaciated boy sitting in a stopped train. “He asked me if I was Francisco,” the boy recalled. “I said yes.” Asked later how it felt to hear about the work that had gone into finding him, Francisco said he was not sure. “Sometimes I don’t know how I feel,” he said. “I don’t know how I express myself sometimes.” Apart from leg cramps, he was all right physically, and returned to school a week later. But Ms. García said she was still trying to learn how to manage her son’s condition. Though doctors had recommended that Francisco be placed in a small school for children with learning disorders, she said, officials at his school told her he was testing fine and did not need to be transferred. “I tell him: ‘Talk to me. Tell me what you need. If I ever make a mistake, tell me,’ ” she said. “I don’t know, as a mother, how to get to his heart, to find out what hurts.” One of the fluorescent signs hangs on the living room wall. The others are stacked discreetly in a corner, and Ms. García said she was not ready to discard them. “It’s not easy to say it’s over and it won’t happen again,” she said.
|
Lost Missing and Runaway Children;Asperger's Syndrome;New York City;Subways;Missing Persons
|
ny0094111
|
[
"business",
"economy"
] |
2015/01/05
|
December Auto Sales, and Job Data for U.S. and Europe
|
• Monday: December Auto Sales Analysts expect December vehicle sales in the United States to be up again when automakers report their numbers on Monday, possibly yielding the highest December total since 2006. Over all, 2014 is set to be one of the industry’s most successful years in some time, as low gas prices and surging demand for sport utility vehicles powered sales that analysts estimate could reach nearly 17 million vehicles nationwide. For the second year in a row, small S.U.V.s will be the fastest growing area for American buyers, according to Kelley Blue Book, and full-size trucks are expected to top two million sold for the first time since 2007. But automakers also dealt with safety problems during the year that resulted in more than 60 million vehicles being recalled nationwide — one out of every five on the road. — Aaron M. Kessler [ Update : Fiat Chrysler, Nissan and Honda all reported strong December and annual sales early Monday, with Nissan and Honda hitting record numbers for the yea r. ] • Wednesday: Fed Notes May Shed Light on Interest Rate Dissent The Federal Reserve’s policy-making committee ended 2014 on an unusually contentious note. Most officials wanted to start raising the Fed’s benchmark interest rate around the middle of 2015. But three officials dissented at the committee’s last meeting in mid-December. Two argued for greater urgency; one argued for more patience. On Wednesday, the Fed plans to publish an account of the meeting that may provide more information about those disagreements. — Binyamin Appelbaum • Wednesday: Inflation and Jobless Data to Be Released in Europe European economic data will be in the spotlight on Wednesday, when Eurostat is to announce initial estimates of eurozone December inflation and the November jobless rate. With oil prices falling and the region’s economy sputtering along, demand has been insufficient to restore labor market growth and keep consumer prices near the European Central Bank’s target of just under 2 percent. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect prices to have declined 0.1 percent from December 2013, and the unemployment rate to have remained flat at around 11.5 percent. Mario Draghi, the central bank’s president, and his colleagues on the bank’s policy board are widely expected to respond, possibly as early as this month, by announcing large-scale purchases of bonds, a policy known as quantitative easing. — David Jolly • Friday: More U.S. Jobs Expected in December On Friday, the Labor Department will report on job creation and the unemployment rate in December. Economists estimate that employers added 250,000 positions in December and that the unemployment rate fell 0.1 percent to 5.7 percent. Nevertheless, November’s payroll growth was surprisingly strong at 321,000, so another upside surprise would echo other recent signs of renewed economic strength. — Nelson D. Schwartz
|
US Economy;Jobs;Cars;Binyamin Appelbaum;Eurostat;Europe;US;Eurozone;Federal Reserve
|
ny0012386
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2013/11/27
|
Fantasy Football Week 13: Mining for Waiver Wire Gold
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For most fantasy football owners, we’re a week from the beginning of the fantasy playoffs. With bye weeks finally over, the time for adding positional depth is over. It’s time to worry about who will be starting, not what type of bench depth you might be able to use in a trade or during a bye week. At this point, assuming you have your starters locked in, it is best to look at some high-upside players who could make a major impact in your lineup down the stretch. With that, let’s look at this week’s waiver wire, as always breaking down the options into four categories: Waiver Gems Players who are available on most waiver wires and have a chance to become weekly fantasy starters. Eureka! This is what you should be screaming if these players are available on your waiver wire. This category is more directed at eight-team leagues or leagues in which other owners might possibly be Rip Van Winkle. Digging Deep Players who are more bye-week fill-ins and/or high-upside players in deep leagues. Fool’s Gold Players who are coming off a good game but are not worth your FAAB or waiver priority. Quarterback Waiver Gems Carson Palmer (ARI) — I don’t trust him any more than you do, but I have to admit that Palmer has looked pretty good lately. He has thrown two touchdown passes in each of his last four games and is coming off back-to-back efforts of 300-plus yards passing with zero interceptions. He may not have all that much usefulness after Week 15, with tough matchups against Tennessee and Seattle, but Palmer’s next two games against Philadelphia and St. Louis should give him the potential to finish each week as a QB1. If you’re waiting on Aaron Rodgers or Jay Cutler to come back, Palmer makes for a great replacement. Kirk Cousins (WAS) — This is about as speculative as they come, but something does not seem right with Robert Griffin III. With the Redskins sitting at 3-8, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing in the world for them to sit their franchise quarterback and let him start preparing for next season. If that were to happen, Cousins would step into a nice fantasy playoff schedule that includes the Giants, the Falcons and the Cowboys. Cousins put up 17 fantasy points in his late-season start against the Browns last year and may end up being a low-end QB1 going forward if the Redskins do indeed shut down RGIII. Eureka! Ben Roethlisberger (PIT), Nick Foles (PHI). Digging Deep Mike Glennon (TB), Ryan Fitzpatrick (TEN), Ryan Tannehill (MIA). Fool’s Gold Matt Flynn (GB). Running Back Waiver Gems Bilal Powell (NYJ) — At the time of writing, Chris Ivory’s status going into Week 13 is unknown, but what we do know is that Ivory has both a high and traditional ankle sprain, and those injuries do not tend to disappear overnight. While Powell and his 3.86 yards per carry won’t strike fear into the heart of your fantasy opponent this week, he would have a great matchup against Miami if Ivory is unable to suit up. The Dolphins are the seventh-best fantasy opponent that a running back can have, and Powell could get plenty of carries with the Jets’ trust waning in turnover machine Geno Smith. Keep an eye on Ivory’s injury status before making a claim on Powell, as a positive outlook on Ivory would quickly turn Powell into fool’s gold. Benny Cunningham (STL) — Cunningham also finds himself playing a game of wait-and-see with the Rams’ starter, Zac Stacy, who left last week’s game against Chicago after sustaining a concussion and will have to be cleared by team doctors before he suits up this week. If Stacy is unable to go, Cunningham (who ably stepped in for Stacy against the Bears with 109 rushing yards and a touchdown) would get the majority of the Rams’ carries against a 49ers team that has been good, but not great, against the run this year. With limited depth at running back right now, Cunningham is worth a look. Eureka! Andre Brown (NYG) Shane Vereen (NE), Rashad Jennings (OAK), Pierre Thomas (NO), Bobby Rainey (TB). Digging Deep Brandon Bolden (NE), Dennis Johnson (HOU), C. J. Anderson (DEN). Fool’s Gold Marcel Reece (OAK). Wide Receiver Waiver Gems Nate Burleson (DET) — If there is one player worth going out of your way for on the wire this week, it’s Burleson. Before Burleson’s fateful pizza delivery injury, he was averaging almost eight targets and 80 yards per game as the second receiving option behind Calvin Johnson. Fast-forward eight weeks and Burleson picked up right where he left off with seven catches for 77 yards and a score (on 10 targets) in Week 12. Burleson is not the biggest name available, but he will be the safest option going forward as Johnson continues to draw double (and triple) coverage. Burleson also has a great schedule coming that includes Green Bay, Atlanta, Dallas and Pittsburgh. Michael Crabtree (SF) — It’s official: Michael Crabtree will be playing in San Francisco’s Week 13 game against St. Louis. Crabtree will most likely be on a snap count this week and has a tough matchup against Seattle next week, but he is still a solid player to stash on the bench for the fantasy playoffs. It’s not often that you find a preseason Top 10 wide receiver (pre-Achilles injury) available on the waiver wire going into Week 13. Eureka! Michael Floyd (ARI), Harry Douglas (ATL), Rueben Randle (NYG), Keenan Allen (SD), Riley Cooper (PHI). Digging Deep Justin Hunter (TEN), Julian Edelman (NE), Cordarrelle Patterson (MIN). Fool’s Gold Tiquan Underwood (TB). Tight End Waiver Gems Dennis Pitta (BAL) — Pitta could be a difference-maker in the fantasy playoffs. Before his preseason hip injury, he was a Top Six tight end in most expert rankings. He has been robbed of almost his entire season, but he is finally close to returning, and the latest reports have him back for Week 14 against the Vikings (who coincidentally are bad at stopping tight ends). Pitta was one of Joe Flacco’s favorite targets last season and should see plenty of looks with Torrey Smith serving as the only receiver Flacco can currently trust. Eureka! Coby Fleener (IND), Delanie Walker (TEN), Charles Clay (MIA). Digging Deep Ladarius Green (SD), Rob Housler (ARI), Tim Wright (TB). Fool’s Gold Jacob Tamme (DEN).
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Football;Fantasy sport;Riley Cooper;Nate Burleson;Shane Vereen;Michael Crabtree;Carson Palmer;Bilal Powell;Kirk Cousins
|
ny0077310
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2015/05/30
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Iraq: 14 Are Killed in Hotel Bombings
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The Islamic State took responsibility on Friday for car bombings that struck two luxury hotels in Baghdad, which a security official said had killed 14 people and wounded 25. The bombings took place in the parking lots of the hotels around midnight Thursday, highlighting the ability of militants to maneuver around strict security measures. Foreigners frequently stay at the hotels. In one attack, a bomb in a parked car hit the Cristal, which used to be called the Sheraton, in the city center, starting a fire in the middle of one of the city’s busiest areas. The hotel is a frequent spot for weddings and is next to an upscale private club. The other attack, a suicide car bombing, hit the Babylon, a recently renovated hotel that sits on the banks of the Tigris opposite the American Embassy.
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Terrorism;Islam;Sheraton;ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State;Baghdad
|
ny0106721
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2012/04/26
|
Mets’ Wright Gets Boost From Friendlier Dimensions
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David Wright crushed yet another baseball that soared high and traveled far at Citi Field, sailing all the way to the wall at a spacious ballpark that tortured him for three years. But Citi Field has been shrunk, partly for Wright’s benefit. The Mets erected outfield walls several feet inside the old walls during the off-season, and what might have been a double, or even an out, in the old days became a two-run homer Wednesday night — all the offense the Mets needed in a 5-1 victory over the Miami Marlins . Wright said his shot would have probably been a double with the old dimensions — “It would have been a tie game,” he said, cheerfully — but swatting the ball over the fences at Citi Field is something he does not have to worry much about anymore. The home run gave Wright 735 runs batted in, a team record. He had shared the lead at 733 with Darryl Strawberry. The accomplishment means a lot to Wright, but he was delighted to end a five-game streak without an R.B.I. And the Mets are 10-8. “That’s where I want to be mentioned — for the winning, not the individual things,” he said. Wright walloped his home run with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning against the Miami left-hander Mark Buehrle , who otherwise did a good job taming the Mets. Wright pounded a changeup into the newly built Party City Deck in left-center field. It was his third home run of the year — his second at Citi Field, where he hit only 22 home runs in the park’s first three seasons, including just 5 last year. The crowd announced at 20,623 roared as he rounded the bases. “It felt good to do it like that in the game to give us that lead,” he said. The knuckleballer R. A. Dickey gave up only three hits and one run in seven innings. In his previous start, he allowed eight runs and eight hits in a 14-6 loss last week in Atlanta . It was slightly cooler Wednesday night, but much drier. “The weather cooperated,” Dickey said, “and I was very happy for that.” Dickey (3-1) allowed only a solo home run to Omar Infante in the fifth, an infield single and a double after Infante’s home run. On a cool night that followed afternoon sprinkles, Dickey threw 100 pitches, about 95 of them knuckleballs. He walked one batter and struck out seven. Among the Marlins who did not do much against Dickey was Jose Reyes, who went 0 for 3 against him. Reyes lined an eighth-inning single off Jon Rauch and was booed loudly after he reached first base. Mets catcher Josh Thole said that Dickey’s knuckleball was darting around with such unpredictability, “The concentration level had to be the max.” That was a good thing. Manager Terry Collins said Dickey’s knuckleball might have been as good as he has had in a long time. Dickey, like Johan Santana on Tuesday, bounced back from a rough outing. “Our starting pitching is going to be pretty good, and it’s going to keep us in games,” Collins said. “Hopefully, we get the offense rolling a little bit where we get some support and make it easier for them.” The Mets added three runs in the eighth on a run-scoring, two-out single by Lucas Duda and a line-drive double by pinch-hitter Mike Baxter. Rauch, Bobby Parnell, Tim Byrdak and Manny Acosta combined to pitch two scoreless innings of relief. Allowing only a second-inning infield single to Logan Morrison, Dickey needed only 50 pitches to finish the first four innings. He struck out four, and Reyes made outs against him batting right-handed and left-handed. In the fifth, after retiring Giancarlo Stanton on a called third strike for the second time in the game, Dickey threw a ball to Infante, whose .385 batting average at Citi Field entering the game was the highest among active players. Then Dickey hung a knuckler that Infante drove off the facing of the second deck above the left-field wall. It was Infante’s fifth home run of the season. “He got the better of me, but it’s a good competition,” Dickey said. “He saw it, saw it big and creamed it.” Later, Wright creamed one, too. This time, the fence was no obstacle. INSIDE PITCH The right-hander Mike Pelfrey said he was still awaiting a thorough diagnosis on his injured right elbow. “I don’t have any pain,” he said. “I just had a little bit of tightness.” It is likely that Chris Schwinden, a 25-year-old right-hander who pitched in four games for the Mets last season, will start for the Mets when they open a trip Friday in Colorado. But you never know, Terry Collins said. Schwinden could wake up Friday with a stiff neck. “We’ll wait until Friday to see who shows up,” Collins said. ... The Mets signed infielder Brad Emaus and outfielder Fred Lewis to minor league contracts and assigned both to Class AAA Buffalo. ... Ike Davis, who was dropped to seventh in the order, went 0 for 4 and is hitting .123.
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Miami Marlins;New York Mets;Wright David;Dickey R A;Baseball;Buehrle Mark
|
ny0294259
|
[
"sports",
"tennis"
] |
2016/06/24
|
Sloane Stephens’s Coach Recommits to Craft After Health Scare
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PARIS — Taylor Townsend was in the passenger seat of a rental car headed to a satellite tennis tournament in Dothan, Ala., when the driver of the car, her coach, suddenly told her to grab the steering wheel. Kamau Murray, the charismatic tennis teacher who was only 33 on that day in 2014, suddenly lost all feeling on the left side of his body. It drained out from his face to his toes, as he urgently informed his protégé. Townsend, who turned 18 that week, was terrified and had no idea what was happening. But Murray, a sales representative for a pharmaceutical company, quickly guessed he was having a stroke, and had Townsend call 911. “It was the most scary moment of my entire life,” Townsend said. As Murray was loaded into an ambulance, he instructed Townsend to play that day, because that is one of many lessons Murray preaches to his charges. Regardless of the adversity that may arise — a freakishly hot opponent, windy conditions or a coach strapped to a stretcher — you accept the challenge, play through it and expect success. (Townsend said she was far too worried, and she withdrew from the tournament). Now fully recovered and as irrepressible as ever, Murray is instilling those lessons to another young American woman, the 23-year-old Sloane Stephens, who hired him last fall with the goal of pushing her career to new heights. Stephens has one of the more interesting young coaches in tennis, according to Billie Jean King, a friend of and adviser to Murray. “Kamau is really smart and he is going to be great for Sloane,” King said. “She is very talented physically, but emotionally she gets challenged, and that’s where he can really help. She can do it, and she is trying. I think hiring Kamau shows she is serious about it.” Stephens knew Murray from her time playing doubles with Townsend, who last year switched coaches to Donald Young Sr. Stephens had won her first tour title in Washington last summer with the help of Thomas Hogstedt. But she thought Murray’s positive and direct approach, along with his uncompromising energy, would be helpful. “He’s helped me to believe in myself and trust in my ability, that I can go out and do a lot of things great,” Stephens said during the French Open in May. “He’s helped me to use what I have.” Since Murray began traveling with Stephens in January, they built on her Washington success, scoring victories in Auckland, Acapulco and Charleston, the best run of her career. She was ranked No. 37 at the end of 2014 and is now 20th heading into Wimbledon, which begins Monday. At Roland Garros, there was disappointment after a third-round loss to Tsvetana Pironkova in the third round, but for Murray, it was another moment to reinforce the lesson of accepting challenges. “Sometimes the opponent is going to be playing great,” he said. “Pironkova beat Agnieszka Radwanska right after Sloane, so she was playing well. But that kind of challenge is always going to be there.” When Stephens is playing, Murray usually sits courtside, a calming influence quietly reassuring his player when those challenges surface. But most of his work is done before the matches, and that includes watching hours of video of Stephens’s opponents, which are not provided by any scouting services. “I get them off YouTube,” he said. “You can find hours of stuff.” A gifted all-around athlete who claims to have some basketball skills to go with his tennis game, Murray played tennis at Florida A&M. That was followed by 10 years in pharmaceutical sales, where he learned the value of strategic planning. “Everything gets planned out and written down,” he said. That applies to coaching, too. Before each match, Murray provides Stephens with a concise, bullet-point tactical game plan, which he texts to her phone. It might stress hitting to an opponent’s weak backhand, or standing closer to the baseline. But as devoted as Murray is to Stephens, he has other work that compels him, too. He founded and runs XS Tennis and Education Foundation , a youth tennis center on the South Side of Chicago, near where he grew up. One of its primary missions is to help players acquire college scholarships through tennis. His work with children of various skill levels and financial backgrounds, he said, has honed his message for professionals. “I learned to coach at this level by dealing with hundreds of kids, hundreds of different personalities,” he said. The center is Murray’s baby, and even on the road he spends hours poring over reports, formulating strategy and watching video of the lessons. During the French Open, Murray would leave the grounds after his debriefing with Stephens, eat dinner with her and her family, then retire to his hotel room to work on his foundation. Because of that commitment, Murray said, he will only coach professional players — just Townsend and Stephens, to date — if he truly cares for them. He took on Townsend, who also grew up in the South Side of Chicago, when she turned pro after a stellar junior career. Stephens joined that small community last fall, during the United States Open. Murray brought a group of 40 of his students to New York to meet with corporate leaders and tennis officials in Manhattan and to attend the tournament and clinics. Murray, who at that point was not yet coaching Stephens, asked her to meet with the children. She immediately invited them to her Midtown hotel, where the star-struck children snapped photos, got autographs and generally palled around with a rising tennis star. “When I saw that, I thought, ‘I could work with that person,’ ” Murray said. Murray pulled out his phone and called up a series of photographs showing Stephens at his facility in Chicago, working with the children. He said she had finished her own workout, but instead of going right home, she stayed to help, and seemed to genuinely enjoy it. “I love those kids,” Stephens said, her face brightening at the topic. “Kids are my favorite thing in the world.” As with his students, Murray tries to take a comprehensive approach with Stephens, preaching about more than just on-court tactics and conditioning. Growing up in Chicago, Murray’s best friend was (and remains) Quentin Richardson, the former N.B.A. player for 13 years and the former director of player development of the Detroit Pistons. When Richardson was playing for the Los Angeles Clippers, the Phoenix Suns and especially the Knicks, Murray would visit for days at a time and absorb everything he saw. What impressed him the most — besides Nate Robinson’s uncanny Ping-Pong skills — was the connection between preparation, lifestyle and success. He saw how serious professionals like Richardson took their pregame naps at specific times, had chefs cook specially designed meals, followed detailed workout routines, and also found proper moments for recreation. “I want to connect the dots for Sloane,” Murray said. “Everything is related, and everything matters. In the N.B.A., everything is structured until May, and then it’s, ‘Hey, get me to Miami.’ In tennis, it’s more year round.” That can take a toll on a coach, too, especially one whose body sent him an indisputable warning sign two years ago. That frightening episode turned out to be a transient ischemic attack, also known as a mini-stroke. An attack usually causes no permanent damage, but can be an indication of risk for a future stroke. Murray quickly regained all feeling and spent a week in hospitals in Dothan, Atlanta and Chicago. He was back on court soon afterward. He said he had experienced no further trouble, and mention of a stroke today mostly makes him think of forehands and backhands. He has made some concessions, mainly altering his diet. Quitting his pharmaceutical sales job in January also freed up well over 40 hours a week. But with the all-important fund-raising for his program, teaching and mentoring young people, coaching Stephens and attending to his wife and two children, Murray still must manage his time. “The key is to bring the worlds together,” he said. “When Sloane comes to Chicago to train, she engages with the kids. I wish I had had a top 25 player chiming in on my lessons when I was a kid.”
|
Tennis;Kamau Murray;Coaches;Sloane Stephens;Stroke
|
ny0223174
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2010/11/10
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Cowboys’ Bad Decisions Add Up Under Jerry Jones
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With Jerry Jones, the Cowboys’ owner, finally dropping the inevitable coaching ax on Wade Phillips, a decision he arrived at weeks after everyone else, including his players, mentally cleaned out Phillips’s office, you may join the voting on what ranks as the worst of Jones’s decisions. The list is so long that the doomed hiring of Phillips is currently somewhere around No. 10. The early leader is Jones’s installing himself as general manager and guru in charge of everything down to and including player pedicures. That is currently edging out Jones’s eclectic collection of cosmetic procedures that have made him the antithesis of aging gracefully. The pundits of the world are heartily lining up behind the first option, with Randy Galloway of The Fort Worth Star-Telegram in lead position, having made the argument against the owner-as-G.M. model for roughly a dozen years in a row. Tim Cowlishaw of The Dallas Morning News is wondering if it will ever dawn on Jones that the finger-pointing should bend around to him. David Whitley of Fanhouse.com awaits the news conference in which Jones fires himself, while Dave Goldberg of Fanhouse.com writes about how Wellington Mara once saved the Giants by taking himself out of the mix and hiring George Young. Handing the job to the coach-in-waiting Jason Garrett was an obvious move, but now it’s about salvaging Garrett’s image as genius-in-waiting, writes Jason Cole on Yahoo.com . Jerome Bettis argues on SI.com that many more changes have to be made, and Rick Gosselin of The Dallas Morning News writes that Bill Cowher and Jon Gruden ought to be Jones’s only candidates for the job beyond this season. It is rather amazing that the Cowboys, even in freefall, can captivate so much of the N.F.L., turning the Steelers’ victory over the Bengals in a “Monday Night Football” game into the day’s footnote. Or, shall I say the wee hours of the night’s footnote. (If these things started a few minutes later they could rightly be called “Tuesday Morning Football.”) If you stayed awake long enough, you watched two teams headed in distinctly different directions, writes James Walker on ESPN.com , although Steelers fans are getting used to their team doing nothing the easy way, writes John Harris in The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review . College sports tried to edge their way into the news, too, but the opening of college basketball season doesn’t pack much punch these days. (Uh, yes, the season started.) Part of the problem is starting in the middle of college football season, which not only has games left but also offers some off-field train wrecks like the coaching ouster of Colorado’s Dan Hawkins and an academic scandal reportedly involving Cameron Newton’s exit from Florida . That puts another cloud over the Southeastern Conference , which hardly needs one. Meanwhile, Isiah Thomas is spicing up his corner of the college basketball universe by being forced to stay in it another season, and Adrian Wojnarowski writes on Yahoo.com that he will probably have to get used to it because his N.B.A. future appears nonexistent. Allen Iverson has come face to face with that reality, and is now starting his role of basketball savior in Turkey . The N.B.A. has started the season without him but with a handful of surprising story lines detailed by Ken Berger at CBSSports.com and including a 6-0 start by New Orleans. Perhaps most surprisingly, someone is still paying Darko Milicic to play basketball, and he has suddenly appointed himself spokesman for Yao Ming’s foot. At least the N.B.A. does not have flaming brake pads flying into skyboxes — a development at a Nascar race at Texas Speedway that injured two — and Formula One’s news isn’t much sunnier. It involves Jenson Button’s avoiding an armed robbery leaving Sao Paolo’s track because of deft maneuvers by his carjacking-veteran driver. You may commence cringing anew over the idea of a World Cup and an Olympics there. Fortunately, Amani Toomer’s trip through the streets of New York this weekend was much more pleasant. The former Giants receiver raised $20,000 for charity by passing an estimated 20,000 people at the New York City Marathon after starting dead last (on purpose). That was a better decision than almost anything Jerry Jones has done lately. Follow Leading Off on Twitter: twitter.com/zinsernyt
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Football;Dallas Cowboys;Jones Jerry;Phillips Wade;Cowher Bill;Gruden Jon
|
ny0154769
|
[
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] |
2008/01/06
|
Salad Days
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Traditionally, Epiphany, or Jan. 6th, is the day that homes are stripped of Christmas greenery. In my house, I drag out the tree and bring in fresh greens — in the form of salads. After the holidays, a pretty head of lettuce can make all those sugar cookies fade like a bad dream. In winter, I like salads that come fully loaded with fruits, nuts and root vegetables. This past year, I came upon several nourishing combinations: at the elegant Monteverde at Old Stone Manor in Cortlandt, where a still-life composition of fruits, vegetables and herbs featured carrot petals, purple plums and pickled chanterelles; at the Mariani Café in Armonk, where a trove of apples, raisins, walnuts and grapes was buried in a mound of baby spinach dashed with fresh orange vinaigrette; and at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, where the simple arrangement of greens and herbs enriched with pistachios and a fresh, soft-cooked fried egg sets the bar for all the others. At home, I like to make an old-fashioned Waldorf salad, first presented on a lettuce leaf in 1893 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York and served by grandmothers ever since. The original 1893 recipe called for peeled apples and celery to be chopped and bound with “a good mayonnaise.” Walnuts were later added to the mix. At Mrs. Green’s Natural Market in Mount Kisco, I filled my basket with certified organic fixings: Pink Lady apples, beautiful celery, red-tinged Boston lettuce, walnuts in the shell and a jar of Spectrum mayonnaise. I toasted the walnuts to enhance their flavor, left the skin on the apples for color, just moistened the salad with mayo, and at the last minute added the juice of a Meyer lemon to brighten the whole — an epiphany all its own. Mrs. Green’s Natural Market , 666 Lexington Ave., Mount Kisco, (914) 242-9292; www.mrsgreens .com. Also in Briarcliff Manor, Eastchester, Katonah, Larchmont, Mahopac, Montebello, Scarsdale and Yorktown Heights. ALICE GABRIEL
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Salads;Westchester County (NY)
|
ny0237905
|
[
"business",
"global"
] |
2010/06/01
|
European Central Bank’s Report Issues Warning
|
FRANKFURT — Despite recent improvements in the health of European banks, they remain vulnerable to a daunting array of hazards that are expected to produce another round of sizable write-offs during the next couple of years, the European Central Bank said Monday, in a report that cataloged in alarming detail the problems facing the region’s financial institutions. The challenges for banks in the 16-nation euro zone include exposure to a weakening commercial real estate market, hundreds of billions of euros in bad debts, economic problems in East European countries, and a potential collision between the banks’ own substantial refinancing needs and government demand for additional loans, the central bank said. In its twice-yearly review of risks facing the nations that use the euro currency, the central bank expressed particular concern about banks’ need to refinance long-term debt of an estimated 800 billion euros, or $984 billion, by the end of 2012. Borrowing costs could rise as the banks compete with governments in the bond market, “making it challenging to roll over a sizable amount of maturing bonds by the end of 2012,” the report said. The increased demand for credit is likely to place further strain on banks, as well as companies that need to borrow. As it is, many European companies are suffering from low profitability and too much debt, the report said. “The financial markets remain fragile and especially the developments in recent weeks have shown the necessity of heightened alertness,” Axel A. Weber, president of the Bundesbank and a member of the European Central Bank’s governing council, said Monday during a speech in Mainz, Germany. Lucas D. Papademos, the departing vice president of the central bank, struck a more upbeat tone at a news conference Monday to present the semiannual report, called the Financial Stability Review . While efforts by European governments to reduce debt will cut economic demand, he said, growth could improve as economies became more productive. “It is possible that the short-term impact will not be as severe as seems to be expected at the moment,” said Mr. Papademos, whose term ended Monday. European banks will need to set aside an estimated 123 billion euros in 2010 for bad loans, and an additional 105 billion euros in 2011, the report said. That would be in addition to the 238 billion euros they set aside from 2007 to 2009. That projected sum for 2010, however, was lower than previous estimates. Banks also benefited from a rebound in securities markets, the report said. While profitability of larger banks has improved, their shares are likely to fall in the near future, the central bank said, citing an analysis of options — securities that investors use to bet on the direction of stock prices. The report also noted that some banks remained dependent on the central bank for loans. Since the advent of the financial crisis, the central bank has granted almost unlimited credit to banks at 1 percent interest to offset a reluctance by banks to lend to one another. “The continued reliance of some smaller or medium-sized euro area banks on central bank refinancing continues to be a cause for concern,” the report said. Mr. Papademos said the number of banks involved was small, but he declined to give details. He also expressed concern about what he called “adverse feedback” between the government debt crisis and the banking system. The report said that higher risk premiums for government debt fed through into the private sector and raised the cost of credit for companies. The problems would be exaggerated if growth or unemployment were worse than expected, increasing the chances that companies and individuals would be unable to repay their loans. The report also said that some financial markets were still not functioning normally. Issuance of corporate bonds has declined since the end of last year, especially for banks and other financial institutions. In addition, the market for securitizations, in which banks package loans and resell them to investors, is “dysfunctional,” the report said. Bond issues and securitizations are crucial ways that banks raise money to lend to companies and individuals. The report, as well as separate statements by central bank officials on Monday, also shed light on the bank’s decision on May 10 to buy government and corporate bonds on open markets. In the days leading to the decision, trading in some government debt had come nearly to a standstill, the report said. The lack of a market for government bonds endangered the functioning of the whole financial system, in part because banks typically use government debt as collateral in making loans to one another. “The tensions in the sovereign bond markets spilled over to other market segments, such as the foreign exchange market and equity markets,” the European Central Bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet, said on Monday during a speech in Vienna. “Trading volumes and liquidity became erratic, and volatility spiked. “In view of these exceptional circumstances prevailing in the financial markets, we decided that exceptional intervention was necessary,” he said. Mr. Weber, in his speech Monday, repeated his criticism of the bond purchases and said that they would remain limited in scope. Some economists view the bond purchases as breaking a taboo and risking inflation, since they amount to the central bank financing governments that have borrowed irresponsibly. Mr. Trichet repeated that the central bank was “permanently alert and always prepared to act when necessary” in response to crises. But he made clear that the bank could do only so much to restore stability to the financial system. Euro zone governments must create a system for disciplining countries that violate treaty limits on debt and deficits, he said. “I call on euro area governments in particular to work actively together to reach agreement on a quantum leap of the effectiveness of their collegial surveillance,” Mr. Trichet said.
