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ny0032011
|
[
"world",
"americas"
] |
2013/06/22
|
D.E.A. Agent in Colombia Is Killed in Possible Attempt at Robbery
|
A Drug Enforcement Administration agent was killed in what appeared to have been a robbery attempt in Colombia, the American ambassador, P. Michael McKinley, said Friday. Colombian authorities said the American agent, James Watson, 43, was stabbed four times. Mr. McKinley told local Radio Caracol that the robbery attempt occurred after Mr. Watson left a meeting with friends at a Bogotá restaurant and got into a taxi. Col. Camilo Cabana of the National Police said that the taxi Mr. Watson was riding in was intercepted by another taxi near the restaurant. Two men got out and tried to pull Mr. Watson out of the vehicle, stabbing him three times in the chest and once in the leg, Colonel Cabana said. Mr. Watson was taken to a clinic several blocks away, but was pronounced dead on arrival. The D.E.A. said Mr. Watson was on a temporary assignment in Bogotá.
|
Assault;Robbery;Murders;Colombia
|
ny0048000
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2014/11/21
|
Swedish Court Upholds Order for Arrest of Julian Assange
|
LONDON — A Swedish court on Thursday upheld a four-year-old order for the detention of Julian Assange , the founder of WikiLeaks, over accusations of sexual assault that inspired a lengthy legal battle before he took refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. Lawyers for Mr. Assange, 43, had sought to have the order withdrawn on the grounds that it could not be enforced while he was in the embassy, and they also contended that it was restricting his civil rights. But the Swedish court rejected the legal argument that it should “set aside the detention solely because Julian Assange is in an embassy and the detention order cannot be enforced at present for that reason,” Reuters reported. The ruling was a bitter defeat for Mr. Assange, an Australian who fled to the modest embassy in London’s upmarket Knightsbridge neighborhood two years ago, after Britain ordered his extradition to Sweden in February 2011. “It is astonishing,” Michael Ratner, a prominent American civil rights lawyer who helps to represent Mr. Assange, said in a statement about the Swedish court’s ruling. “He continues to be detained without charge, and the court concedes that this can continue for years to come.” Sweden has not formally indicted Mr. Assange, but prosecutors in Stockholm want to question him about allegations of sexual misconduct relating to two women he encountered during a visit there in 2010. He denies the allegations. Mr. Assange filed unsuccessful appeals in British courts against the extradition order before taking refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador, which granted him asylum in 2012. There had been speculation that, if he had succeeded in his appeal on Thursday, Mr. Assange might have left the embassy. He has said he fears that if extradited to Sweden, the authorities there would send him to the United States. Mr. Assange has expressed a willingness to meet with Swedish prosecutors in London, an offer that the prosecutors have turned down. The United States has not publicly indicted Mr. Assange or formally sought his extradition. But American investigations continue into WikiLeaks’ publication of classified military and diplomatic material on its website. Some of the material was published by news organizations, including The New York Times. In August, at a news conference at the embassy, Mr. Assange said he would “be leaving the embassy soon,” but did not elaborate on his reasons for saying so. British news reports have said he was in poor health, suffering from ailments including arrhythmia, very high blood pressure and a chronic lung problem.
|
Julian P Assange;Sweden;Extradition;WikiLeaks;Diplomats Embassies and Consulates;Rape;London;Ecuador
|
ny0050087
|
[
"sports",
"soccer"
] |
2014/10/27
|
Many in M.L.S. Playing Largely for Love of the Game
|
John Berner, 23, qualifies for the affordable housing program in his apartment building. Joe Nasco, 30, holds multiple part-time jobs so that his wife, Amber, can stay home with their newborn daughter, Caroline. Clint Irwin, 25, is sharing a three-bedroom house with two roommates while chasing his dream career. The three men are not much different from thousands of young Americans trying to make ends meet, and their financial struggles, in this way, are unexceptional. But the men also happen to be professional athletes, goalkeepers on the Colorado Rapids in Major League Soccer. In many ways, this year has been a high-water mark for soccer in the United States. After years of fighting to gain recognition alongside the more established major sports in the country, soccer reached an unprecedented level of public consciousness during last summer’s World Cup, where an intrepid run by the American team charmed a fresh crop of casual fans. Major League Soccer has gone along for the ride. While its revenue and ratings still lag far behind billion-dollar behemoths like the N.F.L. and Major League Baseball, M.L.S., which opens its postseason this week , has minted its own crop of multimillionaire players, has established attendance records and is set for an infusion of television money starting next year . Yet in some ways, salaries in the league show how far the sport has to go. While the best-paid players in M.L.S. — American stars like Clint Dempsey ($6.7 million) and Michael Bradley ($6.5 million) along with a smattering of imported stars — command salaries comparable to or better than what they would make in Europe’s best leagues, they remain American soccer’s 1 percent. According to figures released annually by the league’s players union , only 23 of the 572 players listed had a base salary greater than the minimum salary in the N.H.L., a league that M.L.S. has been trying to overtake in popularity. Nearly a third of the league’s total payroll of about $130 million goes to the seven best-paid players, and for each of them there are dozens of others making $50,000 or less. For that much larger group, the payoff for soccer’s recent rise has been negligible — and negotiations this winter for a new labor agreement could determine how much that changes. “Rosters cannot be built solely at the top,” said Bob Foose, the executive director of the Major League Soccer Players Union. “In addition to investment in designated players, the middle of the M.L.S. salary structure needs to be substantially improved in order to retain and attract talent and reward those players who contribute on the field every week.” Image Berner’s salary this year is $36,500, the M.L.S. minimum for players under the age of 25. The money does not go far. He devotes several hundred dollars a month to repaying student loans and paying the bills on his 2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee. His income is sufficiently low that he qualified for an affordable housing unit in his Denver apartment building. Nasco makes about $53,000, a shade more than the senior player minimum of $48,500. He and wife just had their first child. To supplement his salary, he gives private goalkeeping lessons to middle school students during the week, and on the weekends, when not traveling with the Rapids, he works as an instructor at a soccer academy. Like many M.L.S. players, he takes home leftover food, snacks and drinks from the club’s practice complex to save money on meals. Irwin, who made the minimum salary last year, had his average yearly compensation raised to $87,000 this season after he established himself as the Rapids’ No. 1 goalkeeper. Over the summer, he wrote a magazine article — for which he received a freelance fee — that argued that the United States’ popular national team, with its considerable contingent of M.L.S. players, should serve as an indicator of how much the league has grown and evidence that its players might deserve a raise. Players in the past have had strong words about the league’s financial imbalance, but Irwin and his teammates made clear this month that they were not complaining about their situations, just pointing out that things could still improve. “It’s not poverty by any means,” Irwin said of the league’s low-end salaries. “But at the same time, it’s not as comfortable as you’d like, especially with the way that your body is your tool.” Mark Abbott, the president and deputy commissioner of M.L.S., said the league, which does not have an established minor league system, must devote part of its clubs’ 30-man rosters to the development of players. He said such players, like minor leaguers in other sports, make justifiably lower salaries while being given the chance to ascend to a higher level. And, Abbott said, minimum salaries were raised over 41 percent since the last collective bargaining agreement five years ago. Foose, the head of the players union, argued that even established veteran players “have consistently been underpaid for their contributions.” Such points will be argued in the labor talks, which will help shape the future of soccer in this country. While butting heads over player compensation and other issues, the two sides are also expected to clash on the subject of free agency. Since beginning play in 1996, M.L.S. has always operated as a single-entity structure, with the league controlling all player contracts and movement. But players’ salaries will be the most visceral battle. The league’s median salary is about $92,000 , with an average of about $226,000 in guaranteed money, and there is a belief in the union that the number must be considerably higher to attract and retain better talent, which in turn would ensure the future of the league. In contrast, the average salary at the top level of the English Premier League is about $2.57 million, though it is considerably less at lower levels. Minimum salaries represent only a portion of the M.L.S. financial picture. Yet those figures have a strong symbolic value as benchmarks of prosperity and must also “increase significantly,” Foose said, “so that all M.L.S. players can focus solely on maximizing their development and performance.” Image Nasco is guaranteed about $53,000 for an entire M.L.S. season, while the Seattle Sounders’ Obafemi Martins, below him, gets about $51,500 per regular-season game. Credit Ted S. Warren/Assciated Press The minimum salary in the N.F.L. is $420,000; in Major League Baseball, it is $500,000; in the N.B.A., it is $507,336; and in the N.H.L., it is $550,000. Those leagues — and their players unions — are far more established, but the difference in salary compared with M.L.S., especially at the bottom, remains striking . Michael LeRoy, a labor expert at the University of Illinois, said soccer’s situation today was reminiscent of what many other sports went through in the 1970s. Professional athletes, who often worked part-time jobs in the off-season to supplement their salaries, won collective bargaining victories over time, but often only after strikes and other difficult actions. M.L.S. has never had a work stoppage. “This is a players association in its relative infancy,” LeRoy said of the M.L.S. union, “but they’re on a well-worn path.” The union, in its proposal, will cite indicators of the league’s health. It procured a $90 million television contract this year. After the 2013 season, Forbes reported that the average M.L.S. franchise was worth $103 million, a 175 percent increase since the magazine’s previous valuation of clubs in 2008. The league would counter that it is still losing money. “On a combined basis, M.L.S. and its clubs continue to lose in excess of $100 million per year,” Abbott said. “As a result, we are not in a position where we are discussing how to divide profits with the players, but rather what is an appropriate level of investment and where the investment should be made given the reality of our financial condition.” In the midst of all this, according to Ted Philipakos, a soccer agent and lecturer on sports law at New York University, there is less discontent around the league than one might expect. He surmised that young players — many of whom emerged from the college system — had grown up accustomed to the single-entity, slow-growth structure of M.L.S. This, he said, possibly echoed a wider millennial mind-set of valuing the pursuit of work that one loves, even if compensation is not immediately lucrative. As Nasco said, “When you compare this to anything else in professional sports, you really are playing for the love of the sport, and you’re hoping, if you can stay in it and stay healthy, you can eventually get the money you deserve.” Until that day arrives, players do what they can to get by. In other major sports leagues, for instance, public appearances are often seen as a chore. In M.L.S., young players clamor to do them because they can often pay an extra couple of hundred dollars. Competition on the field also has a deeper meaning: Players on minimum contracts earn $500 every time they enter a game as a substitute, and $1,000 for every game they start. Irwin unexpectedly made 31 starts last year while on a minimum deal after the Rapids’ starting goalkeeper at the time broke his arm. “I pretty much doubled my salary,” he said. “That’s big. But it’s an anomaly.” It also helps explain why this month will be especially disappointing in the Rapids’ locker room. The team missed the playoffs, meaning there will be no chance to earn postseason bonuses.
|
Soccer;MLS;Wages and salaries;Collective bargaining;Colorado Rapids Soccer Team
|
ny0249510
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2011/02/03
|
Parking Rules in N.Y.C. for Asian Lunar New Year
|
Because of the Asian Lunar New Year, alternate-side street-cleaning regulations will be suspended on Thursday in New York City. Other regulations will remain in effect.
|
Parking;New York City
|
ny0148342
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2008/09/02
|
Man Kills 4 People and Then Himself
|
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — A man fatally shot four adult relatives in his home here on Monday after a family quarrel, and then turned the gun on himself, law enforcement officials said. The Camden County prosecutor’s office did not release the names of the dead, but said the shooting was the biggest multiple killing in at least a decade in Camden, which ranks among the nation’s most dangerous cities. Jason Laughlin, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, said that neighbors heard shots shortly after 5 p.m. When the police arrived at a duplex on Princess Avenue, half of which was boarded up, they found the bodies of two women, ages 81 and 33, and a 30-year-old man in the dining room and kitchen. The shooter, 54, and a 57-year-old woman were taken to Cooper University Hospital, where they were pronounced dead. Two children, ages 7 and 10, ran to a neighbor’s home when the shooting started, Mr. Laughlin said. They were being questioned by the police, and it was not immediately clear who would take care of them, he said. The family relationships were not clear to investigators, Mr. Laughlin said. He said that the police had been called to the home in June, but that he did not know why. Neighbors said they were not certain who actually lived in the house, because four generations of the family gathered there daily. Wanda Wiche, a neighbor, said the family had lived there for more than 20 years and were very close, and well liked. She said she had found it odd on Monday afternoon that when she said hello to the man in his 50s, he did not answer. “I’m really in a state of shock,” she said, as she returned home from work to find her street — a friendly place with end-of-summer barbecues going on when she left — swarming with police officers and cordoned off by yellow crime-scene tape only a few hours later. Juan Peralta, 31, said the 30-year-old male victim was Felix Cruz, a friend of his since they attended Camden High School together. “This is horrible to see,” he said. “The devil don’t sleep.”
|
Camden (NJ);Murders and Attempted Murders;Crime and Criminals
|
ny0162229
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2006/02/03
|
Stevens Steps Back as Porter Cues It Up
|
DEARBORN, Mich., Feb. 2 - The boom microphone was hanging like a noose in front of Jerramy Stevens, but it was not picking up his voice very well. Stevens, a tight end for the Seattle Seahawks, spoke so softly Thursday it was hard to hear what he had to say about starting Word War XL. Reporters were lined eight deep as Stevens spoke at a podium inside the hotel ballroom during the Seahawks' media session, drawn to him like rubberneckers to a back-alley fight. An offhanded comment Stevens made earlier in the week had supplanted homecoming week for Jerome Bettis, the Pittsburgh Steeler running back and Detroit native, as the central story of this Super Bowl. Steelers linebacker Joey Porter attacked Stevens for saying that Bettis's return to his roots for his first Super Bowl in what is probably his last season "is a heartwarming story and all that, but it will be a sad day when he leaves without the trophy." Porter, the behemoth that roars, initially fired back Wednesday when he called Stevens "a first-round bust who barely made some plays this season," and said, "He's too soft to say something like that." Steelers Coach Bill Cowher did not seem upset by Porter's public display of disaffection. "It's just Joey being Joey," he said. "I was pretty proud he lasted this long." Like an operatic performer, Porter was just getting warmed up. During the Steelers' press availability Thursday morning, he continued his aria. "They're looking for a fight," he said. "I've been ready for a fight." Referring to Stevens, he added: "They better not let him block me. They better not make that coaching mistake. If they run a play at me, it's not going to work." The Seahawks spoke after the Steelers, giving Stevens the last word. Even before Stevens walked nervously to the podium and smiled sheepishly as he pulled out his chair and settled into his seat, Coach Mike Holmgren cautioned against bracing for any more bottle-rocket bursts from Stevens. "I guarantee he'll have nothing to say the rest of the week," Holmgren said. Sure enough, Stevens spoke for almost 40 minutes and said little. "I didn't mean any disrespect toward him," he said, referring to Bettis. "He's a Hall of Famer." Peering out at his audience, which grew to include 18 television cameras, Stevens said: "This is intense. But I'm not scared." Maybe a little scarred. "I wish I didn't have to deal with this," he said. "It was not my intention to create this." His teammates, from other points in the room, rallied to Stevens's side. "Jerramy's a great guy, a great teammate," said the fourth-year tight end Ryan Hannam. "Jerramy definitely wouldn't be characterized as a troublemaker or anything like that." Hannam added: "From what I heard, he made some comment that got the ball rolling, and now everyone got carried away with it. Because it's the Super Bowl, I'm not surprised it's turned into a huge story. Any other week of the year, it wouldn't have even made the newspapers." Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said Stevens's comments "absolutely" were blown out of proportion. "I saw what Jerramy said," Hasselbeck said. "I didn't read into it like other people did. Guess what? We're going to go out and try to win this game. Sorry we're not going to just go out and lay down." Stevens insisted the unwanted attention would not drag him down and take the Seahawks with him. "I don't look at it as a burden," Stevens said. "I'm not upset." Stevens, 26, declared for the draft in 2002 after playing three seasons at Washington, and was drafted 28th over all by the Seahawks. He was the first tight end the team had drafted in the first round. After catching 63 passes in his first three N.F.L. seasons, the 6-foot-7 Stevens opened his fourth as a replacement starter for Itula Mili, who was hospitalized with an intestinal blockage. Stevens cemented his starting status by making 45 catches and averaging 12.3 yards a reception during the regular season. Stevens worked extensively with Hasselbeck during the off-season, and the connection they forged has paid dividends in the playoffs, with Stevens catching eight passes, including four for first downs. "A lot of how our offense goes depends on how Jerramy plays," Hannam said. "We're going to need him to play good for us on Sunday." Stevens said he was ready. "This won't affect my game," he said. "I'm not a trash talker, but if someone says something to me on the field, I won't back down."
|
PITTSBURGH STEELERS;SEATTLE SEAHAWKS;PORTER JOEY;BETTIS JEROME;STEVENS JERRAMY;SUPER BOWL;FOOTBALL
|
ny0006368
|
[
"sports",
"soccer"
] |
2013/05/02
|
In Dortmund, Proof That Teamwork Can Trump Talent
|
LONDON — In the race to the finish, after two late goals by Real Madrid cast sudden doubt on the presumption that German soccer is all-powerful in Europe again, one man silently slipped away from the directors’ box at the Santiago Bernabéu. “For the first time in my life, I had to give up due to heart problems,” Hans-Joachim Watzke, the chief executive of Borussia Dortmund, explained later. “I went to the toilet for the last minutes, locked myself in, covered my ears and looked at my watch. I had all kind of thoughts going through my head.” There is nothing medically wrong with Herr Watzke. At 53, he has played his part in restoring Borussia from financial ruin to the pinnacle of European soccer, all in the span of a single decade. But he couldn’t watch after Karim Benzema and Sergio Ramos scored in the 83rd and 88th minutes to bring Real Madrid within one more goal of eliminating the Germans from the Champions League, the final of which will be played in London later this month. When the officials indicated that five more minutes would be added beyond the regulation 90, that was when Watzke could watch no longer. “It seems,” he said, “like we only can do things with drama.” He can be thankful that Dortmund’s dramatists happen to be particularly youthful, and strong in heart and mind. For that, in the end, was what carried the team through in a semifinal series in which it had devastated Madrid, 4-1, just one week ago. On Tuesday, in Real’s own legendary stadium and with 70,000 Madridistas baying for the final comeback, Borussia conceded two goals, but it would not let in the third that would have given the Spanish team a victory on the strength of away goals. It was that close. The margin was that palpitating. And the story last week about Germany reigning supreme over Spain was paper-thin at the delayed final whistle. What does have to be examined is why Dortmund’s margin in the first leg appeared so overwhelming. And how the Madrid giant, with the greatest financial clout in the global game, according to the latest ratings by Forbes magazine, could put in two such disparate performances in the space of six nights. The analysis, I fancy, will come down to team management. Over the two legs, we could see that Real Madrid — with the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Mesut Ozil and Ángel Di María — had the most dazzling individuals in the contest. Dortmund had youth, and it had, in the Pole Robert Lewandowski, a man who struck four handsome goals last week, though he may have missed just as many opportunities this week in the Bernabéu. That is a harsh judgment, because nobody can say that Lewandowski tried any less this week in Madrid, or that he lacked commitment or bravery. He needed both, because after Coach José Mourinho publicly questioned last week why none of his Real defenders had fouled the Pole during the first encounter, his captain, Ramos, did so repeatedly Tuesday. Four times the Spaniard’s arm or elbow found its way pointedly into the cheekbones of Lewandowski. Four times the English referee, Howard Webb, either conveniently looked the other way or acted leniently by not sending off the aggressor. But that wasn’t the only reason why the two legs swung in different directions. The crux was in Dortmund’s strength of character. The collective will that each player would give his utmost for the team was exemplified by the defender Mats Hummels. By all accounts, Hummels is the central defender that Barcelona is preparing to offer big money to buy when this season is over. We could see why. In the first game, Hummels’s error led to Ronaldo scoring for Real, but he atoned both at home and away with graceful defending under pressure. We forget that the game is about defense as much as it is about the headline stars of attack. Ronaldo is the costliest player in soccer history, going by the £80 million that Madrid paid Manchester United for him some years back. Often, Ronaldo justifies that figure, now worth about $125 million. Over the 180 minutes he played against Dortmund, he didn’t. Maybe that was because of Hummels and Co. Maybe it was explained by Real’s story about Ronaldo suffering a thigh strain, or maybe it was even about the gossip about his love life. No matter the reason, Ronaldo mirrored Madrid’s failure in living up to its price tag. And Hummels epitomized Dortmund’s understated effort. “Everybody in our team dreamed of this,” said Hummels late into the night in Madrid. “I know I did, when I was a child.” He paused, thought for a second, and quietly added: “Some of us are still children. And we are going to Wembley.” Hummels is 24, which makes him slightly older than the average among players on his team. They are products of a side raised in a remarkable five years under the tutelage of Jürgen Klopp, a true coach in the way that he finds players to polish and integrate into the attacking style that he covets. It was said that Chelsea saw Klopp as its next coach, but he reminded everyone that he is happily under contract to Dortmund. The other coach, Mourinho, is not so tied. Immediately after the final whistle, after the closure of Madrid’s ambition to return to the European Cup that it regards almost as its heirloom, Mourinho appeared on the British channel ITV. He was asked whether he would be back for a fourth attempt to take Real beyond the semifinals. “Maybe not,” he replied. Mourinho is under contract beyond this season, but he said that contracts can be broken, and he wishes to go where people love him and appreciate him. That is not Madrid; it is England, and in particular Chelsea, where he feels he has unfinished business despite having been fired there in 2007. Tuesday should not have been about one man. Making it appear so possibly told us why Madrid’s collection of arguably greater talents fell to the team from Dortmund.