|
Banks and Banking;Europe;Credit and Debt;Economic Conditions and Trends
|
ny0130519
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2012/06/22
|
Learning Hebrew on the Streets, With Walls as Assigned Reading
|
TEL AVIV — The texts, written on metal grates, stone walls and neon signs, sometimes disappear from one class to the next. The themes are pluralism, economic justice and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and grammar, always a little grammar thrown in. Guy Sharett’s Hebrew lessons are taught in a walking classroom, on the streets and alleys of Florentin, his neighborhood here, where new vocabulary words are mixed into an ever-changing curriculum. “Get out from the TV, start to live,” Mr. Sharett translated one scrawled Hebrew slogan at the start of class one recent evening, trailed by a dozen students thirsty to understand the life of the Tel Aviv street as much as the revived ancient language spoken on it. He pulled out a little white board to break down the graffiti before him. The first part of the slogan, “Tzay mayhatelevizia,” used the imperative — get out — while “tatchil lichayot,” start to live, was in the future tense. “It sounds to us too pompous and too archaic,” he explained, “so we just use the future.” A few minutes earlier, they had analyzed a sign exhorting dog owners not to permit their animals to relieve themselves near a certain building. Next, a picture of Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, with his famous mantra, “If you will it, it is no dream,” twisted into “If you don’t want, you don’t need.” Here, a verse by the street artist and poet Nitzan Mintz. There, the iconic image of a forlorn child from the Warsaw ghetto, captioned “Don’t Deport Me,” repurposed to the current crisis of migrant workers from Africa flooding south Tel Aviv. “They depend on a cultural knowledge that you don’t necessarily have,” said one of the students, Marcela Sulak, who has been here two years as director of the creative writing program at Bar-Ilan University. “He teaches you the tools so you can figure it out on your own. You’re learning the Hebrew you need every single day by looking at the neighborhood.” The hourlong classes, which cost 50 shekels, or about $12, are organized on Facebook. They grew out of last summer’s protests, when Mr. Sharett’s traditional Hebrew students were mystified by the signs at the encampment along Rothschild Boulevard, so he started taking them — and his little white board — outside for lessons. After the protest tents came down, he decided to make the graffiti-pocked walls of his gentrifying neighborhood the new syllabus. “It’s not only to teach language, it’s also to teach the culture,” Mr. Sharett explained. “Someone took a line from a song we all know and changed one word; it’s very hard to understand that if you don’t have someone local to explain, ‘That’s a take on...’ ” Mr. Sharett, 40, has a day job at a television company, but has been giving private Hebrew lessons for several years. Besides the graffiti course, he offers one-offs touring the city’s spice market (“Wake up and smell the Zatar”); shopping and cooking with a famous chef (“While chopping, we learn the names of the vegetables”); and watching the local version of “American Idol,” with frequent use of the pause button to translate slang and jokes (“This is Israeliness 101,” he said). The son of an artist and a tugboat skipper whose home in Ashdod was “like a French salon,” Mr. Sharett is something of a language savant. “There was a Turkish neighbor, so I started learning Turkish; there was a German au pair, so I started learning German,” he said. At 16, he got a job in the control tower of the port, “so I was able to talk on the radio with captains in different languages and tell them to heave up the anchor — but only maritime terms that I can’t really use in regular life.” The students on his tours want terms they can use in everyday life; many are dropouts from ulpan, the immersion classes that are free for new immigrants. A recent graffiti tour included a Chinese postdoctoral fellow; a 28-year-old Google employee from Rhode Island; a financial analyst and poet who is married to an Israeli; a British teacher who has lived here 20 years; Ms. Sulak, whose 5-year-old daughter slept the entire hour in her stroller; and a Middle Eastern politics professor at the City University of New York who is on sabbatical. “Street politics is where it’s happening,” said the professor, Dov Waxman, 37. “Most places, graffiti is tagging or art. Here, you can really read the politics. I wander around and look at it myself, but I don’t always understand it all.” Xiaoyun Wu, the postdoctoral fellow, has been studying Hebrew with Mr. Sharett for three months, and was the first to answer most of his grammar questions. “You get more contextualized memory,” she said of on-the-street learning. “The good thing is I can come back to review any time.” Here, one finds a lesson on how easy it is to make up words — a tattoo parlor called, essentially, “tattooism,” using the Hebrew letters yud, zayin, mem to add “ism.” There, a black door features the ubiquitous road signs pointing one way to Tel Aviv and the other to Jerusalem, only the Jerusalem arrow leads to an ultra-Orthodox man at prayer. A tag declares “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies.” A sign uses the word “agudah,” association, which Mr. Sharett pointed out has the same root as the Israeli bus company, Egged, because buses link places together. Then there is a new ampm convenience store, one of many chains now dotting the once-gritty streets of Florentin. “We pronounce it Ahm-Pahm,” Mr. Sharett told the group. “If you want to impress your Israeli friends, say, ‘Ani holech l’ahm pahm,’ ” which means “I’m going to the ampm.”
|
Tel Aviv (Israel);Israel;Graffiti;Hebrew Language;Immigration and Emigration;Slang;Sharett Guy
|
ny0056815
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2014/09/19
|
On Road to Scotland’s Decision, Gambles and Fateful Steps
|
EDINBURGH — Over a Michelin-starred dinner of Scottish venison and red Burgundy in February 2012, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain outlined his strategy for defeating a Scottish independence referendum. The Scottish National Party had won a landslide victory in voting for the Scottish Parliament the previous May, on the promise of a secession vote. The party’s leader, Alex Salmond , was determined to make good on that pledge, presenting Mr. Cameron with a quandary: Ignore the issue and appear unresponsive to the will of the Scots, or let the vote happen and accept its risks. Huddled in the Peat Inn near the Scottish university town of St. Andrews, Mr. Cameron told a group of advisers that Mr. Salmond would have his referendum. But he would refuse the demand for a second, softer option on the ballot for more autonomy for Scotland. He would call Mr. Salmond’s bluff. There would be a single question: Should Scotland stay inside the United Kingdom or leave it forever? That, the prime minister confidently predicted, according to a person who was at the dinner, would “put the issue to bed.” It has not turned out that way. When Scots cast their ballots on Thursday, a decision in favor of independence is a real possibility. And Mr. Cameron and the other major party leaders in London were clearly hoping that last-minute promises to grant Scots the very powers he refused to put on the ballot would be enough to head off a separatist victory. The gamble that Mr. Cameron outlined that cold February night now looks potentially fateful: If Scots vote for independence, it will cost Britain a three-century-old union. It might also cost Mr. Cameron his job, even lawmakers from his own party say. If the Scots vote against, Mr. Cameron nevertheless must give them more autonomy, with potentially cascading implications for the rest of Britain. “There is no doubt that the middle option would have triumphed, were it on the ballot paper,” said Richard Wyn Jones , a professor at Cardiff University in Wales. “There was nothing inevitable about the calling of the referendum, and nothing inevitable about its result, either — whatever that turns out to be.” On the long road to the Scottish referendum, three other moments stood out, historians, political scientists and officials said. All were the result of political miscalculation as much as shrewd leadership: The decision in 1989 by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, already unpopular after shutting down steel mills and coal mines, to roll out a regressive tax in Scotland before the rest of Britain; the decision by the Labour prime minister Tony Blair to allow Scotland to hold a referendum on greater autonomy in 1997, which led two years later to the establishment of a Scottish Parliament for the first time since 1707; and the crushing 2011 victory of the Scottish National Party, which won an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament and with it a mandate to call a referendum on independence. Video In the week ahead of a historic referendum on Scottish independence, campaigners from both sides took to the streets to sway the vote, which could break a three-century-old union. Credit Credit Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Mrs. Thatcher’s combination of heavy-handedness and neglect north of the border hardened the Scots’ liberal resolve and hamstrung the Tories here: David Mundell is now the only Conservative among the 59 British lawmakers elected from Scotland. The sense that Scots were being governed by an administration in London that they did not choose was the main reason Mr. Blair’s government agreed to hold the 1997 referendum. What Mr. Blair did not anticipate was that a Scotland with its own Parliament would also turn away from the Labour Party, if not to the same degree. Before 1997, the Scottish National Party was little more than a fringe voice of romantic protest. In the mid-1990s only one in four Scots voted for the party, while more than 40 percent supported Labour. But the opportunity to govern Scotland transformed the nationalists into a mainstream political force, winning elections in 2007 and 2011 and building up a large majority. “It was dramatic,” one senior official, who was in Westminster at the time, recalled this week. “This was not only further proof of the death of the Conservative Party in Scotland, this was proof of just how badly Labour had done in a place it once took for granted. Scotland was Labour.” Video For Glasgow-based Collins Bartholomew, Scotland’s independence referendum could lead to a redrawing of its world-famous maps. “We were all out of touch,” the official said. “And now we’re paying for it.” The few local politicians from the main parties who were prepared to lobby for greater powers for Scotland were often quashed. One contender for the leadership of the moribund Conservative Party of Scotland, Murdo Fraser , campaigned in 2011 on a radical ticket promising more self-governance. But the London party machine swung behind his opponent, Ruth Davidson , who opposed giving more powers to Scotland. “If Murdo had won, we wouldn’t have had a referendum, we would have had devo max,” said Andrew Wilson, a former Scottish lawmaker and one of Mr. Salmond’s close associates, using a shorthand expression for maximum autonomy, which might have pre-empted the independence drive. The day after his election victory in 2011, Mr. Salmond arrived at one of Scotland’s most prestigious hotels in high style, disembarking from a chartered helicopter with a thumbs-up sign. Scottish Independence Vote Balances Politics and Economics A breakdown of the issues voters will consider Thursday in Scotland’s referendum on independence. The Observer newspaper quoted a senior Conservative cabinet minister saying after a meeting with the nationalist leader that “Salmond really thinks he can be the father of his nation, some kind of Ataturk of Scotland.” But for all the condescension that British leaders reserved for Mr. Salmond at that time, few argued for blocking the referendum altogether. In fact, it was Mr. Cameron who pre-empted Mr. Salmond and announced on television on Jan. 8, 2012, that he was already looking into the legal steps for a referendum. There was a sense among the British establishment that Mr. Salmond was playing for time, and that the sooner a referendum was held, the less likely it was to succeed. As the columnist Andrew Rawnsley said in The Observer newspaper on Sunday, opinion polls at the time found that “the odds of the Scots voting for independence were only marginally better than the chances of Elvis being found alive in Fort William cohabiting with Dennis the Menace and the Loch Ness monster.” It was in this context that Mr. Cameron insisted on a single question that, as one official put it, would “settle it for a generation.” Image The leader of the Scottish National Party, Alex Salmond, left, and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, signed a referendum agreement in 2012. Credit Pool photo by Gordon Terris The calculation inside Downing Street was that in a referendum with three options, the combined votes for independence or for more autonomy would probably outnumber those opting for no change, threatening to keep the issue alive and allow the pro-independence forces to demand another referendum on full independence. In exchange for giving up the middle option, though, Mr. Salmond won two significant concessions: the right to lower the minimum voting age to 16 from 18 for the referendum and, crucially, an extra year to campaign. Mr. Cameron initially wanted to hold the vote in 2013. “The nationalists were gifted the commodity they needed most: time,” George Eaton wrote recently in the New Statesman . “Having begun as the underdogs, they have had an extra year to build a grass-roots campaign capable of winning over the undecided.” Few people at the heart of power grasped how public opinion in Scotland was evolving. Gus O’Donnell, who was the top civil servant in Britain, was a rare exception. “Over the next few years there will be enormous challenges, such as whether to keep our kingdom united,” Mr. O’Donnell said in The Daily Telegraph in December 2011, when he was leaving office and Mr. Cameron and Mr. Salmond were preparing to start negotiations on the referendum. But Mr. Cameron failed to see the writing on the wall — and it was on the wall, right behind him, when he sat down with Mr. Salmond to sign the Edinburgh Agreement on the terms of the referendum in October 2012: a large map of Scotland, color-coded by party control, showing a sweeping sea of Scottish Nationalist yellow.
|
Scotland;Great Britain;David Cameron;Scottish National Party;Referendum;Polls;Alex Salmond
|
ny0192227
|
[
"business",
"energy-environment"
] |
2009/02/26
|
Preparing for a Flood of Energy Efficiency Spending
|
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — To the casual eye, the basement of this city’s Firehouse 9 looks like a jumble of old hydrants, Dr Pepper cartons, rakes and random gear. To specialists in energy efficiency, the 1960s-era building is a mess of a different sort: wasteful hot water heaters for the firefighters’ showers, ancient refrigerators and outdated lights. Wrapping up an elaborate energy audit, Knoxville is about to find out which of 99 city buildings are wasting the most energy. It hopes to begin repairs this summer, just in time to catch a tsunami of federal stimulus money earmarked for such unglamorous tasks as replacing light bulbs and fixing leaky insulation. Knoxville’s timing is excellent. The city began the arduous work of cataloging deficiencies before the stimulus bill passed, and it is well along in planning its next steps. But experts worry that other beneficiaries, especially cities, are not ready to oversee the huge sums of energy-efficiency money about to come their way. The money in the bill is enough to pay for a tremendous expansion of efficiency efforts across the country. But as with other parts of the stimulus package, the efficiency plan is creating tension between spending the money quickly, to get rapid economic stimulus, and spending it well, to do the most good over the long run. “There’s enormous opportunity here for expansion of energy efficiency in this country,” said Lowell Ungar, the policy director for the Alliance to Save Energy, an advocacy group. “But there is certainly the potential for waste.” President Obama signed the stimulus package into law on Feb. 17, hailing it as a shot of money big enough to help shake the economy from its lethargy while advancing many of his campaign priorities. Accelerating the country’s energy transition is at the top of his list. Many experts in the field agree with him that carefully chosen investments in efficiency will ultimately save more than they cost, by cutting energy bills. At least $20 billion in the stimulus bill was earmarked for programs like improving the efficiency of government buildings and the homes of poor people, and trying to find better ways to save energy. That is far more, advocates say, than any bill in history. Within a few months, the money is likely to start landing in the bank accounts of thinly staffed state and city agencies that are accustomed to scraping for a dime here, a dollar there. Utah expects that its state energy office will receive $40 million for energy efficiency, renewable energy and related programs — 123 times the size of the office’s current budget, said Jason Berry, who manages the four-person unit. He is about to go on a hiring spree. The package contains $5 billion to weatherize low-income homes through the Department of Energy, enough to give the state programs that manage that work 10 to 30 times the money they received last year, said Christina Kielich, a department spokeswoman. For advocates of this relatively obscure program, “it’s like they finally got to the other side of the desert and it’s pouring rain,” said Seth Kaplan, a vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental group. The stimulus package also contains $4.5 billion to modernize federal buildings and $2.5 billion for research into energy efficiency and renewable energy. The biggest chunk, $6.3 billion, will be distributed by the Energy Department in grants to state and local governments, which can spend the money on things as diverse as thicker window panes for state capitols and rebates for homeowners who change their light bulbs. Homes and commercial buildings account for 39 percent of national energy consumption. Experts say that improving their efficiency is not only cost-effective but also a good way to reduce the nation’s emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming . But figuring out how to spend the money effectively — learning which university buildings need their doors caulked, for example, or which firehouse walls have insulation that is too thin — can involve time-consuming, tricky analysis by skilled technicians. “People are very conservative about their buildings,” said Donald Gilligan, the president of the National Association of Energy Service Companies, a trade group. “Nobody wants to put a failed technology into the school buildings or have the lights not work.” In Knoxville, a team of auditors hired by the city is spending six months peering into the grimy nooks of fire and police stations and even the convention center, where one employee referred to the downstairs boiler area as a “money-eating room.” Knoxville — which says the stimulus money may help accelerate or expand its program — hopes to reduce the city’s energy bills as much as 25 percent, and the city is “definitely on the front end of the wave as far as efficiency and municipalities addressing efficiency,” said John Plack Jr., a director of project development for Ameresco, which is conducting the Knoxville energy audit. In the Southeastern region of the country, where Mr. Plack works, low electricity prices have often made saving energy an afterthought, unlike in California and much of the Northeast. For example, Nashville, nearly 200 miles west of Knoxville, has not conducted an energy audit of its city buildings, though it hopes to use stimulus money to look through its own stock of fire stations and libraries. “There’s a lot of municipalities out there who are completely unaware this is moving forward,” Mr. Kaplan said, referring especially to smaller cities. “They just don’t have the infrastructure in place to deal with this.” The Energy Department, which is doling out most of the grants, has been assailed on Capitol Hill for delays in disbursing other types of assistance for clean energy. Ms. Kielich said in an e-mail message that the department hoped efficiency grants would begin flowing to city and state energy offices within 120 days, and that it planned to begin disbursing weatherization money “expeditiously and responsibly.” On the receiving end, absorbing the huge increase in money for weatherization could be particularly challenging, said Ian Bowles, the secretary of energy and environmental affairs for Massachusetts. Though he contends it can be done, “the weatherization folks are going to have to quintuple their effort in order to put that money out,” he said. In some cases, the managers of efficiency programs may not need to look far to find ways to spend the money. In Knoxville, the Community Action Committee, whose operations include helping poor people weatherize their homes, works from a building with a $14,000 monthly utility bill — some of it because of an enormous skylight that lets in too much blistering Tennessee sunshine in the summer. “It’s embarrassing,” said Barbara Kelly, executive director of the committee. “We do better for our clients than we do for us.”
|
Energy Efficiency;American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009);Economic Conditions and Trends;Environment
|
ny0256295
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2011/08/17
|
Versatile Jets Lineman May Miss Up to 3 Months
|
Jets Coach Rex Ryan has spoken throughout training camp about the importance of roster depth. After one preseason game, however, the depth of the offensive line could suddenly be a concern. Robert Turner, a versatile lineman who has been used at a variety of positions, broke his right leg in the first quarter of Monday night’s game against the Houston Texans , and his prognosis will be determined after further examinations later in the week. It is expected he will miss up to three months. Turner is not a starter, but his injury leaves a substantial hole in the Jets’ offensive line, which was under scrutiny after the Texans recorded seven sacks Monday. Turner started at center Monday in place of Nick Mangold (who did not make the trip after sustaining a neck stinger ), but Turner’s ability to move around is among his most valuable attributes; he has been used at guard and, occasionally, on defense and special teams, too. Without him, the Jets will have to turn more to Vladimir Ducasse , a second-year lineman who has been underwhelming and who continued to struggle Monday. On the play in which Turner was hurt, the Texans rookie J. J. Watt beat Ducasse, then fell into Turner, rolling up on his leg. Ducasse, who plays at guard and at tackle, was also beaten on a play in which rookie quarterback Greg McElroy was sacked. Ryan has generally defended Ducasse, drafted in 2010 out of Massachusetts, but the 325-pound Ducasse will need to assert himself if he hopes to succeed as the Jets’ primary backup. Ryan, speaking generally about the offensive line after Monday’s game, was blunt in his criticism. “Clearly, we’ve got a long way to go with our protections,” Ryan told reporters in Houston. “We’ve got to figure this thing out, because it’s ridiculous.” Once Turner was injured, the Jets were forced to use the third-stringer Robby Felix at center, and their numbers on the offensive line are dwindling. Although Turner’s injury is the only one that appears to be serious, Mangold and right guard Brandon Moore (hip) are also ailing, highlighting an area that the Jets had hoped would be an obvious strength. It seems likely that the Jets will need to look outside the organization for help on the offensive line, and one option is particularly intriguing: center Shaun O’Hara, whom the Giants let go in July. O’Hara, 34, is a three-time Pro Bowl selection. EXTRA POINTS Wide receiver Plaxico Burress, who did not play Monday, is expected to participate in a full practice Wednesday for the first time during training camp. Burress had been recovering from a sprained ankle. Wednesday’s practice is not open to the public, but fans can attend Thursday’s workout, scheduled for 2:15 p.m. Eastern.
|
Football;Sports Injuries;New York Jets;Turner Robert;Ducasse Vladimir
|
ny0118239
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2012/10/15
|
Highlights of the Association of National Advertisers Conference
|
HERE is a look at some highlights, lowlights and sidelights from the 2012 annual conference of the Association of National Advertisers , which took place from Wednesday through Saturday in Orlando, Fla. IN GOOD HANDS One of the best-received presentations during the conference was given on Friday by Lisa Cochrane, senior vice president for marketing at the Allstate Insurance Company. She offered a candid case study of an Allstate advertising campaign that began in 2010 , which features a dark, disruptive character named Mayhem who represents what Allstate asserts are the risks of buying insurance solely because of price. Ms. Cochrane brought a surprise guest to assist with the presentation: Dean Winters, the actor whose portrayal of Mayhem helped the character win induction last year into the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame. Mr. Winters was dressed as Mayhem and acted the part, coming onstage before Ms. Cochrane and declaring, “My name is Lisa Cochrane and I think I’m here to tell you how smart I am.” Mr. Winters left the stage so the presentation could proceed, but returned during a question-and-answer session, interrupting Ms. Cochrane’s interlocutor, Robert D. Liodice, president and chief executive of the association. “You’re done,” Mr. Winters told Mr. Liodice, grabbing question cards from his hand and flinging them into the audience, then grabbing Ms. Cochrane and walking her offstage. Ms. Cochrane offered those attending the presentation an appropriate souvenir, copies of the 2013 calendar that Allstate agents will give to customers. Reflecting how popular the campaign has become, Ms. Cochrane said, the humorous calendar eschews typical fare like pastoral landscapes in favor of 12 months of mayhem, courtesy of Mayhem and Mr. Winters. JARGON WATCH Those who enjoy collecting samples of marketing buzz words and phrases have a field day each year at the conference. This time around, specimens included “thought leadership” and “thought experiment.” “Right-sized nutritional option” described a McDonald’s Happy Meal. Others: “choiceful,” “stakeholder engagement,” “leveraging our leadership to take positive actions,” “purposeful brand growth,” “consumer decision journey” and “change organization.” SIDE BY SIDE The marketers who make presentations about their ads at the association’s annual conferences do not always credit, or even mention, their agencies, which can irk the agency executives in the audience. This time, however, many speakers paused to thank the creators of their campaigns. For instance, Ms. Cochrane said, “I should acknowledge the relationship between Allstate and Leo Burnett, who have been together for 54 years.” Nods to agencies were also delivered by speakers from companies like Coca-Cola, Ford Motor, McDonald’s, Popchips and Subway. There were even presentations — by BP, Discover, Owens-Illinois and Sharpie — that paired marketers with executives from their agencies. In discussing the “Glass Is Life” campaign for Owens-Illinois on Saturday, Saga Shoffner, vice president for global marketing at Owens-Illinois, and Evelyn Neill, executive creative director at Doremus, stood side by side on stage, finished each other’s sentences and, when they were finished, toasted the audience with Miller Lite beer in, of course, glass bottles. The audience was even able to toast them back. Although it was 11:15 a.m., Ms. Shoffner and Ms. Neill arranged for trays of beer to be delivered to the house, on the house. “Beer before noon,” Mr. Liodice marveled. FULL HOUSE The record attendance for the conference , estimated at 2,050, was a popular subject of discussion. “It’s my first time at the A.N.A.,” Kimberly Kadlec, worldwide vice president for the global marketing group at Johnson & Johnson, said as she began her presentation on Thursday, “and it’s just as everyone described, very intimate.” The conference hotel was full, so hundreds of those attending had to stay elsewhere and drive to and from the hotel or take shuttles. And during breaks in the general sessions, men found themselves having to do something they rarely, if ever, must do at industry conferences: stand in line for the restroom. LET US ENTERTAIN YOU The entertainers who performed at the three dinners during the conference came courtesy of media companies seeking to drum up business. Vevo supplied the musician Lindsey Buckingham, whose appearance was not his first encounter with the association. Some members who were having drinks in a lounge of the hotel in Dana Point, Calif., where the conference was held in 2003, met Mr. Buckingham and other members of Fleetwood Mac, who were staying at the same hotel during a concert tour. Clear Channel Media and Entertainment provided the rock band Train, whose high-energy performance inspired diners to behave as if they were at Madison Square Garden. “I love some of the seated dance moves,” said Pat Monahan, the lead singer. Then, addressing an audience member, he added, “You might as well get up, lady.” And the Meredith Corporation furnished the Tony Award-winning singer Karen Olivo for the company’s ninth annual fund-raising Evening of Inspiration. A silent auction after her performance raised $10,000 to benefit the Feed Foundation. Meredith said it would match that amount. UNHAPPY MEAL? In replying to a question after his presentation on Saturday, Paul Matsen, chief marketing and communication officer at the Cleveland Clinic, said proudly, “You won’t find sugared soft drinks in the Cleveland Clinic, or fryers.” Good thing the presentation by Alison E. Lewis, senior vice president of marketing for North America at Coca-Cola, was on Friday, and the presentation by Neil Golden, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at McDonald’s, was on Thursday.
|
Assn of National Advertisers;Advertising and Marketing;Conventions Fairs and Trade Shows;Allstate Corp
|
ny0178851
|
[
"us"
] |
2007/08/20
|
Workers Recover 12th Victim’s Body in Bridge Collapse
|
MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 19 (AP) — The body of a man missing since a highway bridge here collapsed into the Mississippi River was recovered early Sunday, bringing the confirmed death toll to 12, the authorities said. The Hennepin County medical examiner’s office identified the remains as those of Scott Sathers, 30, of Maple Grove. Mr. Sathers worked in enrollment services at Capella University and was on his way home, using his usual route, when the Interstate 35W bridge crumpled amid evening rush hour traffic on Aug. 1. About 100 people were injured in the collapse of the bridge, the main north-south artery in Minneapolis. Divers continued to search for the last person on the list of missing, Greg Jolstad, 45, of Mora. Workers also pulled a vehicle from the rubble on Sunday. Bad weather on Saturday had hampered recovery efforts.
|
Bridges and Tunnels;Minneapolis (Minn);Missing Persons;Mississippi River;Accidents and Safety
|
ny0018716
|
[
"business"
] |
2013/07/28
|
Using the ‘Third Ear’
|
To the Editor: Re “As Ideas Swirl, It Pays to Use Your Third Ear” (Corner Office, July 21), in which Joyce F. Brown, president of the Fashion Institute of Technology (and a psychologist by training) described her management style: It’s refreshing to see a college president so productively embracing a concept described by the psychoanalyst Theodor Reik in his book “Listening With the Third Ear” 65 years ago. Surely, many F.I.T. students and faculty members benefit from Dr. Brown’s use of her “third ear” — listening carefully “to understand the nuances” of others — as do patients when psychoanalysts and other mental health practitioners follow Reik’s lead. Business and political leaders, like everyone else, have third ears. If ever there was a time to use them, to listen more closely, it’s these economically and militarily perilous days. MURRAY GELMAN Manhattan, July 21 The writer is a psychoanalyst.
|
FIT;Psychology;Joyce F Brown;Management
|
ny0112855
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2012/02/14
|
Syrian Forces Continue Attack on Homs
|
The top United Nations human rights official offered a grim appraisal of the Syrian conflict on Monday, accusing the government there of interpreting the repeated diplomatic failure to end the violence as a green light to escalate deadly attacks on its political opponents with indiscriminate brutality and “overwhelming force” over the past 10 days. The appraisal, delivered in a tone of cold frustration by the official, Navi Pillay, the high commissioner for human rights, was presented at an unusual meeting of the 193-nation General Assembly devoted entirely to the Syrian conflict, despite strenuous objections from Syria and a few of its dwindling number of allies, notably Iran and North Korea . Ms. Pillay’s appraisal, and the support for her expressed by the United States , the Arab League and a wide spectrum of diplomats at the public forum of a General Assembly meeting, amounted to a strong rebuke to Syria. But her frustration also seemed directed at the inability of the United Nations, the Arab League or any other group to devise a workable proposal to help resolve the crisis in Syria, now nearly a year old. “The longer the international community fails to take action, the more the civilian population will suffer from countless atrocities committed against them,” Ms. Pillay said. She spoke more than a week after a proposed Security Council compromise resolution, aimed at ending the violence and starting reconciliation talks in a plan advanced by the Arab League, collapsed with a veto by Russia and China , which feared it was a pretext to depose President Bashar al-Assad and possibly invite outside military intervention, as happened in Libya last year. Mr. Assad’s forces, who contend they are fighting foreign-backed terrorism, have engaged in an intensive assault on his opponents, primarily in the central city of Homs, since the Security Council effort failed. Ms. Pillay said at least 300 people were killed in Homs just in the past 10 days. “The failure of the Security Council to agree on firm collective action appears to have emboldened the Syrian government to launch an all-out assault in an effort to crush dissent with overwhelming force,” Ms. Pillay said. She added, “The appalling brutality that we are witnessing in Homs is a grim harbinger of worse to come.” A new Arab League proposal announced Sunday, in which the league and the United Nations would contribute to a joint peacekeeping force in Syria, was immediately rejected by Mr. Assad as more interference in Syria’s internal affairs. It also was disparaged by Russian diplomats, who saw little point in a peacekeeping force without a truce. The Arab League proposal also found only lukewarm support among Western nations that have been outspoken in their criticism of Mr. Assad. Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for the State Department, told reporters in Washington that the United States was studying the Arab League proposal and that “there are a number of challenges in getting it to come together.” While speeches at the General Assembly were unrolling, behind the scenes diplomats were working on the text of a General Assembly resolution that they said they hoped to put to a vote later in the week. The nonbinding resolution would endorse Arab League efforts toward pursuing a cease-fire and a political solution in the conflict, they said. In Washington, Turkey ’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, held lengthy talks on Syria with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton , exploring the possibility of additional diplomatic and economic steps. Both indicated that they would attend a meeting of nations in Tunisia on Feb. 24 to discuss support for Syria’s opposition after the Russia-China veto. Mrs. Clinton said the United States intended to increase humanitarian assistance to Syrians, but provided no details. Mr. Davutoglu said that the focus remained on finding a political solution to the violence, which he added was possible “even at this moment,” but he also acknowledged that Turkish and other officials were considering additional steps that could involve safe havens or corridors that would require international troops. “We cannot be silent when this humanitarian tragedy is continuing,” he said during remarks with Mrs. Clinton . “At this moment we are talking on diplomatic and humanitarian steps to be taken, but for other scenarios we hope that those things will not be needed, but we need to think about contingencies as well.” Political analysts who have been following the conflict said there was little else the United States and its allies could do except strengthening economic sanctions against Mr. Assad, putting Syria’s major backers, notably Russia, on the defensive as the violence escalated, and offering assistance to Mr. Assad’s opponents. “It’s the best shot we have,” said the Bruce W. Jentleson, a professor of public policy and political science at Duke University and a former senior adviser at the State Department. “The alternatives — to back off or go in militarily — are lousy options. It’s all the more reason to keep the pressure on.” There were conflicting reports on the fighting in Syria on Monday. The Local Coordination Committees, an activist group that has sought to document killings, said 30 people had been killed , including 4 children and a soldier who had defected. Of those victims, the group said, 11 were killed in Homs, 9 in the northern city of Idlib, 4 in Damascus, 3 in Dara’a, 2 in Aleppo and one in Hama. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another activist group, said it had counted 20 dead, including three in Homs. Ms. Pillay was especially critical of what she called the Syrian government’s unbridled assault on Homs, an epicenter of resistance to Mr. Assad. Since the Russia-China veto at the Security Council, she said, the government had used “tanks, mortars, rockets and artillery to pummel the city of Homs.” Citing what she called credible accounts, Ms. Pillay said the Syrian Army had shelled “densely populated neighborhoods of Homs in what appears to be an indiscriminate attack on civilian areas.” Ms. Pillay also accused the Syrian Army of keeping residents trapped in their homes; cutting off their food, electricity, communications and medical aid; and in some cases firing artillery rounds into makeshift medical clinics. She also renewed her recommendation that the Security Council refer evidence of atrocities committed by government forces in Syria to the International Criminal Court , citing what she called “independent, credible and corroborated accounts” that suggest that such atrocities have taken place.
|
Arab Spring;Arab League;Syria
|
ny0254557
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2011/07/08
|
Rebekah Brooks Rose to Top in Britain’s Male Tabloid Culture
|
LONDON — It was March 2003, and Rebekah Wade, then the editor of The Sun newspaper, was being interrogated by the House of Commons select committee on culture and the media. The topic: dubious tabloid practices. Asked whether she had ever paid the police for information, Ms. Wade, a supremely confident and striking figure with her shock of wild red hair, looked unabashed and unperturbed. “We have paid the police for information in the past,” she declared. She was, in fact, admitting to breaking the law, which was pointed out to her soon afterward. But Ms. Wade backtracked as fluently as she had come forward, declaring that she could not remember any examples and then proceeding, it seemed, to brush off the whole thing as another cheeky, walking-the-line incident in a career full of them. Now 43 and known by her new married name, Rebekah Brooks , she has used a winning combination of charm, effrontery, audacity and tenacity to thrive in the brutal, male-dominated world of the British tabloids. She has risen to become chief executive of News International, Rupert Murdoch ’s British newspaper subsidiary. Her closeness to Mr. Murdoch, who is said to regard her as a kind of favorite daughter (although he has four actual daughters), has protected her during the recent scandal engulfing the company, even as legislators called on her to resign. The long-running saga exploded this week as the Murdochs announced they would close The News of the World in the face of public and parliamentary outrage over revelations that the phone of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl murdered in 2002, was hacked by The News of the World after she disappeared but before her body was found, hampering the police investigation and adding to her parents’ distress. Ms. Brooks was editor of The News of the World at the time; she has condemned the hacking and said she knew nothing about it. She declined a request to be interviewed for this article. In extraordinary scenes in the House of Commons on Wednesday, legislator after legislator — most of them from the opposition Labour Party — rose and demanded that Ms. Brooks, one of the most powerful figures in the British news media and a woman many have feared until now, should go. Ms. Brooks should “take responsibility and stand down,” said Ed Miliband, the Labour leader. But Mr. Murdoch issued a ringing endorsement of Ms. Brooks, saying that his company was committed to holding a full investigation of the recent allegations, under Ms. Brooks’s leadership. Part of his approach is strategic, said the media analyst Clare Enders, founder of Enders Analysis. Ms. Enders suggested that Ms. Brooks functioned as something of a firewall for Mr. Murdoch — a buffer against the allegations. “If she resigns, that’s an admission of culpability,” she said. And part is emotional. “Rupert Murdoch adores her — he’s just very, very attached to her,” said a person who knows them both socially. “To be frank, the most sensible thing that News Corp. could do would be to dump Rebekah Brooks, but he won’t.” Ms. Brooks’s rise has been steady, and quick. She began her career in the Murdoch media stable as a secretary at The News of the World, rising to become editor of the paper just 11 years later. In 2003, she became editor of the tabloid Sun, Britain’s best-selling daily newspaper, before being promoted to her current job two years ago. From early on, she was known for her creative flair in getting articles and her lack of compunction in how she got them. In 1994, she prepared for The News of the World’s interview with James Hewitt, a paramour of Princess Diana, by reserving a hotel suite and hiring a team to “kit it out with secret tape devices in various flowerpots and cupboards,” Piers Morgan, her former boss and now a CNN talk show host, writes in his memoir “The Insider.” On another occasion in her early days, furious that the paper was about to be scooped by The Sunday Times’s serialization of a biography of Prince Charles, Ms. Brooks disguised herself as a Times cleaning woman and hid for two hours in a bathroom, according to Mr. Morgan. When the presses started rolling, she ran over, grabbed a newly printed copy of The Sunday Times, and brought it back to The News of the World — which proceeded to use the material, verbatim, in its own paper the next day. Such tales have passed into tabloid legend, as has Ms. Brooks’s uncanny knack for cultivating the powerful. She was a confidante of Cherie Blair, the wife of Prime Minister Tony Blair, at a time when Mr. Murdoch supported the Labour government. She broke the story of Mrs. Blair’s pregnancy during her husband’s premiership. When the political winds changed and Mr. Murdoch decided to back the Conservative Party, many of Ms. Brooks’s Labour friends felt she had betrayed them and stopped socializing with her. Ms. Brooks simply switched friends. Now, she and her husband, Charlie Brooks, a former horse trainer, are part of a high-powered coterie that includes Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife, Samantha; Mr. Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth and her husband, the public relations executive Matthew Freud; and James Murdoch, Mr. Murdoch’s heir apparent, and his wife. Ms. Brooks is skilled in the art of befriending upward, acquaintances say. When she was a secretary and wanted to become a writer, she took up horseback riding because the editor liked riding, a former supervisor recalled. Another editor played golf, so she learned that, too. Next came sailing lessons. “Who sailed?” the former supervisor said. “The Murdochs, that’s who.” In an interview last year in his office, Phil Hall, a former News of the World editor, called Ms. Brooks an “arch-networker.” “She was very influential for the organization in terms of gaining the political contacts that Rupert wanted to have,” Mr. Hall said. “If Rupert wanted a weekend at Chequers with the prime minister, then Rebekah would organize that.” As a tabloid editor, Ms. Brooks embarked on a series of campaigns, agitating successfully for the introduction of a law allowing parents of young children to be notified when convicted sex offenders move to their neighborhoods. As part of her anti-pedophile campaign, she printed photographs of convicted sex offenders in an effort to “name and shame” them. The campaign backfired when it turned out that some of the photographs showed the wrong people and when vigilantes began harassing and threatening men who they thought were pedophiles. As tough-talking as the men she led, Ms. Brooks refused to put up with chauvinism or insubordination. Soon after she became the deputy editor of The Sun — a laddish newspaper that features a seminaked young woman on Page 3 every day — a group of her underlings, she felt, were treating her disrespectfully. “She called the ringleader into her office and said, ‘Be under no illusion — if you ever do that again, you’ll be out of here,’ ” one former editor recalled. “She didn’t muck around. She was one of those people who you knew was going somewhere.” At the same time, as a rebuke to feminists who demanded an end to the Page 3 feature, she took care that her first P. 3 girl, as they are known, was named Rebekah and was identified as “Rebekah from Wapping” — Wapping being where The Sun was based. At times, Ms. Brooks’s crusades were personal. Two former senior employees, who requested anonymity because they still work in journalism, said they were asked to dig up information about her husband at the time, the actor Ross Kemp, whom she suspected of having an affair. (Their dissolving marriage would later make headlines when she was arrested for allegedly assaulting Mr. Kemp. She was released without charge, and the police took no further action.) The use of private investigators at The News of the World was also widespread during Ms. Brooks’s tenure. Even before the hacking scandal, The News of the World was among a number of tabloids implicated when the police raided the office of Steve Whittamore, a private investigator. Billing records kept by Mr. Whittamore, who specialized in “blagging,” or conning, information out of government agencies, phone companies and the like, show that he provided confidential data to 19 News of the World journalists; in at least two instances, he provided Ms. Brooks with unlisted numbers and in one case was able to obtain an address based on a person’s cellphone number. A spokeswoman for News International said in an interview that there was in fact just one request by Ms. Brooks from Mr. Whittamore, and that “there was nothing to suggest that any information was retrieved using illegal methods.” Tom Watson, a Labour member of Parliament, recalled what happened to him in 2006, shortly after he resigned his position in Tony Blair’s government and called for Mr. Blair’s resignation. The political editor of The Sun, George Pascoe-Watson, approached him at the Labour Party conference in Manchester. The Sun was then an ardent Labour supporter. “ ‘My editor, Rebekah Wade, will pursue you for the rest of your life. You will never escape us, my friend,’ ” Mr. Watson said Mr. Pascoe-Watson told him. “Those were his exact words.” In an interview last year, Mr. Pascoe-Watson said he had “no recollection of that conversation taking place.” News International has said that “it’s not familiar language to us.” Later, after Mr. Watson threatened to sue The Sun for libel over a series of articles, “my neighbor caught people rummaging through my bins and rustling through papers in my garage,” he said. “He got one of them in a headlock and demanded to know what he was doing, and the person told him he was working for The Sun.” It is a sign of the confidence that Mr. Murdoch places in Ms. Brooks that he has kept her on despite one of the biggest mysteries surrounding her: how could any respectable tabloid editor in such a cutthroat business not know how her own reporters were getting information for articles in her own paper? “It doesn’t work like that,” said Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye magazine, which has long written about tabloid escapades. “You say, ‘Where did you get the story?’ and your journalists don’t say, ‘I don’t remember.’ They say, ‘I bought it off Mulcaire,’ ” he added, referring to Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who worked for The News of the World when much of the hacking is believed to have gone on. “Either she’s a complete incompetent, or she knew.” In a strange incident last year that showed both Ms. Brooks’s closeness to the Murdochs and her love of a bold gesture, she and James Murdoch showed up unannounced at the offices of one their rivals, The Independent newspaper, before the national election. They were upset, it seems, at a headline in The Independent saying that “Rupert Murdoch Won’t Decide the Election — You Will.” According to an account in The Daily Mirror, a non-Murdoch tabloid, “the wild-eyed duo then started to harangue bemused editor Simon Kelner in a foul-mouthed tirade.” The words they used are not printable in nontabloid newspapers.
|
Brooks Rebekah;News International Ltd;Newspapers;Wiretapping and Other Eavesdropping Devices and Methods;Murdoch Rupert;Dowler Milly
|
ny0149365
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2008/09/21
|
Bombing at Hotel in Pakistan Kills at Least 40
|
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A huge truck bomb exploded at the entrance to the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Saturday evening, killing at least 40 people and wounding at least 250, the police said. The blast, one of the worst acts of terrorism in Pakistan’s history, went off just a few hundred yards from the prime minister’s house, where all the leaders of government were dining after the president’s address to Parliament. The toll was expected to grow because of reports that people had been trapped inside the six-story hotel, which has been a favorite meeting spot of both foreigners and well-connected Pakistanis in the heart of the capital. The building was quickly engulfed in flames and continued to burn for hours Saturday night. The bomb left a vast crater, 40 feet wide and 25 feet deep, at the security barrier to the hotel. Witnesses said security guards were buried under a mound of rubble. Cars across the street from the hotel were mangled, and trees on the street were charred and stripped of their branches. The blast shattered windows in buildings hundreds of yards away. Witnesses said they dragged dozens of bodies from the lobby of the hotel and an adjacent parking lot, including those of a number of foreigners. Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the State Department, issued a statement saying at least one American citizen was killed and several others were injured. The bombing was the deadliest to take place in the well-guarded capital and may have been timed for the day that President Asif Ali Zardari made his first address to Parliament since his election two weeks ago. Mr. Zardari, whose wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated in December by a suicide bomber, vowed in his speech to root out extremism and to stop terrorists from using Pakistani soil to attack other countries. Both he and the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, condemned the attack and repeated their determination to deal with terrorism with an iron hand, the state news agency, The Associated Press of Pakistan, reported. On national television late Sunday, Mr. Zardari said most of the victims had been security guards at the entrance to the hotel. “These are not the acts of a Muslim,” he said. “We will get rid of this terrorism cancer.” There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But Pakistani analysts said the bombing may have been in retaliation for recent army operations that have reportedly killed scores of militants in the tribal area of Bajaur, near the border with Afghanistan, and the adjacent area of Swat. An American intelligence official said the attack “bears all the hallmarks of a terrorist operation carried out by Al Qaeda or its associates.” The tribal areas have become a safe haven for insurgents linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, whose attacks on targets in Pakistan have become increasingly frequent and lethal. Coming after a bombing this year at another gathering spot for foreigners, the Serena Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, the Marriott attack seemed intended to send a message to Washington and other allies of Pakistan. Despite the tough talk by the president and prime minister, it was unclear what kind of response the government would mount. Pakistan has been in a state of political turmoil for months, and from the American perspective at least, the new civilian government has so far shown little interest in pursuing a campaign against the militants. President Bush denounced the attack on Saturday. “I strongly condemn the terrorist bombing in Islamabad that targeted and killed many innocents,” he said. The Islamabad Marriott has been attacked by militants at least twice in the past, including in a suicide attack in January 2007 that killed a policeman. A senior police official, Ashfaq Ahmed Khan, said initial reports suggested that an explosives-laden dump truck had been detonated near the entrance. “The Marriott is an icon,” said Abdullah Riar, a former aide to Mrs. Bhutto. “It’s like the twin towers of Pakistan. It’s a symbolic place in the capital of the country, and now it has melted down.” One wounded American who works at the embassy here said he was unlocking his car when the bomb exploded. The American, who gave only his first name, Chris, had injuries to his face, neck and shoulder, and was holding a bloody T-shirt to his face. American Embassy personnel members at the scene said they had come to help American citizens caught in the blast. Amjad Ali Khan, a guard on duty at a side entrance to the hotel, said that he had seen four to five bodies in the hotel parking lot and that he helped carry out 40 bodies from inside the hotel. He said they had been “in the lobby and in the restaurant and everywhere.” “There were very few people injured,” he said. “They were all dead.” When asked who he thought was responsible for the blast, he responded, “They are terrorists.” The Interior Ministry had warned several days ago that it had information that four or five suicide bombers had been dispatched on missions around the country. The government enforced tight security during the president’s 3 p.m. address, posting Army Rangers and police officers in rings around the Parliament and government buildings. The Marriott is nearby, but security may have been reduced after the speech and ahead of the evening meal, when Muslims break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan . The bomb exploded at 8 p.m., when many Pakistanis were inside the banquet hall at the back of the hotel. Asmatullah Marvat, a paramedic for the Capital Development Authority, said rescue workers had taken 70 to 80 people to different hospitals in the city. Hotel workers said that they had heard a loud explosion and that the east wing of the hotel was on fire. “I was inside the Marquee Hall,” said a man who identified himself as Kaleem. “It was iftar time. All of a sudden there was a massive explosion. The roofs collapsed, and we ran out the back.” Zahid Ahmed, a businessman who rushed to the blast site from a nearby neighborhood, was standing near the wreckage of mangled cars across the road. “I saw dozens of casualties,” he said. “People were trying to help but it was such a depressing sight that I cannot describe it”, he added, with moist eyes and shaking his head.The Islamabad police asked the army to assist in the rescue work. The F.B.I. offered to send special agents to help investigate, said a senior American official, who declined to be identified because of the nature of the matter. The F.B.I. is awaiting approval from the Pakistani government, the official said.
|
Pakistan;Terrorism;Bombs and Explosives
|
ny0058241
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2014/09/22
|
Seahawks Scrape Out a Win Over the Broncos in a Super Bowl Rematch
|
Peyton Manning did all he could in the final minute of regulation to get the visiting Denver Broncos to overtime on Sunday, but Russell Wilson made certain that Manning never saw the ball in the extra session and ensured that the Super Bowl rematch went in favor of the defending champion Seahawks, 26-20. Marshawn Lynch scored on a 6-yard touchdown run on the first possession of overtime in a showdown that lived up to expectations. “That really was a championship game today,” Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll said. Seattle (2-1) blew a 17-3 fourth-quarter lead, watching Denver (2-1) tie the score, 20-20, on Manning’s 26-yard touchdown pass to Jacob Tamme with 18 seconds left in regulation and his 2-point conversion pass to Demaryius Thomas. Wilson had just 19 yards rushing in regulation but did whatever was needed in overtime. He finished 24 of 34 for 258 yards and two touchdown passes. “I can’t wait for those moments, those big-time moments, and have guys to continue to believe in what we do,” Wilson said. “That was a great experience tonight.” COWBOYS 34, RAMS 31 Terrance Williams scored the go-ahead touchdown late in the fourth quarter, and Bruce Carter returned an interception 25 yards for a touchdown on the next snap, capping Dallas’s comeback from a 21-0 deficit to stun host St. Louis. DeMarco Murray’s 1-yard run late in the first half began the rally for Dallas (2-1), which matched its largest comeback. For the Rams (1-2), the 21-point advantage was tied for the second-largest blown lead in team history. EAGLES 37, REDSKINS 34 The rookie receiver Jordan Matthews, DeSean Jackson’s replacement, caught two touchdown passes, and host Philadelphia beat Jackson and his Washington teammates in a nasty game marred by a fourth-quarter brawl. Jackson had his own big play for Washington (1-2), an 81-yard touchdown that tied the score at 27-27. But it was not enough to offset Matthews and Jeremy Maclin, whose 27-yard scoring reception gave Philadelphia (3-0) the lead. The Eagles’ Chris Polk had a 102-yard kickoff return. STEELERS 37, PANTHERS 19 Le’Veon Bell and LeGarrette Blount each rushed for more than 100 yards, helping Pittsburgh end Carolina’s eight-game home winning streak. Bell had 147 yards on 21 carries, and Blount added 118 yards and a touchdown on only 10 carries. Ben Roethlisberger threw two touchdown passes to Antonio Brown for the Steelers (2-1). The Panthers (2-1) had only 42 yards rushing, but Cam Newton passed for 250 yards and a score. LIONS 19, PACKERS 7 Don Carey returned a fumble 40 yards for a touchdown, and Detroit’s defensive front smothered Green Bay, leading the Lions (2-1) over Aaron Rodgers and the visiting Packers (1-2). SAINTS 20, VIKINGS 9 Drew Brees passed for 293 yards and 2 touchdowns, and New Orleans (1-2) won for the first time this season, over visiting Minnesota. For the Vikings (1-2), the loss capped a week of distractions related to child abuse allegations against running back Adrian Peterson. RAVENS 23, BROWNS 21 Justin Tucker kicked a 32-yard field as time expired, giving Baltimore a win at Cleveland. Joe Flacco set up Tucker’s kick with a 32-yard pass to Steve Smith with 1 minute 28 seconds left. The Ravens (2-1) then ran the clock down before bringing in Tucker, who sent the Browns (1-2) to another tough loss. Both of Cleveland’s losses have come on final-play field goals. CHARGERS 22, BILLS 10 Philip Rivers threw two touchdown passes to Eddie Royal, leading San Diego to a win at Buffalo (2-1). Malcom Floyd had two catches for 98 yards, and the Chargers (2-1) overcame the loss of running back Danny Woodhead, who hurt his right ankle in the first quarter. CARDINALS 23, 49ERS 14 Drew Stanton threw two third-quarter touchdown passes to the rookie John Brown, and Arizona rallied to beat visiting San Francisco, ending a four-game losing streak against the 49ers. Tommy Kelly blocked a field goal for the Cardinals (3-0). The 49ers (1-2) blew a halftime lead for the second week in a row. COLTS 44, JAGUARS 17 Andrew Luck threw four touchdown passes, three of them in a lopsided first half, and Indianapolis dominated host Jacksonville for its first win. The Jaguars (0-3) trailed by 30-0 at the break and benched their starting quarterback, Chad Henne. For Indianapolis (1-2), Luck completed 31 of 39 passes for 370 yards. PATRIOTS 16, RAIDERS 9 Tom Brady threw a touchdown pass, Stephen Gostkowski kicked three field goals, and sluggish New England held on to beat visiting Oakland when defensive tackle Vince Wilfork intercepted a pass near the Patriots’ goal line. The Patriots (2-1) won their 12th home opener in 13 seasons, while the Raiders (0-3) lost their 15th straight game in the Eastern time zone. CHIEFS 34, DOLPHINS 15 Alex Smith shook off five sacks to throw three touchdown passes and help Kansas City earn its first victory, beating host Miami (1-2). Smith led touchdown drives of 62, 76 and 66 yards in a span of four possessions for Kansas City (1-2). BENGALS 33, TITANS 7 Andy Dalton caught a touchdown pass, the first Bengals quarterback to pull off such a feat, as Cincinnati (3-0) beat visiting Tennessee (1-2). FORMER TITANS KICKER DIES Rob Bironas, who worked his way through odd jobs and the Arena Football League before becoming one of the N.F.L.’s most accurate kickers, died Saturday in a car crash in Nashville. He was 36. Bironas, who played for the Tennessee Titans for nine seasons before being released in March, lost control on a curve and crashed less than a mile from his home, the Nashville police said.
|
Football;Peyton Manning;Marshawn Lynch;Russell Wilson;Broncos;Seahawks
|
ny0177514
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2007/09/19
|
In Olympics Success, Romney Found New Edge
|
SALT LAKE CITY — Mitt Romney walked onto the Olympic stage in 1999 a rich businessman still smarting from losing his first bid for public office. He walked off, three years later, a star-polished candidate who would be elected governor of Massachusetts in a matter of months. This was the place of his emergence and his transition. In rescuing the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, which had been tarnished by scandal, Mr. Romney learned the ways of Washington and the hurly-burly of politics, mastered the news media, built a staff of loyalists and made fund-raising connections in Utah that have proven vital to his presidential campaign. “The Olympics gave him a public persona he didn’t have before,” said Robert H. Garff, a businessman who served as the chairman of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. “He grew into the person he is today.” But the hardheaded and hard-nosed pragmatism that allowed Mr. Romney to juggle an unruly coalition of politicians, sponsors and volunteers as chief executive of the Games now haunts him on the campaign trail among some conservative Republicans. They complain that he has no core beliefs and shifts positions on a range of issues to placate various constituencies. As a Republican presidential hopeful, for example, Mr. Romney portrays himself as a budget hawk who would take a hard line on federal spending and Congressional earmarks, the pet projects that lawmakers insert in spending bills. Back then, though, he lobbied heavily for earmarks, helping extract millions of federal dollars for projects in some cases only loosely tied to the Olympics and drawing the ire of Senator John McCain of Arizona, a longtime critic of earmarks and now a rival for the Republican presidential nomination. While even Mr. Romney’s critics concede that the Games — which had faced serious potential financial difficulties before his arrival — were a huge success, some say he made those early problems seem worse than they were to embellish his accomplishments. Others grouse about his showman’s instinct for the spotlight: the countless photo-ops, the television spots. Even the little Olympic pins sold to collectors carried his image, cloaked in the American flag. Ever calibrating his pitch, Mr. Romney scored big sponsors (including the Games “first official cake mix” and “Olympic meat”) and sidelined critics (sometimes by just inviting them in to air their grievances). He paid attention to virtually every detail, including the scripts for board presentations and the traffic — once jumping from his car to unsnarl jammed vehicles en route to a ski event. It was clear then to many in Utah that Mr. Romney was probably aiming for bigger things. “It was obvious that he had an agenda larger than just the Olympics,” Mr. Garff said. In a recent interview, Mr. Romney said the Games had prepared him for the complexity of public life. “I never saw a more difficult turnaround situation than the one at the Olympics,” he said. “And the team, not just me, but a remarkable team of public leaders and Olympic leaders pulled off something which was a massive undertaking and which had a crisis written all over it.” Asked how he put together the effort, Mr. Romney checked off his list: hire the right people, motivate them, make decisions on the basis of analysis and debate, set bench marks to measure success. “He always has an objective in mind and a goal that he works toward,” said Randy L. Dryer, a lawyer and a former member of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee who worked closely with Mr. Romney and described himself as a Democrat, but also an admirer of Mr. Romney’s. “But he’s not unwilling to modify that objective if it’s an uphill battle and not worth the fight to get there — he is not bullheaded.” Challenge After Defeat After his failed bid for the Senate seat held by Edward M. Kennedy in 1994, Mr. Romney grew restless. The loss “felt worse than we had imagined,” he wrote in his book, “Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership and the Olympic Games” (Regnery, 2004). He had also recently bought a ski house in Park City, Utah, and the idea of simply making more and more money, he said in his book, was losing its appeal. So he quickly jumped at the chance to lead the Organizing Committee, which was trying to recover from the taint of scandal, and just as quickly formulated a strategy. Beginning in late 1998, articles had begun to pile up about hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts bestowed on members of the International Olympic Committee by some of those involved in Utah’s bid for the Games. As resignations, investigations and tales of greed filled the headlines, some politicians and business leaders even suggested that Utah should abandon the effort to be host of the Games. “I knew that the first thing I needed to do was to draw a clear, bright, heavy line between what had happened before and what was going to happen in the future,” Mr. Romney wrote in his book. “No one likes joining a loser, but they like rooting for, and helping, a comeback kid.” That narrative gave Mr. Romney tremendous clout, many people who were involved in the Olympics said. It allowed him to ask for all manner of help and to manage expectations subtly, initially lowering what Utahans should hope for from the Games — he joked at one point that a gas barbecue grill might have to suffice for the Olympic torch — so that when the rock-bottom expectations were surpassed, the success seemed even more stunning. He also quickly became the ever-present face of the Olympics — admitting the setbacks, promoting the achievements, and always cheerleading Utahans on with a message of can’t-be-licked optimism. Instead of the sometimes defensive and awkward style with the news media that he displayed in the race against Mr. Kennedy, he proved more adept at shaping how he, and the Games, were perceived. “It was the Mitt show,” said Kenneth H. Bullock, a former member of the Organizing Committee’s board. Mr. Romney, the persuasive businessman, also defanged some critics. Stephen Pace knows about that. He was a business consultant who believed the Games would spell ruin for Utah and had made great sport of eviscerating Mr. Romney’s predecessors. After the scandal broke in 1998, Mr. Pace and his friends paraded in front of news cameras with T-shirts that read, “Slalom and Gomorrah.” Organizing Committee leaders barred Mr. Pace from meetings, which of course only gave him even more ammunition. Mr. Romney, however, was a different kind of foe. Instead of shunning Mr. Pace, he invited him to come to a committee meeting, and about the same time announced that all meetings would be open to the public. And when Mr. Pace arrived, with the cameras rolling, Mr. Romney proposed a trade — he wanted a “Slalom and Gomorrah” shirt and would give Mr. Pace a regular Olympics booster shirt. Mr. Pace took the deal, or some might say, the bait. “Romney was levels of sophistication above the people who were here before,” Mr. Pace said in an interview in his home near the State Capitol. He said he could not help liking Mr. Romney. Mr. Dryer, the lawyer and board member, recalled that day. “He invited the enemy,” Mr. Dryer said. “He sort of made fun of it, but in a lighthearted way, and diffused the situation — it cut the legs out from under Stephen Pace and his criticism.” Bringing In Money Mr. Romney, who had made his nearly $350 million fortune at Bain Capital, a Boston private equity firm, also soon showed he could pull in money for the Games. Mark Lewis, who led a fund-raising venture between the United States Olympic Committee and the Salt Lake Committee, remembered a trip to New York to woo corporate sponsors. “We had 10 meetings, breakfast to dinner, but then suddenly we had an extra hour because of a cancellation,” Mr. Lewis said. “We were on some block in Midtown, and I remember Mitt saying, ‘What can we do for an hour?’ ” Kicking back with a beer, or even a latte, was not an option — Mr. Romney, a Mormon, does not drink alcohol or coffee. So Mr. Lewis said he scratched his head and thought of a friend whose advertising agency represented Gateway Computers. Landing a last-minute appointment, they raced over. Four weeks later, Gateway was in the Olympics for the first time as a $20 million sponsor. But the federal government’s contributions, thanks to Mr. Romney, were also immense. By the time the Games were over, about $342 million in federal money to plan and stage the Winter Games had flowed into Utah, a record outlay for the Olympics and nearly $50 million more in constant dollars than was spent for the Atlanta Olympics, according to a report in 2001 by the Government Accountability Office. And much of that money was from earmarks, which Mr. Romney now often calls politically motivated and wasteful. “These earmarks are embarrassing, and they’re embarrassing for my party as well as the other party,” he said in Marshalltown, Iowa, during a recent campaign swing. But in the three years leading up to the Games, taxpayers ended up paying for a lot of things that had little to do with downhill racing or the perfect triple Lutz, including $33,000 for an Olympic horse adoption program and $55,000 for the Department of Justice to assess and resolve racial tension in Salt Lake City. More than half of the federal money was spent on security, but the federal government also footed the bill for shuttle buses, drug testing, park-and-ride lots and upgrades to the lighting at Salt Lake City International Airport. Mr. Romney did reject some spending requests, annoying local politicians. But he also got behind some huge projects that he admitted at the time and in his book were not “must haves” for the Olympics, especially a light-rail system in Salt Lake City that some politicians were keen on having. At the time, just about every Utah political figure wanted to take some credit for the flood of cash. In a news release in October 2000, Senator Robert F. Bennett, a Republican, crowed over his successful “Olympic-related” requests, adding up to $24 million, for communications, public safety and weather equipment. The growing list of Olympic expenditures exasperated Mr. McCain. In a speech on the Senate floor in October 1999, he said, “I do not know if we will ever stop this practice of earmarking and pork barreling, but I will never stop resisting it.” Mr. Romney has responded to criticism about the federal share of the Games by saying that taxpayer support for the 2002 Olympics was less than in previous Games — only 18 percent of the budget, compared with 50 percent for the Games at Lake Placid in 1980. And part of the reason the federal share was not higher, people involved with the Games said, was that Mr. Romney was so successful in working the private sector. Setting the Stage Previous Olympic Games had a set number of sponsorship categories, for example, and when Mr. Romney and his team began work, they were told the list was full. So they invented new categories, said Fraser Bullock, who had worked with Mr. Romney at Bain and followed him to Utah to be chief operating officer for the Games. Mr. Bullock is not related to Kenneth Bullock. That is how the Olympics got its first cake-mix sponsor (General Mills), first official Olympic meat (certified Angus beef) and first official job-search Web site (Monster.com). “There was $500 million in sponsorship when we arrived, and by the time we were done there was $860 million, so over $300 million came from these additional categories,” Mr. Bullock said. Mr. Romney also signed up Utah sponsors, collecting about $100 million from local companies that had never given to the Olympics, Mr. Bullock said. Marriott International, the hotel chain with deep Utah and Mormon roots, signed on as a sponsor, as did Nu Skin, a skin-care company. Those ties later proved valuable to Mr. Romney; executives at both companies have contributed to his 2008 campaign. So have businessmen who benefited from Olympic projects, like Earl Holding, a former member of the Olympic Committee board and owner of a ski resort where some events were held. Altogether, Mr. Romney has raised more than $3.8 million in campaign contributions in Utah through the end of June, a total second only to California. He also found some trusted allies here. Spencer Zwick, the son of a prominent Mormon leader, came to work for Mr. Romney at the Olympics and is now the presidential campaign’s national finance director. Don Stirling, who raised money in Utah for the Olympics, is now a consultant to the Romney campaign. Jon Huntsman Sr., a billionaire industrialist who helped finance the Olympics (and who is the father of Utah’s governor, Jon Huntsman Jr.), is a co-chairman of the Romney campaign’s national finance committee. Whatever Mr. Romney did or did not do here, he was not alone in saving the Olympics, as his press materials on the campaign trail sometimes suggest. The International Olympic Committee had a stake in restoring its reputation after the scandals and made concessions in sharing revenue. Thousands of volunteers from Utah also played an important role. “It was a moment when the world wanted everything to be sane,” said Kenneth Bullock, the former Salt Lake board member who is also the executive director of the Utah League of Cities and Towns. Mr. Bullock, who often clashed with Mr. Romney, said Mr. Romney deserves some of the credit, just not as much as he claims. Even some Romney admirers are not sure if his record and skills are enough to lead a nation. Mr. Dryer noted that Mr. Romney had excelled at pulling together people in Utah on a shared mission, different from leading a far more diverse, fractured country. “Most everyone in Utah wanted the Olympics to succeed; there were different views, but a common objective,” Mr. Dryer said. “There’s not as clear a consensus as far as the country is concerned, and whether his skills are translatable, I don’t know.”