|
Real Madrid;UEFA Champions League
|
ny0253251
|
[
"us"
] |
2011/10/19
|
Latinos Said to Bear Weight of a Deportation Program
|
A deportation program that is central to the Obama administration’s immigration enforcement strategy has led disproportionately to the removal of Latino immigrants and to arrests by immigration authorities of hundreds of United States citizens, according to a report by two law schools using new, in-depth official data on deportation cases. The report also found that about a third of around 226,000 immigrants who have been deported under the program, known as Secure Communities , had spouses or children who were United States citizens, suggesting a broad impact from those removals on Americans in Latino communities. The report, to be released Wednesday, is the first analysis of deportations under the Secure Communities program based on data about individual cases, which was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the University of California, Berkeley, law school and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. The Secure Communities program has drawn intense criticism from immigrant communities and from some state and local officials, who have said it led to deportations of many immigrants who were not dangerous offenders and eroded trust between the communities and local police. Obama administration officials have just as vigorously defended the program. On Tuesday, immigration officials said that the latest deportation figures show that Secure Communities and the Obama administration’s larger strategy are working, announcing that they had deported a total of 396,906 foreigners over the last year, a record number in the last decade. The officials said that 55 percent of the immigrants deported were criminal convicts, including 51,620 people convicted of felonies like homicide, drug trafficking and sexual offenses. The results were an 89 percent increase in deportations of criminals since the beginning of the Obama administration, the officials said. Of the remaining illegal immigrants deported, the great majority were arrested soon after they crossed the border illegally or had returned illegally after being deported, officials said. “We came into office focused on creating a smart enforcement system by setting a rational system of priorities, and we have done that,” John Morton, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said on Tuesday. “We said criminal offenders would be our highest priority, and lo and behold, they are the highest priority.” Under Secure Communities, the fingerprints of anyone booked after arrest by local police are checked against F.B.I. criminal databases and also against Department of Homeland Security databases, which record immigration violations. Initiated in 2008, the program has been expanded by the Obama administration to more than 1,500 jurisdictions, and officials have said they will extend it nationwide by 2013. In a random sample provided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement of 375 deportation cases under the program that was analyzed by the law schools, researchers found five cases of United States citizens held by immigration agents, with no clear reason specified in the records. Although the number of citizens is small, their presence in the sample raised concerns because immigration authorities do not have legal powers to prosecute or deport Americans. “If Secure Communities was working properly,” the report said, a match under the program “should never result in the apprehension” of a citizen. Based on the sample, the researchers estimated that at least 680 United States citizens had been held under the program. No Americans were ever placed in immigration detention, the report found. Administration officials strongly rejected the report’s findings, saying they were not an accurate description of the program. “Any suggestion that we are knowingly arresting or detaining U.S. citizens would be false and a misrepresentation,” Mr. Morton said. The officials said that some American citizens arrested by local police could be flagged in a Secure Communities match because the department’s fingerprint databases include immigration violations and also positive histories of immigrants who applied for legal status or naturalized to become American citizens. Immigration agents might hold a foreign-born person already arrested by local police while they were verifying the immigrant’s legal status or American citizenship, they said. “Wherever we determine that someone is a citizen we don’t detain and remove that person, because we don’t have that power,” Mr. Morton said. But he added, “It would be irresponsible for us not to investigate someone who is suspected of a crime and has some record of being foreign born.” The researchers said the presence of citizens among deportation cases indicated that the program did not have adequate procedures to avoid the arrest of Americans and others who could or should not be deported. “The Secure Communities protocol too often is arrest first and investigate later, and that is not what the Constitution dictates,” said Peter L. Markowitz, a professor of immigration law at the Cardozo law school and an author of the report. The other authors were Aarti Kohli and Lisa Chavez of the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute at the Berkeley law school. “If this is the quality of due process with regard to U.S. citizens,” Mr. Markowitz said, “we should all be terrified with regard to immigrants who are targets of immigration enforcement.” The report found that 93 percent of immigrants arrested under Secure Communities were Latinos, although Latino immigrants are about three-quarters of the illegal immigrants in the United States.
|
Illegal Immigrants;Hispanic-Americans;Immigration and Customs Enforcement (US);Deportation;Secure Communities;Immigration and Emigration
|
ny0000706
|
[
"world",
"africa"
] |
2013/03/11
|
Islamists Kill 7 Captives in Nigeria, a Shift in Tactics
|
DAKAR, Senegal — Radical Islamists in northern Nigeria have killed seven foreign construction workers who were kidnapped in February, a significant escalation of extremist violence in Nigeria’s continuing jihadist insurgency. The killings were announced Saturday by an obscure splinter group, Ansaru, and confirmed by European foreign ministries on Sunday. The seven — an Italian, a Greek, an Englishman and four from the Middle East, including Lebanon — were seized on Feb. 16 from the compound of Setraco, a Lebanese construction company operating in Nigeria’s Bauchi State, in a well-planned nighttime assault. A grainy photo released by the group showed a gunman standing by a number of corpses. The deaths signal a shift in tactics by the radical Islamists who have been battling the Nigerian government for nearly four years in the country’s impoverished north. The Islamist group Boko Haram has previously attacked, for the most part, officials and institutions associated with the federal and local authorities, though plenty of civilians have been killed along the way. It was those civilian deaths that led some in Boko Haram to reject the group around the time of a bloody assault in the major northern city of Kano in January 2012 in which dozens were killed. The renegades formed a new faction, Ansaru, which appears to have adopted methods more in the style of Al Qaeda, including kidnapping Westerners who work in the north and not hesitating to kill them. A statement from the group Saturday blamed Nigerian news reports — inaccurate as it turned out — that British military aircraft had arrived in the country for a rescue operation. Britain’s Defense Ministry said it had flown planes to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, to support military operations in Mali, with which it has been involved. The Nigerian authorities were characteristically silent on Sunday about the killings, which were denounced by the British foreign secretary, William Hague, as “an unforgivable act of pure coldblooded murder.” But analysts in the country suggested they were part of a shift in the grinding Islamist insurgency, which the Nigerians have been unable to quell. And, they said, the killings were bound to have a dampening effect on Western development and construction initiatives in the north, the poorest region of Nigeria. “This is a major turning point in terms of the numbers killed,” said Kole Shettima, the chairman of the Center for Democracy and Development in Abuja. “It will upset many activities in the northern part of the country, especially those supported by philanthropic organizations, multilateral and private organizations,” Mr. Shettima said, adding that a number of Western companies were involved in construction and agricultural activities in the north. The February attack, which led to the kidnapping of the seven whose deaths were just announced, was sophisticated. Gunmen first attacked a prison, then seized control of the compound belonging to Setraco, dynamiting a protective wall to gain access; a security guard was killed. On Jan. 20, Ansaru — whose full name is Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina fi Biladis Sudan, or Vanguard for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa — attacked Nigerian soldiers on their way to Mali, killing two. In December, a French engineer was kidnapped in Katsina State, after 30 gunmen attacked his company’s compound. In a video announcing the killings, an Islamist with a young man’s voice reads a statement in a monotone against the Islamists’ black flag; his face — as well as those of two gunmen flanking him — is entirely swathed in a head covering, except for a narrow slit for the eyes. The construction workers were killed, the man says, “because a soul of a single believer is more than the lives of thousands of unbelievers,” according to a translation by the SITE Monitoring Service . Together with previous kidnappings and killings by Islamists — a German engineer in Kano in January 2012, and British and Italian engineers in Birnin Kebbi in May 2011 — the newest episode is certain to lead to further isolation for northern Nigeria, a vast and problematic territory for the government. “It will further reinforce the problems the northern part of the country has been complaining about,” Mr. Shettima said.
|
Murders;Nigeria;Islam
|
ny0267016
|
[
"world",
"africa"
] |
2016/03/31
|
South Africa to Fight Parole for Killer of Anti-Apartheid Activist
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The South African government will appeal a judge’s decision to grant parole to the killer of Chris Hani , a leading anti-apartheid activist who was assassinated in 1993, a spokesman for Justice Minister Michael Masutha announced on Wednesday. Janusz Walus, a Polish immigrant, has been serving a life sentence for the murder of Mr. Hani, a Communist often regarded as the most popular figure in the African National Congress after Nelson Mandela . Mr. Walus’s co-conspirator, Clive Derby-Lewis, who provided the murder weapon, was paroled on medical grounds last year. A High Court judge in Pretoria granted Mr. Walus parole on March 10, but he will remain in prison pending the outcome of the appeal. Critics have warned that the parole decision could reopen wounds dating to the apartheid era.
|
South Africa;Chris Hani;Assassination;Janusz Walus;Probation and Parole;African National Congress;Apartheid in South Africa
|
ny0151858
|
[
"sports",
"golf"
] |
2008/08/07
|
Amid Illness and Injury, a Season Goes Awry
|
BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. — No one knew it to look at him, but the Australian star Adam Scott was in a bad way last week. Battling a persistent fever and a sore throat — both have plagued him off and on all year — Scott saw four doctors while trying to compete in the W.G.C.-Bridgestone Invitational and prepare for the 90th P.G.A. Championship, which starts Thursday at Oakland Hills Country Club. Scott’s body has been propped up by antibiotics and he is feeling, he said, “almost 100 percent.” His game has been whipped into shape by two three-hour practice sessions with his coach, Butch Harmon, and he is hoping for a big performance in the P.G.A., the year’s last major, to restart a two-victory year that has been buffeted by illness, injury and the breakup of a seven-year relationship. “My whole goal this year was to put myself in good position to win majors, and I haven’t had a great run of luck with that so far, with everything else that happened,” Scott said, sitting in a corner of the upstairs locker room this week. “I’ve started feeling O.K. this week, and I’ve just got to give myself a chance at it. I feel like I just need to survive the first three days and then see what happens.” Scott spoke in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone, smiling slightly. This is how Scott goes about almost everything he does, whether it is smashing a 310-yard drive (he averages 302, seventh on the PGA Tour) or describing the mysterious ulcers that have appeared on the back of his throat at least twice this year. He said they “get quite large and then my throat closes over and I can’t breathe.” With an effortless power that sometimes draws gasps and a movie star profile that sparks swoons among legions of female fans, Scott, 28, makes everything look easy. But nothing is as easy as he makes it look or as others try to make it look for him. Recently, merely teeing it up has required quite a lot of doctoring — sort of like a 2004 ad photograph of him holding the Players Championship trophy aloft that was retouched to eliminate his armpit sweat. Back in the first quarter of the year, Scott’s prospects were as bright as the shine on the 630i BMW he had just picked up — along with a check for just under $500,000 — for shooting a final-round 61 to win the Qatar Masters in January. Healthy, happy, hitting it great and putting well, Scott seemed to be in the pole position on the fast track toward that other Masters in Augusta, Ga. Then came April, which the poet T. S. Eliot famously called “the cruelest month.” For Scott, it quickly and unexpectedly devolved into a waste land. Right after shooting a 63 in the first round of the Shell Houston Open the week before the Masters, he began to feel feverish and his throat began to ache. Thinking it was a slight flu, he played the next day and shot a 76. Clearly, something was very wrong. He immediately withdrew from the tournament and sought medical help. “They shot me with steroids to open the throat back up,” he said. “It was nasty. And that kind of knocked me out for the Masters.” He went to Augusta and limped to a tie for 25th. It was around this time (Scott is not specific on the date) when he and his companion Marie Kojzar decided to end their relationship. There had been sporadic online rumors of the couple’s breaking up two years ago, but none accompanied the actual split in April. “It’s a very difficult thing, a major lifestyle change,” Scott said about the breakup. “When you are sharing homes for seven years, it has a big effect.” With the collision of the professional disappointment of the Masters and the emotionally charged change in his personal life, Scott had hoped to lose himself in preparation for the United States Open. Then came another cruel blow in May when a friend slammed a car door on his right hand, breaking the bone just below the knuckle of his pinkie. He was unable to practice for five weeks leading to the Open, but he managed to find a way to enjoy the experience of playing with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in one of the glamour threesomes of all time. “The whole experience was really memorable,” said Scott, who managed to finish a respectable tied for 26th. “There was so much hype. It had everything. Tiger was injured, Phil was playing at home. It was a madhouse for a couple days, but I really enjoyed that experience. That was my mind-set going in. I knew if I didn’t enjoy it, there was no chance of my playing well. You have to take it for what it is.” Scott, whose broader perspective goes beyond his fortunes on the golf course, is trying to change the way some things are in Australia. In October, when he returns to Queensland, he said he would identify the site on which his Adam Scott Foundation would build apartments for special-needs young people currently living in homes for the elderly. There are an estimated 6,500 such people who need 24-hour care, according to figures compiled by Youngcare, the organization with which Scott’s foundation is partnering. “I have been very fortunate; these people have not,” Scott said. “I hope this project can raise awareness in Australia that there is always someone battling more than you are.” The on-course problems he has battled lately — erratic putting from the 4- to 8-foot range — seem minor from his perspective. He will undergo a battery of blood tests next week to determine the exact nature of the throat problems that have recurred, but even that is not enough to make Scott anxious. He can breathe now and says he is happy just to be able to practice again and to have a shot to win his first major at the final major of the year on a golf course that suits him. “This is last chance to win a major this season, and it would be a great way finish this part of the year off,” he said. “It’s another eight months before we get another shot at Augusta. This is a big week.”
|
Scott Adam;PGA Tour Inc;Golf;PGA Championship
|
ny0226185
|
[
"us"
] |
2010/10/07
|
Fiscal Woes Deepening for Cities, Report Says
|
The nation’s cities are in their worst fiscal shape in at least a quarter of a century and have probably not yet hit the bottom of their slide, according to a report released on Wednesday. The report , by the National League of Cities , found that many cities, which are in their fourth straight year of declining revenues, are only now beginning to see lower property values translate into lower property tax collections, which are the backbone of many city budgets. It can take several years for city assessors to catch up to real estate market conditions, and this year, for the first time since the housing bubble burst, cities are projecting a 1.8 percent decrease in property tax collections. With sales tax collections still down, and unemployment and stagnant salaries taking a toll on cities that rely on income-tax revenues, cities are seeing their revenues drop even faster than many of them have been able to cut spending. They also face the additional burden of paying rising health care and pension costs for their employees. “The effects of a depressed real estate market, low levels of consumer confidence, and high levels of unemployment will likely play out in cities through 2010, 2011 and beyond,” the report said. Cities around the country have made steep cuts to stay afloat, from layoffs of firefighters and police officers to turning off street lights. The report, which surveyed finance officers in 338 cities, found that two-thirds of them were canceling or delaying construction and maintenance projects, a third were laying off workers and a quarter were cutting public safety. Christopher W. Hoene, one of the authors of the report, said in an interview that the length of the downturn had dealt cities an unusual blow: in most recessions, he said, sales tax collections start to improve by the time property tax collections drop to reflect lower home values. “This time around, the recession has been deep enough that we have the two major sources of revenue down at the same time,” Mr. Hoene said. And cities have few places to turn for help, leaving tax increases and service cuts as their main options. “Right now there isn’t really anywhere to turn,” Mr. Hoene said, noting that many states are now cutting aid to cities, not increasing it. “The state budgets are in a position where they are more likely to hurt than to help.”
|
Urban Areas;Budgets and Budgeting;National League of Cities;Taxation;States (US)
|
ny0154821
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2008/01/06
|
Afghan Clerics Warn Karzai Against Missionaries
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KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) — Afghanistan’s Islamic council has told President Hamid Karzai to stop foreign aid groups from converting local people to Christianity and has demanded the reintroduction of public executions. The council, an influential group that lacks binding authority, is made up of the Islamic clergy and ulema, or religious scholars, from various parts of Afghanistan. It made the warning in a statement Friday during a meeting with Mr. Karzai. The ulema have always played a crucial role in Afghanistan and have been behind several revolts against past governments. The council said it was concerned about the activities of some “missionary and atheistic” groups, saying that the actions were “against Islamic Shariah, the Constitution, and political stability,” according to a copy of the statement. “If not prevented, God forbid, catastrophe will emerge, which will not only destabilize the country, but the region and the world.” Quoting what he said were reliable sources, Ahmad Ali Jebrayeli, a member of the council and a member of Parliament, said unnamed Christian missionaries had offices in Kabul, the capital, and in the provinces to convert Afghans. Some nongovernmental organizations “are encouraging them, give them books and promise to send them abroad,” he said Saturday. Numerous foreign aid groups and charities operating in Afghanistan have strong direct or indirect links to Christian organizations, but they insist they are not proselytizing. Last year, 23 South Korean missionaries were kidnapped by the Taliban and, among other things, accused of trying to convert Muslims. Two members of the group were killed before the rest, almost all women, were freed. The conversion and spiriting out of an Afghan Christian convert after the intervention of several Western leaders and Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 prompted a series of local protests. Strict interpretations of Islam, as practiced in Afghanistan, treat conversions as apostasy, punishable by death. The council also urged Mr. Karzai to stop local television stations from showing Indian soap operas and movies, which are enormously popular in Afghanistan but which it said included obscenities and scenes that were immoral. The council also demanded a return to public executions for killers as well as a crackdown against graft. The Taliban, which is leading an insurgency against Mr. Karzai’s government and foreign troops, publicly executed those convicted of capital crimes — usually on Fridays after midday prayers. While Afghanistan still has the death penalty, it has rarely been carried out since the Taliban’s fall and never in public. Mr. Karzai instructed various government departments to address the demands of the council, but stopped short of committing to making any changes, Mr. Jebrayeli said.
|
Afghanistan;Islam;Religion and Churches;Karzai Hamid
|
ny0138651
|
[
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] |
2008/05/25
|
‘An Honor Beyond Words’ for New Hepburn Center Chief
|
OLD SAYBROOK IT was a cold and dreary May 12, the day that Katharine Hepburn would have turned 101, and a fine mist drifted across the big brick beachfront home where she had lived on Long Island Sound for most of her 96 years. But just a few miles from the quiet calm of the three-acre estate in the Fenwick section of town, Ms. Hepburn’s legacy found a second home — right on Main Street. Construction crews clamored away on the old town hall, working to transform the 1911 building into the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center and Theater, scheduled to open in December. Ann Nyberg, an anchor for News Channel 8 and a member of the center’s board of trustees, was in the new town hall behind it, talking with First Selectman Michael Pace about the breakfast she’d just had with a potential inductee to the board. Sound and lighting crews were just leaving, members of the center’s building committee were filing in, a cabaret producer was to come at 3 p.m. and the fund-raising committee was to meet at 4:30. Moving amid all of it, in a sport coat, tie and khaki slacks, was Chuck Still, who was appointed the first executive director of the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center and Theater last month. “This is just a typical day in the life,” said Mr. Still, 51, a Tennessee native who was chosen unanimously by the 10-member board after a nationwide search led by AlbertHall & Associates of Hartford. “You wouldn’t believe how many different hats I wear. It’s wild,” said the affable Mr. Still, who was selected from a pool of more than 40 candidates from across the country. “We had it narrowed down to six,” said Robert Welsh, the board president. “They were all ‘A’ or ‘A-,’ except for one, who was ‘A+++,’ and that was Chuck Still. He’s great at fund-raising, he works great with boards, he’s fantastic at giving talks, he knows everything about construction, and he’s just a super nice guy. We all said, ‘My gosh, how did we get so lucky?’ ” Mr. Still, who is widowed and living in Essex, comes to the Katharine Hepburn Center after 10 years as executive director of the Riverside Theater in Vero Beach, Fla., where he had led the charge to raise $23 million and converted the tiny arts center into one of Florida’s premier performance theaters. Before that, he was managing director of the Merrimack Repertory Theater in Lowell, Mass., and, earlier, was head of the Berkshire Theater Festival in Stockbridge, Mass. “I’ve always loved New England and wanted to come back here,” Mr. Still said. “And to build a theater dedicated to the remarkable Ms. Hepburn is an honor beyond words.” Mr. Still said he was stunned when he first walked into the old town hall building, which was originally used for town meetings, dances and performances in the early 1900s. Leading a visitor through the 12,753-square-foot space, he waved his hand at the 24-foot-high ceiling, the stage, the balcony, and the 12-foot-tall Palladian windows that line the walls. “I mean, look at this place. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” The theater will have about 230 moveable seats, he said, and will host a variety of artistic programs, from plays and poetry readings to comedy and concert events. “We’ll also show movies here, which will be great because Old Saybrook doesn’t have a movie theater,” Mr. Still said. Through state grants, municipal bonds and private donations, the board has already raised a good portion of the $5.6 million budgeted for the project, but still needs about $900,000 to cover operating costs for the first year, Mr. Welsh said. “We’re planning to have a series of fund-raiser cocktail parties at the homes of prominent people in Old Saybrook, Essex, Chester, Deep River, Madison, Clinton and Westbrook,” he said. Information on funding and events will be posted on the official Web site: katharinehepburntheater.org . The theater was originally scheduled to open this summer, but there were unexpected structural problems that had to be fixed along the way, said Mr. Welsh. “The problem is, when you’re renovating an old building, versus doing new construction, there are surprises every day,” he said. “For example, when we dug in under the theater, we found out a good portion of it didn’t even have a foundation, so we had to build one. Things like that. So now we’ve come out of the ground very nicely, and we’re going up.” Mr. Still said he expected the center to have a “soft opening” in December with a party and, perhaps, the showing of an old Katharine Hepburn movie. The regular theater season, he said, should start next spring. Ms. Nyberg, who lives in Madison, was beaming with enthusiasm for the project and the hiring of Mr. Still. “Chuck is so gracious and kind; he’s exactly what we need to make people feel that this is their theater,” she said. “This is the only place in the country named after Katharine Hepburn,” Ms. Nyberg said of the screen legend, who was a record four-time Best Actress Oscar winner. “There are so many Kate-o-philes out there, it’s going to draw people in from all over the world.”
|
Hepburn Katharine;Theater
|
ny0141282
|
[
"business"
] |
2008/11/05
|
Boeing Postpones Test Flight of the 787
|
The Boeing Company said Tuesday that its new long-range airplane, the 787, would not make its first test flight this year because of delays caused by a machinists’ strike. The setback is the latest in the development of the plane, nicknamed the Dreamliner, which is Boeing’s first major new aircraft in more than a decade. Boeing has 903 orders for the 787, whose first customer is All Nippon Airlines of Japan. The Dreamliner, which will include innovations like a lightweight composite air frame and engines that are more fuel-efficient, was originally scheduled to be completed this year. But Boeing has pushed back the 787’s introduction date several times because of production delays, and deliveries are now scheduled to begin in the third quarter of next year. A Boeing spokeswoman, Yvonne Leach, declined to say whether the decision to put off the test flight would further delay the delivery of the Dreamliner. She also would not say when the plane would make its first flight, which had been set to take place before the end of 2008. Ms. Leach blamed the delay on a 58-day strike by members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace workers, which ended when the third shift of workers at Boeing’s plants returned to their jobs Sunday night. Some 27,000 Boeing workers in Washington State, Oregon and Kansas walked off the job on Sept. 6 in a dispute over job security. They voted on Saturday to end the strike after a deal was reached last week on a new contract. The walkout halted production of airplanes at Boeing and interrupted development work on the Dreamliner. Last month, Boeing executives told analysts that the company would need time to get its factories up to speed after the strike concluded. At that time, Boeing’s chief executive, W. James McNerney Jr., estimated there would be at least a “day for day impact” on Boeing’s production schedules. Given that estimate, the Dreamliner’s first test flight could take place early next year. Ms. Leach said, however, that Boeing was in the middle of an assessment of how long it would need to return to full production. She said Boeing was also mapping out a new schedule for the Dreamliner, including the new date of its first flight and when it might be shipped to customers. Those dates “will be part of the assessment, because there are so many factors involved,” Ms. Leach said. Several analysts have predicted the Dreamliner would not be delivered to customers until 2010. Meanwhile, Ms. Leach said Boeing had discovered that fasteners used throughout the Dreamliner had been incorrectly installed, and was taking steps to reinstall them properly. The problem occurred on the four test versions of the Dreamliner that have been assembled at Boeing’s factory in Everett, Wash., as well as on parts of the plane that are still at Boeing’s suppliers, Ms. Leach said.
|
Boeing Co;Airlines and Airplanes;Tests and Testing;Strikes;International Assn of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
|
ny0071771
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2015/03/07
|
A Thick Trail of Breadcrumbs Leads to Aspiring New York Police Officers
|
The union boss remembers meeting him two or three years ago, before the kid had turned 21. Must have been — the young man was, after all, heading out that night to try to buy beer at bodegas in Manhattan in a sting operation meant to curb sales of alcohol to the under aged. He was one of New York’s auxiliary police officers, as quiet as he was big, well over six feet tall. And eager to prove himself. “Actually, kind of a shy guy,” the boss, John W. Hyland, president of the Auxiliary Police Benevolent Association, recalled. “He’s pretty cool, a little scared, like you would be. Big, big guy. He’s into it.” Time passed, and the two would cross paths at promotion ceremonies now and then, the younger man always cordial. It is a difficult portrait of the officer, James Kiernan, to square with the one that emerged this week, when news broke that he and a friend from the auxiliary unit, Jordan Martinez, both 21, had been arrested following a strong-arm robbery in Spanish Harlem. The crime was remarkable for the breadth of the breadcrumb trail of clues that led to the suspects, members of a pool of young officers eager to join the ranks of law enforcement, yet seemingly bereft of the rudimentary criminal logic that one might glean from a sassy second-grader. “The gang that couldn’t rob straight,” one law enforcement official said. Mr. Kiernan and Mr. Martinez met at the 25th Precinct station house, where they worked, the police said. Mr. Martinez had been dismissed late last year after being charged in a series of traffic violations. He and Mr. Kiernan remained close, it appears, with plans to travel to the Dominican Republic together later this month. Mr. Martinez’s mother lives on the 13th floor of 220 East 102nd Street, and in the first notable botching of the caper in question, the two men had chosen that building as the place to do the deed. It was shortly after midnight on Feb. 25, when someone placed a delivery order for Chinese food from Aba Asian Fusion, on York Avenue. The 48-year-old deliveryman arrived at the building on 102nd Street and entered the lobby. Image James Kiernan and Jordan Martinez. Credit NYPD A short while later, the police responded to 911 calls from the location, finding the deliveryman in a stairwell, handcuffed behind his back. He spoke little English, but when it became clear that the two men who had robbed him were carrying police shields, the Internal Affairs Bureau got involved, specifically the police impersonation unit. The officers examined the handcuffs and found that they bore the initials J.K. The deliveryman told the police that when he arrived at the lobby, the men with police shields had met him, following him into the elevator and up to the 14th floor. The deliveryman knocked on a door and was told he had the wrong apartment. Returning to the elevator, he found the two officers waiting. They beat him and handcuffed him, taking his phone, wallet and $180, the police said. A neighbor told the police that she had seen the officers, and recognized one as the son of a woman on 13. The police ran her name through their records and found Mr. Martinez’s history as a dismissed auxiliary officer. They also found the name of a fellow officer who had been present at one of Mr. Martinez’s traffic violations. The initials alone merited a visit. Detectives went to Mr. Kiernan’s parents on East 85th Street, in Yorkville. Haven’t seen him, they said. The detectives left, and, walking down the block, happened upon Mr. Kiernan’s car. Inside were clothes, clutter, an auxiliary police shield — and Mr. Kiernan, asleep. They arrested him. Mr. Martinez, who neighbors said lived with a wife and child in Harlem, was arrested the same day, Feb. 27. This reporter visited both of the men’s mothers, who answered their doors but refused to speak. The arrests are a black eye for the auxiliary police, occurring even as plans are underway for the eighth annual remembrance of the deaths of two of their own who are celebrated as heroes. On March 14, families and officers will gather at the Sixth Precinct station house in the West Village and proceed to the block on Sullivan Street where Officers Yevgeniy Marshalik and Nicholas T. Pekearo were shot to death at point-blank range while responding to the scene of a bartender’s murder in 2007. Mr. Hyland, the union president, said he would be there, as he is every year. He returned to the matter at hand, still dumbfounded by the acts of the young man who had seemed so promising as he stood on the brink of a career in law enforcement. “His whole life just went down the toilet,” Mr. Hyland said. “That’s done.”
|
Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings;NYPD;Robbery;NYC;Delivery Services;Harlem;James Kiernan;Jordan Martinez
|
ny0119356
|
[
"sports"
] |
2012/07/27
|
Uganda to Field 1st African Little League World Series Team
|
Henry Odong learned two things from missionaries in Uganda — baseball and Christianity. That was about 20 years ago. Next month, Odong will coach the first African team to play in the Little League World Series in South Williamsport, Pa. The team hopes to rewrite a story that ended in heartbreak last year when another Uganda squad was denied entry to the United States because of visa and birth certificate issues. This year’s team has been cleared by the State Department to travel to the tournament, a statement on the Little League Web site said. To Richard Stanley of Staten Island, who introduced Little League baseball to Uganda nine years ago, this latest chapter is akin to Lazarus’s returning from the dead. He said winning the first game will be a major challenge for Uganda because its opponent on Aug. 17 is Panama, a nation where baseball is well established. “We’re going to be the underdog,” Stanley said. “Everybody likes the underdog.” Odong’s team is from Lugazi, a town in central Uganda. Last year’s team from Kampala — Uganda’s capital — beat a strong Saudi Arabian team in the Middle East-Africa regionals, but the Saudi team wound up making the trip to Williamsport when problems arose with the Uganda team’s birth records. Odong has taken great pains to make sure his team does not meet a similar fate. His squad is composed strictly of 11-year-olds. Upon arriving at this year’s regional tournament, held in Kutno, Poland, Odong’s team had no bats and only a handful of baseballs. However, by 6 a.m. the players were on the field each day, working on their skills. “When we got there I would have said there’s no way we’re going to get past Poland,” Stanley said. “But their improvement is dramatic.” Uganda lost its first regional game to its chief rival, Saudi Arabia, 2-1, on a last-inning two-run homer. Then it beat Dubai, Qatar, Kuwait and Kuwait again, 5-2, in the championship game. Odong’s team is sponsored by his employer, Mehta Group’s Lugazi Sugar, which has already agreed to build a baseball diamond for his team to practice and play on after the Little League World Series.“It’s the first corporate sponsor anywhere in Uganda,” Stanley said. In January, a team from Canada that Uganda was supposed to play in the 2011 Little League World Series traveled to Africa, where the squads met in an unofficial international competition. Uganda won, 2-1. Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins was part of a contingent that made the trip. Now, with approved visas in hand, Odong’s team is about to put Ugandan baseball on a much bigger stage. Stanley got Little League started as an outgrowth of his work with a United Nations economic development program. He is part owner of the Trenton Thunder, a Yankees Class AA affiliate in the Eastern League. Last September, after Uganda’s setback, Stanley met with United States embassy officials in Kampala to find out what went wrong and how future problems could be avoided. He clearly remembered one thing. “I told them, ‘We’re not going to go away,’ ” Stanley said. “We want to continue this program. We’re going to come back.”
|
Little League World Series;Uganda;Baseball;Africa
|
ny0283612
|
[
"business",
"dealbook"
] |
2016/07/06
|
S.E.C. Victories Delay Challenge on In-House Judges
|
The Securities and Exchange Commission has successfully fended off recent challenges to its use of administrative proceedings to hear cases about potential violations. Yet the victories are a bit like winning the coin toss at the start of a football game because the courts did not resolve the underlying constitutional issues regarding the use of administrative courts to decide cases. That issue is one part of a larger debate over the S.E.C.’s increased use of administrative proceedings to impose penalties, which some have claimed gives the agency an improper “home court” advantage. The commission will have to continue to defend how it channels cases into administrative proceedings from congressional efforts to push enforcement actions into federal court. A broad financial overhaul proposal offered by Representative Jeb Hensarling, the Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, includes provisions that would effectively gut the use of in-house courts for cases. The roots of the dispute can be traced to when Congress, in the Dodd-Frank Act , gave the agency almost unfettered discretion to choose to seek penalties in court or in an administrative proceeding. The change raised the ire of defense lawyers, who saw cases routed to the administrative process rather than being filed in a court, where the lawyers would have greater rights to obtain evidence and have a jury decide the case. In response, defendants filed a number of lawsuits, claiming that the administrative proceedings are unconstitutional because of the way in which the in-house judges are appointed, asking that the cases be halted until the constitutional issue can be decided. A few judges agreed with that argument, putting a stop to the administrative cases. But in June, the federal appeals courts in New York and Atlanta adopted the S.E.C.’s position that any constitutional challenge must first follow the procedures in the securities laws that provide for consideration by the agency’s in-house judge and then the five commissioners before ever reaching a federal court. These opinions followed decisions issued by the federal appeals courts in Chicago and Washington that reached the same conclusion. One remaining challenge to the S.E.C.’s appointment of its administrative judges is before the appeals court in Richmond, Va., with oral argument on the case expected later this year. Those decisions all found that the procedures in the securities laws for reviewing a case were sufficient to protect the rights of a defendant caught up in an administrative proceeding. But none reached the underlying constitutional issue of the propriety of the appointment of the in-house judges, simply postponing that issue for a later challenge if the S.E.C. rules against a defendant who can then take the case back to the appeals court for further review. The cases so far have been about when the issue can be raised, not whether the agency has acted properly. One such case is before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which heard arguments in May addressing whether the appointment of the in-house judges was proper. That court is the leader in the field of administrative law, so its decision will be influential on how other courts might decide challenges to the status of administrative judges at the S.E.C. and other agencies. The S.E.C.’s victories in the appeals courts has done little to damp the criticism leveled at its use of administrative proceedings. The commission tried to address the issue last September by proposing changes to grant slightly broader discovery rights to defendants, but that drew a tepid response and nothing has been put into effect yet. On Capitol Hill, Mr. Hensarling’s proposal to roll back much of the Dodd-Frank Act, called the Financial Choice Act, has almost no chance of being passed this year. But as The New York Times noted , “the proposal remains a messaging tool for House Republicans” and may be a guide to how Congress will act in the future. One argument for making administrative proceedings a less-appealing avenue for enforcement has been the perception of an unfair advantage when the case is heard by an in-house judge. But that is not always the case, as an initial decision last week in an administrative proceeding rejected charges against Equity Trust, a custodian of individual retirement accounts, for violating the securities laws. So at least the S.E.C. does not win them all, despite the perception of a home court advantage. The proposal would put up enough roadblocks to pursuing a case before an in-house judge that it would direct most S.E.C. enforcement actions to the federal district courts. Following the approach of a bill introduced last October by Representative Scott Garrett, Republican of New Jersey, a defendant in an administrative proceeding would have the right to remove a case from the administrative judge to a federal court, ensuring broader discovery and a right to a jury. If a defendant allows the case to remain in the administrative court, then the S.E.C. would have to prove a violation by clear and convincing evidence, a higher standard than the usual one applied in federal court of a preponderance of the evidence. This would force the S.E.C. to decide whether its evidence is strong enough to win before the in-house judge or take the case into federal court with its more lenient standard of proof but then face a jury. To further discourage pursuing cases in an administrative proceeding, the proposal would prohibit the S.E.C. from imposing a bar on a defendant found to have violated the securities laws from serving as a director or officer of a public company. If adopted, the only way to get such a remedy would be by filing the case in a federal court, which would still have the authority to issue the bar. It is unclear why this provision is included in Mr. Hensarling’s draft. There has not been any significant complaints about the S.E.C.’s use of the bar authority, and it is generally lauded as a means to protect investors from so-called bad apples who engage in misconduct in a company. An analysis provided by the House Financial Services Committee states that “Republicans support the vigorous enforcement of the federal securities laws and believe that the S.E.C. must have the tools it needs to deter and punish wrongdoing.” But there is no mention about why the agency would be stripped of this authority, and it appears to be intended to make administrative proceedings a less fruitful avenue for enforcement rather than any dispute about the benefits of the director and officer bar. The legislative proposal goes further in changing how enforcement actions are brought by giving any potential defendant who has been notified that the S.E.C. plans to file charges a right to appear before the commissioners in advance of the filing “to make an in-person presentation.” This will serve to create a type of preliminary hearing at which the issues in the case could be argued to the commissioners, making the process of filing an action more time consuming by adding a layer of review even before the case is filed. It is clear that the agency’s enforcement program, especially the use of administrative proceedings, has provoked a strong reaction. Even as it wins in court, the agency may have to face a day when most cases are channeled into federal court.
|
SEC;Dodd Frank;House Financial Services Committee;Judiciary
|
ny0040969
|
[
"sports",
"soccer"
] |
2014/04/14
|
Countdown to 2014 World Cup in Brazil: Day 60
|
The 2014 World Cup begins on June 12, when Brazil plays Croatia in the opening match. Reporters and editors for The Times will count down to the start of the tournament each day with a short capsule of news and interesting tidbits. The FIFA video game series is certainly the soccer experience of choice for millions around the world. Yet, for aficionados seeking perhaps a more cerebral experience with the game, players and strategies, Football Manager 14 is worth a look. Especially in this World Cup year, with only 60 days to go before the first kickoff, Football Manager (with 10 million copies sold) can provide a taste of what it is like to run any club in more than 50 countries, including teams in Europe and Major League Soccer. The program enables you to manage a team, deciding who plays and who sits, and dictating what type of tactics are employed as matches are played out by the program’s three-dimensional match simulator. Football Manager’s database (which is used by some professional clubs in England and elsewhere) has been constructed based on information and analysis from hundreds of correspondents around the globe. With the start of the tournament nearing, The New York Times asked the folks at Football Manager to run a simulation of each game of the World Cup based on the data compiled within the program. Here are the results: Group Stage Group A Brazil 0-0 Croatia; Mexico 0-2 Cameroon; Brazil 2-0 Mexico; Croatia 2-2 Cameroon; Cameroon 0-1 Brazil; Mexico 1-1 Croatia Group B Spain 3-1 Netherlands; Chile 1-1 Australia; Australia 0-4 Netherlands; Spain 2-2 Chile; Australia 0-4 Spain; Netherlands 1-1 Chile Group C Colombia 1-0 Greece; Ivory Coast 0-0 Japan; Colombia 0-0 Ivory Coast; Japan 1-1 Greece; Japan 0-1 Colombia; Greece 1-2 Ivory Coast Group D Uruguay 4-2 Costa Rica; England 1-0 Italy; Uruguay 2-2 England; Italy 3-0 Costa Rica; Italy 1-1 Uruguay; Costa Rica 0-5 England Group E Switzerland 2-1 Ecuador; France 1-0 Honduras; Switzerland 0-0 France; Honduras 1-3 Ecuador; Honduras 0-2 Switzerland; Ecuador 1-2 France Group F Argentina 2-0 Bosnia and Herzegovina; Iran 1-0 Nigeria; Argentina 4-0 Iran; Nigeria 1-0 Bosnia and Herzegovina; Nigeria 2-3 Argentina; Bosnia and Herzegovina 3-1 Iran Image An example of the individual player analysis, Landon Donovan of the U.S. in this instance, found in Football Manager. Credit Football Manager Group G Germany 2-1 Portugal; Ghana 3-1 United States; Germany 1-0 Ghana; United States 0-0 Portugal; United States 1-3 Germany; Portugal 2-0 Ghana Group H Belgium 4-1 Algeria; Russia 2-2 South Korea; Belgium 1-1 Russia; South Korea 2-1 Algeria; South Korea 1-2 Belgium; Algeria 0-1 Russia Second Round Brazil 1-0 Netherlands; Cameroon 1-2 Spain; Colombia 0-3 Uruguay; England 2-0 Ivory Coast; Switzerland 3-0 Nigeria; France 0-3 Argentina; Russia 1-2 Germany; Portugal 0-1 Belgium Quarterfinals Brazil 2-1 England; Spain 4-2 Uruguay; Switzerland 0-1 Belgium; Argentina 3-0 Germany Semifinals Brazil 2-0 Argentina; Spain 2-0 Belgium Third Place Argentina 2-1 Belgium Final Brazil 1-0 Spain
|
2014 World Cup;Computer and Video Games
|
ny0246127
|
[
"sports",
"hockey"
] |
2011/04/24
|
Capitals Eliminate Rangers in Five Games
|
WASHINGTON — Brian Boyle sat quietly in his stall at Verizon Center, moments after the Rangers were eliminated from the playoffs by the Washington Capitals , trying to express the way he felt. “It’s a lot of things,” Boyle said. “It’s angry, it’s sad — the season’s over. We’re a close group. It’s a lot of games, it’s a grind, but it’s over. It went by too quick. “It’s the worst feeling you could have,” he said. The Rangers lost, 3-1, on Saturday, sent home after five games by the more talented yet equally gritty Capitals. Their final performance was the Rangers’ season in microcosm: a middling team working hard until the end, hanging in as long as it could because of its goalie and its shot-blocking, empowered yet hobbled by the fury of its coach, and ultimately undone by its inability to score. Henrik Lundqvist was valiant in stopping 24 shots. Dan Girardi, Marc Staal and seven other Rangers blocked an additional 20. Girardi paid for it with a dislocated finger and a possible ankle injury, but he played until the end. Boyle, Brandon Prust and Sean Avery generated what few scoring chances the Rangers had amid their mucking and grappling. Marian Gaborik , the 42-goal sniper of 2010 gone cold in 2011, failed to make a difference. The Rangers even scored a goal of honor, 32 seconds from the end, when Wojtek Wolski ended the shutout. “I’m at a loss for words, I guess,” Brandon Dubinsky said. “We worked pretty hard all year long. To have it be over this quick is hard.” So the Rangers went out, now having won the Stanley Cup once in 71 years, in that increasingly distant postseason of 1994. They made the playoffs on their final day of the regular season, a slight improvement over last year, when they missed the playoffs on the final day, but also a slight comedown from two years ago, when they lost to the Capitals in the first round in seven games. They have not advanced beyond the second round since Glen Sather became the general manager in 2000. “We’re still in the process, so we just keep on going, trying to get better,” said John Tortorella, who took over as the Rangers’ coach during the 2008-9 season. “I don’t think our team has been built yet.” For Washington, it was the second playoff victory over the Rangers in three years. The Capitals have played six other postseason series since 1998, and lost them all. Mike Green, Alex Ovechkin and Alexander Semin scored Washington’s goals, one in each period, and the rookie goalie Michal Neuvirth stopped 26 shots. The Rangers’ best stretch came in the first 30 seconds, when the Boyle-Prust-Avery line created real danger, and Boyle’s wraparound attempt was stopped by Neuvirth. It was one of five shots by Boyle, who wound up with a team-high 25 in the series but did not score a point. They missed the injured Ryan Callahan, and his 23 goals, throughout this series. “We had shots, we had traffic, but it wouldn’t go in the net,” Boyle said. After that the Rangers were “under siege,” as Dubinsky put it, and they were lucky to escape the first period trailing by 1-0. The Capitals dominated possession and outshot them, 13-6. Gaborik had a particular stretch of difficulty, twice making weak touch passes that short-circuited Rangers rushes and resulted in Washington counterattacks. The Capitals took the lead when Green scored on a power play at 5 minutes 59 seconds, his first goal of the series and the first time either team scored in the opening period. As the Capitals celebrated Green’s goal, an angry wrestling match broke out in front of the net. Two Rangers and two Capitals were sent off, but things got worse for the Rangers when Tortorella was assessed a bench minor for unsportsmanlike conduct, allowing Washington to keep the pressure on. Later in the period, Green, who missed the final 20 regular-season games with a concussion, had to leave the game when he was struck in the side of the helmet as he went down to block a shot. The Rangers righted themselves in the second period and outshot Washington, 10-6. But they surrendered the period’s only goal when Ovechkin — in vintage style — darted around Staal, cut across the slot and backhanded the puck to the top corner past a sprawling Lundqvist at 7:04. Ovechkin led all scorers in the series with 6 points — three goals and three assists. The Rangers’ top scorers, Dubinsky and Wolski, each had 3 points. The Rangers stayed close in the third period, but with 3:37 left, Semin finished a two-on-one break with his third goal of the series to make the score 3-0. The crowd chanted “We are louder!” — a taunt aimed at the Rangers fans who chanted “Can you hear us?” during the first two periods of Game 4 on Wednesday in New York. But that Madison Square Garden crowd grew silent when the Capitals rallied from a 3-0 deficit in the third period and won the game in the 33rd minute of overtime, dealing a crushing blow to the Rangers’ hopes. The raucous Washington fans had no reason to be silent Saturday. “We had opportunities, but if we don’t grab them against a more skilled team, it’s going to be tough,” Lundqvist said. He mentioned the Rangers’ Game 1 loss here, when they took a 1-0 lead in the third period but then lost in overtime. And he mentioned the collapse that ended Game 4. “I’m just really disappointed right now,” Lundqvist said. “I really thought we had a chance.”
|
Hockey Ice;Playoff Games;New York Rangers;Washington Capitals;Lundqvist Henrik;Staal Marc;Gaborik Marian;Ovechkin Alex
|
ny0123444
|
[
"us"
] |
2012/09/06
|
Large Swath of U.S. Remains Parched Despite Storm
|
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The remnants of Hurricane Isaac that blew through the middle of the country over the weekend softened the worst drought in decades in some areas, but a large portion of the nation remains desiccated with ponds still too shallow to water cattle, fields too dusty for feeding and crops beyond the point of salvage, meteorologists and agriculture experts said Wednesday. Conditions have, in fact, worsened in some rain-starved regions untouched by the hurricane’s gray clouds, meteorologists said. When the government’s drought forecasts are released Thursday morning, they will most likely show that the worst of the drought has shifted slightly west, to the Central Plains, stretching from the bottom of South Dakota to North Texas. “Isaac’s rains were like Chapter 1 in the drought relief book,” said David Miskus, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s climate prediction center. “We still need a lot more rain to go here to really eliminate this drought.” Thick, swirling, gray bands from Hurricane Isaac drenched broad areas of crop country, from Arkansas through Missouri to Illinois, with two to eight inches of rain. The rain brought much needed moisture to rock-hard soil, a welcome development for farmers planting wheat in the coming weeks. Some pastures have started to green in the region and the pods on some soybean plants have spruced up. Still, a large majority of the nation’s farmland remains parched. In Illinois, 72 percent of pastures were in poor to very poor condition this week, compared with 90 percent a week earlier, according to the United States Department of Agriculture . The percentage of pastures in poor to very poor condition in Arkansas dropped 12 points this week to 72 percent. But 99 percent of Missouri’s pastures remained in poor to very poor condition, despite the weekend rain. The percentage of corn rated poor to very poor in 18 major corn-producing states stayed level at 52, which is not surprising given that much of the nation’s corn crop had been destroyed before the weekend’s rains. The rains were “too late to bring much improvement for summer crops,” said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist with the Agriculture Department. “We’re kind of looking ahead now to winter wheat planting.” The moistened soil will help wheat germinate when it is planted, agriculture experts said. States like Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota and Oklahoma saw very little rain from the hurricane, and with hot temperatures forecast this week, conditions could get even worse, meteorologists said. Much of these areas will remain or be upgraded to extreme and exceptional drought, Mr. Miskus said. The stream flow — a measure of the water level in streams — returned to normal this week in many parts of Missouri, Arkansas, Indiana and Illinois, after being rated below or much below regular levels in July, according to the United States Geological Survey . While parts of Arkansas saw up to a foot of rain, the most severely affected drought areas in the northern tier did not get as much moisture, said Zach Taylor of the state’s Department of Agriculture. Here and there, Mr. Taylor said, the rain will allow some hay to grow, providing crucial food supply for cattle. But without more rain soon, the shortage will persist, he said. “It didn’t bring us anywhere back to where we needed to be,” he said of the weekend’s rain. The benefit of the rain may be felt less in the ground or in ponds than in people’s heads, said Jasper Grant, the acting executive director for the Farm Service Agency in Missouri. “It’s helped the mind-set of the producer,” he said. “It’s helped them feel like there is some rainfall out there.”