|
Presidential Election of 2008;Romney Mitt;Elections;Politics and Government
|
ny0108061
|
[
"world",
"africa"
] |
2012/05/04
|
Tunisia: Nabil Karoui Fined Over Controversial Film
|
A court on Thursday fined Nabil Karoui, the director of a private television station, for disrupting public order and violating moral values by broadcasting an animated film that some religious leaders say insults Islam. Mr. Karoui was ordered to pay a $1,575 fine because his station, Nessma TV, broadcast the animated film “Persepolis” in October. The case has pitted liberals and defenders of media freedom against hard-line Islamic groups who say that the film, which includes a depiction of God, is sacrilegious. Mr. Karoui’s lawyer said he would appeal the verdict.
|
Tunisia;Television;Muslims and Islam;Fines (Penalties);Karoui Nabil;Indecency Obscenity and Profanity;Censorship
|
ny0014077
|
[
"us"
] |
2013/11/15
|
Hawaii: Judge Rejects Challenge to New Same-Sex Marriage Law
|
A judge on Thursday ruled the state’s new gay marriage law is legal, despite a challenge saying voters thought they barred same-sex marriage 15 years ago in the state’s Constitution. The Circuit Court judge, Karl Sakamoto, said the 1998 amendment did not force the Legislature to define marriage as between a man and a woman. The same-sex marriage law was signed Wednesday by Gov. Neil Abercrombie. State Representative Bob McDermott brought a challenge centered on language in the amendment that he said trumped lawmakers’ wanting to redefine marriage. The amendment reads: “The legislature shall have the power to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples.” His lawyer argued that voters were told that phrasing meant they were voting against gay marriage.
|
Hawaii;Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage;Decisions and Verdicts;Bob McDermott;State legislature;Neil Abercrombie;Karl Sakamoto
|
ny0029766
|
[
"sports"
] |
2013/06/18
|
Hard Times for Sport of Kings in Ancestral Home
|
The Royal Meeting at Ascot Racecourse recently turned the corner on its 300th birthday, and the luster of winning on those exalted grounds remains as vivid as ever. The five-day meet, which begins Tuesday on the fabled course near Windsor Castle, remains the showcase of British racing in the sport’s ancestral home. To mention money in this rarefied setting might seem tasteless. Royal Ascot does not offer the best prize money compared with other top races in Britain, never mind the rest of the world. Its tradition, everyone will tell you, does not have a price tag. This is the philosophy of British racing. But beyond Ascot, the industry’s numbers do not add up. Many in the industry acknowledge great concern over racing’s financial future, none more so than horse owners. In 2012, owners’ gross expenditure was £389 million, or $609 million, while income through prize money and sponsorship amounted to £85 million. “We’re seeing a situation now where prize money for many of our races is less than it was 10 years ago,” said Mark Johnston, one of Britain’s most successful trainers. “And for quite a few, it’s less than it was 20 years ago.” He laughed gloomily, adding: “I don’t mean corrected for inflation; I mean it’s actually less than it was 10 years ago.” Yet despite its poor return, Britain still hosts some of the best racing in the world. In 2011, 6 of the 10 fastest horses in the world called the country home, and 8 of the 10 fastest ratings came on British racecourses. Last year, the undefeated British superhorse Frankel drew crowds worthy of the Beatles. His breathtaking 11-length victory in the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot was ranked as the greatest performance in history by the Timeform ratings organization. “Our racing is holding its head up very well indeed,” Johnston said. “But on a financial front — that’s where the problems are here.” British racing operates on a funding model with longstanding flaws — among them the so-called levy mechanism, an arcane system whereby the industry receives an annual portion, around 10 percent, of bookmakers’ profits from racing bets. Each September, the British Horseracing Authority, the sport’s governing body, meets with bookmakers before a government arbiter and negotiates the total contribution for the following year. The B.H.A. allots about half of its take to prize money and much of the rest to integrity measures and personnel costs. This system was introduced in 1961 to protect the racing industry with the legalization of off-track betting shops. The bookmakers’ contribution was based on a percentage of betting turnover until 2002, when this was changed to a percentage of profits. In a sense, the industry now profits from the losses of its main customer base — the bettor. “It’s an anachronism in 2013,” said Paul Bittar, the authority’s chief executive. “It hasn’t been fit for purpose in a long time.” The authority’s total levy receipt has nearly halved in five years, from around £120 million to approximately £70 million, the result of declines in betting, lower margins and increased competition from other sports. British bookmakers who host bets at offshore locations effectively do not contribute to the levy. Bittar said the B.H.A. was pursuing legislative change to close this offshore loophole. Most of the world’s large racing jurisdictions use parimutuel betting, in which the racecourses, not bookmakers, keep profits. France, its birthplace, offers average purses twice those in Britain. Elsewhere, Hong Kong and Japan, rising racing powers, offer fewer races but average purses 10 times larger than in Britain. Successful owners in those countries can expect to profit, whereas British owners almost see horses like sunk costs, Johnston said. British racing relies heavily on foreign investment, especially from the Godolphin and Darley banners of Dubai’s ruling Maktoum family, for which Johnston trains 100 or so horses. Qipco, a Qatari investment company, now sponsors the British Champions Series and British Champions Day. Sponsorships rose last year from £25 million to £31 million, and along with the fees from media rights, have partly countered a falling levy. Unlike the levy, which is statutory, racecourses can choose how much sponsor money to commit to prize money. “Sponsors are attracted by that history, that prestige, that tradition,” said Paul Greeves, the executive director of Weatherbys, which keeps the General Stud Book for Britain and Ireland. He said that is why British racing survives. From 2008 to 2012, the number of foals bred in Britain fell by 26 percent, and 39 percent in Ireland, according to Greeves. From 2007 to 2011, the number of active owners in Britain declined by 1,126, or almost 12 percent. Johnston said that top trainers, including himself, are enduring. But middle-level trainers with once-successful businesses are struggling badly, he said. He cited the example of a lower-rated filly he trains who won four races over the winter and yet still lost £4,500 for her owners, after the costs of training, care, transport and entry fees. Johnston worries that people will turn to gambling, which encourages foul-play or outright cheating. Mahmood Al Zarooni, Godolphin’s trainer who in April admitted to administering anabolic steroids to 15 horses in his care, is the most high-profile example. Race-fixing scandals and suspicions have mounted since the turn-of-the-century advent of betting exchanges, like Betfair, that allow individuals to lay odds on horses to lose. Betfair had only voluntarily contributed to the levy until recently striking a five-year contractual obligation. The bookmakers have not looked kindly on the exchanges. “From a financial and an integrity point of view, it’s been a curse for British racing,” said Simon Clare, the communications director for the bookmaker Coral. Restructuring the levy agreement remains the central issue. The plan, Bittar said, is to replace it with commercial agreements between the betting and racing industries. Two years ago, the B.H.A. began negotiations in earnest with major bookmakers. In the meantime, British racing hopes to build on recent increases in attendance and popularity of its equine stars, and to attract new investors from emerging markets. “We’ve got heritage and history to sell, and Royal Ascot is what it’s all about,” said Johnston, who has won there 35 times. “It really is something very special.”
|
Horse;Horse racing;Great Britain
|
ny0230776
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2010/09/21
|
Anonymous Donors Play Big Role in Midterms
|
Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies would certainly seem to the casual observer to be a political organization: Karl Rove , a political adviser to President George W. Bush , helped raise money for it; the group is run by a cadre of experienced political hands; it has spent millions of dollars on television commercials attacking Democrats in key Senate races across the country. Yet the Republican operatives who created the group earlier this year set it up as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation, so its primary purpose, by law, is not supposed to be political. The rule of thumb, in fact, is that more than 50 percent of a 501(c)(4)’s activities cannot be political. But that has not stopped Crossroads and a raft of other nonprofit advocacy groups like it — mostly on the Republican side, so far — from becoming some of the biggest players in this year’s midterm elections, in part because of the anonymity they afford donors, prompting outcries from campaign finance watchdogs. The chances, however, that the flotilla of groups will draw much legal scrutiny for their campaign activities seem slim, because the organizations, which have been growing in popularity as conduits for large, unrestricted donations among both Republicans and Democrats since the 2006 election, fall into something of a regulatory netherworld. Neither the Internal Revenue Service , which has jurisdiction over nonprofits, nor the Federal Election Commission , which regulates the financing of federal races, appears likely to examine them closely, according to campaign finance watchdogs, lawyers who specialize in the field and current and former federal officials. A revamped regulatory landscape this year has elevated the attractiveness to political operatives of groups like Crossroads and others, organized under the auspices of Section 501(c) of the tax code. Unlike so-called 527 political organizations, which can also accept donations of unlimited size, 501(c) groups have the advantage of usually not having to disclose their donors’ identity. This is arguably more important than ever after the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case earlier this year that eased restrictions on corporate spending on campaigns. Interviews with a half-dozen campaign finance lawyers yielded an anecdotal portrait of corporate political spending since the Citizens United decision. They agreed that most prominent, publicly traded companies are staying on the sidelines. But other companies, mostly privately held, and often small to medium size, are jumping in, mainly on the Republican side. Almost all of them are doing so through 501(c) organizations, as opposed to directly sponsoring advertisements themselves, the lawyers said. “I can tell you from personal experience, the money’s flowing,” said Michael E. Toner, a former Republican F.E.C. commissioner, now in private practice at the firm Bryan Cave. The growing popularity of the groups is making the gaps in oversight of them increasingly worrisome among those mindful of the influence of money on politics. “The Supreme Court has completely lifted restrictions on corporate spending on elections,” said Taylor Lincoln, research director of Public Citizen ’s Congress Watch, a watchdog group. “And 501(c) serves as a haven for these front groups to run electioneering ads and keep their donors completely secret.” Almost all of the biggest players among third-party groups, in terms of buying television time in House and Senate races since August, have been 501(c) organizations, and their purchases have heavily favored Republicans , according to data from Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising. They include 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organizations, like Crossroads, which has been the top spender on Senate races, and Americans for Prosperity, another pro-Republican group that has been the leader on the House side; 501(c)(5) labor unions, which have been supporting Democrats; and 501(c)(6) trade associations, like the United States Chamber of Commerce, which has been spending heavily in support of Republicans. Charities organized under Section 501(c)(3) are largely prohibited from political activity because they offer their donors tax deductibility. Campaign finance watchdogs have raised the most questions about the political activities of the “social welfare” organizations. The burden of monitoring such groups falls in large part on the I.R.S. But lawyers, campaign finance watchdogs and former I.R.S. officials say the agency has had little incentive to police the groups because the revenue-collecting potential is small, and because its main function is not to oversee the integrity of elections. The I.R.S. division with oversight of tax-exempt organizations “is understaffed, underfunded and operating under a tax system designed to collect taxes, not as a regulatory mechanism,” said Marcus S. Owens, a lawyer who once led that unit and now works for Caplin & Drysdale, a law firm popular with liberals seeking to set up nonprofit groups. In fact, the I.R.S. is unlikely to know that some of these groups exist until well after the election because they are not required to seek the agency’s approval until they file their first tax forms — more than a year after they begin activity. “These groups are popping up like mushrooms after a rain right now, and many of them will be out of business by late November,” Mr. Owens said. “Technically, they would have until January 2012 at the earliest to file anything with the I.R.S. It’s a farce.” A report by the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration this year revealed that the I.R.S. was not even reviewing the required filings of 527 groups, which have increasingly been supplanted by 501(c)(4) organizations. Social welfare nonprofits are permitted to do an unlimited amount of lobbying on issues related to their primary purpose, but there are limits on campaigning for or against specific candidates. I.R.S. officials cautioned that what may seem like political activity to the average lay person might not be considered as such under the agency’s legal criteria . “Federal tax law specifically distinguishes among activities to influence legislation through lobbying, to support or oppose a specific candidate for election and to do general advocacy to influence public opinion on issues,” said Sarah Hall Ingram, commissioner of the I.R.S. division that oversees nonprofits. As a result, rarely do advertisements by 501(c)(4) groups explicitly call for the election or defeat of candidates. Instead, they typically attack their positions on issues. Steven Law, president of Crossroads GPS, said what distinguished the group from its sister organization, American Crossroads, which is registered with the F.E.C. as a political committee, was that Crossroads GPS was focused over the longer term on advocating on “a suite of issues that are likely to see some sort of legislative response. ” American Crossroads’ efforts are geared toward results in this year’s elections, Mr. Law said. Since August, however, Crossroads GPS has spent far more on television advertising on Senate races than American Crossroads, which must disclose its donors. The elections commission could, theoretically, step in and rule that groups like Crossroads GPS should register as political committees, which would force them to disclose their donors. But that is unlikely because of the current make-up of the commission and the regulatory environment, campaign finance lawyers and watchdog groups said. Four out of six commissioners are needed to order an investigation of a group. But the three Republican commissioners are inclined to give these groups leeway. Donald F. McGahn, a Republican commissioner, said the current commission and the way the Republican members, in particular, read the case law, gave such groups “quite a bit of latitude.”
|
US Politics;Campaign finance;Nonprofit;Election
|
ny0222596
|
[
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] |
2010/11/27
|
Tennessee Knocks Off Villanova in the Tip-Off Final
|
All the talk around Tennessee so far this season has been about Coach Bruce Pearl and his upcoming suspension for violating N.C.A.A. rules and misleading investigators. After the 24th-ranked Volunteers beat No. 7 Villanova, 74-68, on Friday in the championship game of the N.I.T. Season Tip-Off at Madison Square Garden, it may be time to start talking about his team. “It would be good for people to write about these kids and how we play,” said Pearl, who will miss Tennessee’s first eight Southeastern Conference games. “We’ve handled some adversity. Now we have to handle some success.” Scotty Hopson scored 18 points for Tennessee (5-0), while the senior point guard Melvin Goins provided a late spark, scoring 7 of his 9 points in the final 2 minutes 17 seconds and coming up with two big steals. Goins and Hopson did an outstanding defensive job on Villanova’s three guards, considered one of the best backcourts in the country. Corey Fisher finished with 3 points on 1-of-10 shooting for the Wildcats (5-1), while Maalik Wayns had 11 points on 3-for-11 shooting and Corey Stokes had 11 but shot 3 for 9. In an 82-70 semifinal win over U.C.L.A., Fisher had a career-high 26 points, Wayns had 19 and Stokes had 16. They shot a combined 18 for 45 in that game. Against Tennessee, they shot 7 for 30. SYRACUSE 53, MICHIGAN 50 Kris Joseph scored 22 points, and No. 9 Syracuse held off Michigan to advance to the Legends Classic championship in Atlantic City, where the Orange will play Georgia Tech. OHIO STATE 66, MIAMI (OHIO) 45 David Lighty was not even aware it was his 100th career victory, yet he played as if he wanted it to stand out from the other 99. Lighty, a fifth-year senior, scored 19 of his 21 points in the second half to lead third-ranked Ohio State past Miami in Columbus. PURDUE 79, S. ILLINOIS 60 E’Twaun Moore scored 31 points as No. 10 Purdue reached the final of the Chicago Invitational Challenge. B.Y.U. 77, SOUTH FLORIDA 75 Noah Hartsock made the winning shot as time expired in double overtime, lifting No. 23 Brigham Young in the third round of the South Padre Invitational. TEMPLE 65, GEORGIA 58 Scootie Randall had 18 points, and No. 21 Temple, rebounding from a loss to California, won in the second round of the Old Spice Classic. Women CONNECTICUT 86, HOWARD 25 No. 1 Connecticut set the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball record for consecutive victories with its 82nd, over visiting Howard. Maya Moore scored 20 points to help the Huskies break their tie with Washington University in St. Louis, a Division III team, which won 81 straight from Feb. 20, 1998 to Jan. 12, 2001. The Huskies are six wins short of matching the N.C.A.A. record of 88, set in the 1970s by U.C.L.A.’s men’s team. This was the first of three games in three days for Connecticut, which is hosting the World Vision Classic. ST. JOHN’S 79, NICHOLLS ST. 54 Shenneika Smith scored 22 points, and No. 22 St. John’s beat visiting Nicholls State. IN OTHER GAMES Glory Johnson had a career-high 18 rebounds to lead No. 4 Tennessee to a 66-42 victory over Georgia Tech in the Paradise Jam in a game that was delayed four times because of power outages. ... Ta’Shia Phillips had a career-high 29 points and a season-high 18 rebounds, and No. 5 Xavier beat Troy, 99-37, piling up its highest point total in nine years. ... Raeshara Brown had 17 points and 11 rebounds to help Missouri beat No. 12 Georgetown, 54-45, in the Paradise Jam.
|
NCAA Basketball Tournament (Men);College Athletics;Basketball;Madison Square Garden;Hopson Scotty;Fisher Corey;Yarou Mouphtaou;Middleton Khris
|
ny0248540
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2011/05/08
|
For Fred Armisen, the Fish Comes First on Sundays
|
A man of many morphs, Fred Armisen , 44, formerly the drummer for the band Trenchmouth and the male half of the comedy duo ThunderAnt , is winding up his ninth season on “Saturday Night Live,” where his goofily earnest impression of President Obama is a staple. He was a creator, writer and star of the cult hit “Portlandia” this year on IFC, and is gearing up to write Season 2. Twice divorced, he spends much, if not all, of Sunday in the Upper West Side apartment he shares with Fischie, a red cap oranda. COFFEE IS KEY If Saturday was a show night, then I’ve been out till 4 or 5, so I probably don’t wake up until 11 or noon-ish. My one constant is that I’ve got to have a lot of coffee. I buy a pound of Starbucks Pike Place Roast every week and drink it either black or with a tiny drop of half-and-half. I’m not one for leisure, but Sunday morning is the one time I like to zone out. SO IS THE FISH But as soon as I wake up, I feed the fish. He seems to recognize my hand when I sprinkle the flaky fish food into the aquarium. He’s a very active fish, and I like to think I take good care of him. He was meant to accompany a goldfish — Emma Stone gave one to everybody in the “S.N.L.” cast — but my goldfish died. When there was a fire in my building a few weeks ago, the only thing I grabbed was the aquarium. I was running downstairs with water sloshing all over me and the neighbors looked at me like I was a crazy person. HIT THE IPAD I make myself some oatmeal — because it’s supposed to be healthy — and then I grab my iPad and check the sites I like: Gawker , which to me is becoming less gossipy and more about who was on which TV talk show; Dlisted ; The Daily ; and Gizmodo . I’m a freak about electronics and Apple products. GAME TIME I play Red Dead Redemption — it comes from the same company that made Grand Theft Auto . I have a part in it: I’m the pharmacist. But I play it because it’s a beautiful game. The words “video game” seem a teeny way to describe it: it’s pure art, this whole universe of intense little interactions and consequences. It’s relaxing because it’s stressful. You get yourself into a physical panic whenever you play. BREAK FOR VINYL Sometimes I venture out to go record-shopping downtown at Bleecker Street Records . It’s a total pleasure kind of rediscovering things I may have skipped over before. I don’t play drums at home — that doesn’t go over big in a New York City apartment — but I have my guitar sitting around in my living room like a pencil, waiting for me to pick it up. FLAT-SCREEN COUCH POTATO “Saturday Night Live” is like this 24-hour day job. You almost feel doing these sketches, bringing them to life, it’s like having a baby every week. It’s exhausting, so Sunday is very much a TV-watching day. It’s like my cast mates and I put our brains on the shelf for Sunday. I try to catch the last half-hour of “60 Minutes,” some of “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” and there’s this reality show I like on the Food Network called the “ Worst Cooks in America .” The contestants all try really hard to stay on. If it was better known, I’d do an imitation of the guy who critiques the food. He goes, “This is RAWWWW!” Not in a mean way, though. ORDER DINNER I order in from a fish place, or an Indian place, or I might get guilt-free takeout from the Energy Kitchen on 72nd Street. I like good food, but I’m not the guy who goes looking for the place with the incredible truffle oil. STAY IN, STAY UP I wish I had a rock-star answer for what I do on Sunday night, but the truth is I don’t like to go out. I’m not a drinker. I do, however, stay up until 2 or 3.
|
Armisen Fred;Upper West Side (NYC);Fish and Other Marine Life
|
ny0056650
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2014/09/10
|
$500 Million Stock Fraud Alleged in Brooklyn Court
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The undercover F.B.I. agent was explicit about his desire to break the law as he spoke to executives in Belize: I’m a U.S. citizen, he said, and a stock promoter. I want to open an offshore account that will let me conceal from the Internal Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission stock ownership and money transfers. The federal agencies have requirements to allow the government to collect taxes and for public disclosure when an individual has significant ownership in a stock, making behind-the-scenes stock manipulation difficult. But the people the agent spoke to, who worked at brokerages and offshore-business consultancies, said they knew a way around those rules, according to court papers. They told the agent they could open brokerage accounts that looked as if they were controlled by independent offshore companies allowed to transfer money and stock in and out of the United States. The agent could trade stock as he wished. Those listed as the company’s owners would, in fact, be a courier and a security guard working for a firm associated with the executives that the agent was dealing with. Such an arrangement would prevent the agent from being traced to the company. Those were some of the details described in an indictment unsealed on Tuesday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, in which six people and six firms with offices in Belize were charged with running a $500 million money-laundering scheme from January 2009 through this month. The charges include conspiracy to commit securities fraud, money laundering and tax fraud. The scheme alleged in the indictment illustrates how sophisticated stock fraud has become. The indictment says the men, working for companies all claimed to have been founded by the same man, Robert Bandfield, a United States citizen working in Belize tried to transfer funds and make the transfers hard to trace by using PayPal and prepaid MasterCards. The companies seemed to take pains to appear to be in compliance with federal requirements. To get access to the website of one of the accused brokerages, visitors had to read and agree to a lengthy form that said the brokerage was not authorized to buy or sell securities or offer investment advice to United States citizens. “They set up sham companies with figureheads at the helm in an attempt to deceive U.S. law enforcement and regulators and bragged about their scheme to their clients,” Loretta E. Lynch , the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement. Mr. Bandfield was one of the six people charged. In a separate action, the S.E.C. said on Tuesday that it had filed charges against Mr. Bandfield and Andrew Godfrey, who is also named in the criminal indictment, for evading securities laws by hiding ownership of stocks. Last November, the undercover agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation traveled to Belize, in Central America, to the headquarters of one of Mr. Bandfield’s companies, IPC, and met with Mr. Bandfield and another executive. There, the men “explained, in great detail,” how the company helped American citizens evade American laws and regulations by forming sham corporate structures, the indictment says. In assuring the agent of “Bandfield’s own experience in dealing with clients seeking to manipulate the markets and effectively transfer money and stock into and out of the United States without leaving a trail,” Mr. Bandfield told the agent that he had incorporated more than 5,000 sham companies, the complaint said. That same day, at another meeting, the agent told executives that he wanted to fraudulently manipulate the market through certain kinds of trades, the indictment said. One executive offered to arrange those trades with yet another associated company, saying the executives “do it all the time for other clients.” At a later meeting, in March, Mr. Bandfield bragged that his “slick” structure was meant to counter President Obama’s new laws, the indictment said, an apparent reference to a 2010 law requiring people living in the United States to report foreign holdings, and requiring companies abroad to tell the I.R.S. about accounts held by United States taxpayers. About 100 “corrupt clients” were United States citizens or residents, the news release said, though no clients have been publicly charged yet. Some of those citizens are New York residents. Information about lawyers for the six people charged was not immediately available Tuesday. Mr. Bandfield is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in Florida, and the government is seeking to extradite the other defendants from Belize. Emails to the companies drew no immediate response.
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Money laundering;Belize;Brooklyn;Securities fraud;SEC;Loretta E Lynch
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ny0025617
|
[
"world",
"americas"
] |
2013/08/24
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Air Travel, Like Other Facets of American Life, Is Not What It Used to Be
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NEW YORK — The man was, at first, an impregnable fortress of training. He was expert in the United Airlines way. My bag, though damaged by his below-wing colleagues, had no chance of seeing its grievances redressed. He was even straightforward about his gruffness in delivering this message. “When you do this 10,000 times a day, you just cut to the chase,” he said. The fortress held for a time. It was an utterly unremarkable moment in contemporary American air travel. And then something in the man turned. The training broke, and a human spilled out. He apologized for being gruff and asked me to distinguish the he-and-I of this transaction from the he-and-I who, had we met elsewhere, “would probably be having a couple of beers.” “The system is designed not to repair this bag,” he said, trying out his new guise of candor. “The system,” he added, “is designed for certain people to win.” It’s a truism nowadays that American air travel has lost whatever romance it once possessed. Foreigners from troubled places take solace in at least having planes and terminals better than those in the United States. Passengers from LAX to JFK and ORD to IAH have resigned themselves to hunger, deriving comfort from being near enough to their knees to eat them, should things get dire. Explanations and excuses abound. But the United man seemed to see the situation — of the airlines, and perhaps, in a larger way, of the country — more clearly than most. He saw how all those layers of corporate training and customer-service jargon separate workers like him from the human reality of what they do. Maybe they got into the business because they liked the idea of helping people get to weddings, sales meetings and funerals. But somewhere down the line, after so many utterances of “I’m not authorized” and “unavailable right now” and “not showing up in my system,” the heart goes numb. It becomes natural to stop imagining your customers as humans with problems and dreams like your own. “You know what semantics is?” the United man said, when asked about all the fine print preventing him from fixing bags. The purpose of the fine print, he said, is to limit the number of people who persevere all the way to a repaired bag. “It’s designed to fend off the herd,” he said. “We’re only going to cover so much of this stuff — because this stuff happens a lot.” The United man saw something else, too. He saw how, in a changing country, stratification is infecting domains once immune to it. Had I been traveling in first class, he said, “you probably wouldn’t even have to talk to me.” Just dial a number, and they would be right on the case. Later he said something that reminded me of the poor countries I’ve visited. He urged me to find some way, any way, of getting to United’s chairman and chief executive, Jeff Smisek: “If you can get to Smisek, you want to let him know that this is not the way to treat customers.” The American credo has always been a strange, contradictory one: adamant about the right to differential outcomes of wealth and privilege, and adamant about the right to fairness and equal treatment. In aviation, that used to mean different food in first class and economy, perhaps, but food of some sort for all. Different baggage allowances, perhaps, but some bags allowed for everyone. Different degrees of intimacy in the customer service, perhaps, but a universal right to speak to a real person when aggrieved. What is changing today is the erosion of the idea of a common minimum experience — in air travel, to be sure, but not only there. The aviation experience is being chopped these days into a series of discrete moments, and each moment becomes an opportunity to upsell: You can stick with the dismal base model, or you can upgrade. The result is that American air travel has become a class system as intricate as some in the ancient world. There is the no-legroom caste; the caste that buys $50 of extra, “economy-plus” legroom; and the plentiful-legroom caste up front. JetBlue sells special seats that come with early boarding and “early access to overhead bin space”; it also sells “Even More Speed” seats that bring an “expedited” security line. There are group numbers for boarding that depend on who you are and how much you paid for your ticket. There is the new Global Entry program, in which you pay to circumvent the normally tiresome immigration process. High in the air, there are those who swipe credit cards to eat and those who don’t even get peanuts. Considered in isolation, each of these changes probably makes sense. You can almost picture the PowerPoint slides about “dynamic customer segmentation” and such. Considered together, though, they contribute to making a country in which ordinary people lose faith in the fairness of things — in being entitled to certain basic treatment simply by virtue of being human. United Airlines would seem to be betting on such a loss of faith. They have produced a lovely new advertisement, which they run on their overhead screens, extolling their relationship with professional golfers and the P.G.A. tour. The golfers give testimonials, talking about how specially United treats them. “We make their travel on United as seamless and enjoyable as possible,” a United representative named Lynne Strunk tells the camera. Down below the screens, the customers watch. Their own experience of United is very different. But part of what makes stratified societies work is acceptance. Over time, people learn to bask in the reflected glow of the great and the good, instead of expecting to shine themselves. They learn that there are different rules for different kinds of people, and that this is O.K. They learn to be happy with peanuts — or, as the case may be, without them. Join an online conversation at http://anand.ly and follow on Twitter.com/anandwrites
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United Airlines;Airlines,airplanes;Budget Travel;Travel,Tourism
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ny0099359
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2015/06/12
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Man Found Dead in Queens Park Was Killed
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The death of a 23-year-old man found in a Queens park this week has been ruled a homicide, the police said on Thursday. Passers-by found the man, Diego Piedrahita, lying face down in Forest Park shortly before 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, the police said, in the area of Park Lane South and Woodhaven Boulevard. Responding officers found him lying unconscious and unresponsive with severe trauma to his head. Emergency medical workers pronounced him dead on the scene shortly thereafter. A trail of blood led to Mr. Piedrahita’s body, and the police also recovered a blood-covered tree branch near his body. The medical examiner ruled Mr. Piedrahita’s death a homicide, according to the police. The police said an inquiry into his death was continuing. Efforts to reach Mr. Piedrahita’s relatives on Thursday were unsuccessful.