|
Weather;Drought;Hurricane Isaac (2012);Agriculture and Farming;South Dakota;Texas
|
ny0212703
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2017/01/14
|
Warsaw Grapples With Gloomy, Gray Smog
|
WARSAW — Michal Czekala’s job chopping down trees keeps the 21-year-old out in the fresh air pretty much all day long. But after hearing news recently that the air was far from fresh, that in fact record-high smog was enveloping the entire nation, he decided to take a week off work. “There’s no telling what could happen to me in this smog,” he said recently as he and a friend drifted out of a movie theater in Targowek, one of the Warsaw districts hardest hit by the high pollution levels. An eerie gray mist with a pervasive odor of fumes wreathed Warsaw and dozens of other Polish cities, bringing a global problem more associated with Beijing and New Delhi into the heart of Europe. It took less than half a day, on Jan. 8, for the smog levels to break all records set in the 10 years since Poland , following a directive from the European Union, put in place an air pollution monitoring system. Warsaw city officials reacted by making all public transportation free last Monday, in an attempt to keep cars off the roads, and warned residents to stay indoors unless necessary. Pollution levels eventually dropped off toward the end of the week. The surge in pollution came shortly after a report by the World Health Organization said that 33 of the European Union’s 50 most polluted cities are in Poland, which relies heavily on its cherished national coal industry and bluntly refuses to invest in renewable energy sources that might supplant coal, known here as black gold. The issue, though, is not just cars and coal. Warsaw’s spike in air pollution was driven largely by a severe cold snap that forced thousands of private households, especially the most destitute ones, to crank up poor quality heaters that burn things like coal and garbage to beat back the winter chill. “Eighty percent of all households in Warsaw are connected to a district heating network,” said Michal Olszewski, deputy mayor of Warsaw. “The problem is the remaining 20 percent that often use these low-tech heating systems.” According to Poland’s Central Statistical Office, this could be the case in over 150,000 households in a city with 1.7 million residents. The situation got out of hand in the first week of January after a Siberian blast poured into the region and temperatures dropped below zero Fahrenheit. People overworked their heaters, and an absence of wind caused the smog to squat gloomily over the capital. For most of three days, according to data collected by the Regional Inspectorate for Environmental Protection in Warsaw, air quality in the city was either “bad” or “very bad,” meaning the entire population was likely to be affected and some people could have experienced serious health effects. On average, readings of fine particulates in the air exceeded Polish environmental norms by fourfold, at some points reaching 1,000 percent of the norms. But this may well understate the problem. Ilona Jedrasik from ClientEarth , a nonprofit environmental law organization, said that some air pollution monitors in the region simply stopped working because of the high concentration of pollutants. High smog levels, Warsaw authorities warned, could be especially dangerous for children, older residents, pregnant women and people with existing health issues. Szymon Wisniak, 33, a financial expert, left his car at home on Monday so he wouldn’t “contribute to this mess of a situation.” Image Smog enveloped the city center of Krakow, Poland, recently. Measuring stations in the city noted a high level of the harmful dust PM10, which is the main component of smog. Credit Stanislaw Rozpedzik/European Pressphoto Agency As he was waiting for a train in the city center on Monday night, he said that more than half of his Facebook feed was about the smog. “Many of my friends and I woke up to this smoky smell in our houses,” he said. “At first, I thought something was on fire, but then I looked out the window and there was this scary grayness.” Other regions in Poland are even worse. In the southern city of Rybnik, alarming air pollution levels led officials to offer free public transportation and shut down schools and kindergartens. The health consequences of such a high level of pollutants in the air can be severe, including failure of the respiratory and circulatory system, heart attacks and strokes. In fact, the European Environment Agency estimated last year that bad air was responsible for almost 45,000 premature deaths a year in Poland. Magdalena Urban, a 25-year-old marketing specialist in Warsaw, said on Monday evening that she had been suffering from a headache since last Sunday. “It hurts around the temples and I’m constantly feeling nauseated,” Ms. Urban said as she went grocery shopping in Zabki, a town just outside the capital. “I’m going out shopping because I don’t know what else to do. This has all been so sudden.” Beata Szydlo, the prime minister, said on Monday that her government was going to work on ways of reducing a problem that “is so very burdensome for the Polish citizens,” though she did not provide any specifics. Mr. Olszewski said that the mayor’s office was already doing a lot to tackle the problem, but it needs “tools that only the central government can provide.” “Poland’s economy needs to be decarbonized, but the government does the complete opposite,” Mr. Olszewski said. “Plus, they take away our environmental competences. Only recently they lifted restrictions on tree felling in Warsaw and we can’t even say no to that.” Ms. Jedrasik said that first of all, regulations needed to be put in place regarding the quality of fuel and furnaces people use in their houses, as well as the building insulation. “And then,” she said, “we need effective ways of executing those rules and ensuring that people comply with them.” Konstanty Radziwill, the Polish health minister, caused controversy at the beginning of the year — before the pollution levels radically increased — when he called the smog “a theoretical problem” and said that “there are no reasons for panic,” and besides “our lifestyle is much more damaging.” “Someone who breathes in air smoking a cigarette, with fumes and everything that comes with it, is in a position in which complaining about poor air quality is not credible at all,” Mr. Radziwill told a private radio station, Tok FM. However, according to estimates by Warsaw Without Smog , an environmental group, residents of the capital inhale the equivalent of a thousand cigarettes a year. It is even worse in the towns on the outskirts of Warsaw, where people breathe in an equivalent of up to 2,400 cigarettes a year, or 6.5 a day. Agnieszka Drozd, an activist with another environmental organization, Warsaw Smog Alarm , said that “no one is exempt from this damage.” “Think of your children smoking a couple of cigarettes a day,” she said. “It’s that bad.”
|
Air pollution;Warsaw;Environment
|
ny0188471
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2009/04/23
|
Yankees Make Last Home Run Count
|
Home runs and expensive empty seats dominated the first homestand at the new Yankee Stadium. When it ended Wednesday, in the 14th inning of the longest game the Yankees have played in almost seven years, it was appropriate that a homer sent a patchy crowd to the exits. Melky Cabrera bashed a Dan Giese fastball into the right-field seats, lifting the Yankees to a 9-7 victory over the Oakland Athletics . It was the fifth home run of the game and the 26th at Yankee Stadium, the most in major league history for the first six games of a new ballpark. The attendance was 43,342, representing tickets sold, not the actual turnstile count. On a 56-degree day with a steady drizzle, perhaps half that many fans showed up. As usual, there were rows and rows of empty seats in the premium areas close to the field. Cabrera, at least, has taken to the park right away. After starting the season on the bench, he has four homers in the last five games. He bashed two Wednesday to help the Yankees finish 4-2 on the homestand. “My four home runs are because of the hard work I put in,” Cabrera said through an interpreter. “I’ve worked really hard to get to where I am right now. It has nothing to do with the ballpark.” Cabrera’s winner was a laser off the bat, and he raised his arms as he started his victory trot. He hopped onto the plate 4 hours 57 minutes after the game’s first pitch, ending the Yankees’ longest game by time since 2002. In the clubhouse, a toy wrestling belt with a plastic gold champion’s buckle was draped across Cabrera’s equipment bag. It was a gift from Johnny Damon, who had gotten it from his wrestling buddies — A. J. Burnett’s sons. Cabrera replaced Damon as the starting center fielder in 2007, and Brett Gardner replaced Cabrera this spring. Manager Joe Girardi sat Gardner against the left-hander Brett Anderson on Thursday, and Cabrera responded with a homer in his first at-bat. He grounded out, walked, and fanned three times before his next blast. “You need every guy,” Girardi said. “When I was a part of our success here in the ’90s, there were a lot of guys that played.” It was the success of that team that triggered the moneymaking empire the Yankees have built since, symbolized by the new stadium and free agents like C. C. Sabathia, who makes $23 million a year. His presence could not lure many fans to Wednesday’s game, and for the third time in four starts, he did not look like an ace. Sabathia has more walks than strikeouts this season and has lasted seven innings just once. He lost two leads Wednesday, allowing six earned runs, six hits and four walks in six and two-thirds innings. Girardi said Sabathia was simply a slow starter, but Sabathia rejected that excuse. He said he has felt so sharp in the bullpen that he has tried to carry it into games, aiming for corners of the plate instead of the inner or outer third. When he misses his spot, he falls behind in the count and his pitch count climbs. “I’m just trying to be too fine,” Sabathia said. “I need to just go out and attack hitters in the zone.” Jorge Posada, who caught all 14 innings, said Sabathia’s fastball command was off, his same problem on opening day in Baltimore. Posada saw better pitching from six relievers, who held the Athletics scoreless on three hits for the final seven and a third innings. Jose Veras worked the final three and a third, retiring his last 10 hitters in a row. To Veras, it was redemption for his role as the loser in the home opener against Cleveland last Thursday. “I let my team down in the first game at new Yankee Stadium,” Veras said. “I knew I had to do something good for my team to pick them up.” Veras slowed his delivery and kept his fastball and curve low in the strike zone. The punchless A’s, who are hitting .232 as a team with just four homers, put up little fight. Oakland’s first three runs came in the second, on a Kurt Suzuki homer that required a replay review. It was the second time in the Yankees’ last three games that umpires have reviewed a home run because of possible fan interference. This time, it was in the front-row seats in left (game-day price: $150), and the call on the field stood. The next inning, Oakland’s Jason Giambi scored when Derek Jeter threw home to try to complete a 1-6-2 double play. The problem was, catcher Jorge Posada had left his position to back up first. Jeter said there was no play at first because the ball was hit softly and Sabathia’s throw to him was slow. “I’ve got to stay,” Posada said. “Instincts just take you to first base. I got caught in no-man’s land.” That is where the game was after Matt Holliday tied it off Sabathia with a hard single in the seventh. It stayed 7-7 for seven innings until Cabrera ended it — with one swing, of course. INSIDE PITCH The rained-out Yankees-Athletics game on Monday night will be made up on Thursday, July 23, at 7:05 p.m. The date had been a mutual off day for both teams.
|
New York Yankees;Baseball;Oakland Athletics;Cabrera Melky
|
ny0089917
|
[
"business",
"dealbook"
] |
2015/09/09
|
Failure of Yahoo’s Alibaba Spinoff Would Have Messy Consequences
|
Yahoo informed its shareholders on Tuesday that the Internal Revenue Service had decided not to issue a private letter ruling on its proposal to spin off its $23 billion stake in Alibaba. Such a ruling would have ensured that the spinoff would be tax-free to Yahoo and its shareholders. Yahoo indicated that it was continuing to work on the spinoff. As proposed, the deal would place Yahoo’s small-business division into a holding company, Aabaco, along with the Alibaba stake. One possibility is that the spinoff will proceed as planned, relying on a legal-opinion letter from the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom to reassure shareholders that it should be tax-free. But what if it isn’t tax-free? If it is a taxable transaction, it will be a blood bath from a tax point of view. At least two bad things will happen. The first is that Yahoo itself will face a tax bill of about $7 billion on the distribution of Aabaco to its shareholders. Under a doctrine known to tax lawyers as the “repeal of General Utilities,” section 311(b) of the tax code imposes tax liability on a corporation when it distributes appreciated property to its shareholders. Yahoo, in other words, will face the same tax bill it would have faced had it sold the underlying Alibaba stock. The difference is that it will not have any cash with which to pay its taxes. I explain this in more detail below. The second bad consequence of a failed spinoff will be that Yahoo’s shareholders will now recognize dividend income equal to the fair market value of the Aabaco shares they received. Making matters worse, the Yahoo shareholders will not receive any cash in the distribution. Some of them might have to sell the newly received Aabaco shares in order to pay the tax bill. Yahoo has expressed confidence in its tax advisers, but at the same time, it is taking steps to protect its own hindquarters in case of a failed spinoff. Aabaco’s registration statement, filed in July, explains, “Pursuant to the tax matters agreement, subject to limited exceptions, the fund will be required to indemnify Yahoo, its subsidiaries and specified related persons for taxes and losses resulting from the failure of the spinoff to qualify as a tax-free transaction under Sections 355 and 368(a)(1)(D) of the code.” What this means is that if the spinoff fails, Aabaco will pay back Yahoo for any taxes that Yahoo has to pay as a result of the failed transaction. The indemnification ensures Yahoo a seat in this game of musical tax chairs. Aabaco, not Yahoo, would effectively be on the hook for a $7 billion tax bill. To cover the tax liability, Aabaco will presumably have to sell about a third of its Alibaba stake, or perhaps borrow the amount using the Alibaba stock as collateral. What happens next is unclear. Yahoo may decide to play chicken with the I.R.S. and charge ahead. If Yahoo closes the deal fast enough, it puts the I.R.S. in a tough spot. Historically, the I.R.S. has been reluctant to challenge the tax treatment of public deals after they close. No one at the I.R.S. wants to go after thousands of individual Yahoo shareholders for unpaid dividend taxes. If the I.R.S. is going to scotch the deal, it’s more likely to do so before the spinoff closes. If the I.R.S. is indeed taking a serious look at the spinoff rules, it should give some preliminary guidance as to what the new rules would look like, and it should do so sooner rather than later. For example, the I.R.S. could say that there must be a business purpose for any cash or liquid securities contributed to SpinCo (in this case, Aabaco). Because there is no conceivable nontax business purpose for Yahoo’s small-business division to hold billions of dollars of Alibaba stock, such a statement would force an end to the deal. I don’t think there’s a simple way for Yahoo to avoid paying taxes on the appreciation of its stake in Alibaba. It would probably be better off selling the stock, paying the tax, distributing what’s left to its shareholders and letting its management get back to concentrating on the core business.
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Tax;Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry;Federal Taxes;Yahoo!;Alibaba;IRS
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ny0251086
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2011/02/01
|
Councilman Goes to Grand Jury on Blizzard Response
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The grand jury testimony of Daniel J. Halloran III, the city councilman at the center of charges that a union slowdown left some neighborhoods snowbound after the Dec. 26 blizzard, was cut short on Monday as he and federal prosecutors argued a related matter before a judge. The proceeding before the judge was held behind closed doors, and neither Mr. Halloran, who is a lawyer, nor a spokesman for federal prosecutors would divulge what the issue was that interrupted Mr. Halloran’s testimony. But the chain of events seemed to match what people briefed on the federal inquiry and three other investigations into the matter said they expected would occur if Mr. Halloran declined to give the grand jury the names of three Sanitation Department workers who he has said told him of a slowdown. Mr. Halloran, a Republican who represents parts of northeast Queens, set off a controversy in the last days of 2010 when he said sanitation supervisors, unhappy with cuts to their ranks, had orchestrated a slowdown to embarrass Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg . The councilman has since revised his account — after saying that supervisors had ordered plow drivers off their routes, he now says the workers were given a subtle message that they should not work too hard and not fear being closely monitored. Mr. Halloran has said he based his assertions on what he heard from two supervisors in the Transportation Department and three workers in the Sanitation Department, who all went to him after the blizzard. The two transportation supervisors did not back up Mr. Halloran’s account in interviews with investigators, according to people briefed on the investigations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigations were continuing. Mr. Halloran has since cited attorney-client privilege in refusing to provide the names of the Sanitation Department workers to investigators from two district attorneys’ offices, the city Department of Investigation and the United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn, according to the people briefed on the matter. They said they had expected the federal prosecutor questioning Mr. Halloran before the grand jury to ask for the names of the sanitation workers. They said that if Mr. Halloran asserted attorney-client privilege, the prosecutor could seek a ruling from a district court judge who adjudicates grand jury matters. On Monday, that judge was Allyne R. Ross. After less than 45 minutes in the grand jury room, Mr. Halloran walked to Judge Ross’s courtroom. As he entered, Mr. Halloran announced, “Very strange being in a courtroom under these circumstances.” Judge Ross then ordered the courtroom cleared of observers because the issue involved a grand jury matter. Mr. Halloran left the courthouse around 30 minutes later but declined to discuss his testimony or to say whether he was asked for the names of the sanitation workers. “I don’t expect to testify further,” he said, “but I’m sure we will be in constant communication with the U.S. attorney.”
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Halloran Daniel J;Snow and Snowstorms;Ross Allyne R;Bloomberg Michael R;Sanitation Department (NYC);Transportation Department (US)
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ny0015717
|
[
"sports"
] |
2013/10/28
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Striving Immigrants Find Long Distance Running Far From Lonely in New York City
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On a recent foggy Sunday in Central Park, a group of runners lingered near the finish line of a half-marathon, recounting their efforts in Spanish. They had finished the 13.1-mile course before many entrants reached the halfway point. Julio Sauce, a 41-year-old New Yorker from Ecuador, clutched a glass plaque he had earned for finishing first in his age group. Having averaged better than six minutes a mile on the hilly course, Sauce said he was tired — but not just from the race. From 2:30 p.m. Saturday to 12:30 a.m. Sunday, Sauce had worked as a cook at 44 & X Hells Kitchen, a Midtown restaurant. After the train ride home to Coney Island, he had only three hours of sleep before returning to Manhattan for the early race. Undeterred, he pronounced himself ready for his next big event: the New York City Marathon on Sunday. “Living here is hard work,” he said. “But we are used to hard work. Marathons are just more of it.” Sauce belongs to West Side Runners, one of New York City’s oldest and fastest running teams. It is also the city’s most diverse: nearly all of its 300 members were born outside the United States. Converging here from five continents, runners from places as far away as Colombia and Gambia, Japan and Brazil, all regularly toe the starting line at weekend road races in matching red-and-white WSX singlets. The team’s Ethiopian runners are world-class. But most West Side Runners are working class, part of New York’s often marginalized Latino community. Members of this close-knit crew rarely win anything more than the reward of crossing the finish line a little faster than the time before. And yet they remain some of the city’s most devoted and talented runners, finishing at the front of the pack and making casual runners look positively lethargic. They are busboys, dishwashers, construction workers. They are on their feet at enervating jobs all day and often all night. Many do not have health insurance. Most find it difficult to afford the increasingly hefty fees New York Road Runners charges for its races, especially the marathon, which now costs at least $227. For Sauce, that is half a week’s paycheck. Another West Side Runner is Luis Cesareo, a 32-year-old from Mexico. Cesareo works as a livery dispatcher from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. and sleeps during the day. This will be his second marathon. He is hoping to finish in around 2 hours 40 minutes, which should land him close to the top 100 male finishers in the 47,000-runner field. Racing is a powerful motivator for him. “I love the New York marathon,” Cesareo said. “My teammates, and the Mexican people, are all around. When I run so hard, it feels almost like I’m dying. That’s when I feel most alive.” Bill Staab, the president of West Side Runners, said: “They work unbelievably hard at their jobs, but few of these guys have major successes financially. Whereas success in running is available to everyone. They know if you put in the work, you’ll see payoff.” Hispanic immigrants were drawn to West Side Runners the same way they flocked to various cities around the country: through word of mouth. The Colombian government sent three runners to the New York City Marathon in 1980. (One, a former bullfighter from Bogotá, started running to build his speed in the ring.) After they became top athletes for the newly founded West Side Runners, other local Colombians joined in scores. Then came Ecuadoreans and Mexicans, often migrating from soccer. The club had found its backbone. In the United States, competitive distance running has long been a sport of the relatively affluent and the white. “Back then, other teams would laugh at us because we were mostly Latino,” Staab said, referring to the 1980s. “There was stigma.” The team’s fast white runners were snatched up by sponsored competitors, Staab said, while the comparably talented Latinos were left behind. Then something changed. “We began to beat them,” Staab said. “We became one of the best running teams in New York City.” As the volunteer head of his team, Staab is part administrator, part benefactor and occasional innkeeper. He helps arrange athletic visas. He pays race entry fees for many members who cannot afford them. He has gone to court with runners caught in the mix-ups that plague people in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar rules and unfamiliar languages. Staab usually has several Ethiopian runners staying at his two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side for weeks or even months at a time. “It’s not a big place,” he said wryly. “But they’re thin; they fit just fine.” Staab is fiercely protective of his runners and approaches his role with a zeal that feels diplomatic and missionary. “I try to show them that in America, you help other people,” he said. A Peace Corps veteran and former steel importer-exporter, Staab, 74, lives on Social Security and a pension. He travels to out-of-town races on discount bus lines and does not have a cellphone. He says that leading the club has become a focus in his life. “I tell these guys, you’re lucky I don’t have a family, or none of this would exist," Staab said. In many ways, his runners’ lives adhere to the patterns characteristic of the city’s striving class; unstable jobs and transient living situations can upset training regimens. Despite the obstacles, the marathon-bound cadre of West Side Runners has been training ferociously. Most of them will be in the “local competitive” section of the marathon, just below their front-running Ethiopian teammates. For several, this will be their second or third marathon of the year. Felipe Vergara, 49, starts his first of two daily workouts at 4:30 a.m., running 8 to 10 miles in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Then he heads to his job as a plumber with a small construction firm at 7 a.m. “As long as I’m at work on time, they don’t ask questions,” Vergara said of his bosses. “But they’re not very interested in the races.” He runs 10 miles in the evening, often with his teammate Angel Confesor, a 2:50 marathoner who is not running Sunday. They have been roommates for eight years in a Sunset Park, Brooklyn, apartment whose occupants now include Confesor’s wife and three young daughters. Vergara supports his four children, who live in Mexico, and talks to them every night. On the day of the half-marathon in Central Park, Vergara had been running for only a week after taking two months off for a back injury. He has no health insurance. He sometimes spends $150 to see a chiropractor, but mostly he manages the pain by stretching. Not all runners have been able to cope with the pressures that can complicate an immigrant’s experience here. Some run out of money, others have died of AIDS. One of the team’s fastest runners, who was supporting five sisters and his mother in Colombia, committed suicide in 1990. Staab said that some of his faster runners had moved to Mexico, where they have a better chance of winning prize money. (Some of the Ethiopians have moved there for the same reason.) But Staab seems hopeful about New York’s prospects for maintaining its athletic talent. “The running community in New York City is stronger now than it’s ever been,” he said. “No other city is as competitive. And a big part of that is that no other city has this caliber of immigrants.” Staab said the diversity of his team was the key to its success. “Minorities seem to keep running longer here,” he said of his low-income runners. “They’re not getting into triathlons or buying a house in the suburbs.” The prestige also helps. Rolando Vizhnay, 71, is now an American citizen, but he still proudly lists his country as Ecuador when he runs the New York City Marathon because his hometown newspaper in Quito prints the names of all finishers from his home country. For Sauce, the cook, the sport offers something tangible to pass on to his children. “Sometimes when I wake up after getting home late, I say I’m tired and I don’t want to run,” said Sauce, who has run 11 New York City Marathons. “But I always get up. It’s an example.” His wife, a housekeeper, and child cheer him on at races. Now his 10-year-old son, Ricky, has also started to run. “Now, my son tells me, ‘When I grow up, I want to win the New York Marathon,’ ” Sauce said. “I guess it’s sort of an American dream.”
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Running;NYC Marathon;West Side Runners;Immigration;Bill Staab;Hispanic Americans;Minorities;Marathon
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ny0225874
|
[
"us"
] |
2010/10/19
|
Melvin L. Powers, Cleared in ’64 Mossler Murder
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Candy and Mel. She, the stylishly coifed Houston socialite with the little-girl voice. He, her nephew, half her age and movie-star handsome. In the mid-1960s, Candace Mossler and Melvin Lane Powers may have been the nation’s most notorious couple. In March 1966, in what many consider one of the most spectacular homicide trials ever, the two were acquitted of the stabbing and clubbing murder of Mrs. Mossler’s husband, Jacques, in Key Biscayne, Fla., two years earlier. The prosecution said the couple were lovers hoping to get Mr. Mossler’s $33 million fortune. Mrs. Mossler was said to have plotted the killing, with Mr. Powers doing the dirty work. Mr. Powers was found dead at his home in Houston on Oct. 8, his niece Debra Powers Myers said. He was 68. The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences said the cause of death remained undetermined. The Mossler-Powers trial was so lurid that the judge admitted no spectator under 21. The star performer was the legendary lawyer Percy Foreman, who persuaded a jury to overlook clear motive, bloodstains, palm prints, fingerprints and love letters. Mr. Foreman did it by poking holes in circumstantial evidence and impugning witnesses. He theorized that Mr. Mossler was killed by a jealous male lover. The courtroom carnival ended with Mr. Powers and Mrs. Mossler kissing on the lips and driving off in a gold Cadillac. The two drifted apart after living together for a year or two in the Mossler mansion outside Houston. Mrs. Mossler, in 1971, married Barnett Garrison when she was 51 and he was 32. He suffered brain damage the next year in a mysterious fall from the mansion’s balcony. They later divorced. Mrs. Garrison died at 55 of an overdose of medication in 1976. Mr. Powers attended her funeral accompanied by “an attractive blonde,” many newspapers said. By then, he had become a flamboyant real estate developer in Houston, favoring ostrich- and alligator-skin cowboy boots, owning an immense yacht and bobbing between riches and bankruptcy. Melvin Powers, who never married, was born in 1942 in Birmingham, Ala. After high school, he sold magazine subscriptions, was in the Navy and moved to Pontiac, Mich., where he served 90 days in jail for swindling. He was still on probation when he moved to Houston in 1961. His mother, Mrs. Mossler’s sister, urged him to look up her sister, who she thought might help straighten him out. Mrs. Mossler invited the strapping young man to live with her, her husband and their four adopted children. Mr. Mossler, who owned banks and loan companies, gave him a job. Evidence, including photographs and love letters, indicated that a romance between Mr. Powers and his aunt had begun by the spring of 1962. Mr. Mossler discovered the affair, evicted Mr. Powers in October 1963 and moved to his condominium in Key Biscayne, one of his six residences. He left his wife in the Houston mansion and gave her $5,000 a week for its upkeep. He was said to have considered suing Mr. Powers for breaking up his home but decided against it, fearing publicity. Divorce was unappealing, because a 1948 prenuptial agreement required Mr. Mossler to give his wife half of his fortune if he divorced her. She would get only $200,000 if she divorced him. Of course, if he died while still married, she would get everything — as happened. Tensions mounted. Employees of Mr. Powers at the mobile home business his aunt had helped him buy testified that he had mentioned killing Mr. Mossler. Mr. Mossler wrote in his own diary, “If Mel and Candace don’t kill me first, I’ll have to kill them.” Mr. Mossler was killed on June 30, 1964, stabbed 39 times and bludgeoned on the head. His wife found his body wrapped in an orange blanket when she returned from a hospital where prosecutors said she had gone to establish an alibi. It was unclear why she had gone to Florida a month before the killing. Mr. Powers was arrested in Houston three days after the killing. After the not-guilty verdict, the police never sought other suspects. Mr. Powers got his start in the real estate business by scraping together $2,000 to buy a run-down Houston building and selling it less than a year later for $110,000. By 1979 he was worth $200 million. His triumph was Arena Place , a complex with two office towers and a theater. Completed in 1981, it was an early high-rise development outside central Houston. His most famous maneuver occurred in the mid-1980s, when he fended off creditors trying to seize one of the towers. Atop the building was his 20,000-square-foot penthouse with a 360-degree view of Houston, a rooftop swimming pool and a helipad. Mr. Powers had the entire tower declared a homestead under a Texas law meant to protect small farmers. “Home free,” said a pointed headline in Forbes magazine. Mr. Powers also drew attention in the early 1980s by adding 23 feet to his 142-foot yacht, said to be one of the largest in the Western Hemisphere. He cut it in half and put in a new midsection with a Jacuzzi, underwater viewing ports and a mirrored ceiling. But the oil boom that had lifted Mr. Powers was already turning into an oil bust. He was forced into bankruptcy in 1983. He climbed back. In recent years, he focused on housing, particularly mobile homes and town houses. Other ventures included financial services, a tile company, oil and cement. Besides his niece Ms. Powers Myers, he is survived by another niece, Kristine Powers Maasberg, and his brother, Garrett. In his later years, Mr. Powers slipped into semi-obscurity, neither celebrity defendant nor swashbuckling tycoon. In 1995, when he applied to build a trailer park in Katy, Tex., the City Council rejected it as unsuitable, even though mobile home parks surrounded the proposed site. When Mr. Powers tried to turn on his celebrated charm, a councilman slapped him down. “I’m not Don, I’m Councilman Rao,” he said. “And I don’t know who you are.”
|
Murders and Attempted Murders;Houston (Tex);Power Melvin Lane;Deaths (Obituaries)
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ny0209283
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2009/12/17
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‘X-Men’ Piracy Hunt Leads to Arrest of Bronx Man
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LOS ANGELES — After a nine-month hunt, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrested a Bronx man on Wednesday suspected of posting an unfinished version of the 20th Century Fox movie “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” on the Web before it was released in theaters. But the investigation into the source of the piracy, to find out who actually took the copy of the movie from the studio, is continuing and more arrests are possible, according to Laura Eimiller, an F.B.I. spokeswoman. Gilberto Sanchez, 47, was arrested at his home at about 6 a.m., according to Ms. Eimiller. Mr. Sanchez was indicted last Thursday by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles on charges of uploading the unfinished copy of the movie to a Web site, Megaupload.com , last spring. If convicted, Mr. Sanchez faces three years in prison and a $250,000 fine or twice the gross gain or gross loss attributable to the offense, whichever is greater, according to the United States attorney’s office in Los Angeles. Lisa E. Feldman, an assistant attorney in that office’s Cyber and Intellectual Property Crimes unit, will prosecute the case. She said that Mr. Sanchez had been released on bail. The unfinished version of “Wolverine” — missing many special effects and using temporary sound — was leaked to the Internet on March 31. Within hours, the $150 million movie, scheduled to open on May 1, had been watched by thousands of people online, setting off a panic inside Fox about the potential effect on box-office receipts. Fox estimated that in total, the file was downloaded 15 million times.
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Computers and the Internet;Copyrights and Copyright Violations;X-Men
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ny0115822
|
[
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] |
2012/11/25
|
Stanford Reaches Pac-12 Title Game, Foiling Oregon Again
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Stepfan Taylor rushed for 142 yards and 2 touchdowns Saturday, helping No. 11 Stanford beat No. 15 U.C.L.A. , 35-17, to win the Pacific-12 North title and earn a rematch with the Bruins in the conference championship game. The Cardinal (10-2, 8-1) edged Oregon for a spot in the title game, one week after defeating the Ducks to thwart their bid for an undefeated season. Stanford will host U.C.L.A. (9-3, 6-3), the Pac-12 South champion, on Friday. Kevin Hogan passed for 160 yards and a touchdown for the visiting Cardinal, who won their sixth straight game and their fourth in a row over the Bruins. Taylor raised his career rushing total to 4,134 yards, 35 short of Darrin Nelson’s Stanford record. Brett Hundley, U.C.L.A.’s redshirt freshman quarterback, was 20 of 38 for 261 yards with a touchdown and an interception. The Cardinal sacked him seven times. OREGON 48, OREGON STATE 24 Kenjon Barner ran for 198 yards and 2 touchdowns, helping No. 5 Oregon defeat No. 16 Oregon State. The visiting Ducks (11-1, 8-1 Pac-12) earned a fifth straight victory in the Civil War, their 116-game series with the Beavers (8-3, 6-3). GEORGIA 42, GEORGIA TECH 10 Aaron Murray threw two touchdown passes, Todd Gurley and Keith Marshall each ran for two scores, and No. 3 Georgia stayed in the national championship race by routing Georgia Tech. The host Bulldogs (11-1) beat the Yellow Jackets (6-6) for the 11th time in 12 games. Georgia will face No. 2 Alabama for the Southeastern Conference championship next Saturday. The winner will probably play in the Bowl Championship Series title game Jan. 7. UCONN 23, LOUISVILLE 20 Chad Christen’s 30-yard field goal in the third overtime gave visiting Connecticut an upset of No. 19 Louisville. However, Rutgers’s loss kept alive Louisville’s hopes for a B.C.S. bowl. Louisville (9-2, 4-2) will play at Rutgers on Thursday night with the Big East’s B.C.S. bid at stake. Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater injured his left, nonthrowing wrist, and Coach Charlie Strong said he may have broken it. UConn (5-6, 2-4) would become bowl eligible with a win over Cincinnati next Saturday. PITTSBURGH 27, RUTGERS 6 Tino Sunseri passed for 227 yards and 2 touchdowns in his final home game as Pittsburgh overwhelmed No. 21 Rutgers. Though the Scarlet Knights (9-2, 5-1) clinched a share of their first Big East title because of Louisville’s loss, they need a win over the Cardinals on Thursday to go to a B.C.S. bowl. Ray Graham ran for 113 yards and a touchdown for the Panthers (5-6, 2-4), who can become bowl eligible by winning at South Florida next Saturday. FLORIDA 37, FLORIDA STATE 26 No. 6 Florida (11-1) scored 24 straight points in less than nine minutes in the fourth quarter, earning a convincing win on the road over No. 10 Florida State (10-2). ALABAMA 49, AUBURN 0 A J McCarron’s four touchdown passes led No. 2 Alabama to a thrashing of Auburn in the most lopsided Iron Bowl in 64 years. The host Crimson Tide (10-1, 7-1) clinched a spot in the SEC title game against Georgia. For Auburn (3-9, 0-8), it may have been the last game for Coach Gene Chizik. OKLAHOMA 51, OKLAHOMA ST. 48 Landry Jones threw for 500 yards and 3 touchdowns, and Brennan Clay scored on an 18-yard run in overtime, leading No. 14 Oklahoma to a home win against No. 22 Oklahoma State. The Sooners (9-2, 7-1 Big 12) never led during regulation, overcoming double-digit deficits in both halves. Joseph Randle ran for 113 yards and 4 touchdowns for the Cowboys (7-4, 5-3). TEXAS A&M 59, MISSOURI 29 Johnny Manziel threw for 372 yards and 3 touchdowns and ran for 2 scores as No. 9 Texas A&M (10-2, 6-2 SEC) routed visiting Missouri (5-7, 2-6). PENN STATE 24, WISCONSIN 21 After Sam Ficken made a 37-yard field goal in overtime, Wisconsin kicker Kyle French missed from 45 yards, sealing a Penn State victory in an emotional season finale in Happy Valley. The Nittany Lions (8-4, 6-2 Big Ten) and their fans celebrated at the end of a challenging year marked by the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal and landmark N.C.A.A. penalties. Montee Ball carried 27 times for 111 yards and a touchdown for Wisconsin (7-5, 4-4), setting an N.C.A.A. record with his 97th career score. SOUTH CAROLINA 27, CLEMSON 17 The backup quarterback Dylan Thompson threw for three touchdowns, Jadeveon Clowney had four and a half sacks, and No. 13 South Carolina (10-2) beat No. 12 Clemson (10-2) on the road. Steve Spurrier won his 65th game as the Gamecocks’ coach, the most in team history. MISSISSIPPI 41, MISSISSIPPI STATE 24 Bo Wallace threw for 294 yards and 5 touchdowns, and host Mississippi (6-6, 3-5 SEC) pulled away in the second half to beat No. 25 Mississippi State (8-4, 4-4). The Rebels earned bowl eligibility for the first time since 2009. WAGNER 31, COLGATE 20 Nick Doscher passed for two touchdowns and ran for one, leading host Wagner (9-3) past Colgate (8-4) in a first-round Football Championship Subdivision playoff game. Wagner, which has won nine straight, will play at Eastern Washington in the second round next Saturday.
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Football (College);Oregon State University;University of Oregon;Georgia Institute of Technology;University of Georgia;Stanford University;University of California Los Angeles
|
ny0248745
|
[
"business"
] |
2011/05/06
|
Crude Oil Falls Below $100 a Barrel
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HOUSTON — Oil prices closed below $100 a barrel on Thursday during a session in which most commodity prices fell sharply, signaling that a recent run-up in commodities prices may finally be coming to an end. After four months of surging higher, oil prices plummeted by almost 9 percent as traders worried that American drivers were beginning to balk at paying nearly $4 a gallon of gasoline. Energy specialists had a variety of explanations for the drop, including Thursday’s weak employment data and a strengthening dollar that tends to make all dollar-denominated commodities cheaper in dollars and more expensive for holders of other currencies. “Pop goes the bubble,” said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research, a consulting firm. “It seems unlikely you will see any tightening in the market in the coming months. The worst of the political threats have passed us.” Over the last four days, crude prices have declined by about 12 percent, the quickest drop so far this year. Similar declines have come for both light sweet crude, the United States benchmark, and Brent, the benchmark for Europe and Asia . Gasoline prices have not yet declined, though experts say they have probably peaked and will begin falling in the next few days — probably in time for the Memorial Day weekend. Prices at the pump increased by a fraction of a penny on Thursday, according to the AAA daily fuel gauge report, which reported that Americans paid an average of nearly $3.99 for a gallon of regular. That is still 10 cents higher than a week ago, 30 cents higher than a month ago, and more than $1 more than a year ago. For the day, crude oil for June delivery tumbled $9.44 a barrel, or 8.6 percent, to settle at $99.80 in New York trading. Almost all commodities prices took a tumble on Thursday. Gold for June delivery dropped 2.2 percent, or $33.90, to $1,481.40 an ounce, while silver lost 8 percent or $3.148, to $36.24 an ounce. Other metals — including nickel, copper, palladium and platinum — all fell sharply. Coffee, corn, cotton, wheal and soybeans also dropped. Equity markets were also lower on the day with the Dow Jones industrial average falling 1.1 percent while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index lost 0.91 percent. The broader Nasdaq declined 0.48 percent. Energy experts say that oil was particularly due for a price correction after rising more than 30 percent over the last year. The Energy Department reported that crude inventories last week had risen by 3.4 million barrels, largely because gasoline sales have eased. A variety of government and private surveys in recent days indicated that gasoline demand declined over last month by between 1.2 percent and 4 percent from the year before. Mastercard’s SpendingPulse, a report based on national retail sales and activity in MasterCard payments network, has reported six consecutive weeks of declines in gasoline consumption compared to last year. The declines have been shrinking in the last two weeks, however, and consumption for the week ending last Friday was only 0.6 percent lower than a year earlier. Tom Kloza, the senior oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, said that while “most people are not changing their driving habits,” drivers in rural areas in the West and Southeast — where incomes tend to be lower and driving distances longer — are cutting back. “The driver can expect to see a slow erosion of prices,” Mr. Kloza said. “My expectation is what people pay this week will be the highest they pay for 90 days.” Mr. Kloza predicted that the price of a regular gallon of gasoline would drop about a quarter by Memorial Day to $3.75, and gasoline could drop as low as $3.50 a gallon later in the summer. Other analysts said oil prices would continue to decline in the coming days. “One day does not make a trend, but this correction was overdue,” said Addison Armstrong, senior director for market research at Tradition Energy, a consulting firm. “The selling today was aided by an incredibly strong move in the dollar and the beginnings of some demand destruction. The fundamentals have not been strong enough to justify these levels.” The most immediate reason for the oil price spike since January — the turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East — continues to threaten oil supplies. Libya , an OPEC producer that provides high-quality crude that is difficult to replace, remains virtually off the world market. However aside from Libya, unrest has so far not had a significant impact on oil production or deliveries through strategic ports and waterways. Meanwhile Algeria , Saudi Arabia , Oman and other important producers have so far remained largely stable, despite fears that political instability could create trouble for their oil fields. OPEC’s intentions remain a question mark. Early in the Libya crisis, Saudi Arabia pledged to expand its production capacity to fill any gaps in the market. But in recent weeks the kingdom has actually decreased production, saying the world market is flush with supplies. OPEC spokesmen have given few hints about where the cartel wants prices and production levels to go since the last meeting of the group in December. OPEC meets again June 8, but with tensions high between Saudi Arabia and Iran , oil experts wonder if OPEC members can come up with an acceptable consensus to alter current policies to either cut or add to world supplies.
|
Oil and Gasoline;Price;Commodity
|
ny0223962
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2010/11/06
|
France: Protesters Block Train Carrying Nuclear Waste
|
Protesters blocked a train carrying nuclear waste back to Germany on Friday, chaining themselves to train tracks a few hundred yards from the railway station in Caen, in northwestern France . The train, with 11 carriages of treated nuclear waste and 3 carriages full of riot police officers, was headed to Gorleben, Germany. The waste, which was created in German nuclear power plants and treated in France by Areva, was returning for storage in Gorleben, in Lower Saxony. The protesters called the shipment “the most radioactive ever,” an accusation contested by Areva, which had melted the waste, mixed it in glass and put it into containers. The German Parliament approved a bill recently extending the life of the country’s 17 reactors by 12 years, although they were supposed to have been shut down in 2020.
|
Nuclear Wastes;Demonstrations Protests and Riots;AREVA;France
|
ny0056856
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2014/09/26
|
Facebook Lawsuit Over Search Warrants Can Proceed, a Court in Manhattan Rules
|
An appeals court ruled on Thursday that a lawsuit filed by Facebook against the Manhattan district attorney’s office can proceed, paving the way for oral arguments over whether prosecutors violated the constitutional rights of 381 users by obtaining search warrants for nearly everything in their files. A five-judge panel in Manhattan led by Justice John W. Sweeny Jr. rejected prosecutors’ motion to dismiss Facebook’s challenge to the search warrants, which were issued in July 2013 as part of a fraud investigation. The ruling also gave several technology companies — among them Google, LinkedIn and Twitter — permission to file briefs supporting Facebook’s position. The ruling clears the way for a full hearing by a panel of First Department judges in December. The case pits the Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable searches against the needs of prosecutors seeking evidence from the digital repositories where people increasingly store sensitive data. Facebook, a social media giant with 1.28 billion active users, has argued that the warrants signed by Justice Melissa C. Jackson of State Supreme Court amounted to a general search warrant. The company’s lawyers have painted the warrants as precisely the kind of random government foray that the authors of the Constitution sought to prohibit. They have challenged the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., to make public an affidavit that his aides say lays out the probable cause for searching each person’s file. To protect the secrecy of the investigation, Justice Jackson also prohibited the company from telling its users about the searches. Facebook has asserted that the gag order violated those users’ free-speech rights. Mr. Vance’s office has taken the position that Facebook is merely a digital storage operation and thus has no standing to challenge the search warrants on behalf of its users. Prosecutors have argued that the 136 people arrested in connection with the fraud inquiry may challenge the warrants’ validity before trial, but that Facebook may not. Justice Jackson agreed in a ruling last year, writing that “Facebook could be best described as a digital landlord” and that users, not Facebook, “could assert an expectation of privacy in their postings.” Facebook’s lawyers, however, contend that, unlike physical landlords, social media companies must search their files on behalf of prosecutors. That, the lawyers contend, gives the company a right to object to those searches if they consider them illegal. The New York Civil Liberties Union and large social media companies have filed amicus briefs in the case. Mariko Hirose, a lawyer with the civil liberties union, said that because of the judge’s order, many of the 381 targets were unaware the government had obtained their photos and private messages. Those people included innocent relatives, she said. Information gleaned from the accounts at issue figured in the indictments of scores of police officers, firefighters and other civil servants on charges of bilking the Social Security system with false disability claims. That information included photos posted on Facebook that showed supposedly disabled people teaching karate, deep-sea fishing and pursuing other vigorous activities.
|
Facebook;NYC;Search and seizure;Privacy;Social Media;Lawsuits;Melissa C Jackson;Cyrus R Vance Jr;Manhattan;John W. Sweeny Jr.
|
ny0193586
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2009/11/05
|
News Corporation Posts Unexpected Profit
|
The News Corporation reported an unexpected rise in profit on Wednesday, driven by its cable channels, particularly Fox News, and its movie studio. The company, owned by Rupert Murdoch , controls a cornucopia of media assets like Fox News, MySpace, the 20th Century Fox film studio, the Fox broadcast network and several newspapers including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post. Many of these businesses, particularly broadcast television and newspapers, posted declines in the first quarter in both revenue and operating income. Over all, the News Corporation reported revenue of $7.2 billion, down from $7.5 billion. Its net income of $571 million, or 22 cents a share, was up 11 percent from a year ago. Wall Street analysts had expected the company to earn 18 cents a share, and to generate $7.2 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Reuters. “I’m seeing some encouraging trends in most of our businesses,” Mr. Murdoch said in a conference call with Wall Street analysts, pointing to improved results in broadcast television. Mr. Murdoch’s comments about the industry are closely watched, and were especially noteworthy earlier this year when he seemed more pessimistic than some of his peers. On Wednesday he said, “I expect 2010 to be a year of stability.” However, he also hedged when an analyst asked about the prospect of returning more cash to shareholders, either through dividends or stock buybacks. He said that had not crossed his mind, and that the company preferred to preserve cash. “We are nervous about the future,” he said. While the television business posted financial declines, Mr. Murdoch pointed to Fox’s recent rise in ratings, which he said were up 16 percent so far this season, the only network to post audience gains. While Mr. Murdoch’s first love is newspapers — he is the son of an Australian newspaper owner, and newspapers were the starting point of his rise as a global media mogul — print is taking its toll on the company. Its newspaper unit, which includes Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, reported operating income of $25 million, compared with $134 million in last year’s first quarter. Revenue in the newspaper unit declined to $1.4 billion. In the conference call, Mr. Murdoch, who was speaking from Australia, said the company was seeing faster-than-expected improvement in advertising at its Australian newspapers, which he said gave him hope that the company’s British and American newspapers might stabilize. The company’s cable channels, which include Fox News, FX, several regional sports networks and international channels, reported a 41 percent increase in operating income, to $495 million. While it did not break out specific numbers, the company said Fox News reported its highest quarterly profit. “This growth is not an anomaly,” Mr. Murdoch said. “Cable now generates roughly half of the company’s operating income.” The company’s film division, which released “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” in the quarter, was also solid. Its operating income grew to $391 million, from $251 million in last year’s first quarter. The company said it also benefited from the DVD release of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” despite the decline in DVD sales across the industry. The News Corporation’s results came after those of two major competitors, Time Warner and Viacom. Time Warner said that both revenue and profit fell, as a poor performance at AOL and Time Inc., the magazine publisher, outweighed a stronger showing from the company’s movie studio and cable networks. Viacom, meanwhile, reported that profits had improved, partially because of cost-cutting, but that revenue had declined.