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Forest Park Queens;Murders and Homicides;Diego Piedrahita
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ny0082989
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2015/10/28
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Dispute With David Cameron Opens New Challenge to House of Lords
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LONDON — Unelected, overcrowded and with an age profile similar to many retirement homes, Britain ’s House of Lords nevertheless has a gift for surviving, and recently shrugged off the resignation of one senior member who was caught snorting cocaine with a prostitute. But the chamber may now be facing an altogether bigger challenge to its power, after confronting Prime Minister David Cameron ’s Conservative government this week and derailing planned budget cuts that opponents say unfairly target the poor. On Tuesday, Mr. Cameron’s office announced a review of the powers of the House of Lords, to try to ensure that there is no repeat of two votes on Monday when the chamber voted to delay the social welfare reductions. Although the Conservatives hold an outright majority in the House of Commons, they do not in the House of Lords and can be outvoted if the opposition Labour Party and the center-left Liberal Democrats join forces there. That act of rebellion has left George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, with a political headache and a hole of up to 4.4 billion pounds (about $6.7 billion) in his plan to balance the country’s budget. But the dispute has also revived a national debate about the role of the House of Lords, which has survived a century of debate over its purpose, while becoming the largest legislative assembly in the world outside China, with 816 voting members. “Personally I think the House of Lords is a basket-case institution,” said Patrick Dunleavy, professor of politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, who joked that “a great hall of the people” might soon be needed to accommodate the members, who cannot all be seated in the gilded, ornate chamber. “But it does have occasional relevance,” he added, “and Monday night was one of those rare moments.” That is not the view of Mr. Cameron’s ministers, who believe that the Lords, known as peers, overstepped a constitutional boundary, by breaking an unwritten rule under which the second chamber does not reject any financial measures already approved by elected lawmakers. By contrast, Professor Dunleavy said he agreed with senior peers who cited technical reasons to justify Monday’s vote, namely that the welfare cuts were proposed not by an act of legislation, but by a regulation. This type of standoff has occurred periodically since the House of Lords accepted junior status in Parliament to elected lawmakers in the House of Commons more than a century ago. Over the decades several governments have promised to turn the House of Lords into an elected chamber, though none have followed through. Video The chancellor of the Exchequer told the House of Lords in Britain on Tuesday that he would continue his reform efforts after the chamber blocked part of his budget plan. Credit Credit Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images Changes have been made, including limits on the role of hereditary peers whose right to legislate derives from their genes. At one point the numbers were declining and even its critics acknowledge that the House of Lords does much solid work, revising legislation and compiling committee reports. At the same time it is an old legislature in every sense. A report by the Electoral Reform Society earlier this year (and before the last addition of numbers in September) said that more than half of its members were 70 or older, and that just two were younger than 39. Then there was the resignation of Lord Sewel, who was the chairman of a Lords committee responsible for upholding standards among members. He relinquished his job when the newspaper The Sun on Sunday accused him of snorting cocaine off the breasts of a prostitute, and released a video that showed him consuming a white powder. Yet the House of Lords has survived because of the fear that, were it converted into an elected chamber, it could produce the sort of deadlock seen in some bicameral legislatures including that of the United States. Another attraction is the power of patronage that the government of the day enjoys to nominate supporters to the House of Lords (technically they are appointed by the monarch). Though there is no salary, members can claim up to £300 as a daily allowance for attending sessions and do not have to give up any other job. They get a desk in the historic Parliament buildings and access to its parking lot, restaurants and bars. And they get a public platform and an opportunity to shape laws, without the bother of having to fight an election. Yet the system is now under acute pressure because the makeup of the House of Lords is badly out of kilter with that of the elected House of Commons. Although the Conservatives won May’s general elections, they do not have a majority in the House of Lords. Labour, which was in power from 1997 to 2010, and able to nominate many lords in that era, has 214 members of the House of Lords. The Conservative government has 249. The centrist Liberal Democrats have 112 members. By contrast, there are only eight Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons. Mr. Cameron could nominate dozens more members to give himself a clear majority — but a further expansion of a bloated legislature is unlikely to prove popular with the public. And experts doubt that a review of the power of the Lords would provide any easy answers to a problem that generations of British politicians have examined, and then decided to duck. “My prediction,” Professor Dunleavy said, “is that the review of the powers of the House of Lords will be launched, and will gradually peter out with some obscure rule changes no one cares about.”
|
Great Britain;David Cameron;Legislature;House of Lords Great Britain;Budget
|
ny0256070
|
[
"sports",
"tennis"
] |
2011/08/20
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Finally, Fish Topples Nadal
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MASON, Ohio — Mardy Fish extended his arms and then wrapped them around his body, as if trying to embrace the whole stadium. The fans at Center Court had thrown their full-throated support behind him, and Fish channeled their energy Friday into a 6-3, 6-4 victory against Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals of the Western & Southern Open. It was Fish’s first win over Nadal in seven matches. “He’s a big, huge hurdle,” Fish said. “He’s going to go down as one of the best players ever.” Fish, who lost to another former No. 1, Roger Federer, in the final here last year, will face Andy Murray, whom he has defeated in their last three meetings, Saturday in the semifinals. “I lost because Mardy played much better than me,” Nadal said, adding: “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes you are playing well; sometimes you are playing worse. I am playing a little bit worse than well, so I accept the loss and work hard.” Fish, 29, is having the finest season of his 12-year professional career. The highest-ranked American player in the men’s world rankings at No. 7, he has reached the final in his last three events, winning in Atlanta and losing to Ernests Gulbis in Los Angeles and to the top-ranked Novak Djokovic in Montreal. “If you look at his game, it hasn’t changed a whole lot,” Murray said of Fish. “It’s just confidence of winning matches and understanding how to play his game most effectively. He’s in good shape. That definitely helps. He’s been very, very consistent, which maybe he wasn’t in the past. That’s why his ranking has gone from being in the 20s to 7.” Fish, one of the few remaining serve-and-volley specialists, agrees that his confidence has never been higher. It has risen since his quarterfinal loss to Nadal at Wimbledon. In that match, Fish was broken at 15 in his first service game and said: “I wasn’t unbelievably surprised. I was like, ‘Oh, not a good start,’ that kind of thing.” On Friday, he fell behind by 15-40 in his first service game and his mind-set was decidedly different. “I felt like I wanted a better start,” said Fish, who clawed back to hold by winning five of the next six points. “It’s just that small belief that I really felt like I could win. Not that I wanted to win. I really felt like I could and maybe should win in that scenario.” Fish is the only man in the field not to have lost his serve, holding in 29 games. “I’m taking advantage of the opportunities,” he said. “Making a lot of first serves in key moments, not giving away many free points.” He acknowledged that he had an advantage over Nadal, who was extended to 3 hours 38 minutes in his Round of 16 match against Fernando Verdasco and then played a 70-minute doubles match. Nadal also had two blisters on his right hand, which he got from handling a hot plate at a restaurant earlier in the week. “I’m sure he didn’t feel great this morning, especially going out and playing doubles,” Fish said, adding: “It was a good opportunity for me. Glad I took advantage.” Nadal, the defending United States Open champion, had trouble gripping his racket on his forehand because of the blisters, but he refused to make excuses. “The only excuse is he played better than me,” he said. With his Round of 16 victory against Richard Gasquet, Fish clinched the 2011 Olympus U.S. Open Series men’s title, positioning him for a $1 million bonus if he is able to win the United States Open, which starts Aug. 29. “Means a ton,” he said of the award. “Feels like a tournament win, really.”
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Tennis;Fish Mardy;Nadal Rafael
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ny0276083
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2016/02/06
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Terrorism Suspects Are Posing as Refugees, Germany Says
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BERLIN — An Algerian couple, suspected of planning a terrorist attack in Berlin and arrested on suspicion of belonging to the Islamic State, entered Germany late last year and applied for asylum as Syrian refugees — part of a pattern of terrorism suspects entering Europe under the guise of fleeing war, the German authorities said Friday. The police in Berlin published a photo they said was of the husband, showing a bearded man with his face blacked out, pointing a pistol at the camera, with two Kalashnikov rifles propped up beside him on a sofa strewn with other weapons. The photo was believed to have been taken in Syria, where German media reports said the man had received terrorist training with the Islamic State. The man, not named by the police but identified by the media as Farid A., 34, and his wife, 27, had been sought on an international warrant initiated by the Algerian authorities. They were under surveillance at their refugee shelter in the town of Attendorn, about an hour’s drive northeast of Cologne, and were arrested in coordinated raids in three states on Thursday. They were suspected of plotting an attack in Berlin, the police said Friday in a statement. As many as one million asylum seekers entered Germany last year. An initial warm welcome, particularly for Syrians, soured after the terrorist attacks in and around Paris in November, which killed 130 people, and the police found documents suggesting that some assailants had entered Europe posing as refugees. Hundreds of assaults and robberies during New Year’s Eve celebrations in Cologne, attributed to young men of Arab or North African backgrounds, further heightened fears over the consequences of the migrant influx. On Friday, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maassen, said the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, was using the wave of newcomers to infiltrate Europe. The authorities in Europe have “seen repeatedly that terrorists are being smuggled in, camouflaged as refugees,” Mr. Maassen said on ZDF public television. “That is a fact that security authorities must always seek to recognize and identify.” The Berlin police said on Friday that they had first received a tip in December from Mr. Maassen’s agency, the Office for Protection of the Constitution, that a terrorist plot might be brewing. On Jan. 10, the agency gave an unspecified tip that involved suspected supporters of ISIS possibly involved in planning an attack in Berlin, a police statement said. The tip “was taken very seriously” and intensive surveillance began, the police said. “That procedure established that the affected persons were behaving very noticeably and in a conspirative way.” Considering the danger of a possible attack, the police weighed the chances that the suspects would detect the surveillance against the prospect of obtaining more information and decided to go “into the open,” the statement said. About 300 of the 450 police officers involved in Thursday’s raids were deployed in Berlin, where four homes and two businesses were searched. The other raids were in Attendorn and in Hanover. In Berlin, the police arrested an Algerian, 49, who they said had lived in the German capital since 2000 under various identities. He left in 2013 and returned a year later with fake French identity papers, the statement said. He had been sought on charges of falsifying documents, and remained in custody on Friday, as did the Algerian couple. The police said they had so far not found any evidence of a concrete target in Berlin for a terrorist attack. No arms or explosives were found in Thursday’s raids, but the police said they had seized a large number of computers, documents and cellphones. Another 30-year-old man was investigated in Berlin and a 25-year-old man at a refugee shelter in Hanover, the police said, but they were not detained. Both were also Algerian citizens. The 30-year-old came to Germany in 2004 and currently had a valid residence permit, the police statement said. It said without further detail that the 25-year-old had had “proven contact” with Belgium, where several of the Paris terrorist assailants also had ties. German media, citing unidentified security sources, said the younger man had recently visited Molenbeek, the suburb of Brussels where several Paris assailants lived or visited. The police statement said that all five people connected with Thursday’s raids had been offered to be formally questioned, “and this offer was partly accepted,” suggesting that one or more of those held might give more information about the alleged plan for an attack. Asked how much Germany should fear a terrorist attack, Mr. Maassen suggested that was the wrong question. “The expression ‘fear’ is the wrong one here,” he said. “We are in a situation which is serious, and we have a high risk that there can be a terrorist attack.” But, he added, security services and the police are on high alert. “Our goal is to minimize the risk,” he said.
|
Middle East and Africa Migrant Crisis,European Migrant Crisis;ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State;Germany;Hanover;Refugees,Internally Displaced People
|
ny0015814
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2013/10/17
|
Plane Crash in Laos Kills 49
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BANGKOK — A Lao Airlines flight crashed into the Mekong River in southern Laos on Wednesday, killing all 49 people onboard, according to a statement from the Laotian government. The statement did not specify the nationalities of the passengers, but a spokesman for Thailand’s foreign ministry, Sek Wannamethee, said the airline had told him that the passengers were from Laos, Vietnam, Australia, Canada, China, France, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States. Flight QV301 was flying from the Laotian capital, Vientiane, to the southern Laotian city of Pakse and was carrying 44 passengers and five crew members, the Laotian government’s statement said. The statement said the plane ran into “extreme bad weather conditions” as it attempted to land in Pakse, a popular destination with tourists who visit the coffee plantations of the Bolaven Plateau and the former royal principality of Champasak. Image Credit The New York Times A representative for the airline who answered the phone in Vientiane said the aircraft was an ATR, a French-made turboprop commonly used in the region to serve small airports. “There was turbulent weather during the flight,” said the woman, who refused to give her name. She said the airline would provide more information Thursday afternoon. Laos, impoverished and landlocked, is governed by a secretive and insular Communist party. Calls to government offices and police stations were not answered late Wednesday. The statement about the crash was posted on the Facebook page of Lao Airlines. Vachirapong Boonkrajang, the head of a voluntary Thai rescue organization in Ubon Ratchathani, a province in Thailand along the Laotian border, told a Thai television channel that he would send a team of divers to recover bodies on Thursday. “I don’t think Laos has the facilities to conduct this type of operation,” he said. But an online report in The Bangkok Post late Wednesday cited a foreign resident of Pakse who said the bodies of crash victims were being laid out in a Chinese temple. The unnamed resident described the the scene as “an absolute horror.”
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Laos;Lao Airlines;Plane Crashes and Missing Planes;Fatalities,casualties;Mekong
|
ny0060734
|
[
"us"
] |
2014/08/12
|
Protests Near St. Louis, Seen on Social Media
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On Monday night, protests continued in Ferguson, Mo., a St. Louis suburb, in response to the weekend shooting of Michael Brown, 18, who was killed by a police officer. The chaotic night was captured on social media as police officers used tear gas and rubber bullets to try to disperse the crowds. Antonio French, an alderman in St. Louis, posted photos and videos throughout the night. Tear gas Right now in #Ferguson https://t.co/ZeNa4xxYY7 — Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) August 12, 2014 Right now in #Ferguson https://t.co/oPCju8Kxei — Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) August 12, 2014 Small group of peaceful demonstrators at the #Ferguson Police Dept headquarters. "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" pic.twitter.com/s1b5gBzmly — Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) August 12, 2014 Mr. French also posted video of the protests and of heavily armed police officers. The police told The Associated Press that the officers used tear gas after members of the crowd threw rocks at officers and gunfire came from the crowd. After the sun went down, the standoff continued. Our colleague Julie Bosman was in Ferguson reporting on the protests.
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Social Media;Civil Unrest;Ferguson;Michael Brown
|
ny0273108
|
[
"sports",
"horse-racing"
] |
2016/05/08
|
Nyquist, Staying Undefeated, Wins the Kentucky Derby
|
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — They were not worried, and they said so all week. Everyone had stopped by the barn of the trainer Doug O’Neill and told him that his colt Nyquist did not have the stamina to last a mile and a quarter — that he had cranked up his baby too much in capturing a $1 million bonus last month in the Florida Derby. There could not be anything left in the tank after that, right? There was no way that a favorite was going to win the Kentucky Derby for the fourth consecutive year, was there? O’Neill — along with his brother and consigliere, Dennis, and Nyquist’s rider, Mario Gutierrez, and especially the colt’s owner, J. Paul Reddam — just smiled and went about his business. The barn was humming along — think the Google campus, but substitute matted bed head for skinny jeans and piles of dung for beanbag chairs. What, me worry? That was the response from an outfit that had been here and done it before, four years ago with a long shot named I’ll Have Another. That late-running colt sneaked into Churchill Downs and hid in the shadow of the track’s iconic twin spires without anyone much noticing. For the 142nd running of the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, there was no hiding. Nyquist was the 2-year-old champion, after all, and the colt was undefeated in seven starts and had beaten at one time or another nearly a quarter of the field assembled here. The Dash for Derby Glory 11 Photos View Slide Show › Image Julio Cortez/Associated Press Nyquist had a better résumé than last year’s Triple Crown champion, American Pharoah, and had enough black type, as stakes wins and places are called, to rival that of the 1977 Triple Crown champion, Seattle Slew. He was the Big Horse by anyone’s definition. Nyquist showed why as soon as he slipped out of the gate, a thief in the night, prowling with purpose around the first turn as if he were tethered to the front-runner, Danzing Candy, and were atop the two fattest skis while riding in the wake of a big old boat. There are not many Kentucky Derbys that can be proclaimed over moments after they have started, but losing betting tickets were being crumpled in knotted fists as soon as Nyquist floated out of the first turn and then skipped down the backstretch as if he had just gotten out of school. It did not matter that he was chasing a swift front-runner throwing down fast fractions. Gutierrez had Nyquist breezing along unbothered. Horse and rider totally ignored Florent Geroux, who had a colt named Gun Runner ahead and inside them and looked every bit like a horse sniffing the wire first. Instead, Gutierrez let Nyquist have his head as they came around the far turn and asked for another gear into the stretch. A familiar rival by the name of Exaggerator launched a late run from far back, but his rider, Kent Desormeaux, knew that it was a futile chase. “My horse slammed on the brakes and ducked back to the inside and then took off,” Desormeaux said after Exaggerator finished second, a length and a quarter behind Nyquist. Gutierrez did not see Exaggerator or anyone else that he was worried about when he peeked beneath his arm. The rider knows his colt. “He will not allow any other horse past him,” he said. “He’s the kind of horse that always has something left for whatever comes to him late.” Bettors were hardly surprised by the outcome: Nyquist was a solid favorite paying $6.60 for a $2 bet. It was a lucrative day for Reddam as well. His colt’s win was worth $1.24 million and lifted Nyquist’s career earnings to more than $3 million. Now that the Kentucky Derby was over, a bigger race was on. Can it be? Is it possible that a year after American Pharoah took down thoroughbred racing’s holy grail and became just the 12th Triple Crown winner in history — the first in 37 years — that racing could have another? Again, Reddam and O’Neill took the hypothetical head-on and acted as if it were not only a possibility but their plan. “He’s such a special horse,” O’Neill said. “We see it in his eyes on a daily basis. He’s the type of athlete that puts his time in the gym every day and goes to bed early. When we go to the track each day, he just swishes his tail and asks, ‘What do you want from me now?’ ” O’Neill also knows that he will need a whole lot of luck and a little bit of magic to navigate those historic shoals. The affable O’Neill took a beating throughout I’ll Have Another’s run toward a Triple Crown when it came to light that over 14 years and in four states he had received more than a dozen violations for giving his horses improper drugs and that his horses had a tendency to break down or show signs of injury at a rate more than twice the national average. When asked if history could repeat itself, O’Neill asked his mother, who was here with him, to light a candle at church on his and his horse’s behalf. “We need some higher power to keep this guy injury free,” he said. While Reddam enjoyed his second Derby victory, he could not resist barking back at doubters. “I feel really good for the horse,” Reddam said, “because along the way the last year, he has taken a lot of shots for whatever reason. And I think he proved all his critics wrong today.” Reddam could not help offering a pun and keeping hope for another piece of history. In 2012, I’ll Have Another won two-thirds of the Triple Crown before withdrawing from the Belmont Stakes on the eve of the race with a tendon injury. “We’ll have another,” he said when accepting the Derby trophy. We will see if another Triple Crown is in the cards.
|
Horse racing;Horse Jockeys and Trainers;Kentucky Derby
|
ny0139408
|
[
"business",
"worldbusiness"
] |
2008/02/29
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Law Firms Follow Banks to the Persian Gulf
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At Latham & Watkins, the international law firm, William H. Voge is the resident whiz on Dubai. And Abu Dhabi. And Qatar. Mr. Voge, who heads the finance practice, can recite when each of the firm’s investment banking clients opened offices in the Middle East. And he knows how many law firms have established outposts there too: 20 since 2005. “This is the Silicon Valley, if you will, of the world,” Mr. Voge said. “It’s just beginning to take off, where clients have an increasing need for sophisticated legal advice on the ground.” Latham & Watkins plans to open three offices in the Middle East by the end of the first quarter. A competitor, Dewey & LeBoeuf, said in January that it had opened an office in Dubai. And Clifford Chance, a London law firm that has been in Dubai since 1975, plans to open an office in Abu Dhabi in late April. The rush to the cash-rich Persian Gulf is easy to explain: Law firms are following the money. “Where there are investment banks, you will find lawyers,” said Graham Lovett, Clifford Chance’s managing partner for the gulf. “I am pretty certain that some firms arrived here and don’t know why they were not here already.” Consider Latham & Watkins. The Qatar Investment Authority, one of its clients, has been asking the firm to open a local branch for five years. Latham is coming off a banner year. It took in more than $2 billion in gross revenue in 2007, a first for a United States law firm, driven by its international focus. About 20 percent of Latham’s business comes from its finance practice, and Latham interviewed 14 financial institution clients, among them Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, before making the plunge in the Middle East. “They all view the gulf region as becoming an increasing player in the global economy,” Mr. Voge said. Some of Wall Street’s top law firms, however, have not yet joined the race to the gulf. Davis Polk & Wardwell, for example, has no plans to open a Middle East office. “Of our peer group of American firms, there has not been a rush, and I’m not sure there is going to be one,” said Thomas J. Reid, a partner with Davis Polk’s London office. India is Davis Polk’s top international priority right now. Shearman & Sterling, by contrast, has maintained an office in Abu Dhabi since 1975, mainly driven by its project finance practice. But capital markets are becoming increasingly important. Shearman represented the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority when the sovereign wealth fund bought into Citigroup last November. Latham, meantime, plans to have three partners in Dubai, and a total of 20 lawyers in the region, by the year’s end. Dubai, with its night life and amenities, is a big draw for the firm’s young lawyers. Mr. Voge describes Dubai as a combination of New York, Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla.
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Persian Gulf;Latham & Watkins;Legal Profession;International Relations;Investment Banking
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ny0222158
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[
"us"
] |
2010/11/05
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California: Competency Hearing Set In Kidnap Trial
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A judge in the trial of Philip and Nancy Garrido, accused of kidnapping Jaycee Dugard in 1991 and holding her for 18 years, has set a tentative date in March for a mental competency hearing for Mr. Garrido. Judge Douglas Phimister said that would allow time for court-appointed psychiatrists to evaluate Mr. Garrido. The Garridos were arrested in 2009 at their home outside Antioch, Calif., where Mr. Garrido is accused of holding Ms. Dugard and two children he fathered by her. She was 11 at the time of her kidnapping. Several news organizations have sought to have transcripts of Ms. Dugard’s grand jury testimony released. Stephen A. Tapson, a lawyer for Ms. Garrido, objects to releasing them, saying they described “a tale of woe and misfortune” that would prejudice a jury. “This stuff is evil,” Mr. Tapson said.
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Kidnapping;Dugard Jaycee Lee;Garrido Nancy;California
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ny0249749
|
[
"world",
"africa"
] |
2011/02/05
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Health Fund Adds Fraud Checks
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The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced steps on Friday to strengthen antifraud safeguards, including doubling the budget for internal investigations. The group acted after a Jan. 23 article by The Associated Press described corruption in grants to Mali, Mauritania, Zambia and Djibouti. The fund said it was seeking to recover $34 million from those and other countries, an amount it said was less than 1 percent of the $13 billion in aid it has disbursed in 145 countries.
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Global Fund to Fight AIDS Tuberculosis and Malaria;Africa;Frauds and Swindling
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ny0175972
|
[
"business",
"worldbusiness"
] |
2007/07/05
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China Finds Poor Quality on Its Store Shelves
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SHANGHAI, July 4 — China said on Wednesday that nearly a fifth of the food and consumer products that it checked in a nationwide survey this year were found to be substandard or tainted, underscoring the risk faced by its own consumers even as the country’s exports come under greater scrutiny overseas. Regulators said the broad survey of foods, agricultural tools, clothing, women and children’s products and other types of goods turned up sizable quality and safety failure rates for products that are sold domestically. The government said, for instance, that canned and preserved fruit and dried fish contained excessive bacteria; that 20 percent of the fruit and vegetable juice surveyed was deemed substandard, and that some children’s products were defective or laced with harmful chemicals. The announcement came in the midst of a growing scandal over the quality and safety of Chinese-made exports and follows a series of international recalls involving everything from contaminated pet food ingredients and counterfeit toothpaste to toxic toys, defective tires and contaminated seafood. The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said the survey, conducted in the first half of this year, showed quality and safety improvements compared with conditions in the period a year earlier. But the announcement also suggested that Chinese consumers are at serious risk of being harmed by purchasing tainted foods, substandard goods and suspect or defective equipment. Regulators said, in effect, that goods sold in China were far more hazardous than the exports that were driving the country’s economic growth and now partly the subject of safety and quality debates. Li Yuanping, a regulatory official, told the state-run Xinhua News Agency last month that “99 percent of the food exported to the United States was up to safety standards over the past two years, which is a very high percentage.” But regulators in the United States, Europe and other countries are growing increasingly concerned about quality and safety failures involving Chinese made goods. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration said it would block certain types of Chinese-made seafood, including shrimp, eel and catfish, from entering the United States unless it was certified to be safe. American regulators say they were forced to act after witnessing a sharp rise this year in the number of seafood products contaminated with carcinogens or excessive antibiotic residues. Facing a storm of criticism, China has repeatedly defended the quality and safety of its food and the goods it exports. But regulators have also moved to crack down on fake and poor-quality foods and consumer products. Nearly every week for the last several months, the government and China’s state-controlled media have provided more evidence of how widespread are the quality and safety problems in this country, despite signs of progress in many areas of commerce. During the last month, regulators and quality inspectors say they have discovered candied fruit with 63 times the permitted amount of sweetener; excessive additives and preservatives in nearly 40 percent of the children’s snacks surveyed in western Guangxi province; fake human blood protein at hospitals; and food tainted with formaldehyde, illegal dyes and industrial wax. Last week, the government even said it had shut about 180 food factories nationwide because of food safety violations. From December to May, regulators said they uncovered 23,000 cases involving fake or low-quality food. Experts say aggressive and opportunistic entrepreneurs continue to take advantage of the country’s chronically weak enforcement of regulations, choosing to blend fake ingredients into products; to sign contracts agreeing to sell one product only to later switch the raw materials for something cheaper; and to doctor, adulterate or even color foods to make them look fresher or more appetizing, when in fact they might be old and stale. In its report released on Wednesday, the government said 80.9 percent of the food and other products checked in a nationwide survey met safety standards, and that this rate was higher than a year earlier, when about 78 percent of the good surveyed were deemed safe. The government said that more than 3,000 types of food had been checked nationwide and that thousands of companies were examined. But regulators offered few details about why certain goods failed the quality and safety standards or how dangerous the products might be. The government did, however, say baby formula and baby clothing did not meet the safety standards, that animal feed, fertilizer and agricultural equipment were defective and that many food items were mislabeled or heavily colored by additives.
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China;Food Contamination and Poisoning;Economic Conditions and Trends;Hazardous and Toxic Substances;Defective Products
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ny0121624
|
[
"world",
"africa"
] |
2012/09/04
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Striking South African Miners Hurt in Clash With Police
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The police used rubber bullets to disperse a crowd of striking gold miners on Monday at the Gold Fields mine, right, just east of Johannesburg, injuring four of them. Four people were arrested. The miners have been on strike since June. The clash came days after Julius S. Malema, a former leader of the Youth League of the African National Congress who has called for South Africa ’s mines to be nationalized, visited the miners. It also followed an episode on Aug. 16, when the police opened fire on workers engaged in a strike at a platinum mine in Marikana, northwest of Johannesburg, killing 34 of them, a response that reminded many of apartheid-era police violence against demonstrators.
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Demonstrations Protests and Riots;Strikes;South Africa;Malema Julius S;Mines and Mining;Gold;Johannesburg (South Africa);Organized Labor
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ny0255373
|
[
"business"
] |
2011/09/21
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ConAgra, After Missing Estimates, Looks to Expand
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ConAgra Foods , the maker of Banquet frozen meals and Orville Redenbacher popcorn, reported a quarterly profit Tuesday that missed analysts’ estimates. And the chief executive, Gary M. Rodkin, said the company was looking at “a number” of acquisition targets after having withdrawn its offer for Ralcorp Holdings. Takeovers are “very high on our radar screen,” Mr. Rodkin said on a conference call, a day after ConAgra dropped its $5.18 billion bid for Ralcorp, ending a pursuit that began in March. He declined to identify potential takeover targets. Net income in the quarter ended Aug. 28, ConAgra’s first, fell 41 percent, to $85.3 million, or 21 cents a share, from $146.4 million, or 33 cents a share, a year earlier, according to a statement. Excluding costs related to a reorganization, profit was 29 cents a share, trailing the 31-cent average of 10 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. ConAgra fell 40 cents, or 1.7 percent, to close at $22.99 in regular trading Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.
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Company Reports;ConAgra Foods Inc
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ny0072952
|
[
"us"
] |
2015/03/14
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Catholics, Plastic Surgery, and ‘the Truth of the Feminine Self’
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May a good Roman Catholic get a nose job? What about a tummy tuck? Or a breast enhancement? Does the tradition of Pope Francis, which has been getting such enthusiastic attention lately, have wisdom to offer about cosmetic surgery? The church’s official catechism cautions believers not to “idolize physical perfection,” but never specifically mentions such operations. At least two popes have, however, raised the issue of cosmetic surgery. In 1958, Pope Pius XII said the morality of such surgery “depends on the specific circumstances of each case,” and in 1989 Pope John Paul II praised the “noble mission” of dental and maxillofacial surgeons, some of whose work involves cosmetic procedures. “ Women’s Cultures: Equality and Difference ,” a working paper issued before the recent Vatican plenary assembly on women, was written by an unidentified group of women for the Pontifical Council for Culture. It offers a glimpse of the latest Catholic thinking about cosmetic surgery, and it seems to raise yet another issue of gender and sexuality for the young papacy of Pope Francis — already in the news for statements about homosexuality , abortion, divorce and birth control. The document places cosmetic surgery in the context of modern media, advertising and body-image issues, bringing a Catholic perspective to a bioethical issue that other religious groups, including Jews and Muslims, are also finding inescapable. At one point, the document compares plastic surgery to the burqa, the full-body covering for women. The authors write that such surgery, in covering a woman’s natural appearance, is a betrayal of the “truth of the feminine self,” contributing to the culture’s “exploitation of the female body for commercial benefit.” Cosmetic surgery is mentioned twice in the document’s 12 pages, the first time halfway through. “Plastic surgery that is not medico-therapeutic,” the authors write, “can be aggressive toward the feminine identity, showing a refusal of the body.” In other words, surgery for purely cosmetic reasons involves a rejection, rather than an embrace, of women’s natural, God-given bodies. (The same would presumably be true of men electing to have such surgery, although this paper is directed at women.) Then, coming on the heels of a paragraph about domestic violence, the document invokes even bolder language, comparing procedures like face lifts to the burqa. “Plastic surgery is like a burqa made of flesh,” it reads. “One woman gave us this harsh and incisive description. Having been given freedom of choice for all, are we not under a new cultural yoke of a singular feminine model?” Cristina L.H. Traina , who teaches Catholic social ethics at Northwestern, said she was happy to see that the document critiqued plastic surgery without blaming women. Society, not women themselves, are creating the “unrealistic physical standards” that leads to such operations, she said. “If we talk about ‘the burqa of the flesh,’ it’s an outward appearance being forced upon women, demanded of them,” Professor Traina said. She also noted the significance of placing a passage about cosmetic surgery near the section on violence against women. “You can see it as part of an argument about devaluation of women in their bodies,” she said. “It is the prelude to what becomes a very meaty argument right after that about violence against women and women’s victimization, and women being reduced to producers of things, rather than nurturers of people.” But feminist Catholic thinkers, while appreciating that conclusion, worry that the document relies on stereotypes about inborn differences between the sexes. At one point, for example, the document suggests that there is “a difference between the feminine and the masculine in techniques of problem-solving.” Both Professor Traina and another Catholic ethicist, Lisa Sowle Cahill of Boston College, said that some of the document’s language about women, characteristic of an earlier papacy, undercuts its more progressive message. On one hand, the document wants to liberate women from unrealistic standards of beauty, which seems progressive. But on the other hand, it contains patriarchal language that devalues them, relative to men. “The document reflects a very romanticized, idealized view of women’s special nature, as formulated in John Paul II’s ‘complementarity’ model of gender,” Professor Cahill wrote in an email. “How the ludicrous statement that the pinnacle of women’s physical embodiment is ‘the womb’ — not the brain, as with other human beings — could possibly have passed the scrutiny of any Pontifical Council members with the slightest degree of self-awareness, never mind interest in the welfare of women, is beyond me.” (The passage Professor Cahill was referring to is as follows: “The physicality of women — which makes the world alive, long-living, able to extend itself — finds in the womb its greatest expression.”) “The document is trying to move toward contemporary concerns and address unjust inequality, while still hanging on to this model,” Professor Cahill said. By bracketing, and implicitly condoning, plastic surgery that is “medico-therapeutic,” the document aligns Catholics with the advice of other religions. In Judaism, there is a general bias against surgery that is not medically necessary. Muslims, too, approve of surgery to correct deformations or to repair damage. What’s more, all three traditions extend that reasoning to allow cosmetic surgery that is necessary for one’s emotional health. “The mainstream opinion is to allow cosmetic surgery that a person feels very strongly is going to help them in some significant way in life,” said David Shabtai , a rabbi and doctor who has taught bioethics at Yeshiva University. “If a girl doesn’t think she is going to be able to find a husband because she is so ugly, the rabbis will end up saying, ‘If it really, really, really bothers her so much, it’ll be okay.’ ” Suhaib Webb, an imam at MakeSpace , a Muslim community that meets around Washington, said that traditional Islam discourages, even bans, cosmetic surgery. But he is not unusual, he said, in allowing room for personal discretion. “My question is, ‘How deeply rooted is this in your personal well-being?’ ” Imam Webb said. “My feeling is, if you talk to your physician and your physician says, ‘This is rooted in your well-being and personal health,’ that is up to you. But I wouldn’t say, ‘Hey, go get a new nose.’ ” And he, like the authors of the Catholic document, said that cosmetic surgery must be viewed in the context of today’s artificial standards of beauty — which he said Islam must push against. “The other side of this is,” he said, “is the construction of beauty in America, which I think is unhealthy, because it pushes women to do stuff rooted in marketing.” The question for Catholics is whether “Women’s Cultures: Equality and Difference,” rejecting unrealistic norms of beauty for women, nevertheless, demeans them in other ways. The nonbinding document was comfortable with the antiquated language that “the feminine identity is the point of convergence of daily fragility, of vulnerability, mutability and multiplicity between emotive interior life and exterior physicality.” So the document offers a confusing map of which way forward for women. As Professor Cahill pointed out, the writers who chose that language, with its talk of “fragility” and “vulnerability,” were women (“a group of Italian women,” according to The National Catholic Reporter ). “Which just goes to show,” she said, “that some women do embrace this whole ‘women as wombs’ worldview.”