|
News Corporation;Company Reports;Newspapers;Television;Murdoch Rupert
|
ny0078449
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2015/05/22
|
Liberty’s Isiah Thomas Draws Attention, and Questions
|
GREENBURGH, N.Y. — About five minutes before Isiah Thomas arrived Thursday for his introductory news conference as the president of the Liberty, the players and coaches began to file in to grab seats along the wall. The room was full of more news media members than many of the players could recall ever having seen at the practice center. The unusual scene was all because of Thomas, whose return to New York — and reunion with James L. Dolan, the chairman of Madison Square Garden — has been fraught with questions and controversy. Eight years after a court found that Thomas had harassed a female executive when he was the Knicks’ president, he is officially in charge of a W.N.B.A. team. If that is disconcerting to some and downright troubling to others, including the owners of the Seattle Storm, who recently expressed concern over Thomas’s having a role in the league, Thomas has sounded impervious to it all. He wore a broad smile as he approached the lectern. He said he was pleased that so many reporters were there. “It’s good to see all of you,” he said. “Some of you are my friends. Some of you have not been friendly. But I welcome you to the Liberty and thank you for coming out.” Thomas fielded questions for 25 minutes. He described himself as an activist on issues of race, class and equality. He said his favorite basketball player was Teresa Edwards, a former W.N.B.A. star and four-time Olympic gold medalist. He said he had already worked with several of the Liberty players. “I’ve tried to impart as much knowledge as I possibly can,” he said. In 2007, a federal jury in Manhattan found that Thomas had sexually discriminated against Anucha Browne, a former Knicks executive who won an $11.6 million judgment against Madison Square Garden after she accused Thomas of harassment. The Knicks and the Liberty are owned by Madison Square Garden. “It hasn’t been pleasant for any of us,” Thomas said as he again contended that he was innocent. He added, “But I will say this: It has made our sport better; it has made our society better; and it has made humanity better, because it’s out of the closet and we discuss it and we talk about it.” It was, if nothing else, a novel approach to his past — not that any of Thomas’s baggage seemed to deter Dolan from approaching Thomas about running the Liberty. Before the team’s first practice, Thomas and Dolan met with the players to take part in what Thomas described as a healthy discussion. Image Liberty Coach Bill Laimbeer, a Pistons teammate of Thomas’s, and, from left, Tina Charles, Swin Cash and Amber Orrange. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times “We felt it was necessary to meet, discuss, have an open forum and let the players ask all their questions and then give our side,” Thomas said. “We’re confident in the fact that the players that we have and the people that are in this room — they’re grown women, and they can make up their own minds and come to their own conclusions.” In addition to being named president of the Liberty, Thomas agreed to an ownership stake, which needs approval by the league’s Board of Governors, a group made up of team owners and senior executives from ownership groups. The W.N.B.A. has not provided a timeline for that process. The Knicks submitted the necessary paperwork May 11, the league said. “The league will have their chance to make their decisions and do their jobs,” said Swin Cash, a veteran forward with the Liberty. “I’m here in front of you now doing my job, and my concern is the 12 women that will be on that roster.” Like Cash, several other players said they were focusing on the business at hand — namely, preparing for their season opener June 5 against the Atlanta Dream. Tanisha Wright, a veteran guard, said she trusted that management would do what was best to improve the team. Coach Bill Laimbeer, who won two championships with Thomas when they were teammates on the Detroit Pistons, said he spoke briefly with Thomas before Thomas accepted the job. “I’m a basketball guy,” Laimbeer said. “Isiah’s a basketball guy. And to have a mind like that and somebody I know, that’s outstanding. I know who he is. He’s the big cheese, O.K.? I’m just the basketball coach. But he’s not going to get in my way. He knows that it’s my job to go out there and do my thing.” Laimbeer was asked how he felt Thomas would make an impact. “Look around you right now,” Laimbeer said. “Have you ever seen this many media? We have an opportunity to get on the map now. For whatever reasons, it puts us in the spotlight, and that’s great. We have no problems with that. It gets us exposure, and now we have to go do what we can do.” While Thomas did not reject the idea that he could someday return to the N.B.A. — “You never know where life will take you,” he said — he said he had not spoken with Phil Jackson, the president of the Knicks, since joining the Liberty. Laimbeer dismissed the suggestion that Thomas might have some influence on the Knicks through his close relationship with Dolan. Thomas, Laimbeer said, had already made it clear to everyone in the organization that he would not be going anywhere near the Knicks (even if they share a practice facility and an owner). “You go down that road, it will be the stupidest thing any of you could do,” Laimbeer said of the news media, “because it’s a clear, defined, brick, giant wall between the two situations. He is Liberty. He is all about Liberty. He’s into this thing in an ownership capacity.”
|
Basketball;Isiah Thomas;Sexual harassment;Knicks;James L Dolan;Phil Jackson;New York Liberty
|
ny0002252
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2013/03/24
|
Syrians, Fleeing Home, Crowd in Roman Caves
|
SARJAH, Syria — Abdulkader Darwish did not go far after a Syrian military aircraft dropped a bomb near his house last year, prompting him to gather his family and flee. He ventured with a shovel into the local olive groves. There he dug through the sealed entrance to an abandoned Roman cave. Nine months on, dozens of members of the extended Darwish family have passed a cycle of the seasons crowded together in the damp and almost unlighted space. They have gained neighbors all the while, residents of a subterranean community in Syria’s northwest. “There are many caves here, a line of caves, like an ancient village,” Mr. Darwish said as he huddled with several children inside. “All of them have been cleaned and are now occupied. There is not a vacant cave.” As the bloody civil war between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and the opposition enters its third year , and Mr. Assad’s military continues to pound neighborhoods aligned with the rebels, uncountable Syrian families are waiting out the violence in the caves of bygone times. They are part of the four million people who the United Nations estimates have been forced by the war from their homes, a displacement that seemingly grows each week. They live a grim existence — a routine of trying to eat, to stay warm and dry, to gather firewood and water out in the elements, all while listening for the sounds of incoming planes and artillery shells. Explanations of the origins of these underground shelters, many of which are set among other Roman ruins, vary from squatter to squatter. Some say they once were pens for livestock. Others say they were temporary quarters, occupied while more impressive dwellings were built in the centuries before Jesus. Perhaps some were crypts. Whatever the intention of those who first dug them, Syria’s caves have become essential once more, restored to modern use because their thick walls offer a chance of survival to a population under fire. Villagers in Idlib Province talk of tens of thousands of people living this way. While these numbers are unverifiable, there are signs that cave demand exceeds cave supply, as more people lose their homes or take flight. “This was the only cave I could find when I came here,” said Ahmed Sheikh, 51, whose family lives in a smaller cave than the Darwish family’s four-room warren, and slightly farther uphill. Image Members of Ahmed Sheikh’s extended family live in a Roman-era cave in the town of Sarjah. Credit Bryan Denton for The New York Times In other towns across the province, part of the population remains at home. In those places, some families rely on caves only as temporary bomb shelters, places to rush to during danger. Their shelters vary from holes freshly chipped under stone ledges to deep basementlike rooms, known as beli, where food and animal feed would normally be stored beneath a villager’s home. For those lucky enough to have them, the temporary shelters can be stocked with hanging kerosene lamps, blankets and bedrolls, offering families a place to pass the most dangerous hours or nights. But in many villages, as in Sarjah, which the government has punished with what seems a special fury, the dangers are of a different order. People have moved from village centers into rural caves full-time. They have no plans to leave until Mr. Assad’s military is weakened to the point that its ordnance can no longer regularly reach their former neighborhoods. “It became impossible to live in the village without being exposed to the possibility of your death at any time,” Mr. Sheikh said. He spent 35 days improving his cave after claiming it last summer. He installed a wood-burning box stove, cut a ventilation hole, dug and hauled away mud, and hung heavy blankets to reduce drafts and create one area warmer than the rest. His family is fastidious. The warmest room is neat, and shoes are stacked at its edge. “I keep it organized,” he said. Cleanliness alone cannot keep away the hardship. After enduring the winter, he said, his wife’s legs are swollen. Their three young children suffer from chest infections and earaches. As he spoke, a sluggish black beetle, about the half the size of his thumb, slid off the wall and came to rest on its back beside his feet. Mr. Sheikh picked up the insect and threw it toward the cave’s entrance, like a stone. “Now you have seen with your own eyes how we are forced to live,” he said. Artillery boomed intermittently from a brick factory that Mr. Assad’s army occupies on the lowlands of Idlib’s plain. Soldiers were firing into the mountain towns, seats of the armed opposition that have given rise to well-known rebel commanders. For Shelter-Seeking Syrians, Home Is a Cave 8 Photos View Slide Show › Image Bryan Denton for The New York Times Twenty-five members of Mr. Sheikh’s extended family have been killed, he said, most of them by this kind of shelling, a few while in battle at the front lines. “Our situation is like the man who is lost at sea,” he said. “He finds a stick and holds onto it as long as he can. But we have lost 25 people already. If the situation continues, you will not find anyone in the entire Sheikh family.” Another inhabitant of one of Sarjah’s many caves, Ibrahim Haj Musa, 50, stood near a damp stone column in the darkness and vented his disgust at the outside world, blaming the United Nations and the West for doing little to alleviate Syria’s suffering. As is common in Syria, he said that when Western governments withhold weapons from the opposition and send in only limited aid, they are essentially collaborating with Iran, Russia and China in the destruction of Syria. “And then they invite us to the Friends of Syria conferences ,” he said, of the French- and American-led multilateral group that has vowed to support the Syrian opposition. “What kinds of friends are these?” At the entrance to the first cave, Ahmed, 15, one of Mr. Darwish’s sons, had chiseled an Arabic word into the slab of stone above the cave’s door. His work had given their cave a name. “Home,” the inscription read. Mr. Darwish spoke of the label with resignation. “Animals, like wolves, refuse to live in such places,” he said. “But we have to accept this.” Uphill, rocks had been stacked to form the walls of a small outhouse. A hanging blanket served as its door, concealing an open trench. Farther on, past another cave from which several children peered out, Aziza Sheikh, one of Mr. Sheikh’s relatives, draped laundry over a rope in the open air. Inside the cave, Yousef Sheikh, 5 months old, slept in a tiny hammock. His mother had spent the last months of her pregnancy in this cave, and left the cave to deliver the infant in an aid station, Ms. Sheikh said. She returned with the infant hours after his birth, Ms. Sheikh said, and was raising her baby here, beneath the ground.
|
Syria;Arab Spring;Caves;Squatting;Refugees,Internally Displaced People;Bashar al-Assad
|
ny0205150
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2009/01/19
|
When the Best Seat in the House Is in Your Home
|
Frank Ponzio’s fingers began dancing on the piano keys, and another jazz concert was under way on the Upper West Side. Hilary Gardner, her voice sparkling like the diamonds in the tiny heart-shaped pendant around her neck, began singing “I’m a Stranger Here Myself” to a small audience that included Jacques Fages, a 62-year-old retired elementary school teacher who sat front and center, about five feet from the band known as the Kurt Weill Project. Midway through Ms. Gardner’s opening song, Mr. Fages’s dog scampered across the hardwood floor, cutting a path between the bassist, Peter Donovan, and the drummer, Vito Lesczak, before leaping onto Mr. Fages’s lap. For the past 13 months, Mr. Fages has helped organize concerts that have brought together some of the world’s better-known jazz musicians, including the pianists Andy Bey, Peter Mihelich and John Colianni; the bassists Jay Leonhardt, Shawn McGloin and Joe Martin; and jazz and cabaret singers like Ms. Gardner, Barbara Fasano and Kate McGarry. On Sunday, the concert venue remained the same, and Mr. Fages, as usual, had the best seat in the house — which happens to be in his apartment. Like a Yankee fan living out a fantasy by playing catch in the backyard with Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, or an avid moviegoer sitting around the living room reading scripts with Clint Eastwood and Sean Penn, Mr. Fages, a jazz aficionado, sits around his living room once a month listening to the stars of his preferred pastime perform live beneath the bright lights of the chandelier that hangs from his dining room. “There isn’t the distance of the stage, which removes that sense of aura,” said Mr. Fages, who sat with two dozen guests, all of whom arrived on a snowy evening to what he refers to as one of “my little soirees.” “It’s a very relaxed atmosphere for both the performers and the audience,” he said. “The musicians are nationally and internationally known — it’s one of the benefits of living in New York that we are surrounded with so much talent.” On Sunday, the members of the Kurt Weill Project — named for the late German composer and pianist who wrote “Mack The Knife” — lugged their instruments up five floors to Mr. Fages’s apartment on West 105th Street. The building has no elevator, but Mr. Fages arranged to have a piano delivered, by crane, through a bedroom window five years ago. Rehearsals began at 5 p.m., and 90 minutes later, guests began arriving, shaking snowflakes off their coats before dropping plates of food, boxes of chocolate and bottles of wine on the kitchen table. Mr. Fages, who enjoys cooking, greeted them with a large meal he had spent the better part of the day preparing, including cheeses, homemade bread, a fennel and apple salad, Israeli couscous, hummus, tzatziki, codfish brandade, pasta e fagioli with parmesan shavings and dessert. “I have been to every one of these get-togethers, and each has been an incredible experience,” said Mr. Lesczak, 41, a self-described freelance drummer. “The performances are very intimate and come without the external hype and pressure of performing on the stage,” Mr. Lesczak added. “What this proves is that you do not need Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center to make art happen — art can happen anywhere.” Mr. Fages and Mr. Lesczak, a longtime friend who also lives in the building, began setting the stage for their monthly performances shortly after the 1898 Steinway piano Mr. Fages purchased on eBay arrived at his windowsill. Many of Mr. Lesczak’s musical buddies, some of whom live in the neighborhood, began trickling into the apartment to rehearse before bigger gigs around town at places like Blue Note, Sweet Rhythm and Birdland, and the idea of hosting live performances eventually took shape. “The artists come and come again because they appreciate the proximity with the audience, they like the food, they sometimes like to try out new material and concepts,” Mr. Fages said. “It serves as a warm-up before a big gig; they feel more a part of the neighborhood, and for some, it may be penance for their sins.” Mr. Fages handles guest requests on a first-come-first-served basis. There is no admission fee, though Mr. Fages strongly suggests tipping the performers for their efforts. Next to Ms. Gardner, on a table filled with wines and cheeses, lay an overturned winter cap filled with $20 bills. “An environment like this, so up close and personal with the audience, is as terrifying as it is terrific,” Ms. Gardner said. “There are no boundaries here, no walls. But that can lead to many magical exchanges between performer and audience.”
|
Music;Upper West Side (NYC);Jazz
|
ny0203896
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2009/08/15
|
Univision Picks Executive as Next President
|
Univision, the nation’s most-watched Spanish language television network, named a new chief Friday after its longtime president said he would retire at the end of the year. The management changes were announced as Univision accelerated its plans to produce more original shows, eight months after settling a lengthy lawsuit with its primary supplier of prime-time programs. Univision Communications, which operates the network and which is owned by a consortium of private equity firms, said that the president, Ray Rodriguez, would be succeeded by Cesar Conde, 35, the company’s chief strategy officer. Univision declined interview requests Friday. Mr. Rodriguez, who has overseen Univision for 17 years, told employees in a memorandum that the network had popularized Hispanic media in the United States. “You have brought Spanish speakers and their interests to the forefront of American culture and have created programming and information services to serve our burgeoning community, which for so long had been overlooked,” he wrote in the e-mail message. Univision dominates the Spanish-language television marketplace in the United States, where there are about 12.6 million Hispanic television households. While English-language broadcasters have seen audiences shrink as viewers spend more time watching cable television, ratings for programs in Spanish are holding steady and in some cases growing. Univision’s local stations in Los Angeles and New York are the top-rated in either language in the country. Last week in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic that networks in the United States covet, Univision drew a higher rating than ABC in prime time, with about 1.6 million viewers. It regularly tops other networks among 18- to 34-year-old viewers, according to Nielsen ratings. Univision Communications also moved Friday to consolidate the oversight of its local television and radio stations under Joe Uva, its chief executive. The company was publicly traded until 2007, when it was acquired by private investors in a $12.3 billion deal. Univision is now saddled with about $10 billion in debt. Mr. Uva said in a memorandum on Friday that Univision’s mission was to become “the No. 1 broadcast network in the United States, regardless of language, within five years.” The company has also sought to increase its share of advertiser budgets. It has not been immune to the advertising cuts caused by the recession . In March it laid off 300 employees, about 7 percent of its work force. Mr. Conde will be responsible for the programming on Univision, which is best known for telenovelas, the serialized dramas that are popular among Hispanic viewers. Most of those programs are licensed to Univision by Televisa, a Mexican media company that sued Univision four years ago, accusing it of breaching a revenue-sharing contract. The suit was settled in January, and Televisa reportedly received free advertising time and $25 million. Univision continues to distribute Televisa’s hit shows in the United States, but it intends to create more of its own programming. Mr. Conde was an investment banker before he joined Univision in 2002. He returned to the company in 2003 after a year as a White House fellow. He has worked on corporate development, sales and digital initiatives at Univision. In his new position, he will also oversee its two other television properties, the over-the-air TeleFutura network and the cable channel Galavision.
|
Univision;Spanish Language;Television;Appointments and Executive Changes;Conde Cesar
|
ny0027069
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2013/01/29
|
Protests Grow on Fifth Day of Unrest in Egypt
|
PORT SAID, Egypt — The police fired indiscriminately into the streets outside their besieged station, a group of protesters arrived with a crate of gasoline bombs, and others cheered a masked man on a motorcycle who arrived with a Kalashnikov. The growing chaos along the vital canal zone showed little sign of abating on Monday as President Mohamed Morsi called out the army to try to regain control of three cities along the Suez Canal whose growing lawlessness is testing the integrity of the Egyptian state. In Port Said, street battles reached a bloody new peak with a death toll over three days of at least 45, with at least five more protesters killed by bullet wounds, hospital officials said. President Morsi had already declared a monthlong state of emergency here and in the other canal towns of Suez and Ismailia, applying a law that virtually eliminates due process protections against abuse by the police. Angry crowds burned tires and hurled rocks at the police. And the police, with little training and less credibility, hunkered down behind barrages of tear gas, birdshot and occasional bullets. The sense that the state was unraveling may have been strongest here in Port Said, where demonstrators have proclaimed their city an independent nation. But in recent days, the unrest has risen in towns across the country and in Cairo as well. In the capital on Monday, a mob of protesters managed to steal an armored police vehicle, drive it to Tahrir Square and make it a bonfire. Image Egyptians opposed to President Mohamed Morsi on a seized armored police vehicle on Monday in Cairo. It was later set on fire. Credit Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters After two years of torturous transition, Egyptians have watched with growing anxiety as the erosion of the public trust in the government and a persistent security vacuum have fostered a new temptation to resort to violence to resolve disputes, said Michael Hanna, a researcher at the New York-based Century Foundation who is now in Cairo. “There is a clear political crisis that has eroded the moral authority of the state,” he said. And the spectacular evaporation of the government’s authority here in Port Said has put that crisis on vivid display, most conspicuously in the rejection of Mr. Morsi’s declarations of the curfew and state of emergency. As in Suez and Ismailia, tens of thousands of residents of Port Said poured into the streets in defiance just as a 9 p.m. curfew was set to begin. Bursts of gunfire echoed through the city for the next hours, and from 9 to 11 p.m. hospital officials raised the death count to seven from two. When two armored personnel carriers approached a funeral Monday morning for some of the seven protesters killed the day before, a stone-throwing mob of thousands quickly chased them away. And within a few hours, the demonstrators had resumed their siege of a nearby police station, burning tires to create a smoke screen to hide behind amid tear gas and gunfire. Many in the city said they saw no alternative but to continue to stay in the streets. They complained that the hated security police remained unchanged and unaccountable even after President Hosni Mubarak was ousted two years ago. Protesters saw no recourse in the justice system, which is also unchanged; they dismissed the courts as politicized, especially after the acquittals of all those accused of killing protesters during the revolution. Then came the death sentences handed down Saturday to 21 Port Said soccer fans for their role in a deadly brawl. The death sentences set off the current unrest in this city. Image Riot police beat a protester during clashes in Cairo on Monday. Credit Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters Nor, the people said, did they trust the political process that brought to power Mr. Morsi and his Islamist allies in the Muslim Brotherhood. He had vowed to usher in the rule of law as “a president for all Egyptians.” But in November, he used a presidential decree to temporarily stifle potential legal objections so that his Islamist allies could rush out a new Constitution. His authoritarian move kicked off a sharp uptick in street violence leading to this weekend’s Port Said clashes. “Injustice beyond imagination,” one man outside the morning funeral said of Mr. Morsi’s emergency decree, before he was drowned out by a crowd of others echoing the sentiment. “He declared a curfew, and we declare civil disobedience,” another man said. “This doesn’t apply to Port Said because we don’t recognize him as our president,” said a third. “He is the president of the Muslim Brotherhood only.” Officials of the Muslim Brotherhood and its party could not be reached. The group had recently moved offices because of security threats, and at the new office, neighbors said Brotherhood officials had not appeared since the start of the unrest. As tens of thousands marched to the cemetery, many echoed the arguments of human rights advocates that the one-month imposition of the emergency law and reliance on the military would only aggravate the problem. The emergency law rolled back legal procedures meant to protect individuals from excessive violence by the police, while the reliance on soldiers to keep the peace further reduced individual rights by sending any civilians arrested to military trials. Image Egyptians on Monday mourned the death of Mohammed Yousra, 27, one of seven people killed in clashes with the police in Port Said. Credit Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times “It is stupid — he is repressing people for one more month!” one man argued to a friend. “It will explode in his face. He should let people cool down.” The police remained besieged in their burned-out stations, glimpsed only occasionally crouching with their automatic rifles behind the low roof ledges. When one showed his head over a police building as the funeral march passed, voices in the crowd shouted that his appearance was a “provocation” and people began hurling rocks. Others riding a pickup in the procession had stockpiled homemade bombs for later use. In a departure from most previous clashes around the Egyptian revolution, in Port Said the police also faced armed assailants. Two were seen with handguns on Monday around a siege of a police station, in addition to the man with the Kalashnikov. Earlier, a man accosted an Egyptian journalist working for The New York Times. “If I see you taking pictures of protesters with weapons, I will kill you,” he warned. Image Egyptian police officers in Port Said on Monday. Credit Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times Defending their stations, the police fought back, and in Cairo they battled their own commander, the interior minister. Brotherhood leaders say Mr. Morsi has been afraid to name an outsider as minister for fear of a police revolt, putting off any meaningful reform of the Mubarak security services. But when Mr. Morsi recently tapped a veteran ministry official, Mohamed Ibrahim, for the job, many in the security services complained that even the appointment of one insider to replace another was undue interference. In a measure of the low level of the new government’s top-down control over the security forces, officers even cursed and chased away their new interior minister when he tried to attend a funeral on Friday for two members of the security forces killed in the recent clashes. “What do you mean we won’t be armed? We would be disarmed to die,” one shouted, on a video recording of the event. In an attempt to placate the rank and file, Mr. Ibrahim issued a statement to police personnel sympathizing with the pressure the protests put on them. Later, he promised them sophisticated weapons. Video TimesCast: Egyptian authorities try to contain widening unrest. | French legislature to debate same-sex marriage bill. | Behind a bipartisan Senate plan to reform immigration. “That can only be a recipe for future bloodshed,” said Hossam Bahgat, executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights , which monitors police abuses. By turning to the military, Mr. Morsi signaled that he understood he could not rely on the police to pacify the streets, Mr. Bahgat argued. But it was far from clear that Mr. Morsi was fully in command of the military either. The new Islamist-backed Constitution grants the general broad autonomy within the Egyptian government in an apparent quid pro quo for turning over full power to President Morsi in August. Mr. Morsi’s formal request for the military to restore order was “not so much an instruction as a plea for support,” Mr. Bahgat said. It remains to be seen whether the military retains the credibility to quell the protests. The soldiers stationed in Port Said did nothing to intervene as clashes raged on in the streets hours after curfew Monday night. Analysts close to the military say its officers are extremely reluctant to engage in the kind of harsh crackdown that would damage its reputation with Egyptians, preferring to rely on its presence alone. Near the front lines of the clashes, residents debated whether they would welcome a military takeover. “The military that was sent to Port Said is the Muslim Brotherhood’s military,” said one man, dismissing its independence from Mr. Morsi. But others said they still had faith in the institution, if not in its top generals. “In the military, the soldiers are our brothers,” said Khaled Samir Abdullah, 25. Pointing to the police, he said, “those ones are merciless.”
|
Muslim Brotherhood Egypt;Mohamed Morsi;Egypt;Cairo;Port Said Egypt
|
ny0269438
|
[
"business",
"mutfund"
] |
2016/04/10
|
Financial Fables: All the Better to Teach You With, My Dear
|
Those people over at the National Rifle Association have some great ideas. I am not praising them simply because they are heavily armed, though I can’t deny that could be a factor. Their firepower aside, they have embarked on a truly interesting project: Rewriting fairy tales . With guns. That’s right, my friends, Hansel and Gretel have a little friend . And now their stories have really happy endings. That gives me an idea for some stories of my own — fairy tales about money. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The editor’s note accompanying the first installment of the N.R.A.’s weaponized fables asks, “Have you ever wondered what those same fairy tales might sound like if the hapless Red Riding Hoods, Hansels and Gretels had been taught about gun safety and how to use firearms?” In the Second Amendment version of that classic story, the children — formerly sad-sack victims at the hands of those drippy Brothers Grimm — emerge victorious from the witch’s house. The Big Bad Wolf , that thug, gets scared off by Red Riding Hood and Granny, both of whom are handy with their firearms. Granny tells the wolf, in a voice that is probably supposed to sound like a female Clint Eastwood, “I don’t think I’ll be eaten today.” They tie the wolf up. “Oh, how he hated when families learned how to protect themselves,” the author, Amelia Hamilton, tells us. Nobody actually gets blown away in these stories — mayhem is averted, not committed, by an armed citizenry. Oh, you can get all liberal and say that these stories play down the risks of firearms. You might even say that if the wolf and the witch had guns of their own — say, rifles with sights — these would have been much shorter stories, with full bellies for the bad guys. Or you can just notice that the N.R.A.’s brainstorm isn’t that original. As Maria Tatar, a professor of professor of Germanic folklore and mythology at Harvard, pointed out in a recent blog post , James Thurber rewrote Riding Hood’s tale with a blast at the end: “So the little girl took an automatic out of her basket and shot the wolf dead.” Roald Dahl has Red not only kill the wolf with an expertly aimed head shot, but also ends up with a lovely wolf-skin coat. I got in touch with Professor Tatar, because how often do you get an excuse to talk with a professor of Germanic folklore and mythology? She said that one of the problems with these gun-toting, sanitized tales was that they missed the point of Grimm. Success in fairy tales, she explained, comes down to more than tight shot grouping. “They are very much about problem-solving, using your wits and courage to get out of trouble,” she said. “Unfortunately, because they take up very basic cultural contradictions and are supremely malleable, they can also be harnessed for almost any purpose. The Nazis recast Little Red Riding Hood as the innocent Aryan victim of a Jewish wolf.” Yikes. Still, these stories intrigued me. I, myself, have written things for money. I have even written books, which is, in my experience, the least fun you can have in your underwear. It seemed to me there might be an opportunity here for me to write things for money that serve a greater purpose — just like the N.R.A. So here is my brilliant plan: If we can update fairy tales for pedagogical purposes, why not use them to teach children the value of investing? Mutual funds might not be as fascinating to children as firearms, but I love a challenge. And my finances are certainly Grimm. I sought advice. I sent an email to Ms. Hamilton, who has a master’s degree in English and 18th-century history from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. She responded, “I love the idea, but I’m not available for comment at this time.” So I struck out on my own and tried a couple of test runs. Take “Rumpelstiltskin,” that amazing tale of a poor miller’s daughter who is told to spin gold from straw and does so with the help of an imp who demands her firstborn child in return. This one is simple: Spinning straw into gold? That is what the commodities market does. Rumpelstiltskin is, basically, a broker (or, perhaps, a Gnome of Zurich ), though his commission seems high. In my version of the old story, however, the girl puts aside a little of the gold from each batch for herself and builds a nice nest egg. When she defeats Rumpelstiltskin by saying his name aloud (an early example of poor brand management), she uses the money to build a college fund, using a tax-advantaged 529 account. She sends her child to a good school. He gets an M.B.A. Everybody wins. Except for Rumpelstiltskin, but he was mean. Cinderella? A fabulous example of outsourcing. Her animal friends did all the work. Or are they unpaid interns? Still working on this one. And we don’t need to confine ourselves to the Grimm stories. Aesop was full of financial wisdom. “The Ant and the Grasshopper ” tells you what you need to know about saving for a rainy day. The goose that laid the golden egg? It’s all about not letting greed get the best of your investing strategy. Poor Aesop never heard of exchange-traded funds or currency swaps. A little updating will make these babies hum. And what about Hans Christian Andersen’s classic tale of the Little Match Girl ? She is trying to sell matches on a frigid night, afraid to go home to her father who will beat her, and missing her grandmother, who had been kind. What if she simply had the foresight to put a little money away with each of the matches she sold? As financial experts tell us, anyone can save. “It didn’t take long for the little match girl to realize that even small investments in a no-load stock fund over time could bring financial security.” In the end, she gets a nice condo somewhere. It’s warm. The possibilities are endless. Business is, after all, built on fairy tales. What’s an S-1 filing for an initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission, if not corporate storytelling? And look at Theranos, the health tech phenomenon whose blood tests from the prick of a finger are starting to look as if they have more to do with fantasy than reality. That could be a model for an updated Sleeping Beauty: Pricking her finger didn’t go well for her, either. Our politicians understand the ways that business really is a Grimm tale. If you listen to Bernie Sanders, big, bad Wall Street bankers are scarier than any wolf. I explained my bold new storytelling idea to Professor Tatar. She listened politely. And then she shocked me by saying … she liked it. “You can’t teach kids investing principles per se, but if you put it in a story, it becomes instructive in a way the dry, abstract stuff will not,” she said. “I trust you,” she said, “and think you would create a work that would do more good than harm.” That trust might be misplaced. Still, great things might await me. As Jack said after climbing the beanstalk: Show me the money.
|
Stocks,Bonds;Personal finance;Children;Books;Guns;NRA;Fairy tale;Gun Control
|
ny0201640
|
[
"us"
] |
2009/09/23
|
Rains Stop, But Eight People Die in Floods in Southeast
|
ATLANTA — Rescuers glided through several city neighborhoods in fishing boats and canoes on Tuesday, searching water-logged houses for trapped residents and abandoned belongings, after heavy rains flooded Georgia and other parts of the Southeast. The deluge left eight people dead, dozens stranded and thousands without electricity. As the mucky red-brown waters slowly receded after days of torrential rain, Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia declared a state of emergency in 17 counties and pleaded for federal aid. The state insurance commissioner estimated that $250 million worth of damage had been done, mostly to homeowners without insurance. As much as 15 to 20 inches of rain pounded counties around Atlanta for more than 72 hours, and while the rain subsided on Tuesday morning, the authorities were still dealing with dangerous repercussions. A sewage treatment plant northwest of Atlanta flooded late Monday and into Tuesday, spewing sewage into the Chattahoochee River, which had already swollen to at least 12 feet over its minimum flood stage level. City officials said the damage to the plant would amount to tens of millions of dollars. By 5 a.m. Tuesday, 17 bridges across the state were closed, along with sections of major Interstate highways in the Atlanta area, including I-20 and I-285. Several of the deaths occurred on roadways that had suddenly become impassable because of rushing waters. On Tuesday morning, the body of 14-year-old Nicholas Osley was recovered from a cornfield flooded by the nearby Chattooga River in Trion, Ga., according to a spokeswoman for the Chattooga County Emergency Management Agency. On Monday, the teenager and a friend had rushed to an abandoned car to rescue the occupant, not knowing the occupant had already escaped. Nicholas was swept away by the current, while his friend was rescued, the spokeswoman said. Later on Tuesday afternoon, the body of a woman was found in Douglas County, bringing the state’s death toll to eight people, including five in the county, according to its emergency management office spokesman, Wes Tallon. A flash flood from the Anneewakee Creek (usually two feet deep) overwhelmed the roadway, sweeping the car downstream. In Carroll County, about 50 miles west of Atlanta, Tim Padgett, the emergency management director, said that a 2-year-old boy died when his family’s mobile home was swept away by the fast-moving Snake Creek — about 18 feet higher than its normal level — and the father could no longer hold on to his son in the rush of the water. Dená Brummer, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, warned people not to return prematurely into flooded areas, and to avoid driving through any water. The waters flooded both rural and urban areas, even ravaging Buckhead, a wealthy neighborhood north of downtown Atlanta. When the neighborhood’s normally serene Nancy Creek rose to near-record levels, it burst into the basement and the first floor of the large red-brick white-columned house belonging to Dr. O. Scott Swayze and his family. It reached up to three feet on the first floor. “The basement was an aquarium,” Dr. Swayze said. “This house was built in ’68, and the previous owners never had anything this high. This is the proverbial 100-year flood.” The flood turned streets into their own estuaries and gave a new meaning to the name of the popular restaurant Canoe. Residents on Paces Ferry Drive were rowing in and out of their houses, using boats they would normally use for catching bass and trout in the Chattahoochee River. State emergency officials said about 30,000 homes were without electricity. Trisha Palmer, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service in Peachtree City, Ga., said that the flooding was far worse than the hurricane-level damage from 2005. “In this office, nobody remembers anything like this,” she said. “This is worse and much more widespread.” Although the storms themselves have not been severe, Ms. Palmer said that the rains had been relentless for the better part of a week, resulting from Gulf and Atlantic moisture moving over the Southeast. She said there was a chance for afternoon showers for the remainder of the week.
|
Georgia;Floods;Weather
|
ny0239821
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2010/12/21
|
Net Neutrality Rules Are Imminent From the F.C.C.
|
The Federal Communications Commission appears poised to pass a controversial set of rules that broadly create two classes of Internet access, one for fixed-line providers and the other for the wireless Net. The proposed rules of the online road would prevent fixed-line broadband providers like Comcast and Qwest from blocking access to sites and applications. The rules, however, would allow wireless companies more latitude in putting limits on access to services and applications. Before a vote set for Tuesday, two Democratic commissioners said Monday that they would back the rules proposed by the F.C.C. chairman, Julius Genachowski, which try to satisfy both sides in the protracted debate over so-called network neutrality . But analysts said the debate would soon resume in the courts, as challenges to the rules are expected in the months to come. Net neutrality , broadly speaking, is an effort to ensure equal access to Web sites and cutting-edge online services. Mr. Genachowski said these proposed rules aimed to both encourage Internet innovation and protect consumers from abuses. “These rules fulfill a promise to the future — to companies that don’t yet exist, and the entrepreneurs that haven’t yet started work in their dorm rooms or garages,” Mr. Genachowski said in remarks prepared for the commission’s meeting on Tuesday in Washington. At present, there are no enforceable rules “to protect basic Internet values,” he added. Many Internet providers, developers and venture capitalists have indicated that they would accept the proposal by Mr. Genachowski, which Rebecca Arbogast, a regulatory analyst for Stifel Nicolaus, a financial services firm, said “is by definition a compromise.” The companies have said the rules would provide some regulatory certainty. In private, they have acknowledged the proposal could have been much worse. If approved, they “will give some assurances to the companies that are building Web applications — companies like Netflix, Skype and Google — that they will get even treatment on broadband networks,” Ms. Arbogast said. But a wide swath of public interest groups have lambasted the proposal as “fake net neutrality” and said it was rife with loopholes. One group, Public Knowledge, said that instead of providing clear protections, the F.C.C. “created a vague and shifting landscape open to interpretation. Consumers deserved better.” Notably, the rules are watered down for wireless Net providers like AT&T and Verizon, which would be prohibited from blocking Web sites, but not from blocking applications or services unless those applications directly compete with providers’ voice and video products, like Skype. F.C.C. officials said there were technological reasons for the wireless distinctions, and that they would continue to closely monitor the medium. Citing the wireless proposal, Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, said over the weekend that the F.C.C. was effectively allowing discrimination on the mobile Net, a fast-growing sector. “Maybe you like Google Maps. Well, tough,” Mr. Franken said on Saturday on the Senate floor. “If the F.C.C. passes this weak rule, Verizon will be able to cut off access to the Google Maps app on your phone and force you to use their own mapping program, Verizon Navigator, even if it is not as good. And even if they charge money, when Google Maps is free.” He added, “If corporations are allowed to prioritize content on the Internet, or they are allowed to block applications you access on your iPhone , there is nothing to prevent those same corporations from censoring political speech.” Mr. Franken and other critics say the rules come with major caveats; for instance, they would allow for “reasonable network management” by broadband providers. And they would discourage but not expressly forbid something called “paid prioritization,” which would allow a media or technology company to pay the provider for faster transmission of data, potentially creating an uneven playing field. The F.C.C. officials also said that the order would require transparency about those network management practices. “That sunshine will help deter bad behavior,” one of the officials said. They spoke only on the condition of anonymity because the F.C.C. order has not been made public. President Obama has repeatedly indicated his support for net neutrality principles, and his chief technology officer, Aneesh Chopra, said on Dec. 1 that the F.C.C. proposal was an “important step in preventing abuses and continuing to advance the Internet as an engine of productivity growth and innovation.” The two Democratic commissioners, Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn, acknowledged on Monday that the order was not as strong as they would have liked. But they said it had been improved this month in discussions with Mr. Genachowski, and they said they would not oppose it. Their votes along with Mr. Genachowski’s would be enough to approve the order at the F.C.C. meeting on Tuesday. Two Republican commissioners, Meredith Baker and Robert McDowell, are expected to oppose it. Republicans have suggested that the net neutrality rules are an example of government overreach; in an opinion piece on Monday in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. McDowell asserted that “nothing is broken that needs fixing.” In a statement Monday afternoon, Mr. Copps strongly disagreed. He said he wanted to ensure that the Internet “doesn’t travel down the same road of special interest consolidation and gate-keeper control that other media and telecommunications industries — radio, television, film and cable — have traveled.” “What an historic tragedy it would be,” he said, “to let that fate befall the dynamism of the Internet.”
|
Net Neutrality;Federal Communications Commission;Regulation and Deregulation of Industry;Wireless Communications;Computers and the Internet
|
ny0009131
|
[
"sports"
] |
2013/02/03
|
Bowman Wins at U.S. Grand Prix
|
Maddie Bowman followed her gold at the Winter X Games with one in ski halfpipe at the United States Grand Prix in Park City, Utah. The X Games champion David Wise and Torin Yater-Wallace finished 1-2 in the men’s World Cup event, which was marred by a crash that sent Simon d’Artoise to a hospital with a concussion. ¶ Hannah Kearney won gold in the freestyle World Cup dual moguls finals in Park City, edging Justine Dufour-Lapointe. (AP) ¶ Natalie Geisenberger won her first luge world title, finishing with a combined time of 1 minute 13.428 seconds in Whistler, British Columbia, to edge Tatjana Hufner.
|
X Games;Skiing;Maddie Bowman;Hannah Kearney;Natalie Geisenberger;Torin Yater-Wallace;David Wise
|
ny0039315
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2014/04/17
|
Officer Stands by His Account of Scuffle at Occupy Wall Street Protest
|
A New York City police officer admitted in court on Wednesday that he had fixed several traffic tickets before 2011, but said that he had told the truth about being assaulted by an Occupy Wall Street protester in 2012. Testifying in Manhattan Criminal Court against Cecily McMillan, Officer Grantley Bovell conceded that he had been wrong in 2010 when he fixed two parking tickets for himself and a speeding ticket for a female friend. “It shouldn’t have been done,” he said under cross-examination by Martin Stolar, Ms. McMillan’s lawyer. “It was a bad choice.” Officer Bovell said that the police department’s Internal Affairs Division had suspended him for five days without pay, docked him 25 vacation days, rescinded his second job as a bank security guard and put him on probation for a year. He said that in addition to the three tickets that he was penalized for, he had also fixed three other parking tickets. He said it had been part of the Bronx 40th Precinct’s culture of “police courtesy.” Jurors were also shown several YouTube videos of Officer Bovell, 35, in March 2012 getting elbowed in his left eye by Ms. McMillan, 25, who is charged with assaulting a police officer. She has maintained that Officer Bovell groped her breast, and that she reacted without knowing he was a police officer. He has denied that he touched her breast. Image Cecily McMillan, an Occupy Wall Street protester. Credit Bryan R. Smith for The New York Times The shaky videos showed Ms. McMillan, a labor organizer, in a bright green dress, jumping back and planting her elbow in Officer Bovell’s face. “She crouched down and lunged backward, elbowing me in the eye,” Officer Bovell said. “It’s like a white light in the face.” He testified that he had placed his left hand on Ms. McMillan’s right shoulder to escort her out of Zuccotti Park after she refused to leave. The pixelated, nighttime videos showed Officer Bovell behind Ms. McMillan, in a scrum of around a dozen officers struggling against screaming protesters. The videos did not appear to answer the question of whether Ms. McMillan’s breast was touched. They do show her being tackled by officers as she tried to run away. Ms. McMillan wept and turned her head as a video showed her on the ground, surrounded by police officers, being handcuffed by Officer Bovell. A voice on the video yelled, “There’s Cecily, is she getting beat up?” Assistant District Attorney Erin Choi also showed pictures taken later of Officer Bovell’s left eyelid, which was swollen and had a cut below it. He testified that he suffered pain for a week, and saw a doctor later because his eyelid started to spasm. Ms. Choi asked Officer Bovell how Ms. McMillan, several inches shorter than the officer, was able to reach his eye with her elbow. “Jumping,” he said. Ms. McMillan is among the few Occupy Wall Street protesters to opt for a trial. She has said she did not want to plead guilty and have a felony on her record. Of around 2,600 protesters arrested, 700 saw their charges dismissed and more than 1,300 will have their records cleared if they are not convicted of any crimes in the near future.
|
NYC;NYPD;Grantley Bovell;Cecily McMillan;Occupy Wall Street;Attacks on Police;Traffic and Parking Violations
|
ny0188932
|
[
"sports",
"othersports"
] |
2009/04/25
|
French Antidoping Agency Says It Won’t Punish Lance Armstrong
|
Two weeks after saying there was “a very high likelihood” that he would be barred from the Tour de France in July because of a dispute with France’s antidoping agency, Lance Armstrong announced that his plan to compete in the race was back on course. The French antidoping agency said in a statement Friday that it would not seek to punish Armstrong, the seven-time Tour winner, for what a drug tester said was a rules violation last month . The agency said it “decided to take into consideration the written explanations of the athlete” that came in a letter from Armstrong dated April 16. The statement did not provide any details of why the agency made its decision, but it said that Armstrong’s urine and blood samples from that drug test came back without abnormalities. His hair sample, also taken that day, has not been tested, the agency said. One of the goals of Armstrong’s return to cycling after a three-and-a-half-year retirement had been to ride in the Tour, either to win it, he said, or to help his teammate Alberto Contador win. About noon Friday, Armstrong announced that reaching the goal was still possible. From Aspen, Colo., where he has been training, Armstrong wrote on his Twitter page : “Case closed, no penalty, all samples clean. Onward.” The dispute between Armstrong and the French antidoping agency stemmed from an out-of-competition drug test on March 17. Armstrong — who has been dogged by doping allegations throughout his career — was training in France when a French drug tester showed up at his door . While Armstrong’s assistant checked the tester’s credentials, Armstrong disappeared from the tester’s view for 20 minutes, saying he took a shower. The antidoping agency said that Armstrong was required to stay with the drug tester at all times, and that the tester had warned him of that. Pierre Bordry, the French antidoping agency’s president, had said the agency would review the details of the drug tester’s report before deciding whether to bring a case against Armstrong. If Armstrong had been found to have knowingly evaded the drug tester, he could have received a two-year sanction, keeping him out of this summer’s Tour. Despite breaking his collarbone in a race last month, Armstrong is scheduled to compete in his first Giro d’Italia , which begins in Venice on May 9. The grueling, mountainous three-week race ranks second in prestige only to the Tour de France.