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Catholic Church;Plastic surgery;Women and Girls;Religion and Belief
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ny0008319
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2013/05/24
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13 Pakistani Police Officers Killed in Explosion
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — At least 13 police officers were killed on Thursday morning when a powerful remote-controlled bomb ripped through a police truck in southwestern Pakistan, officials said. At least 17 others were injured. The attack, which took place shortly after 8 a.m. on the outer edges of Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan Province, killed members of the rapid-response force of the Baluchistan Constabulary, a reserve police unit. Their truck was headed to a government building when a roadside bomb, believed to contain at least 200 pounds of explosives, went off, according to police officials. The police and law enforcement authorities cordoned off the site after the attack as the injured were ferried to Civil Hospital for treatment. Local television news networks broadcast images of a mangled and charred truck, with the wreckage of a rickshaw strewn nearby. Image Credit The New York Times There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Baluchistan, a restive, violence-racked province bordering Afghanistan and Iran, has witnessed sectarian and nationalist separatist violence, posing a daunting challenge to the government and law enforcement officials. A separatist insurgency led by Baluch nationalists has simmered for decades in the province. The nationalists demand greater autonomy and a larger share of revenue from the province’s mineral-rich resources. Inf Quetta, Shiites belonging to the Hazara ethnic group have been ruthlessly attacked by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni militant group with strong links to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Earlier this month, Mushtaq Sukhera, the inspector general of the Baluchistan police, escaped an assassination attempt when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden minivan just outside the residence of the police chief. Mr. Sukhera was not hurt but five people were killed and 50 others, including 27 police officers, were injured. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the attack.
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Police;Bombs;Pakistan
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ny0096197
|
[
"business"
] |
2015/01/23
|
Airlines Upbeat for 2015 as Oil Prices Fall and Demand Rises
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DALLAS — Airline stocks soared on Thursday as leaders of United and Southwest gave an upbeat forecast for 2015 that combined strong travel demand and cheaper fuel. The price of jet fuel has dropped by about half since September, lifting airline profits and tamping down fear that global economic weakness could hurt the carriers. Analysts expect all four of the biggest airlines in the United States to post bigger profits this year than in 2014. United Continental Holdings predicted that first-quarter profit margins would be higher than many analysts had expected. Southwest Airlines said it expected its fuel bill for 2015 to be $1.7 billion lower than in 2014. “Our earnings outlook is superb if for no other reason than fuel costs are down dramatically,” Gary C. Kelly, the company’s chief, said. But both companies reported lower fourth-quarter profit than a year earlier because of losses on contracts to protect against sharply higher fuel prices. Those contracts, called hedges, lose value when oil prices fall. Southwest’s net income dropped 10 percent, to $190 million, as it booked $282 million in hedging write-downs. United’s net income plunged 80 percent, to $28 million, because of $433 million in special items, including $225 million in hedging write-downs and $141 million for severance to flight attendants who took early retirement. Analysts expect higher airline profits this year partly because as their hedges expire, the carriers will capture a bigger share of the decline in fuel. Hedging has been practiced by most major airlines in the United States for almost a decade. Despite the hedging losses reported this week by Southwest, United and Delta Air Lines, finance experts say the practice can still be a smart move. “You are buying insurance,” said John Parsons, a member of the finance faculty at M.I.T. “If you buy health insurance and don’t get sick, that doesn’t mean you made a mistake.” With a barrel of oil selling in the $40s, some analysts say airlines should be hedging against future spikes in energy prices. “I would love to see them in the market today,” said Jim Corridore, an analyst for S&P Capital IQ. “With oil at $46 a barrel, they should be hedging as much as they can.” While United’s net income fell, profit excluding one-time items soared 86 percent in the quarter to $1.20 a share. That, however, was slightly short of analysts’ forecast of $1.22 a share, according to FactSet. Revenue in the quarter dipped 0.2 percent to $9.3 billion, matching expectations. Average fares were 1.3 percent higher per mile, and revenue from extra fees like baggage increased 9.7 percent to more than $22 per passenger. Shares of United, the nation’s second-biggest airline company, closed up $3.13, or 4.5 percent, to $72.34 after hitting a 52-week high of $73.20 earlier in the day. Southwest’s profit for the quarter excluding hedging and other one-time costs and gains was a record $404 million, or 59 cents a share. Analysts had expected 55 cents a share. Revenue in the quarter rose 4.5 percent to $4.6 billion, topping analysts’ forecast of $4.59 billion. Labor costs rose 8.3 percent and surpassed fuel as the airline’s biggest single expense in 2014. The airline’s shares rose $3.52, or 8.4 percent, to $45.35 and hit a 52-week high of $45.39 during the session.
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Airlines,airplanes;United Continental Holdings;Southwest Airlines;Earnings Reports
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ny0151281
|
[
"technology",
"personaltech"
] |
2008/08/28
|
Reasonable Volumes Built Into the Earbuds
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Parents have been telling their children to turn the volume down since “wireless” meant “AM radio,” but noise-monitoring has gotten trickier as music has moved into headphones — where sound levels can get dangerously high. With parental concerns in mind, the LoudEnough earbuds from Ultimate Ears have volume-limiting safeguards built into the hardware. Although safe volume levels are still important, the components in the LoudEnough earbuds also reduce sound-pressure levels up to 20 decibels, or one quarter of the volume of other earphones. They use a standard 3.5-millimeter stereo plug, which allow the Ultimate Ears to fit just about any portable MP3 player or other audio device. The earbuds, available in three colors, sell for about $40 and can be found at www.loudenough.com . Each pair comes with two sets of silicone tips in three sizes (extra-small, small and medium) for keeping the buds in place inside the ears — which may even make them appeal to adults who complain that the iPod earphones are too big and tend to fall out. J. D. BIERSDORFER
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Headphones;Radio;Computers and the Internet;Ears and Hearing
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ny0174473
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2007/10/10
|
Turkey Authorizes Troops to Enter Iraq to Fight Rebels
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ISTANBUL, Oct. 9 — Turkey took a step toward a military operation in Iraq on Tuesday, as its top political and military leaders issued a statement authorizing troops to cross the Iraq border to eliminate separatist Kurdish rebel camps in the northern region. Turkey moved toward military action in the face of strong opposition by the United States, which is anxious to maintain peace in the region, one of the rare areas of stability in conflict-torn Iraq. But more than two dozen Turkish soldiers have been killed in recent days, and the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan seemed far more determined than before to act decisively. A government official without authorization to speak publicly on the issue who asked not to be identified by name, said preparations were under way to seek parliamentary approval for a cross-border military operation, a request that would be the first formal step toward an offensive. The Associated Press reported that the request would be submitted to Parliament as early as Wednesday. Government offices and institutions have been ordered “to take all economic and political measures, including cross-border operations when necessary, in order to end the existence of the terror organization in a neighboring country,” said the statement, which was released by Mr. Erdogan’s office, after he met with political and military leaders in Ankara. A Turkish military offensive into northern Iraq, while unlikely, would have far-reaching consequences for the United States. Turkey is a NATO member and has the region’s most powerful army. Turkey’s support of the United States in the Iraq war is crucial. The United States’ Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey supplies the military in central Iraq. Sean McCormack, a State Department spokesman, said the United States had encouraged Turkish officials to work together with the Iraqi government. “In our view, it is not going to lead to a long-term, durable solution to have significant incursions from Turkey into Iraq,” he said at a news briefing in Washington. But Iraq’s government has little authority in the region, which is controlled exclusively by Kurds, and an accord reached by Iraq’s interior minister and senior Turkish officials last month did not include permission for military operations, a formulation that frustrated Turkey. Relations between the United States and Turkey are delicate on another front. A bill on the Armenian genocide — the killing of more than a million Armenians by Turkey at the end of World War I — is due before the House Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday. Turks have been working to prevent its consideration, with Mr. Erdogan making phone calls Tuesday, according to a Turkish member of Parliament in Washington to work against the bill. Its passage “would be insulting to Turkey,” said Egeman Bagis, the Parliament member. “It would mean losing Turkey’s support in the region.” He did not say precisely what that might mean. Turkey ended military cooperation with France last year after France voted to make denial of the Armenian genocide a crime. “It could make it very difficult for Turkey to continue supporting” the United States in Iraq, Mr. Bagis said. Turkey’s foreign minister, Ali Babacan, made a similar appeal to Israeli authorities on a visit over the weekend, asking them to press Congress to drop the matter. Turkey has close relations with Israel, and Turkish officials have bristled at a recent statement by the Anti-Defamation League declaring that the killing of Armenians was “tantamount to genocide.” Some analysts said that given the complex relationships among Turkey, Iraq and the United States, Turkey would continue to consider military action a last resort. Edip Baser, a retired general who was special coordinator in a United States-Turkey effort against the Kurdish Workers’ Party in 2006, said it was likely that political and military leaders would wait for the appropriate time to act. The government official who asked not to be identified by name said: “Our government will soon start technical consultation with the military to see what they need in order to end this violence that make our hearts bleed. First, there needs to be necessary preparations and assessments. We can say that they have already started.” Senior cabinet members, state officials and high-ranking military officials met Tuesday after President Abdullah Gul, Mr. Erdogan and Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, the leader of the Turkish Army, vowed to strengthen efforts against the Kurdish Workers’ Party, the Kurdish rebel group.
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Iraq;Turkey;Kurds;Erdogan Recep Tayyip;Armament Defense and Military Forces
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ny0123077
|
[
"business"
] |
2012/09/09
|
How to Find Weeds in a Mortgage Pool - Fair Game
|
IT sounds like the Domesday Book of the housing bust. In fact, it is a computerized compendium of millions of housing transactions — a decade’s worth from across the country — that could finally help us get to the bottom of troubled mortgage investments. The system is an outgrowth of work done by a New York investment manager, Thomas Priore. In the boom years, his investment firm, ICP Capital, navigated the dangerous waters of collateralized debt obligations via an investment vehicle called Triaxx. Buyers of Triaxx C.D.O.’s did better than most, but Triaxx still incurred losses when the bottom fell out. Now Triaxx’s database could help its managers and other investors identify bad mortgages and, perhaps, learn who snookered whom when questionable home loans were bundled into investments that later went bad. Triaxx’s technology came to light only last month, in court documents filed in connection with the bankruptcy of Residential Capital. ResCap was the mortgage lending unit of GMAC, now known as Ally Financial. As an investor in mortgage securities, Triaxx gained access to a lot of information about loans that were pooled, including when those loans were made, where the properties are and how big the mortgage was, relative to the property’s value. After Triaxx fed such details into its system, dubious loans popped out. Granted, Mr. Priore is no stranger to controversy. He and ICP spent two years defending themselves against a lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which accused them of improperly generating “tens of millions of dollars in fees and undisclosed profits at the expense of clients and investors.” On Friday, ICP and Mr. Priore settled the matter. As is typical in such cases, they neither admitted nor denied the accusations. Mr. Priore paid $1.5 million. He declined to discuss the settlement. But he did say that, looking ahead, he believed that Triaxx’s technology would help its investors recover money they deserved. Many other investors, unable or unwilling to dig through such data, have settled for pennies on the dollar. “Our hope is that the technology will level the playing field for mortgage-backed investors and provide a superior method to manage residential mortgage risk in the future,” Mr. Priore said. A step in that direction is Triaxx’s recent objection to a proposed settlement struck last May between ResCap and a group of large mortgage investors. Triaxx, which invested in mortgage loans originated by ResCap, criticized that settlement because it was based in part on estimated losses. Triaxx said the estimates had assumed that all the trusts that invested in ResCap paper were the same. Triaxx argued that a settlement based on estimated losses, rather than one based on an analysis of actual misrepresentations, unfairly rewards investors who bought ResCap’s riskier mortgages. ResCap replied that it would be a herculean task to examine the loans in the trusts to determine the validity of each investor’s claims. But Triaxx noted that it took only seven weeks or so to do a forensic analysis of the roughly 20,000 loans held by the trusts in which it is an investor. Of its investments in loans with an original balance of $12.8 billion, Triaxx has identified approximately $2.17 billion with likely breaches. A lawyer for ResCap did not return a phone call on Friday seeking comment about problem loans. John G. Moon, a lawyer at Miller & Wrubel who represents Mr. Priore’s firm, said: “Large institutions have been able to hide behind the expense of loan file review to evade responsibility for this very important national problem that we now have. Using years of data and cross-referencing it, Triaxx has figured out where the bad loans are.” Triaxx, for example, said it had found loans that probably involved inflated appraisals. Those appraisals led to mortgages far exceeding the values of the underlying properties. As a result, investors who thought they were buying mortgages that didn’t exceed 80 percent of the properties’ value were instead buying highly risky loans that totaled well over 100 percent of the value. Triaxx identifies these loans by analyzing 50 property sales in the same vicinity during the same period that the original mortgage was given. Then it compares the specific mortgage to 10 others that are most similar. The comparable transactions must involve the same type of property — a single-family home, for example — of roughly the same size. They must also be within a 5.5-mile radius. If the appraisal appears excessive, the system flags it. Phony appraisals in its ResCap loans likely resulted in $1.29 billion in breaches, Triaxx told the court. Triaxx cited 50 possible cases; one involved a mortgage written in November 2006 on a home in Miami. It was a 1,036-square-foot single-family residence, and was appraised at $495,000. That appraisal supported a $396,000 mortgage, reflecting a relatively conservative 80 percent loan-to-value ratio. But an analysis of 10 similar sales around that time suggested that the property was actually worth about $279,000. If that was indeed the case, that $396,000 mortgage represented a 142 percent loan-to-value ratio. Perhaps the home had gold-plated bathroom fixtures and diamond-encrusted appliances. Probably not. Triaxx’s system also points to loans on properties that were not owner-occupied, a breach of what investors were told would be in the pool when they bought it, Triaxx’s filing said. Such misrepresentations in loans underwritten by ResCap amounted to $352 million, Triaxx said. The technology also kicks out mortgages on which borrowers failed to make even their first payments, loans that should never have wound up in the pools to begin with. Although Triaxx is using its technology to try to recover losses, that system could also help investors looking to buy privately issued mortgage securities. After all, investors’ inability to analyze the loans in these pools during the mania led to enormous losses in the collapse. Now, deeply mistrustful of such securities, investors have pretty much abandoned the market. Lenders and packagers of mortgage securities will undoubtedly fight the use of any technology like Triaxx’s to identify questionable loans. That battle will be interesting to watch. But investors should certainly welcome anything that brings transparency to this dysfunctional market.
|
ICP Captial LLC;Priore Thomas J;Mortgages;Mortgage-Backed Securities;Residential Capital LLC;Triaxx
|
ny0152782
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2008/08/13
|
Mets’ Santana Finally Finds Relief
|
WASHINGTON — Johan Santana did not mean his expression to be a play on words, but it worked well that way. “It was a big relief,” Santana said Tuesday night after he and two relief pitchers helped beat the Nationals, 4-3. “It’s good to see the bullpen performing well,” he said. “This game was on the line, and these guys were able to hold everything up right there.” Santana (10-7), who has not always enjoyed such support from the bullpen this season, was pulled for a pinch-hitter in the eighth inning after the Mets took the lead. Joe Smith pitched a scoreless eighth, and Pedro Feliciano a perfect ninth for his first save of the season. Santana threw 94 pitches and gave up three runs, eight hits and two walks before 32,186 fans at Nationals Park. He struck out six. The winning run scored in strange fashion. It came with the bases loaded and one out, with Damion Easley batting. Rob Drake, the home-plate umpire, ruled that a pitch from Saul Rivera hit Easley’s helmet, forcing home the go-ahead run. Nationals Manager Manny Acta argued that the ball had not hit Easley. Television replays seemed to indicate that the ball hit neither Easley’s helmet nor his bat, and it might have been merely a wild pitch, off the glove of catcher Jesús Flores. In that case, a run would have scored anyway as the ball caromed back to the wall. Acta complained at length, waving his arms and gesturing with his hands. Drake discussed the decision with the other umpires, but the call stood. Afterward, Easley said that the ball had indeed grazed his helmet and that he had never driven home a winning run like that. “Glanced off my helmet; I felt it and heard it,” Easley said. “It made a little dull sound that a bat can’t make.” The Mets (63-56) began the day in second place in the National League East, two games behind Philadelphia, which played later at Los Angeles against the Dodgers. Santana started the evening with a recent record of hard luck. In his previous seven starts, he had two victories and five no-decisions. In his previous four games, he had given up six earned runs in 30 1/3 innings with but one victory to show for it, a complete-game 9-1 win over St. Louis on July 27. Part of the problem has been that the bullpen has had difficulty protecting his leads. Before Tuesday’s game, Manager Jerry Manuel suggested that the rookie Eddie Kunz might become his closer in the absence of Billy Wagner, who is on the disabled list with a sore left forearm. Kunz warmed up in the bullpen in the ninth, and Feliciano said he figured he would work one batter at a time. He looked to the dugout after retiring the leadoff man, Willie Harris, on a fly ball, and said he was happy to see Manuel not moving. Before the game, Manuel also said he might move a starter — John Maine, Oliver Pérez or Mike Pelfrey — out of the rotation and into the bullpen, either as a closer or as a setup man. In Monday’s game at Shea Stadium against Pittsburgh, the Mets’ bullpen failed to protect a 5-1 lead after Pedro Martínez left and the Pirates won, 7-5. “When you have struggled the way we have struggled in that part of the game, you just have to make adjustments,” Manuel said. “We have to be serious in our evaluations. We have struggled in closing out the games, and we’ve got to find a way to do that better.” Word of Manuel’s threat circulated through the room, and the relief pitchers discussed it, along with their recent struggles, during the regular meeting they hold to begin a series. Feliciano said Scott Schoeneweis and Duaner Sánchez did much of the talking. He said they told their colleagues to “keep our heads up and refresh out minds.” Smith said such discussions should not be necessary often, but sometimes they are. “There comes some times when you have to pull everybody together,” Smith said. “It’s a family in itself, stuck out there with the same seven or eight guys every game.” In discussing his motivational techniques afterward, Manuel said, “I’m not trying to light any fires,” but he added: “Take it as a fire being lit. That’s cool with me.” Carlos Delgado drove in two runs on a first-inning single and Carlos Beltrán drove in another in the third with a double. The Nationals tied it, 3-3, when Ryan Langerhans led off the bottom of the seventh with a pinch-hit home run to right field against Santana. INSIDE PITCH Reliever Carlos Muniz was optioned to make room on the roster for John Maine, who returns from the disabled list to start on Wednesday. Maine has had a strained right rotator cuff. ... The highest ticket price at Citi Field next year will be $495 for 76 seats near home plate. That is up from $276 for comparable seats at Shea Stadium this season, according to The Associated Press. Prices for tickets behind the dugouts average $375 for the first two rows, with an average price of $225 for Rows 3 to 6, $175 for Rows 7 to 12 and $150 for Tows 13 to 31. According to The A.P., a little farther out in the lower deck, the field seats average $125 to $225. The Mets have already sold 48 of 49 luxury box suites for next season at prices ranging from $275,000 to $500,000.
|
Baseball;New York Mets;Santana Johan
|
ny0241974
|
[
"business",
"global"
] |
2011/03/11
|
New Zealand Slashes Interest Rates to Shore Up Economy Battered by Earthquake
|
HONG KONG — New Zealand deeply cut interest rates Thursday in a bid to restore business and consumer confidence in the wake of a devastating earthquake that hit the country last month. The cut of half a percentage point took the central bank’s key cash rate to 2.5 percent, returning it to the lowest levels plumbed during the global financial crisis, when central banks around the world raced to slash borrowing costs in support of their battered economies. Like many other central banks in the Asia-Pacific region, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand had begun to nudge up borrowing costs last year as growth resumed last year. However, a massive earthquake, which devastated the city of Christchurch and killed more than 150 people last month, has taken a major toll on the economy. The quake will cost the country as much as 15 billion New Zealand dollars, or $11 billion, and will also wipe 1.5 percent off the gross domestic product over five years, Finance Minister Bill English said Sunday. “The earthquake has caused substantial damage to property and buildings, and immense disruption to business activity,” the central bank governor, Alan Bollard, said in a statement accompanying the interest rate announcement on Thursday. “While it is difficult to know exactly how large or long-lasting these effects will be, it is clear that economic activity, most certainly in Christchurch but also nationwide, will be negatively impacted.” Even before the earthquake, economic growth in New Zealand had been much weaker than expected. Although the country’s export sector has benefited from high commodity prices, farmers have focused on repaying debt rather than increasing spending, Mr. Bollard said. Stephen Roberts and Tatiana Byrne, economists at Nomura, said in a research note, “What is effectively an emergency rate cut was delivered to help combat the initially deeply negative impact on economic growth of the 22 February Christchurch earthquake, but also to assist an economy that was showing signs of weakness before the earthquake. “Continuing aftershocks in the region and issues relating to soil liquefaction are likely to delay considerably the start of reconstruction. On the R.B.N.Z.’s assessment, reconstruction spending will not start to gather pace until 2012,” they added.
|
New Zealand;Interest Rates;Earthquakes
|
ny0273574
|
[
"business"
] |
2016/05/12
|
Embattled Blood Lab Theranos Makes a Bid to Regain Confidence
|
In the latest attempt to restore confidence in its business, the embattled Silicon Valley blood-testing company Theranos is replacing its chief operating officer and expanding its board , including the addition of a former senior Amgen executive. Theranos attracted the media spotlight with its claim of revolutionizing the laboratory business, offering simplified blood tests at a fraction of the cost of conventional methods. But the company, once valued at $9 billion, now faces growing skepticism over its technology and is under criminal investigation and intense regulatory scrutiny . The company’s chief operating officer, Sunny Balwani, is departing as its flagship laboratory operations in California are threatened with potentially crippling sanctions. Federal inspections revealed serious deficiencies, including one that posed “immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety,” according to government officials. The proposed sanctions include revoking the California lab’s certification and barring Mr. Balwani and Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos’s chief executive, from the industry for two years. Theranos insists it has fixed the problems at the lab; federal officials have not yet announced any final action. Mr. Balwani’s precise role in the company’s current problems was unclear. A computer scientist and successful entrepreneur, he has been Theranos’s president and chief operating officer since 2009. In a statement, he said he would “continue to be the company’s biggest advocate.” Through a Theranos spokeswoman, Mr. Balwani declined to comment further. Officials from the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services, which conducted the inspections, also declined to comment. Ms. Holmes, a Stanford University dropout who founded and controls Theranos , will remain as chief executive. But Mr. Balwani’s departure is the biggest shake-up yet at the company. Theranos said that it would hire several new executives as soon as possible and that it was dividing its operations into separate divisions, focusing on its core technology and its clinical laboratory business. Theranos has been sharply criticized for a lack of experienced laboratory professionals among its management and on its board, and Ms. Holmes emphasized that it was now looking to bring in top experts in the field. The company has already made some hires, including a new lab director for its California operations. The company insisted that the most recent changes were not a result of the regulatory pressure but were because of the need to expand its operations. “This is about building our company,” Ms. Holmes said in an interview. “This is about realizing the next stage of our growth.” Ms. Holmes said that her own role in determining the company’s overall strategy would not change but that the addition of new executives would allow the company to better develop its business as it evolved from a start-up. Fabrizio J. Bonanni, a retired Amgen executive vice president who is joining the board, said he would help Theranos develop the infrastructure necessary to satisfy regulators and to become a major business. “They need to have systems and standard processes so they can excel in this growth,” he said. Dr. Bonanni has extensive operations experience at Amgen and Baxter International, both large health care organizations. He said he believed the company would be responsive to any suggestions he made about how to structure the business and hire the right executives. “I saw a group of people who are eager to listen and eager to learn,” he said. Theranos also announced that two of its advisers, Dr. William H. Foege, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Richard M. Kovacevich, a former chief executive of Wells Fargo, were joining its formal board. The company, which has been the subject of numerous critical articles in The Wall Street Journal questioning its proprietary technology, is struggling to resolve the troubles it faces, including investigations by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ms. Holmes said Theranos, which has been secretive about its technology because of what it said were fears that its intellectual property would be stolen, planned on becoming much more open about how it conducts its tests. She said the company would be publishing articles in peer-reviewed journals and making presentations before lab experts in the coming months. “What matters,” Ms. Holmes said, “is the fundamentals, the science and the technology and the data.”
|
Theranos;Sunny Balwani;Medical test;Blood;Elizabeth Holmes;Appointments and Executive Changes
|
ny0049575
|
[
"us"
] |
2014/10/04
|
Florida Starts New Inquiry Into Fatal Shooting of Deputy’s Girlfriend in 2010
|
After four years and three government investigations, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida has assigned a new special prosecutor to re-examine the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of a deputy sheriff’s girlfriend who was in the process of breaking up with him. The death of Michelle O’Connell, 24, in September 2010 continues to stir strong emotions in northeast Florida and beyond in part because the local sheriff and medical examiner, after a flawed investigation, quickly concluded that she had killed herself with her boyfriend’s service weapon. A subsequent investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, an independent state investigative agency, challenged the suicide ruling after, among other things, finding two neighbors who said they heard a woman crying for help before hearing shots. But no charges have been brought against the deputy, Jeremy Banks. Last November, the case was the subject of a lengthy examination by The New York Times , in collaboration with the PBS investigative news program “Frontline.” That examination found serious shortcomings in the sheriff’s department’s handling of the case involving its own deputy, while also casting light on the problem of domestic violence involving police officers. In the months since the article was published, 184,000 people have signed an online petition calling for a coroner’s inquest into the case. In assigning the new prosecutor, Jeffrey Ashton, a state attorney from another judicial district, Governor Scott cited the emergence of a new “potential witness.” The witness was not named. But Ms. O’Connell’s family believes that the reference is to the former owner of a St. Augustine bar, Danny Harmon, who has filed a sworn affidavit saying that the night after Ms. O’Connell died, he served drinks to Mr. Banks. In the statement, obtained by The Times, Mr. Harmon said he heard Mr. Banks say, “That bitch got what she deserved,” and “I am not going to let her ruin my life.” The local sheriff, David Shoar of St. Johns County, south of Jacksonville, has steadfastly defended his employee, Mr. Banks, saying three medical examiners agreed that the death was suicide. The case lay dormant until The Times and ”Frontline” raised questions about several issues of forensic evidence, including whether a cut above her right eye was a defensive wound, a possible sign of a struggle before the fatal shot. The medical examiners said the wound resulted from the gun recoiling forward as Ms. O’Connell shot herself in the mouth with the gun upside down. The Times conducted tests, supported by interviews, that showed the gun could not have caused the wound in the manner suggested by the medical examiners. “Today we are heartened that this won’t be the end of my sister’s story,” Jennifer Crites, Michelle O’Connell’s sister, said in a statement Friday. “We are thankful that this incident has received worldwide media attention because she truly deserves justice.” Sheriff Shoar did not respond to a request for comment. But Mr. Banks’s lawyer, Mac McLeod, called Mr. Harmon’s account false, saying his client was nowhere near the bar the night after Ms. O’Connell’s death. “Anybody that comes forward four years after an event that has been broadly publicized like this has got to be suspect,” Mr. McLeod said. According to Mr. Banks’s account after the shooting, Ms. O’Connell was packing to leave when she shot herself in the bedroom of the house they shared. One bullet was fired into the floor, the other into her mouth. No one else was in the house at the time other than Mr. Banks, who said he was sitting alone in the garage on his motorcycle when he heard the shots, then called 911. There was no suicide note. The sheriff’s office chose to investigate the shooting itself, rather than call in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and within hours concluded that the shooting was a suicide. Under pressure from the family, the sheriff belatedly brought in the State Law Enforcement Department. The local state attorney, R. J. Larizza, eventually asked the governor to appoint another state attorney, citing a conflict of interest because of his close relationship with the sheriff. That state attorney closed the case for lack of evidence. After The Times began its investigation, Sheriff Shoar assembled a team of investigators to analyze the work of the lead Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigator, and later accused him of misconduct. As a result of their work, the governor appointed another special prosecutor to review the department’s work. That examination continues, and is now a year and a half old. The Law Enforcement Department has declined to comment.
|
Murders;Jeremy Banks;Michelle O'Connell;St. Johns County;Florida;Domestic violence;Special prosecutor;Rick Scott;David Shoar
|
ny0112611
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2012/02/15
|
How the Poll Was Conducted
|
The latest New York Times/CBS News poll is based on telephone interviews conducted Feb. 8 through Feb. 13 with 1,197 adults throughout the United States. Of these, 1,064 said they were registered to vote. The sample of land-line telephone exchanges called was randomly selected by a computer from a complete list of more than 72,000 active residential exchanges across the country. The exchanges were chosen to ensure that each region of the country was represented in proportion to its share of all telephone numbers. Within each exchange, random digits were added to form a complete telephone number, thus permitting access to listed and unlisted numbers alike. Within each household, one adult was designated by a random procedure to be the respondent for the survey. To increase coverage, this land-line sample was supplemented by respondents reached through random dialing of cellphone numbers. The two samples were then combined and adjusted to ensure the proper ratio of land-line-only, cellphone-only and dual phone users. Interviewers made multiple attempts to reach every phone number in the survey, calling back unanswered numbers on different days at different times of both day and evening. Party identification was weighted to match the average ratio of Republicans to Democrats to independents in the polls taken so far during 2012. In theory, in 19 cases out of 20, overall results based on such samples will differ by no more than three percentage points in either direction from what would have been obtained by seeking to interview all American adults. For smaller subgroups, the margin of sampling error is larger. For example, for the 331 self-described Republican primary and caucus voters, the sampling error is plus or minus five points. Shifts in results between polls over time also have a larger sampling error. In addition to sampling error, the practical difficulties of conducting any survey of public opinion may introduce other sources of error into the poll. Variation in the wording and order of questions, for example, may lead to somewhat different results. Complete questions and results are available at nytimes.com/polls .
|
Polls and Public Opinion;United States Politics and Government;Presidential Election of 2012
|
ny0038222
|
[
"us"
] |
2014/04/03
|
E.P.A. Faulted for Failure to Report Risks
|
The Environmental Protection Agency failed to consistently disclose health risks, including possible cancer risks, to research study participants who were exposed to dangerous pollutants, an agency watchdog report has found. An E.P.A. inspector general’s report released Wednesday said that when the agency exposed 81 people to soot and diesel exhaust emissions in studies in 2010 and 2011, the risks were not always consistently represented and did not include information on cancer risks associated with long-term exposure. The E.P.A. said risks associated with cancer in the study, which only briefly exposed participants to the pollutants, were so minimal that they were not included on consent forms obtained from the subjects.
|
Cancer;Air pollution;EPA
|
ny0285128
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2016/09/28
|
Commentators Give Hillary Clinton Edge in Debate
|
In the first showdown between Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump, the presidential candidates exchanged blows on trade and foreign policy, called each other racist and inept, and could not resist letting out stray smirks or occasional sniffles. Commentators across the web on Monday night tended to conclude that their favored candidate had come out on top. But on balance, Mrs. Clinton was seen as having had the better night, based on the contrast between her steady grasp of policy and Mr. Trump’s tendency to ramble and occasionally raise his voice. Here is a sample of reaction on social media and elsewhere online: “Clinton was in command from beginning, succeeded where Trump’s GOP opponents failed: remain unflappable and in control of arguments. No knockout blow but Clinton won this debate hands down. Trump struggled with format, duration, and facts and rambled.” Kim Ghattas, BBC correspondent _____ “Great that debate covered Trump’s taxes, income, father, ’72 lawsuit, remarks as a reality TV star and didn’t waste any time on immigration.” Ann Coulter, conservative author and commentator _____ “Hillary Clinton has had the best debate training I’ve seen in years. She knows when to attack and when to explain.” Frank Luntz, Republican pollster _____ “Trump was completely out of his league, reduced at times to going on and on, repeating his same talking points with little in the way of demonstrated knowledge or detail. He missed several opportunities to pin Clinton down on issues she has prevaricated about because he became flustered and lost his focus, forgot why he was there.” Ruth Sherman, public speaking expert _____ “Bottom line: Trump was doing pretty well for the first fifteen minutes, then Hillary went on the offensive, and Trump choked.” William Kristol, editor of the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard _____ “First half: Donald Trump. Second half: Hillary Clinton. OT: Donald Trump. I think he gets a bump UNLESS birther issue drowns out all.” Hugh Hewitt, conservative radio host _____ “Good news for Democrats: Really hard to see how that debate helped Trump. Bad news: If it somehow did help Trump, maybe no stopping him?” Nate Silver, editor of FiveThirtyEight _____ “Hillary won this debate, hands-down.” DeRay Mckesson, Black Lives Matter activist _____ “The energy that Donald Trump offered tonight is why the enthusiasm is on our side. The American people are ready for solutions, and Donald Trump offers a chance to move in a new direction.” Paul D. Ryan, House speaker _____ “The evolution of Trump in this debate was everything. He started with policy and ended with “NOT NICE!” Simone Sebastian, editor for The Washington Post’s Wonkblog _____ “Hillary Clinton belongs in the White House. Donald Trump belongs on my show.” Jerry Springer, host of “The Jerry Springer Show” _____ “Quick reminder: Y’all think Hillary is slaying, but the idiotic majority in this country definitely think Donald is KILLING IT.” Ashley Hesseltine, comedian and fashion blogger
|
2016 Presidential Election;Hillary Clinton;Donald Trump
|
ny0213788
|
[
"business"
] |
2010/03/17
|
Panels Studying Banking Reform Seek More Studies
|
When in doubt, conduct a study. That, in short, is the regimen prescribed by both the House and the Senate bills proposing a regulatory overhaul of the banking and financial industries. Rather than immediately putting in place regulatory fixes for some of the problems that contributed to the financial crisis , the two bills each call for dozens of studies, some of which consumer advocates contend could delay implementation of laws and regulations to address the underlying causes of the financial crisis. Overly optimistic credit ratings and investors’ dependence on the credit rating agencies, for example, were shown to have contributed to the subprime mortgage mess. But the Senate and House bills call for four to six separate studies of up to 30 months’ duration of how credit ratings agencies work, how they are compensated and what can be done to make their ratings more relevant to investors. Regulators have been investigating some of these same matters, and issuing new directives about them, since at least the early 1990s. Several of the studies focus on proposals that are vigorously opposed by banking industry groups or Wall Street firms, like a change that would make stock brokers subject to the same fiduciary standards as financial advisers — that is, to act in the best interest of their customers. The Senate bill calls for a new study even though the Securities and Exchange Commission commissioned a similar report in 2008. At the same time, the new bill leaves the S.E.C. with no power to act on the subject of either review. Opponents of new regulations say that the prescribed studies are warranted because they can help derail overly burdensome rules that can strangle growth, particularly for small companies, which often lack the resources required to meet the demands of regulators. In the House bill, therefore, there is a call for a study of how regulations affect small businesses, and another to examine the definition of “small.” Christopher J. Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, who introduced the bill, told committee members on Tuesday to submit proposed amendments by Friday afternoon, and said the committee would begin considering those changes on Monday. Consumer advocates say they believe that too often studies are used to push an issue down the road, perhaps with the hope of never having to address it. Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said there was truth to that, but political realities often dictate that studies be included. “If you shoot them down, the other side will say, ‘What, are you afraid of, the facts?’ ” Mr. Frank said. “Occasionally it is a legitimate thing, but mostly it is political folderol.” The House bill, which was passed last year, is more laden with requirements for studies — at least 38 of them, to be conducted by the Government Accountability Office, the S.E.C., the Treasury Department, or the proposed systemic risk council, which would include members representing at least 10 federal agencies. The Senate bill calls for roughly two dozen studies. The problem with lengthy studies is that they delay regulatory changes, which can end up hurting investors, said Lynn E. Turner, formerly the chief accountant for the S.E.C. He said that after the Enron collapse, some members of Congress wanted to include legislation in the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act that would restrict the use of off-balance sheet entities, which were a central part of the Enron fraud. Instead, Congress opted for a study, which the S.E.C. delivered in 2005, recommending several accounting and reporting changes to provide more transparency on company financial statements. The recommendations were largely unheeded by Congress, Mr. Turner said, and a few years later, similar problems contributed to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Some of the proposals for studies are so specific that they raise questions about whose interests are being watched over. Other studies address issues that have been debated in the financial industry for years, like proposals over whether individual investors should be required to use arbitration to settle disputes with brokers, rather than having access to the courts. “I think there have been hearings and testimony and lawsuits over this year for years,” said Lauren K. Saunders, a lawyer at the National Consumer Law Center. Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America, said some of the studies could provide useful information to regulators, like the proposed review of financial literacy and mutual fund advertisements called for in the Senate bill. “They are designed to bring attention to areas where the S.E.C. does currently have the authority to improve the nature of disclosures,” Ms. Roper said. But, she added, “some of these studies are clearly designed to create the impression that Congress is doing something about the problem when in fact they won’t.” Now that they have a Senate proposal to focus on, consumer and banking organizations began their lobbying efforts in earnest Tuesday. Hundreds of members of the American Bankers Association had come to Washington for a previously scheduled industry meeting, and the trade group lost no time in urging them to contact their senators. The banking group opposes the removal of the Federal Reserve Board’s authority over some of its current state-chartered members and it objects to some of the consumer protection measures in the bill. Carmen Balber, Washington director for Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit education and advocacy group, also opposes some of the consumer provisions, but for the opposite reason, saying they do not go far enough. Some of those provisions are subject to study as well.
|
Banks and Banking;Regulation and Deregulation of Industry;Law and Legislation;United States Politics and Government
|
ny0072464
|
[
"science"
] |
2015/03/24
|
A Frog That Can Change Skin Texture
|
A new species of frog discovered in Ecuador is the first vertebrate known to change its skin texture from smooth to spiny, researchers say. The mutable species of rain frog possesses an ability previously observed only with invertebrates such as cuttlefish and octopuses. Around moss — plentiful in its native Ecuadorean forest — the frog sprouts tiny tubercles, presumably as camouflage. Away from the moss, the tubercles rapidly recede and the frog’s skin turns smooth. Researchers discovered the tiny frog (about the size of a marble) in 2006, but it was three years before they observed its shifting abilities. “We took a specimen back to the house in a cup to photograph it, and when we looked in the morning, we thought we had grabbed the wrong frog,” said Katherine Krynak, a biologist at Case Western Reserve University and an author of the study. “We put the frog back in the cup with some moss, and soon, it had the spines again.” During their research, which was published in The Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, the scientists discovered that a related species of frog could change its skin in a similar manner, raising questions of how the trait evolved. “Either these two different species from two different clades evolved the same trait, or all species had it and then lost the trait, or other species in this clade do this, too, and it’s just never been documented,” Dr. Krynak said.
|
Frog;The Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society;Katherine Krynak
|
ny0048128
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2014/11/07
|
Ray Rice Awaits Ruling After Appeal Hearing Ends
|
After two days of testimony in New York, Ray Rice’s football fate is now in the hands of a former federal judge. Barbara Jones, a onetime United States District Court judge, presided over Rice’s appeal hearing Wednesday and Thursday, when she heard his argument that he was penalized twice for the same thing. Rice was initially suspended for two games for hitting his fiancée, Janay Palmer, and was barred indefinitely after video was published months later that showed him knocking out Palmer. The N.F.L. said the video was new evidence that was at odds with Rice’s original description of the encounter with Palmer, who is now his wife. The Baltimore Ravens cut Rice , a star running back, using a similar rationale. The case has turned into a referendum on Commissioner Roger Goodell and the league’s personal conduct policy, which critics have said is opaque and inconsistent. Goodell has promised to overhaul the policy to make it more transparent and uniform, and he has hired several people to ensure the league is more sensitive to the issue of domestic abuse. The players association has been talking with the league about how to shape the personal conduct policy, and it has called on the league to ensure that all changes to the policy are collectively bargained. The N.F.L. has said the personal conduct policy is a league policy that has never been the subject of collective bargaining, but it has said that the players and their union have had substantial input. Until the new policy is formalized, Goodell will have to deal with several thorny cases, including other potential appeals. On Thursday, Adrian Peterson, the Minnesota Vikings running back who was arrested after beating his son with a stick, entered a guilty plea. The N.F.L. said that “following his plea agreement to resolve his criminal case in Texas, his matter will now be reviewed for potential discipline under the N.F.L.’s personal conduct policy.” Image On Thursday, Ray Rice, right, and his wife, Janay Palmer, testified separately. Credit Jason Decrow/Associated Press The league has asked Peterson to “submit relevant information regarding his case and meet with designated experts who will make recommendations for the commissioner’s consideration.” Peterson will be able to have a hearing before any discipline is imposed. Until his disciplinary process is completed, Peterson will remain on the commissioner’s exempt list and will continue to be paid. Peterson, however, will no longer receive payments from Nike. The company, which makes jerseys, shoes and other official merchandise for the league, said Thursday that Peterson would no longer represent it. If Peterson appeals his suspension, it is unclear whether Goodell will hear the case, the way he did for years until Rice was suspended. Because Goodell was going to be called as a witness in Rice’s appeal, he appointed Jones as an independent arbitrator. The players association applauded that decision on Thursday. In a statement, it thanked Jones “for presiding over a fair and thorough hearing” and said the appointment of Jones “enhances the credibility and integrity of our business.” Using an arbitrator, the union said, “is the due process that every athlete deserves.” On Thursday, Rice and his wife testified separately. Jones also heard testimony from Dick Cass, the Ravens’ president, and Ozzie Newsome, the team’s general manager, who both attended the meeting Rice had with Goodell before he was first suspended. Lawyers for the union and the league also testified at the appeal. Rice was represented by Peter Ginsberg, who defended a New Orleans Saints player involved in the team’s bounty scandal , and Jeffrey Kessler, an outside lawyer for the players association. There is no deadline for the judge’s decision, although legal experts said the case was not that complex. Even if Rice is reinstated, it is unclear whether any team will sign him, given the potential for negative publicity. Rice has filed a separate grievance against the Ravens, who had signed him to a long-term contract . Rice was set to earn $3.5 million in salary this season. Robert S. Mueller III, the former F.B.I. director, is also conducting an independent investigation into the league’s handling of evidence in the Rice case, which is expected in the coming weeks.
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Football;Ray Rice;Domestic violence;Roger Goodell;NFL; Super Bowl; Super Bowl 2015;Ravens
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ny0232234
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2010/08/20
|
U.N. Report Criticizes Israel’s Gaza Restrictions
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BEIT HANOUN, Gaza — Kamal Sweleim’s family has owned a farm in this northern part of Gaza for six decades. For most of that time, it was a mix of citrus orchards and plump cows, and the family made a handsome living selling its products to Israel , Jordan and the West Bank. But 10 years ago, when the second Palestinian uprising broke out, spreading violence in Israeli streets, Israeli tanks started repeatedly tearing through the family’s fields, chasing militants. Last year, during the Israeli war in Gaza, the Sweleims were ordered to move out, and their trees and wells were bulldozed. A once prosperous clan with good ties to Israel, they now rent a tiny house, living off cousins and international welfare. “Don’t remind me of what we used to have,” Mr. Sweleim said as he stood near his desolate fields surrounded by destroyed houses. “My father would never believe where we have ended up.” A United Nations report issued on Thursday says the Sweleims are part of the 12 percent of the population of Gaza — 178,000 people out of 1.5 million — who have lost livelihoods or have otherwise been severely affected by Israeli security policies along the border, both land and sea, in recent years. These include the establishment of “no-go zones” and frequent incursions. The report estimates that the restricted land comprises 17 percent of Gaza’s total land mass and 35 percent of its agricultural land. Israel also restricts Gazan fishing to three nautical miles offshore. Catches are greatly reduced, leading some fishermen to take a long, risky sail into Egyptian waters to buy fish from Egyptian fishermen and return home to sell it. The study, issued by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory , says that anti-Israeli militants operate from the border areas in question, planting explosive devices, firing at Israeli military vehicles and shooting rockets and mortar rounds at civilians. But it argues that Israel has an obligation under international law to protect civilians and civilian structures. It also notes that Israel has never clearly told those living in the area where they may and may not live and operate. “The Israeli military has consistently failed to provide the affected population with accurate information about the main parameters of the access regime being enforced, particularly in the farming areas, and to a lesser degree in the restricted fishing areas,” it said. It added that Israel “has failed to physically demarcate the restricted areas in any meaningful way, even though it carries out land incursions into the restricted areas three to four times every week and naval forces continuously patrol the coast.” Last year, the Israeli Air Force dropped leaflets telling Gazans they could not come within about 990 feet of the border. But, the report says, the restricted area is about 3,300 to 4,950 feet. Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a spokeswoman for the Israeli military, said that Hamas , the Islamist group that has ruled in Gaza for the past few years, knowingly endangers the civilians living near the border by sending militants there. “What is foremost in our minds is protection of our civilians who live within range of the border,” she said by telephone when asked about the new study. “If your choice is to operate terror, you have to bear the consequences.” Colonel Leibovich said there had been an increase in militant activity from inside the border over the past 18 months, with eight attacks since January. “This is also why it seems like we are changing, because the activity has been stepped up from the other side and we need to deal with it,” she said. The United Nations says its report is based on more than 100 interviews and focus group discussions carried out in March and April and complemented with quantitative data. It estimates that damage done by Israel to border farms and property over the past five years amounts to about $308 million. Fruit trees, greenhouses, sheep and chicken farms, and water wells account for most of this. The loss to fishermen over the same period was put at $26.5 million. For advocates of coexistence, a particularly sad aspect of the findings is that many of those most affected by Israeli security practices, like the Sweleim family, once had the closest relationships with Israel, selling their goods there and often working there. They were fairly well off and many were politically moderate. Today, the group is among the most isolated and depressed, with relatives and friends reluctant to visit for fear of attack.
|
Israel;Gaza Strip;Israeli Settlements;Defense and Military Forces;International Relations;United Nations;Hamas;Palestinians;Jews and Judaism
|
ny0069294
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2014/12/24
|
India: Attacks Kill Villagers in Northeast
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Militants in India’s northeastern state of Assam killed at least 56 people, firing indiscriminately in remote tribal villages on Tuesday. The militants were believed to be part of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, which seeks an independent state for members of the Bodo ethnic group. Though the militant group’s leaders recently began peace talks with the state government, one faction opposes negotiation and has staged acts of violence in hopes of stopping the talks. The death toll included women and children and was likely to rise, Sanjukta Parashar, the police chief in Sonitpur district, said Tuesday. Agence France-Presse reported Wednesday that it had risen to 56 from 33. Over the weekend, the police killed two Bodo militants and recovered a cache of arms during a counterterrorism raid, and some officials said the Assam attacks might have been planned as revenge.
|
India;Bodos;Assam India;Terrorism;National Democratic Front of Bodoland
|
ny0218695
|
[
"technology"
] |
2010/05/21
|
Google Faces New Inquiries in Europe on Private Data
|
BERLIN — Officials in Spain, France and the Czech Republic announced plans on Thursday to investigate Google ’s collection of data from wireless networks in their countries, raising the likelihood that the company could face sanctions in Europe. Five days after Google said it had inadvertently collected 600 gigabytes of data described as snippets of Web sites and e-mail messages from unsecured Wi-Fi networks around the world, privacy lawyers said Google was likely to face fines and suffer damage to its reputation. “I think at the end of the day, this will likely amount to fines, which Google can certainly manage,” said Ulrich Börger, a privacy lawyer with the firm Latham & Watkins in Hamburg, where Google Germany is based. Data protection officials in Spain, the Czech Republic, France and Germany have started administrative inquiries into the company’s practices, which they said violated local privacy laws. Investigators at France’s National Commission on Informatics and Liberties said they had inspected Google’s Paris office on Wednesday as they began to gather evidence. In the United States, two members of Congress asked the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday to begin a review of what Google had collected. In Hamburg, prosecutors opened their criminal investigation this week after receiving a complaint from Jens Ferner, a law student completing an apprenticeship at his father’s law firm in Alsdorf, Germany. During an interview, Mr. Ferner said German courts had taken a strict line with those convicted of using Wi-Fi networks without an owner’s knowledge. In Britain and Ireland, by contrast, regulators said they were not initiating investigations but had asked Google to destroy the data collected in their countries. The British Information Commissioner’s Office called Google’s collection of Wi-Fi data “unnecessary and excessive.” But given that Google’s recording equipment had changed frequency channels every five seconds, the British regulator said, it was unlikely that extensive information on individuals had been collected. “In such circumstances there does not seem to be any reason to keep the data concerned for evidential purposes,” the commissioner’s office said. “Therefore, in line with the data protection requirement that personal data should be held for no longer than necessary, we have asked Google to ensure that these data are deleted as soon as reasonably possible.” Sergey Brin, a Google co-founder, said at a news conference in San Francisco on Wednesday that the company had been wrong to collect and store information from Wi-Fi networks while gathering data for the Street View layer of images in Google Maps, Bloomberg News reported. The company is imposing more internal controls after it mistakenly captured the data, Mr. Brin added. The practice in Germany, Mr. Ferner said, is called “stealth surfing,” where computer users intentionally seek out and use unsecured wireless networks. “Even in cases where Wi-Fi networks had not been encrypted by their owners, German courts have been pretty consistent in saying that it was still illegal to access another’s network without their permission,” Mr. Ferner said. In a few recent cases, he said, Germans convicted of stealth surfing have been fined up to 1,000 euros, or $1,250. Google, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., said last weekend that it had destroyed data collected in Ireland, at the request of the local regulator. Gary Davis, Ireland’s deputy data protection commissioner, said his agency was satisfied that the data had been destroyed, and would work with Google to ensure that similar infractions were not repeated. “I think we are focused now on the future, not the past,” Mr. Davis said. Google has its European headquarters in Dublin, where it employs about 2,000 workers. Richard Cumbley, a privacy lawyer at Linklaters in London, said Google could face prosecution on local privacy laws and illegal wire-tapping laws. “But I think that while their relations with national regulators will suffer as a result of this,” he said, “I would be surprised if this led to serious criminal convictions.”
|
Google Inc;Privacy;Maps;Europe;Spain;France;Czech Republic;Germany
|
ny0290993
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2016/01/30
|
2 Lives Collide in Fatal Night at a Harlem Shelter
|
Deven Black was 62, and his life was falling apart. In a few short years, he had gone from respected, award-winning teacher to unemployed felon, losing his marriage and his home, moving into his car for a time and slipping into a depression that went largely untreated. He had nowhere to go. Anthony White was only 21, and he had a plan. He was desperate to get his own apartment, but his low-paying job at J. C. Penney left him unable to pay any rent. He had his dreams, to be a famous rapper, and his own mental-health problems. All he had to do was qualify for low-income housing. And he knew just how to do that. The paths of Mr. Black and Mr. White — one on the way down, the other seemingly on the way up — collided at the Boulevard Homeless Shelter in Harlem on Monday, through the lottery that is New York City’s shelter system. Strangers, the men ended up in the same room of a residence for men with mental-health problems. By Wednesday night, Mr. Black was dead , his throat slashed, and Mr. White was on the run, the subject of a citywide manhunt. City officials, meanwhile, were again left with questions about how to provide shelter to everyone who needs it, even those with serious mental-health problems, even if they are not being treated or taking their medication. “I send my condolences to the Black family, I really do,” said LaSandra White, Mr. White’s sister, while expressing doubts that her brother had committed the crime. “But this is a problem in the system. How did this happen? How did a weapon even get inside? This is supposed to be a mental health shelter. The system is failing our community. It’s failing people with mental illnesses.” On Friday, in response to the killing, the city said that it would heighten security at 27 shelters for people with mental health issues. Officers from the Department of Homeless Services, which oversees the shelter system, arrived at the Boulevard shelter, on Lexington Avenue and 124th Street, late Friday afternoon. Residents said the officers searched the five-story building for contraband. The killing of Mr. Black underscored the problems plaguing the shelter system, which now houses about 58,000 people, a record, and must take in anyone who asks. Yet many homeless people fear the shelters, because of drug use, theft and violence. Shelters that serve mentally ill people are seen as especially dangerous. They can function as de facto mental hospitals, largely because actual hospitals rarely have enough psychiatric beds to meet the demand. But these shelters are poorly equipped to handle people with severe mental illness. Last year, Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, who has made mental health issues a priority , started NYC Safe, a program meant to address untreated mental illnesses afflicting potentially violent people. It includes $3.5 million a year to improve clinical services at shelters. But Mr. White, last seen fleeing the shelter when a security officer opened the door to the room he shared with Mr. Black, was not enrolled in NYC Safe. He had never been considered violent. Typically, a person accused of such a vicious crime would have a thick criminal record, said a police official who was not authorized to speak about Mr. White. The official described Mr. White’s record — one misdemeanor arrest — as nearly insignificant. The Boulevard is run by the Bowery Residents’ Committee, a longtime homeless-services provider. The building was ill designed to be a shelter — it has rooms jutting off corridors, rather than large dormitory-type spaces — but it had been one for decades, run by one nonprofit or another. At most, six men lived in a room. Some rooms held only two men, an arrangement that sometimes led to a kind of aggression that residents called “two-man-room syndrome.” There were security guards, and a metal detector, but residents said some men sneaked in knives in their shoes. Image Deven Black, left, and Anthony White. There had been violence at the Boulevard in the past. In 2013, a 50-year-old resident was stabbed to death by a roommate during a fight, according to the police. Of the two men, Mr. White arrived first, in mid-December. He had moved between family and foster care, landing with his mother by high school. He attended the Academy of Urban Planning, a relatively small public high school in Bushwick, Brooklyn. He was short — about 5-foot-3 — and wore headphones like life support. He was always listening to rap artists like Drake and Jay Z, and always working on his own music. If he was known for anything in school, it was for getting along with everyone, but he never said much, according to his sister. His family was evicted from their apartment after problems with the city’s rent subsidy program, said Sametha White, Mr. White’s mother, ending up at a homeless shelter in the Bronx. In 2013, his senior year, Mr. White dropped out. That same year, he was taken to Brooklyn Hospital after the police got a call about an emotionally disturbed person. Mr. White was not being violent, but he was thought to be acting strangely, according to the police official. In 2014, while living with his father, Mr. White was hospitalized. The family did not talk about it much. There was no diagnosis mentioned, just a before and after. “My dad called and said, ‘There’s something wrong, he’s not acting the same,’” his sister said. “They kept releasing him. And he would explode sometimes.” She added: “My dad would calm him down or he’d go back to the hospital and they would release him.” He got a job at J. C. Penney, his mother said. He wanted to be an adult, she said. He wanted his own place. So he went to the shelter system last year. If he kept his job, and he stayed at the shelter for a while, he could qualify for a low-income housing program. It was a first step. On Dec. 15, he was referred to the Boulevard. Mr. White spent Christmas with his family. He seemed happy, handing out gifts to nieces and nephews. But the next day, back at the shelter, he acted out, disturbing other residents, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. He was sent to Metropolitan Hospital Center. Told to take his medication and to attend support groups, he said he would. That same night, he was sent back to the shelter. City officials, citing privacy laws, declined to discuss details of Mr. White’s treatment. Other residents said Mr. White was increasingly volatile, at one point flailing his arms and throwing away dollar bills. He complained to one of his brothers that someone had stolen his iPod. His mother said she talked to him on the phone, and he said he was fine and that he was taking his medication. But he had become so convinced that people were robbing him that shelter employees gave him a replacement lock for his locker last week, said Leonard McCaffrey, another resident. He warned men who bothered him that he would “give them a 150,” Mr. McCaffrey said, meaning 150 stitches across the face. “He would fly off the handle,” Mr. McCaffrey said. On Sunday, after another outburst, Mr. White was again sent to Metropolitan. This time he was kept overnight. On Monday, he was sent back to the Boulevard. This time, he had a new roommate. Mr. Black had always charted an unconventional path, trying on new identities as they suited him. He dropped out of high school and college. In his 20s, he worked as a radio reporter on Cape Cod. Then he returned to New York, working as the general manager of the North Star Pub near the Fulton Fish Market. He motivated people wherever he went. “If it wasn’t for Deven, chances are I would’ve never gotten into my career,” said Steven Brown, who constantly called into Mr. Black’s radio show as a teenager and is now a reporter with radio station WBUR in Boston. Image The police outside the Boulevard Homeless Shelter in East Harlem. Credit Bryan R. Smith for The New York Times Eventually, Mr. Black earned his college degree and ended up at the Castle Hill Middle School in the Bronx. There, after a stint in the classroom teaching special education, he became a librarian. In a 2013 interview with The School Library Journal, he detailed his efforts to improve the library, bringing in computers and updating the collection. Jonas Black, his son, remembered helping his father discard dated books with titles like “The Lives of the Orientals.” He was a family man who posted an old photo showing him with his mother as his Facebook picture. But he began to deteriorate, acting more erratic, friends and relatives said. He had long struggled with mental illness but had never received an official diagnosis, beyond depression, Jonas Black said. He became distant from family and friends. He briefly checked himself into a hospital. He made poor choices with money, falling prey to online scammers. Was it dementia? Bipolar illness? No one could say. “He was never properly diagnosed,” said Emily Feiner, a clinical social worker and friends of Mr. Black’s and his wife’s for 25 years. “He was compulsive and had almost delusional thought patterns that influenced his choices,” she added. “He placed himself at great risk.” An investigation by the city’s Education Department found in 2014 that Mr. Black had behaved in a manner that made a student feel uncomfortable. He was suspended for two months, according to a city official with knowledge of his record. No other information was available. About July of that year, Mr. Black and a woman he had met online began depositing fraudulent checks at New York banks, federal prosecutors later said. He would then wait several days before withdrawing tens of thousands of dollars in cash. In November, he pleaded guilty in federal court to bank fraud. He was eventually ordered to repay $146,000 to the banks. He was also required to participate in outpatient mental health treatment and to continue taking prescription medications. Ms. Feiner said there was no follow-through to make sure he got the medications he was prescribed. “Then he was homeless and had no way to get it,” she said. Jonas Black said his father spent some time living in his car. At some point last year, he landed in the shelter system. On Monday, he was sent to the Boulevard. Two men, total strangers, one room. Mr. Black was so polite that when another resident, Ronald Venticinque, told him that his nickname was “Bananas,” Mr. Black called him, “Mr. Bananas.” Mr. Venticinque told the newcomer to be careful: Mr. Black had left his battered suitcase full of clothes and a large, full canvas bag unattended on a cafeteria table. Mr. White continued to rage: the thefts, the damage he would do. He waved his hands in the other men’s faces and they gave him wide berth. Mr. Black, of course, could not. Mr. McCaffrey heard Mr. White shouting Wednesday night in the room one floor below his. Minutes later he heard a staff member shout, “Oh my God!”
|
Mental Health;Homelessness;East Harlem;Anthony White;Deven Black;Murders and Homicides;Homeless Services Department NYC;Security
|
ny0221129
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2010/02/07
|
James’s 47 Points, Including 35 by Halftime, Sink Knicks
|
CLEVELAND — LeBron James does not talk much about free agency anymore, having grown either bored or irritated by the subject. But if a person could scoff with a jump shot, then James just soaked the Knicks in contempt. With his team sitting on a 17-point lead Saturday night, and the first quarter coming to a close, James dribbled 32 feet from the basket for several seconds and, rather than attempt to drive, casually stepped back and lofted a looping 3-pointer. The shot swished and James strutted to the sideline, his disregard for the Knicks abundantly clear. As if on cue, the arena speakers blared a recording of Aretha Franklin singing “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.” James already had 23 points, and the Cleveland Cavaliers were on their way to a 113-106 victory. The Knicks might have earned back a few letters from the Franklin song as they chopped a 24-point deficit to 3 in the second half. But they never tied the score, and they continue to leave a generally poor impression on James, their No. 1 target in free agency this summer. They are 0-2 against the Cavaliers. James finished with 47 points — his second-highest output of the season — plus 8 rebounds and 8 assists. He went 6 for 12 from 3-point range and 17 for 31 over all. “He’s done it a lot of times,” Knicks Coach Mike D’Antoni said. “He’s that good. I commend our players — they didn’t get rattled.” The Cavaliers won their 11th in a row and pushed their record to 41-11, the best in the N.B.A. The Knicks fell to 19-31, a season-worst 12 games under .500. The best they could do Saturday was to lull the Cavaliers into a false sense of security. Trailing by 23 in the third quarter, the Knicks handed the ball to Nate Robinson and turned him loose. He scored 18 points in the last 14 minutes of the game and finished with 26. Al Harrington (16 points) also hit some big shots in the rally, which came without the starters David Lee, Wilson Chandler and Danilo Gallinari. All three were on the bench for the entire fourth quarter, mostly because the reserves — Harrington, Jordan Hill and Chris Duhon — had done a better job. Lee (20 points) and Chandler (6 points) are also nursing injuries that have been hampering them for weeks. Robinson made his second straight start at point guard but played the fourth as the shooting guard, next to Duhon — an alignment that D’Antoni said he wants to experiment with more. The Knicks got within 3 points twice down the stretch. But James bullied his way to the free-throw line, then hit back-to-back 20-footers to put the game away. “They’re a tricky team,” said Shaquille O’Neal, who had 19 points for the Cavaliers. “Plus, we let up a little bit. It’s always hard to maintain a lead like that, especially against a team that has so many shooters.” Amid the rally, the 5-foot-9-inch Robinson soared high to block a shot by O’Neal. “That was a foul, and you know it,” O’Neal, smiling, told reporters. The Knicks put up no resistance in the first half, as they watched Cleveland set season highs by an opponent for points in a quarter (44) and a half (74). James had 35 points by halftime, including a stretch of 24 consecutive Cavaliers points. Had the game been closer, James might have scored 70 points. In fact, O’Neal jokingly told him earlier in the day to go for 60. “It can’t be explained,” James said of his early outburst. “It was a great moment for myself and for our team in the way we started the game. It’s not like it comes easy.” Against the Knicks, it seems to. REBOUNDS Eddy Curry, who had knee surgery last month, said he was two to three weeks away from resuming basketball activities. He does not expect to play again this season, however, given Mike D’Antoni’s general disregard for his game. “Even if I come back, obviously I’m not going to play,” Curry said. “But for my own sanity, I would like to come back and go into the summertime being able to get on the court and work on my game a little bit, get up and down with some of the guys and see what happens next year.” ... Larry Hughes sat out the game because of a sprained big toe.
|
Basketball;New York Knicks;Cleveland Cavaliers;James LeBron;Robinson Nate;Harrington Al
|
ny0076858
|
[
"technology"
] |
2015/05/21
|
Prosthetic Limbs, Controlled by Thought
|
This is the third episode in a Bits video series, called Robotica , examining how robots are poised to change the way we do business and conduct our daily lives. Engineers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab have developed a next-generation prosthetic: a robotic arm that has 26 joints, can curl up to 45 pounds and is controlled with a person’s mind just like a regular arm. Researchers think the arm could help people like Les Baugh, who lost both arms at the shoulder after an electrical accident as a teenager. Now 59, Mr. Baugh recently underwent surgery at Johns Hopkins to remap the remaining nerves from his missing arms, allowing brain signals to be sent to the prosthetic. Mr. Baugh’s custom socket can pick up brain signals to control the arms, known as Modular Prosthetic Limbs, or M.P.L., just by thinking about the movements. Mike McLoughlin, the chief engineer of research and exploratory development at the lab, said that as the remapped nerves grew deeper, it was possible that Mr. Baugh would feel some sensation in his prostheses. Each arm has over 100 sensors, and other amputees who have had the same surgery reported being able to feel texture through the M.P.L. Patients of varying disabilities have tested the arm in the lab and helped push the design forward. The limb is modular, which means it can be broken off or built up to accommodate people with different needs — from a hand amputee to someone missing an entire arm. Quadriplegics or stroke survivors, who have lost the ability to move all or part of their bodies, can also use it as a surrogate arm. But while the limb is fully functional, it still faces hurdles before making its way outside the lab. It will need approval from the Food and Drug Administration, which could mean a clinical trial. Mr. McLoughlin also said the cost of the arm needed to be about a tenth of its current price to be viable in the marketplace. There are now about 10 fully functioning M.P.L.s, and each one costs an estimated $500,000. “We’ve designed a Maserati here, but what most people will want is a good Toyota,” Mr. McLoughlin said. “The M.P.L. was intentionally designed to be as sophisticated as we could make it so that you could really push the state of the art, but ultimately for commercializing it, it needs to be a lower cost design.” Since 2006, the lab has been awarded $120 million from a program run by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to help wounded warriors. The lab worked with technology developer and manufacturer HDT Global to make a prosthetic that mimics the human arm in dexterity and strength. “The long-term goal for all of this work is to have noninvasive — no extra surgeries, no extra implants — ways to control a dexterous robotic device,” said Robert Armiger, project manager for amputee research at the Johns Hopkins lab. In the future, researchers envision a kind of cap with sensors that an amputee or paralyzed person could wear that would feed information about brain activity to the robotic arm. The lab is starting to collaborate with industry partners to explore commercial opportunities. They hope the Modular Prosthetic Limb, or a version of it, will be available to consumers within a few years. — Emma Cott
|
Brain;Robot;Prosthesis;John Hopkins;Les Baugh
|
ny0169560
|
[
"business"
] |
2007/04/27
|
Citigroup Acquires Nikko
|
TOKYO, Friday, April 27 (Reuters) — Citigroup said on Friday that its takeover bid for Nikko Cordial succeeded after Nikko shareholders tendered a majority of the brokerage firm’s stock. The result came after the close of a contentious tender offer for the Japanese company. Some big Nikko shareholders wanted Citigroup to offer more for the firm. Citigroup said the tender gave it control of 61 percent of Nikko at a cost of $7.7 billion. It was offering to buy all Nikko shares tendered and was seeking a minimum 50 percent stake. The 1,700 yen-a-share offer expired on Thursday. Management at Nikko has agreed to the Citigroup deal, which would be the biggest foreign buyout ever of a Japanese company.
|
Citigroup Incorporated;Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures;Nikko Cordial Corp
|
ny0214110
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2010/03/21
|
Officer Shoots Bronx Man Wielding Knives, Police Say
|
A 33-year-old man wielding two large kitchen knives and threatening his neighbors in an apartment building in the Bronx on Friday night was shot and wounded by a police officer after he advanced on the officer and his colleague, the authorities said. The police said the man, whom they did not immediately identify, was struck in the arm and torso after the officer fired twice at him in a hallway of the building, in Mott Haven. Paramedics took the man to Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center, where he was reported to be in stable condition. The shooting will be reviewed by the Police Department’s Firearms Discharge Review Board, as is routine in such cases, a police spokesman said on Saturday. The officer, who joined the force in January 2005, is now on desk duty, as is also routine. He had not been involved in any previous shootings, the police said. About 9:10 p.m. Friday, the police responded to a 911 call reporting that a man with two knives was stalking the 18th floor of 694 East 149th Street, part of a city housing complex. The man was apparently banging on a neighbor’s door, the police said. The police went to the 18th floor. Then two officers from the department’s Housing Bureau went to the 14th floor, where the man lived. The officers, who were in plainclothes but had their shields around their necks, encountered him in the hallway. The officers identified themselves and repeatedly ordered him to drop the knives, according to the police. “Civilian witnesses said they heard the two officers” giving those orders, the police spokesman said, adding that the officers spoke in English and Spanish. But the man continued to approach the officers with the knives in his hands, and one of them fired a shot from his 9-millimeter Smith & Wesson pistol, the police said. The officers again ordered the man to drop the knives, the police said, but he continued to move toward them, and when he got to within three to five feet of him, the same officer fired again. The man fell to the floor, and the officers called for an ambulance, the police said. Two knives were recovered, one with a seven-inch blade, the other with a six-inch blade. No charges had been filed by Saturday afternoon. The police said they did not know what might have provoked the man. He faced felony drug-possession charges in 2007, the police said, but the disposition of those cases was not immediately available.
|
Knives;Bronx (NYC);Police
|
ny0104423
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2012/03/31
|
New York State Legislature Passes 2012-13 Budget
|
ALBANY — The State Legislature approved a $132.6 billion spending plan on Friday for the fiscal year that begins Sunday, bringing to a punctual conclusion one of the smoothest state budget negotiations at the Capitol in years. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and legislative leaders eagerly celebrated passage of the spending plan, which slightly reduces over-all spending from the current year, as evidence that Albany was finally behaving responsibly after years of scandal and disorder. The voting on Friday marked the first time the Legislature had approved a state spending plan with more than 24 hours to spare since 1983 — when Mr. Cuomo’s father, former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo , passed his first budget. Saying that “at one time, this state government was a joke,” Mr. Cuomo lavished praise on lawmakers at a news conference in his ceremonial office, where the backslapping among the assembled officials reached a level often seen in sports locker rooms following championship victories. “It has been a dramatic and almost unbelievable turnaround in 15 months,” Mr. Cuomo said. “We went from a model of dysfunction to, I believe, a model of function.” The daytime approval of the budget followed a period in which Mr. Cuomo and lawmakers had been criticized for a series of major votes taken in the middle of the night, and, at times, with little public notice. This week, the governor and the leaders of the Legislature said their actions reflected a newfound comity in the capital. “This was a good budget substantively, and it was a good budget procedurally,” said Senator John A. DeFrancisco, a Syracuse Republican and the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Mr. Cuomo and the leaders finished negotiating the bills that made up the budget on Tuesday. That gave them enough time to abide by a requirement in the State Constitution, often sidestepped for major legislation, that bills be made public for three days before they are voted on, so that legislators and the public can read the measures. The Senate and the Assembly began debating most of the bills that made up the budget on Friday morning. Early in the afternoon, lawmakers crowded into Mr. Cuomo’s ceremonial office to be photographed next to the governor as he signed a portion of the budget into law — even though neither the Senate nor the Assembly had actually finished approving the entire spending plan by that point. The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver , a Manhattan Democrat, called the smooth budget process “a breath of fresh air to all of us.” “We have been able to mesh our thoughts with your thoughts, and we produced what I think is a great document here,” said Mr. Silver, turning toward Mr. Cuomo and the Senate majority leader, Dean G. Skelos , a Long Island Republican. Mr. Skelos added, “We’re very proud of the way government is now functioning in Albany.” Both the Senate and the Assembly finished passing the spending plan later in the afternoon. There were no major dramatics as they debated the budget bills, although some lawmakers in the minority caucuses in both houses made clear that they were upset with their limited role in the budget talks. At the start of the celebratory news conference, one of Mr. Cuomo’s top aides, Joseph Percoco, was caught on camera instructing the Senate and Assembly minority leaders — who were standing behind the lectern near Mr. Cuomo, Mr. Skelos and Mr. Silver — to sit in the audience with the lawmakers on hand. Senator Kevin S. Parker, a Democrat from Brooklyn , described the budget process as “a joke” that blocked the minority caucuses in both houses from having any substantive role in negotiating the spending plan. “It goes back to the old dysfunction that we saw,” Mr. Parker said. During the day, the minority caucuses in both houses tried, and failed, to attach more than a dozen amendments to the budget bills that were being debated. Assembly Republicans proposed cutting taxes for manufacturers and repealing a payroll tax that helps finance the Metropolitan Transportation Authority , while Senate Democrats proposed to make tuition aid available to illegal immigrants at colleges and universities.
|
State legislature;New York;Politics;Mario Cuomo
|
ny0152096
|
[
"sports",
"olympics"
] |
2008/08/30
|
No Voice Is Too Small for a China Still Nervous About Dissent
|
WANGGANG, China — As this nation savors its historic haul of gold medals and grapples with a post-Olympics malaise, Gao Chuancai sits captive in a run-down hotel 700 miles from Beijing. Guarded by three policemen, Mr. Gao, a 45-year-old farmer detained after he sought to demonstrate in one of the official Olympic protest zones, is serving an open-ended sentence for “suspected extortion,” according to the Harbin public security bureau, whose officers seized him two weeks ago in the Beijing bathhouse where he was sleeping. “I’m doing fine,” he shouted through a barred window as his son and two visitors approached on Wednesday. “They’re treating me well.” Even as he spoke, his smile not entirely convincing, guards who had been tugging at his waist and legs wrested him away from the window. Shouts and scuffling sounds followed from inside the room. In a country where petitioners and protesters are regularly jailed, the detention of Mr. Gao is not especially notable. At least 220,000 people are serving “re-education through labor” sentences — one- to three-year terms that are meted out by the police without trial — and scores of other dissidents live under house arrest or with the unceasing surveillance of the Public Security Bureau. But the decision to take Mr. Gao into custody reflected the extreme irritability to even minor protest actions that gripped China’s capital during the Olympics. Mr. Gao is also part of a cadre of tireless petitioners, many of them inured to harassment and disappointment, who tried to protest anyway. He was among at least a half-dozen people detained after they applied for legal permits to stage a demonstration in designated protest zones. The zones were established by the Chinese authorities, nominally to show their openness to divergent views during the Games. No protests ever took place in the zones. “Anything that could threaten social stability makes the government very nervous,” said Jia Ping, the director of China Global Fund Watch Initiative, an organization that advocates on behalf of people infected with H.I.V. Among those detained during the Games were Zhang Wei, a Beijing resident who was seeking to publicize the demolition of her home, and Ji Sizun, a democracy advocate whose foray to the protest application office ended with his disappearance into a large black car. Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying, two elderly women whose requests to protest yielded one-year “re-education through labor” sentences, seem to have fared better. Human Rights in China, a rights watchdog group, reported on Friday that authorities in Beijing had formally rescinded the sentence imposed on the two women during the Games. Ms. Wu’s son, Li Xuehui, said the police also bought the family a new television set. Like Ms. Wu and Mrs. Wang, Mr. Gao is fearless, a man who seems to grow bolder with each detention. Here in Wanggang, the dusty agricultural town where he is lauded by many residents and loathed by the authorities, he has waged a decade-long campaign against officials he says routinely pocket money meant to compensate farmers whose land has been confiscated for public projects. Broken bones, smashed teeth and irreversible impotence, he said, are among the repercussions of his 12 detentions. “He is so stubborn,” said his sister, Gao Xiuzhi, 55. “Nothing will stop him, unless he is killed.” Last May his wife died after drinking a bottle of pesticide at the local government office. Family members said she could not afford treatment for her breast cancer and thought a dramatic gesture might move officials to hand over some of the money they owed her. The police blamed Mr. Gao for her death, but the town rallied to his defense and the charges were eventually dropped. After her death, Mr. Gao became even more relentless. In recent years, he has taken on the cause of six rural towns whose farmland was overtaken by a new highway. “The government eats our meat, but that’s not enough — so they drink our blood and consume our bones,” said Huang Qihe, 43, a farmer. Last week, when Mr. Huang and his neighbors heard a rumor that Mr. Gao had been arrested in Beijing and shipped back to Wanggang, they marched to the police station and demanded to see him. They were told he was not there, so they came back again. And again. After a week, the police finally handed over the slip of paper officially acknowledging Mr. Gao’s detention and accusing him of extortion. Infuriated, Dong Mingying, 45, and about 20 of her neighbors have been showing up at the station every day or two and threatening to go to Beijing if Mr. Gao is not released. “I think we are making them nervous,” she said proudly. Reached at the Wanggang police station, an officer declined to comment on Mr. Gao’s case, saying it was being handled by the Nangang District Public Security Bureau. A man who answered the phone at the bureau insisted the matter was the responsibility of the Wanggang police. Mr. Gao’s 23-year-old son, Gao Jiaqing, is not especially proud of his father. When he was 12, his father sent him to another province so he would not be exposed to the constant chaos wrought by his endless wars with the authorities. “At this point I’m numb,” he said, sitting on a bed piled high with his father’s documents. Still he walks every day to the back of the crumbling hotel operated by the Wanggang Agricultural Cultivation Bureau where his father is being held and tries to cheer him up. On Wednesday, before he was yanked away from the window, Mr. Gao, whose thin face has grown even gaunter, managed to slip some scraps of paper to his son. On them, he provided details of his detention and the names of the officials who had ordered him locked up. At the bottom, in tiny characters, he wrote: “I didn’t ask for money. I just wanted justice.”
|
Olympic Games (2008);Demonstrations and Riots;Freedom and Human Rights;China;Police;Wu Dianyuan;Wang Xiuying
|
ny0112493
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2012/02/24
|
N.F.L. Considers Changes at Scouting Combine
|
INDIANAPOLIS — When the N.F.L. asked fans to write essays explaining why they should be among the 250 people selected to attend the scouting combine for the first time, it received about 6,000 answers, including one from a man who said he wanted to know more about the prospects than his friends on draft day and another from a Colts fan who said he was particularly excited about watching the quarterbacks, one of whom will almost certainly replace Peyton Manning this spring. But one response probably struck a special chord with the N.F.L.: “Every year we have a combine party,” the note said. To give that person something more exciting to watch than a three-cone drill — and to make the sometimes-stultifying combine the next must-see event on the football calendar for more people — the N.F.L. is contemplating making several significant changes in the next few years to its annual job fair for college players, including having prospects race against one another in the 40-yard dash and compete side by side to bench-press 225 pounds the most often. “We would not want to do something that was just good for television, or just good for the fans, if it were at the expense of either the football evaluation or the players’ preparation,” said Eric Grubman, the executive vice president of N.F.L. ventures and business operations. “It’s a balancing act. The combine works.” That is why coaches and personnel executives winced when they were asked about the potential changes, which the league said would probably be introduced first at the smaller regional combines before being brought to the main combine. Football coaches and general managers are typically a tradition-bound group and the Giants’ president, John Mara, a member of the competition committee, said he would expect some resistance to possible changes when they are brought to the attention of coaches and scouts. To those charged with making personnel decisions, the combine remains a critical component of the evaluation process. It is perhaps most useful for the detailed medical assessments teams perform on the approximately 300 players who attend the main combine. While teams often conduct private workouts with players they are most seriously considering drafting — and certainly with those who will probably be selected highest in the draft — the combine provides something that football people value. It’s a way to measure players in different tasks — the 40-yard dash, the broad jump, the vertical leap — under exactly the same conditions, on exactly the same kind of field. Having players compete head to head would change the conditions for those players, possibly, some speculate, spurring players to run faster if paired with a speedster within their position group. “I’m old school,” said Trent Baalke, the San Francisco 49ers’ general manager. “Let’s just roll with how we’re doing it.” Bill Polian, the former Colts executive who now has his own show on Sirius XM Radio, said: “This has grown to a football trade show and I understand that. What we have to do is be careful not to lose the player personnel evaluation purpose of this.” But the transformation of the combine is part of the N.F.L.’s larger plan to give fans greater access to information and, not coincidentally, to colonize more parts of the calendar for a league with the shortest playing season. In recent years, it has moved the start of the draft to prime time on a weeknight. It has created more interest in training camps by allowing “Hard Knocks” crews to film teams. Three weeks ago, it sold tickets so fans could attend media day at the Super Bowl . And on Sunday, 600 fans will watch combine workouts, a small rollout designed to make coaches and scouts comfortable with their presence. They will be kept far from team officials who will be scrutinizing players, but Grubman said that the number of fans will almost surely grow in the next few years, as long as this year’s experiment is successful. “When you make it interesting, people want to see it,” Grubman said. “When you let them in, it gets bigger. When it gets bigger, other people want to be there. It goes from football media, who are attracted to it because it’s such a pure event, to popular media, to sponsors because fans are watching. “Not a day goes by that Roger Goodell and everybody else doesn’t take a step back and say, ‘This is all about the game,’ ” Grubman said of the N.F.L. commissioner. “We’re not going to threaten any aspect of that. One of the reasons the Super Bowl was so incredible was how much teams try to get there. Making every part of it big means everybody cares more, including the athletes. Having athletes prepare more because the combine has become more competitive has to be good for the game and the players.” The N.F.L. contends that the potential changes might actually help evaluators, by providing more information about each player, particularly about his competitiveness when matched against other players. That argument does not seem likely to sway skeptics. Detroit Lions Coach Jim Schwartz argued that players already want to run as fast as they can, and lift as much weight as possible, because so many important N.F.L. people are watching. “If you need to know about a guy’s competitiveness, turn on some game tape,” the agent David Canter said. He added that the combine would become more of a made-for-television event with the changes. “What about instances of injury, because guys are overdoing it?” That was Canter’s biggest concern, one the N.F.L. will have to ease before any changes are made. Players, though, have few such thoughts. The combine is already a competitive caldron for them. Racing against other players, they figure, is merely an extension of what they are already asked to do. “They say you run fastest when you’re being chased, right?” said Josh Harris, Auburn’s deep snapper.
|
Football;N.F.L. Scouting Combine;Goodell Roger;National Football League;Draft and Recruitment (Sports)
|
ny0207786
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2009/06/30
|
Beltran Gets a Second Opinion on His Right Knee
|
MILWAUKEE — Carlos Beltran wanted a second opinion for his ailing right knee, and his agent, Scott Boras, favored a particular doctor. So on Monday, Beltran was in Vail, Colo., being examined by Dr. Richard Steadman, who pioneered the technique known as microfracture surgery . John Ricco, the Mets ’ assistant general manager, said the team had no reason to think something more serious was wrong with Beltran’s knee, and that surgery had not been discussed. “With a player of this importance to us, there’s no argument on our end to get another look,” Ricco said before the Mets’ 10-6 loss to the Brewers. “He asked to go have a second opinion, which is his right under the rules. With him, there’s no reason for us to not be in favor of that. Our doctors are fully on board with that.” Beltran’s knee had bothered him for about a month before the Mets placed him on the disabled list June 22, when a magnetic resonance imaging test indicated that the bruise had doubled in size. Rest, orthotics and pool workouts were prescribed, and Beltran, eligible to be reinstated on July 7, said he hoped to return around the All-Star break. Ricco said he was unsure of Beltran’s timetable for return because the team was waiting to hear from Steadman. (Beltran ranks third among National League outfielders in All-Star voting , but it is unlikely he will play.) In 2007, Beltran, bothered by tendinitis in his knees for most of the season, had arthroscopic surgery to clean out frayed tissue from the patellar tendon. Microfracture surgery is commonly performed on the knees of professional athletes, usually basketball and football players, to regenerate damaged cartilage. If Steadman finds that cartilage has eroded in Beltran’s knee, he may recommend it. It is common for players to seek second opinions, especially with doctors as renowned as Steadman, whose Steadman-Hawkins Clinic is where Alex Rodriguez had hip surgery this year. Players from around baseball consult with the Mets’ team physician, Dr. David Altchek, a well-regarded orthopedic surgeon. In Beltran’s absence, the offense has struggled mightily, scoring 29 runs in eight games, with 17 coming in two games. Much of the burden has fallen to David Wright, who has driven in one run since Beltran went on the disabled list . Batting third each game, Wright has had 33 plate appearances, but only 12 with runners on base, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, and only four at-bats with runners in scoring position. Some combination of Alex Cora, Luis Castillo, Daniel Murphy and Argenis Reyes had hit ahead of him, combining for a .246 on-base percentage over the last week before Monday’s game. “Right now, there’s not much offense that anybody is really producing, so you’re not going to score many runs as a team when nobody’s really getting hot,” Wright said. “It takes the entire lineup. It takes guys getting on base and being a good situational hitting team and really playing small ball.” Manager Jerry Manuel shook up the top of the lineup Monday, resting Cora, who had started 20 consecutive games, and playing Reyes at shortstop. Manuel would rather start the injured Jose Reyes at shortstop and the leadoff spot, but he was hoping for the best. “Just writing Reyes’s name at the top might mean something,” Manuel said. It didn’t; Argenis Reyes went 0 for 5. MOUND TAG TEAM Jerry Manuel said he was considering using Oliver Perez and Tim Redding in tandem when Perez rejoins the team, which could come early next week. Perez, who pitched five scoreless innings Sunday for Class A Brooklyn , is slated to throw about 90 pitches Friday in his projected final rehabilitation start, for Class AAA Buffalo. Letting Redding pitch five innings and Perez four — or some variation, and in an undetermined order — would keep both pitchers stretched out, Manuel said, allowing the Mets to decide later whom to leave in the rotation and whom to put in the bullpen. Redding is scheduled to pitch Thursday in Pittsburgh, and it is still unlikely that Perez will be moved to the bullpen. JUST FISHING Francisco Rodriguez did not mean to throw a strike to Derek Jeter on Sunday with two on and two outs and Mariano Rivera on deck in the ninth. Before intentionally walking Jeter, Jerry Manuel wanted to gauge whether Jeter was so intent on driving in the runs that he would swing at bad pitches. Manuel noted that the same strategy worked once before in Chicago, when he managed the White Sox, and Sammy Sosa “swung at three pitches almost in the dugout.” “I’m not putting Jeter in that category, but I know there are some people that would do anything,” Manuel said. DELGADO UPDATE John Ricco said Carlos Delgado was close to swinging a bat but added that the Mets still expected him to return no sooner than early August.
|
New York Mets;Surgery and Surgeons;Beltran Carlos;Jeter Derek;Baseball;Rodriguez Francisco;Delgado Carlos
|
ny0111039
|
[
"business"
] |
2012/02/05
|
An Investment Wipeout That Didn’t Have to Happen
|
BOBBY L. HAYES, an engineering entrepreneur in Incline Village, Nev., used to trust financial institutions. This is the story of why he no longer does. Mr. Hayes won a securities arbitration last week and was awarded $1.38 million from the panel that heard the case. Banc of America Securities, now Merrill Lynch, must pay the award, which represents all the money Mr. Hayes lost on a complex security, plus accrued interest, lawyers’ costs and hearing fees. The Hayes case highlights this question: Exactly how did Wall Street price the loans that it bundled into securities and sold to investors? For anyone hoping to hold firms and individuals accountable for misconduct in the credit crisis, valuation practices are a rich vein to mine. Last week, for example, prosecutors in New York City wrung guilty pleas from two former mortgage traders at Credit Suisse who admitted inflating the values of mortgage bonds that the bank held on its books. As the subprime disaster spread in 2007 and 2008, one trader said he mismarked the bonds to please his superiors; another said the fraud was intended to keep him in line for a rich bonus. The bank itself was not charged. The outcome of Mr. Hayes’s case seemed to confirm his argument that prices on some of the loans in the pool were artificially inflated at the time of purchase. We can’t know for sure, though, because the arbitrators did not say why they ruled as they did. Mr. Hayes said he told his broker that he didn’t want to take risks with the money that went into the investment, a collateralized loan obligation known as Lyon Capital Management VII that was issued in July 2007. “I was a trusting client, and it was like a bad dream,” Mr. Hayes said. “I had a lot more assets in the bank, and it was unfathomable to me that they would deliberately do this to even a small depositor.” When Banc of America Securities was concocting the Lyon Capital deal, a $400 million collection of commercial loans that it planned to sell to investors, Wall Street’s labyrinthine and lucrative loan-pooling machine was starting to break down. An expert witness who testified at the arbitration said that as the security was being cobbled together, the loans purchased over previous months were losing value. Instead of owning up to that fact, this witness said, Banc of America Securities sold the investment as if the loans still carried prices from months earlier. By selling the Lyon Capital deal with inflated asset values, Banc of America Securities was able to make sure that it did not incur losses on the loans purchased for the security. Thomas C. Bradley, a lawyer based in Reno, Nev., who represented Mr. Hayes, said that while the security was being created, the loans lost 5 percent of their value. “Our whole case rode on the premise that the investment was intrinsically worthless as of the day the investments closed,” Mr. Bradley said. “The panel agreed.” MR. HAYES had been sold the riskiest piece of the loan pool, known as the equity or E tranche. Because of the way losses are distributed in these instruments, the loans in the pool had to decline only by one-half of 1 percent before Mr. Hayes’s investment would be wiped out. The entire security was liquidated at a loss of around $75 million about 16 months after it was sold. Bill Haldin, a spokesman for Bank of America, the parent company, said it disagreed with the arbitrators’ decision. “Following the purchase of this investment, the market experienced extreme volatility,” he said. The bank denied that the investment was worthless when it was sold to Mr. Hayes. Craig J. McCann, founder of the Securities Litigation and Consulting Group in Fairfax, Va., testified on behalf of Mr. Hayes at the arbitration. His firm has done research on the problems posed to investors by firms that collect loans during a period of steep asset price declines. He has identified several cases where securities contained loans that had been bought at prices substantially higher than their market value when the pools were issued. “If the loans drop in value during the warehousing period, as they did in this case precipitously, then the trust is agreeing to pay something significantly more than the market value of the securities,” Mr. McCann said. “The right thing for Banc of America to do would have been to only charge the trust the current market value of the loans or at least disclose to investors the trust is paying $400 million when the loans are worth $380 million.” The loans were gathered for the LCM security from November 2006 to June 2007, as the credit markets were coming unglued. The prospectus for the deal did point out that the loan purchases made during the period would be reflected on account summaries at acquisition costs. What was not made clear, though, was that those costs were considerably above current values; investors, therefore, would incur immediate losses when they bought the security, Mr. McCann said. Banc of America Securities later changed its disclosures about the potential for losses embedded in loan pools like the Lyon Capital deal. In a similar offering dated August 2007, the prospectus noted that because of declining market values of loans, it was likely that the value of the portfolio “on the closing date will be substantially less than the principal amount” of the loans in the pool. Another problem with the Lyon Capital deal, Mr. McCann said, was a conflict of interest in its structure, which was disclosed in the prospectus. Affiliates of Banc of America Securities, it noted, were among those selling loans to the firm for inclusion in the pool. Collecting loans for lengthy periods also allows for opportunistic trade allocation, Mr. McCann said. If, for example, the loans had risen in value while the security was being created, one might well wonder if those loans would have ever made it into the final product. Even though he won his case, Mr. Hayes said he was still livid. “I no longer trust any financial institution,” he added. Something tells me he’s not alone in that.
|
Banking and Financial Institutions;Arbitration Conciliation and Mediation;Merrill Lynch & Co;Banc of America Securities;Financial Brokers;Collateralized Debt Obligations;Hayes Bobby L
|
ny0209095
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2009/12/16
|
Paterson to Bar Discrimination Against Transgender State Employees
|
Gov. David A. Paterson plans to extend antidiscrimination protections to transgender state employees, a decision that signifies the broadest inclusion yet of transgender people in state policy, according to several people with direct knowledge of the matter. Mr. Paterson will carry out the decision through an executive order, to be signed on Wednesday, that will require state agencies to include transgender individuals in their nondiscrimination policies, these people said. Though state antidiscrimination law includes gay men and lesbians, it is silent on the issue of transgender people. And while Mr. Paterson’s order will not have the sweep of a statute enacted by the State Legislature because it will apply only to state agencies, gay and transgender rights advocates said it would be a first step toward including gender identity and expression protections in state law. Advocates for transgender people have succeeded in winning broad antidiscrimination protections in a number of cities throughout the state, including New York, Buffalo, Albany and Rochester. But efforts to add similar protections to state law have so far fallen short. The Assembly has passed a transgender antidiscrimination bill, but the Senate has refused to vote on the issue. People with direct knowledge of the governor’s executive order described it this week, though the governor’s office has not yet formally issued it.The governor’s office declined to comment. While supporters of transgender legal protections said they were encouraged by Mr. Paterson’s order, they noted that New York was not a pioneer in extending such rights. “It has been a long road, and I think New York is behind,” said Dru Levasseur, a transgender rights attorney for Lambda Legal . “So this will bring New York up to par with other states that are taking the lead on workplace fairness.” Twelve states and the District of Columbia have broad laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender expression or identity, according to gay and transgender rights groups. In addition, more than 100 cities and counties across the country provide similar legal protections. These laws protect not only people who have had gender reassignment surgery or who live as a member of the opposite sex, but also men who are discriminated against for appearing overly feminine or women for appearing overly masculine. Much like the antidiscrimination laws that have been broadened over the years to include gays, lesbians and bisexuals, transgender antidiscrimination laws have gradually multiplied in jurisdictions throughout the country since Minneapolis became the first city to have such a law in 1975. “I’ve been working on transgender law for eight years, and when I started there was only one state, Minnesota, that had protections for transgender people statewide with an overall nondiscrimination law,” said Lisa Mottet, director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s transgender civil rights project. Still, gay rights groups have found that a high percentage of transgender people report discrimination at work. According to a new survey of 6,450 transgender people conducted by the task force, 97 percent reported mistreatment at work. Two weeks ago, the State Senate defeated a bill that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed in New York. The 38-to-24 vote to kill the bill was a stinging rebuke to gay rights advocates in New York. New York State has about 300,000 residents who identify as transgender, according to one survey conducted by the State Department of Health.
|
Transsexuals;New York State;Paterson David A;Executive Orders
|
ny0258482
|
[
"world",
"africa"
] |
2011/01/07
|
Tanzania: 2 Demonstrators Are Killed
|
The police shot and killed two anti-government protesters in Tanzania and arrested at least 10 leading opposition figures during a violent political demonstration, a senior police official said Thursday. The opposition leader Willibrod Slaa, who ran in last year’s disputed presidential election, was among those detained and his Chadema party spoke of a deliberate crackdown on the opposition. The police arrested 49 people, including Chadema’s chairman, Freeman Mbowe, and at least four opposition lawmakers. The detained opposition leaders were later charged with unlawful assembly and released on bail. Opposition leaders were protesting the election of a ruling party candidate as mayor of Arusha, an opposition stronghold, saying Chadema councilors were barred from voting. The arrest of Mr. Slaa, the main challenger to President Jakaya Kikwete, above, in an Oct. 31 presidential election marred by allegations of vote rigging, came days after he called for Mr. Kikwete’s resignation. He demanded that Mr. Kikwete step down after a scandal over a power generation contract.
|
Demonstrations Protests and Riots;Tanzania;Elections;Police Brutality and Misconduct;Murders and Attempted Murders
|
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