|
Armstrong Lance;Bicycles and Bicycling;Tour de France (Bicycle Race);Doping (Sports)
|
ny0143651
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2008/10/02
|
Mayor’s Stewardship Is Mixed, Fiscal Experts Say
|
It promises to be the centerpiece of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg ’s quest to revise term limits and seek a third term: the claim that the billionaire businessman is a skilled steward of New York City’s $500 billion economy and the ideal leader to navigate it through the unfolding financial crisis. In interviews, more than a dozen government officials and independent economic experts credit Mr. Bloomberg for deft short-term financial management, especially in times of crisis, and for possessing the courage to raise unpopular taxes to balance budgets He entered office in 2002, only months after 9/11, and enforced an austere first budget, rejecting planned city projects and bluntly telling the public that there was little money to spend and many sacrifices to make. He raised property taxes when he felt he had to, enduring a beating in opinion polls as a result. And he scaled back the city’s spending plans a year before the full dimensions of the damage done by Wall Street’s current troubles became known. Of course, managing the occasional budget shortfall is only one challenge among many for any mayor trying to responsibly oversee the economic life of a city of more than 8 million, one with a municipal workforce of 300,000. And it is Mr. Bloomberg’s handling of the city’s bigger, longer-term financial issues that has provoked some disappointment among experts and others. The mayor, they say, has failed to control the city’s growing pension and health care costs, and has allowed overall city spending to increase significantly. Those costs, they argue, will contribute to gaping budget deficits starting next year. So now, as Mr. Bloomberg prepares to announce on Thursday his plans to seek re-election, he may well be volunteering for the ultimate test of his financial skills — managing New York City in the middle of a global financial crisis and in the face of some potential fiscal problems he may well have contributed to himself. “I would say it’s a bigger economic challenge for him than Sept. 11,” said John Tepper Marlin, chief economist for the New York City comptroller’s office from 1992 to 2006. “It’s not just New York City — it’s a whole system in trouble. Yet it’s our residents and our workers who will be affected.” Drawing conclusions about an elected official’s true impact on the performance of a vast economy has always been difficult, and attempts to do so have given rise to endless debate (the credit to be given Bill Clinton for the country’s economic health in the 1990s still provokes one of those debates.) And it is clear the setbacks and successes of the New York economy under Mr. Bloomberg owe to much that is beyond his direct control. For their part, members of Mr. Bloomberg’s staff say the administration has successfully limited the growth of spending by city agencies to 4 percent a year, a figure that they said approximates the rate of inflation. But they do acknowledge that costs for health care and pensions have risen at a faster rate, although they argue that they have little or no control over those kinds of costs. For example, since 2002, the year Mr. Bloomberg took office, the city’s pension costs have surged by 318 percent, health care costs by 46 percent and Medicaid costs by 55 percent, staff members said. Edward Skyler, the deputy mayor for operations, said the administration has worked to hold down those costs where possible. He said Mr. Bloomberg has fought back efforts in the State Legislature to increase pension costs and is in negotiations with unions to contain health care costs. “Since 2002, not only has Mayor Bloomberg restrained agency spending to essentially the rate of inflation, he has done what he can to rein in mandated costs for health insurance, Medicaid and pensions,” Mr. Skyler said. Budget experts, however, assert that Mr. Bloomberg has chosen not to forcefully confront the matter of pension costs. The issue has bedeviled many New York mayors because, under New York State law, it is impossible to roll back the size of the pensions promised to current city employees. Yet Mr. Bloomberg could propose legislation allowing the city to cut back the pensions of new employees — an approach he took in the first term but has largely abandoned in the second. Aides to the mayor said there was no appetite for such a change in Albany, where lawmakers have tried repeatedly to increase pension spending rather than restrain it. “The political climate over the last few years has forced us to spend whatever clout we have on preventing pension sweeteners that Albany passes and that we pay for instead of pushing for real pension reform,” Mr. Skyler said. Some budget experts said another aspect of Mr. Bloomberg’s stewardship of the city’s finances had caused concerns: the recent contracts he has negotiated with the city’s teachers and police officers that could become problematic as the city enters tough economic times. In 2007, the administration settled a retroactive contract with the police sergeants’ union that increased their pay by 27.5 percent over six years. The administration also struck a deal to raise the wages of sanitation workers by 17 percent over four and a half years. This year, it settled a contract with the city’s largest police union that granted a 17 percent pay raise over four years. Mr. Bloomberg has characterized these pay increases as smart investments that make city jobs competitive with those in surrounding suburbs. But Jeffrey L. Sommer, the executive director of the New York State Financial Control Board, said that many of them represent “missed opportunities” to hold down or cut costs. One area that has incensed fiscal conservatives is the city’s growing debt. Thanks to school construction and other projects requiring substantial borrowing, debt payments are projected to increase by more than $2 billion by 2012, according to the New York State Financial Control Board, an agency created by the state after the 1975 fiscal crisis to monitor the city’s finances. And a growing portion of that debt is variable rate, meaning that the city’s costs could rise as the market fluctuates. “One of the main challenges is the high and growing debt load,” said Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “It’s clear that it’s going up in an unsustainable fashion.” The bond rating agencies are not perturbed, at least not yet. The city’s bond rating is now at its highest level ever — AA — and the last time it was downgraded was 1995, said Robin Prunty, senior director in Standard & Poor’s public finance department, who analyzes New York City’s budget. The mayor has elicited considerable praise for resisting calls by City Council members and special interest groups to spend surplus revenues during the boom years on new and existing programs. Mr. Bloomberg has chosen instead to pay down some future debts. Mr. Bloomberg has, for example, pumped $2 billion into an unusual trust fund to pay off future health care costs for city employees, earning praise from financial watchdog groups. “The mayor has generally been a pragmatic, prudent fiscal manager, and non-ideological from the get-go,” said Doug Turetsky, chief of staff at the city’s nonpartisan Independent Budget Office, which receives city funding but does not report to the mayor. But now that the economy is struggling, Mr. Sommer of the State Financial Control Board said it was becoming clear that the mayor’s strategy of using surpluses to pay for future expenses helped “mask structural deficits.” Mr. Bloomberg’s larger-than-life reputation in the business world — he turned a $10 million severance check from Salomon Brothers into a multibillion-dollar financial data company — has undoubtedly proved to be a benefit, too. Mr. Tepper Marlin said that after Sept. 11, Mr. Bloomberg was able to persuade many businesses that had flirted with relocating to New Jersey to remain in New York City. “It’s good to have people as your ambassadors who are like the people you are trying to attract,” he said. “They speak Bloomberg’s language. They want to hear it from somebody who has been there. That counts for a lot in the business world.”
|
Bloomberg Michael R;Subprime Mortgage Crisis;Finances;New York City;Economic Conditions and Trends
|
ny0227469
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2010/10/22
|
Yankees Happy to Have ‘Fat Elvis’ in the Building
|
A gaudy pro-wrestling-style championship belt rests in Lance Berkman’s locker in Yankee Stadium, presented to him by Nick Swisher for some unspecified feat of derring-do during the regular season. Berkman justified the belt with his prodigious backward flop , almost as if he had practiced it, during Wednesday’s fifth game of the American League Championship Series at Yankee Stadium. But his aching body told him it was all too impromptu. “Like I fell on a skating rink — scrambled my brains a bit,” he said later. Secure enough to joke about it afterward, Berkman is expected to be in the starting lineup on Friday when the Yankees attempt to keep going against the Rangers by winning Game 6. He has to be ready because the man he is replacing, Mark Teixeira, is out for the rest of the postseason after pulling a hamstring on Tuesday. “That’s pretty much why they traded for me,” Berkman said after smelling salts and the passage of a few hours had revived him Wednesday. “To back up Mark when he needs a game or two off.” The Yankees picked up some vital parts — Kerry Wood here, Berkman there — the kind of expensive upgrading they can afford during a pennant race, which is to say, pretty much every year. Berkman came in handy as the Yankees salvaged Game 5, 7-2 , to keep their season going. The night before, Berkman watched Teixeira slump on first base, and he suddenly realized he would now have a bigger role. The fans have not taken to him since he came over from Houston in one of those Yankee-special, July 31 trades . He went on the disabled list in late August, required a brief rehabilitation pit stop in Trenton and batted only .255 with the Yankees. The fans picked up on one of his Houston nicknames — Fat Elvis, which came when the broadcaster Dan Patrick got him to say his mother thought he looked a bit like Elvis Presley. The fat one or the skinny one? Patrick said. Berkman, ever accommodating, said the fat one. Hence, Fat Elvis. Houston fans also knew him as Big Puma, which works, too. He is a bit fleshy in the face and elsewhere, but all athlete, even at 34. Berkman’s agility did not save him on Wednesday when he was tracking a high pop foul near the stands. He has not played much first base lately, what with Teixeira a fixture, and he suddenly found his feet skidding on the hard surface, which felt like “concrete with a fine dusting of kitty litter,” he said. At first, it looked scary, like something out of a football game. Berkman and a nearby bench full of Yankees wondered if he had hit his head. He immediately thought about whether he would have a concussion, which is in athletes’ minds more these days because of revelations about the dangers of football and other sports. “Like I got lit up in football — a little out of it,” he said later, recalling his first reactions. Berkman lay on his stomach, then the trainers moved him gently onto his back. He began to gauge if he was injured. “I knew the president’s name, and I knew the date,” he said. They asked you? somebody blurted. “No, I volunteered it,” Berkman recalled. His brief seminar in current events kept him in the game. While the Yankees batted, the trainers waved smelling salts under his nose, checked him over. How did he feel? “Like I took down the Undertaker ,” he said, referring to a popular pro wrestler. After changing his shoes, to metal spikes from molded spikes, Berkman continued at first base, driving in a run with an out and playing defense well enough that Teixeira’s supple hands were not missed. If the Yankees keep going, Teixeira will be missed if only because he has proven himself to deserve honorable mention in the Hodges-Hernandez-Mattingly-Martinez litany in New York. Berkman is also a refreshing persona, a former Rice University athlete who has been a fixture in Houston for a decade and with his new team seems quite comfortable in chatting in front of his locker. On Wednesday, he said he had felt the Yankees were perfectly capable of coming back from the 3-1 deficit, as long as they concentrated on winning one game at a time. “We don’t look at it as three,” Berkman said, adding, “It’s a cliché — you’ve heard it a million times.” But he squashed all connection between the Yankees and that sports phenomenon known as momentum. “There’s another pitcher the next day,” he said, meaning the Rangers would come back with Colby Lewis on Friday and then somebody named Cliff Lee on Saturday , if it comes to that. Berkman said he expected to still be aching on Friday, but he would be ready to play. The Yankees have no way of knowing if they can get out of this hole, but, as usual, the team has stockpiled a professional for emergencies as the season goes deep into the fall.
|
Baseball;Berkman Lance;New York Yankees;Texas Rangers
|
ny0073314
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2015/04/04
|
State Senate Leaders Says Additional $25 Million in Budget Will Aid Charter Schools
|
No one has ever described New York State’s budget process as being overly straightforward. But a handful of passages in the annual budget passed in Albany this week are prime examples of how important spending decisions can get buried in generic language. Inside the roughly $150 billion budget was a paragraph that allocated $25 million to the Senate to use “for additional grants in aid to certain school districts, public libraries, and not-for-profit institutions.” But according to the office of Dean G. Skelos , the Long Island Republican who is the majority leader of the State Senate, that money will go toward one particular purpose: the funding of charter schools . Charter schools are publicly financed but privately run, and there is a constant battle over how much taxpayer money they should receive. Opponents say that they pull cash away from traditional public schools, while charter school advocates complain that they receive less money than their public school counterparts while doing the same work. Charter schools that get free public space, as many do, or that get help with rent receive roughly the same amount of money per student as regular public schools do. Charter schools without those forms of assistance get less. The $25 million allocation for charter schools, which can be spent after a resolution is approved by the Senate, will amount to an increase of about $225 increase per charter pupil across the state, charter advocates say. (In New York City, charter schools receive $13,777 per student, according to the Education Department .) “These types of lump sums are vague, they give very little information about their purposes and who they’re going to,” said Rachael Fauss, director of public policy at Citizens Union , a civic group. “It’s essentially spending in the shadows.” Charter schools have more support in the Republican-led Senate than in the Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats. The two chambers also often haggle over how much urban, suburban and rural schools ought to receive, resulting in a formula both houses agree on. But two more allocations with the same “certain school districts, public libraries and not-for-profit institutions” language appear in the budget, with $14 million for the Assembly and about $15 million for the Senate. These funds essentially let the legislators get around the formula they signed off on. “The school aid formula can’t account for every situation among the nearly 700 school districts statewide, so this is funding that will help smooth out those differences and target extra funding to schools that need it,” said Michael Whyland, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie , a Democrat from the Bronx. “For example, a school district may be running a deficit because of local level decisions, so things like after school programs would have to be cut.” A variety of smaller pet projects are tucked into the budget each year in a manner that provides some information — where the money is going and how much — but very little else, like which legislator put it there. This time around, as detailed in The New York Post and The Times Union such projects include $50,000 in onion research at Cornell University , and $100,000 for “vegetable research.” The community organizing group ACORN was allocated about $24,000, even though it has not existed for several years. There was also $5,000 set aside for a group called Out of the Pits, which seeks to educate people about the true nature of the American Pit Bull Terrier and to make them aware that they used to be one of America’s favorite breed of dogs, according to its website.
|
New York;Charter school;K-12 Education;Budget;State legislature;NYC Department of Education
|
ny0230755
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2010/09/26
|
George Karl Returns to Nuggets, Recovering From Cancer
|
DENVER — Nuggets Coach George Karl was talking last week about all the things that have turned his life upside down — the cancers, the changes through the organization, and the possibility of losing the All-Star forward Carmelo Anthony. “I think about dying every day,” Karl said. “I know that’s a possibility. But I’m staying energized and positive, and right now, I’m in a good place.” So excuse him if he does not share the anxiety that surrounds his team. Of course, Karl’s preference would be for Anthony to stay for the final year of his contract or sign the three-year, $65 million extension the Nuggets offered early in the off-season. But those possibilities looked increasingly unlikely this weekend with reports that the Nuggets were closing in on a four-team trade that would send Anthony to the Nets and would bring the Nets rookie Derrick Favors, Utah’s Andrei Kirilenko and draft picks to Denver. “If Melo is off the team and we don’t replace him, I don’t think we’re going to be as good,” Karl said. “But I still think we can win basketball games. Can we be a championship contender, which I think is our goal right now with Melo? I don’t know.” The Anthony speculation has been just part of the uncertainty that had buffeted the Nuggets this off-season. Whether Karl would be healthy enough to coach was a question mark, too. The Nuggets, winners of 50 or more games three years in a row, were in the playoffs again last spring while Karl was going through cancer treatment. There was talk that Karl might return to the team after the first round. Not a chance. He was being nourished through a feeding tube because throat cancer had made it so difficult to swallow. He slept with oxygen pumping into his lungs. A machine suctioned mucus from his mouth. He was on his way to losing 17 percent of his weight, and his neck was red and raw from a rash caused by the cancer treatment. “It’s a hellacious experience,” Karl said during a recent interview at Pepsi Center. “One thing I’ve told all the doctors: You did not do a very good job of telling me how hard this is going to be.” Karl had surgery for prostate cancer in 2005. His son, Coby, had thyroid cancer in 2006 and 2007. Now the 59-year-old Karl — slimmer, a bit weaker-voiced and unable to taste much, including the cans of Ensure he drinks for nourishment — is about to embark on his seventh season with the Nuggets. Doctors have cleared him to coach, and training camp begins Tuesday. Karl and several other players are working on the last year of their contracts, too, and there is a sense that the Nuggets are balanced precariously between contending and rebuilding. Their longtime owner , Stan Kroenke, as a condition to his becoming majority owner of the N.F.L.’s St. Louis Rams, handed operational control of the Nuggets and the N.H.L.’s Colorado Avalanche to his 30-year-old son, Josh, this summer. The Nuggets dismissed Mark Warkentien, the vice president for basketball operations who was the N.B.A.’s executive of the year in 2008-9, and replaced him in late August with Masai Ujiri , 38, who served as assistant general manager with Toronto. With training camp approaching, there were still “discussions,” Karl said, about who would serve as his assistants. The big men Kenyon Martin and Chris Andersen will probably miss the start of the season while recovering from knee surgery. A team that Karl says can be better than it was last season — 53 victories, a Northwest Division title and a first-round playoff exit — seems in flux. Karl shrugged most of it away. “But rebuilding or restructuring the team — that would be disappointing to hear,” he said. “Especially this year for me.” Karl said he thought he might be leading a championship team last year when he felt something on his neck. “I thought the lump was just a fatty thing, being a fat guy,” he said. It was squamous cell carcinoma in the throat, similar to what the actor Michael Douglas was recently found to have. When Karl made his diagnosis public Feb. 16, he casually said he hoped to coach again that season. “I was like, ‘There is no way he is going to do that,’ ” Jim Boylan, a Milwaukee Bucks assistant, said Tuesday. “It isn’t going to happen.” Boylan had a similar form of cancer, at the base of his tongue, in 2009. His treatment was similar, too. “The first 10 to 14 days are O.K.,” Boylan said. “Then, suddenly, it’s like someone hits a switch. All the side effects kick in.” Karl underwent 35 days of radiation treatment accompanied by weekly doses of Erbitux , a cancer-fighting drug . His neck and throat were burned and blistered. He could not eat. His mouth was impossibly dry and slimy. (“ ‘I can’t wait until I’m not going to have garbage mouth’ — that’s how he’d say it,” said Kim Van Deraa, whom Karl calls his life partner.) Nights were the worst. “When you’re not breathing the same way that you’ve breathed for 58, 59 years, you have a little anxiety about sleeping,” Karl said. “You’re afraid you might choke.” Karl saw the expressions of shock that visitors tried to suppress. He saw the worry on the faces of his children. Kaci, his 6-year-old daughter with Van Deraa, “looked at me a little like a monster.” But most did not know what Karl was going through — “They didn’t see the daily experiences,” Van Deraa said — which led to premature presumptions about his return. “It’s actually after the treatment that it gets worse,” Karl said. “I was done with treatment the first week of April, but probably the hardest part of my recovery was the six weeks after that.” Doctors and people like Boylan assured him his condition would improve drastically. It has. Karl began daily trips to the office in August and, after tests a few week ago, his doctors gave their blessing for him to coach. Besides his habit of licking his lips and swirling his tongue in his dry mouth, he shows no signs of the ordeal. “Food doesn’t taste the same,” Karl said. “I love food. For some reason, I had an Oreo milkshake the other day. That kind of woke my buds up — ‘Hmm, that’s pretty good.’ ” He may do less shouting when practices start, to save his tender throat, and delegate more to his assistants. When the Nuggets have back-to-back games, he may skip the overnight flight and catch up with the team the next day. But Karl said he did not consider quitting, even if he had every excuse to do so. “I don’t think there’s a curveball you can throw at me that I haven’t seen before,” Karl said. “I kind of have a year to swing and see what happens.”
|
Karl George;Denver Nuggets;Basketball;Cancer
|
ny0123834
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2012/09/12
|
A Creator of Turntable.fm Plans Online Hub DJZ
|
The music industry’s latest gold rush is over dance music , which lures tens of thousands of fans to festivals and dominates pop radio. But to Seth Goldstein, a technology entrepreneur who was one of the creators of Turntable.fm, last year’s hot music start-up , the dance world is missing something essential: an online hub for mainstream fans, gathering news, music and videos from all the corners of the Internet. He compares the idea to MTV in the 1980s, which created a broad mainstream audience for music videos, thus drawing advertisers. “MTV was nominally about Duran Duran and Run-DMC,” Mr. Goldstein said in an interview. “But really it was about reaching suburban Jewish kids outside Boston like me who wanted to be them. What they did so well was to sell that audience to advertisers at scale.” With his new company, DJZ, Mr. Goldstein wants to fill this gap. On Halloween , it plans to introduce a Web site, mobile app and YouTube channel that will aggregate news and media on electronic dance music — also known as E.D.M. — and package it with colorful design and an attitude celebrating top D.J.’s as cultural heroes. If successful, the company could capitalize on a rapidly expanding audience. But DJZ is entering a market crowded with other corporate powers, like Live Nation Entertainment and SFX Entertainment, that are also going after what until recently has been an independent and self-sufficient subculture. The problem for fans of E.D.M., as Mr. Goldstein and his business partners see it, is not a lack of information and media about their favorite acts. Rather, there has been a noisy abundance of it, scattered across countless Web sites, YouTube channels, Twitter feeds and apps. “Electronic music is fragmented in a way that other genres of music aren’t fragmented,” said Troy Carter, the tech-minded manager of Lady Gaga , who is one of DJZ’s investors. “Within three clicks, you can find out everything you need to know about pop. But electronic music is not well curated. To find out about events or get recommendations, it’s not easy.” DJZ (pronounced D.J.’s) has raised $1 million in seed money, Mr. Goldstein said. In addition to Mr. Carter and his company, Atom Factory, the investors are Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Index Ventures, Google Ventures, True Ventures and Shari E. Redstone’s Advancit Capital. Among its advisers are top D.J.’s like Paul Oakenfold and DJ Shadow. The plan for DJZ is to be something like dance music’s combination of The Huffington Post and MTV: a daily destination for as broad an audience as possible, well stocked with entertaining media and, eventually, ads. In its Web incarnation, the site’s main page features a grid of cartoonish avatars of big D.J.’s like Skrillex and Deadmau5, along with news feeds, songs, tutorials and fan-friendly features like a guide to making a version of Deadmau5’s signature mouse-shaped headgear. Users can choose a “D.J. name” for their identity on the site. Ms. Redstone, the 58-year-old president of National Amusements and daughter of the media mogul Sumner M. Redstone, has already picked hers: DJ Theatrix. (“I don’t want to date myself, but I grew up with this music,” she said. “It’s been around forever.”) The company’s name is also a play on words referring to Generation Z, its intended market, whose members were born in the 1990s and are immersed in social networks. As Mr. Goldstein sees it, they are the ones watching YouTube videos by the tens of millions but who cannot afford a trip to the big festivals like Coachella or Electric Daisy Carnival. “Having a destination online for Gen Z to come and consume and share info in a space they were already working within will be really special,” Mr. Oakenfold said in a statement. Online, individual artists and properties can draw enormous online followings: the Ultra label, for example, has had 1.8 billion views on its YouTube page . Yet while plenty of online magazines and blogs serve the dance audience, their audiences are relatively small. Resident Advisor , one of the genre’s online magazines, says it reaches one million readers, but according to the Internet measurement service comScore, over the last six months it has drawn an average of 114,000 visitors a month in the United States; another news site, Dancing Astronaut , has had an average of 44,000 in that time. By comparison, the indie-rock site Pitchfork draws nearly one million visitors each month, and Rolling Stone three million, according to comScore. Jason Bentley, the music director of KCRW, a public radio station in Santa Monica, Calif., said this was partly a result of the music’s existing press continuing to address a connoisseur audience as the genre crossed over to pop. “Maybe the scene is having a bit of an identity crisis,” Mr. Bentley said. “Because all of these people worked so hard for the sake of the credibility of dance music, and now, in a matter of a couple of years, it’s blown the doors off. Maybe those people are a bit reluctant to see it all the way to the pop side for fear of alienating their core fans.” DJZ is not the only company that wants to build a large marketing audience out of the disparate strands of E.D.M.’s festivals and online media. Sponsorship and audience aggregation have been a critical piece of Live Nation’s strategy for years. And when Robert F. X. Sillerman of SFX returned to the concert business this year after an absence of a decade, he said he would spend up to $1 billion buying promoters and figuring out how to market to dance audiences after they leave the festival and wash off their neon body paint. Another question for Mr. Goldstein and his investors is whether DJZ can escape the fate of Turntable.fm, a gamelike social listening service, which lost momentum after making a big splash. For Mr. Goldstein, success for DJZ will depend on offering young dance-music fans something easily consumable yet with enough integrity to get them coming back for more. “I just think it’s a mess out there,” he said, “and there’s a way to make it easier and more enjoyable without making it Cliff Notes.”
|
Music;DJZ;Goldstein Seth;Computers and the Internet;Television;Start-ups;Disc Jockeys
|
ny0176553
|
[
"business",
"yourmoney"
] |
2007/07/22
|
The Choice: Control the Radio or Save the Environment
|
Carpooling is still a tough sell. Yes, it helps the environment. Yes, it saves money. Yes, it gives drivers entry into the blessed emptiness of high-occupancy vehicle lanes. But that is not enough to change the transportation habits of most commuters. According to recently released data from the Census Bureau, 87.7 percent of Americans drive to work and 77 percent drive alone. The data are from 2005, so it is possible that soaring gasoline prices, along with greater public awareness of the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions, have nudged these numbers a little lower. More people may now see the virtue of arguments in favor of carpooling and public transportation. But for many, those arguments still pale in comparison with the convenience of being able to stop off at the liquor store on the spur of the moment. Or the pleasure of escaping each day into a solitary capsule of quiet. Or (you don’t have to tell anyone) the joy of singing along as your favorite Journey song plays full blast on the radio. PHYLLIS KORKKI
|
Labor;Transportation
|
ny0117584
|
[
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] |
2012/10/09
|
Georgia Tech Fires Defensive Coordinator Al Groh
|
Georgia Tech fired the defensive coordinator Al Groh , a former Jets coach. Last Saturday, the Yellow Jackets (2-4) lost, 47-31, to Clemson. The previous week, Georgia Tech gave up 49 points in an embarrassing loss to Middle Tennessee State.
|
College Athletics;Football (College);Georgia Institute of Technology;Groh Al
|
ny0277655
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2016/11/16
|
Leaked ‘Brexit’ Memo Says U.K. Is Unsure How to Proceed
|
LONDON — The government of Britain could need six more months to settle on a plan for negotiating the country’s exit from the European Union and an extra 30,000 civil servants to deal with the complexities of the task, according to a memo of uncertain parentage leaked to The Times of London on Tuesday. The office of Prime Minister Theresa May poured cold water on the memo, denying reports that it was prepared for the government. “This unsolicited document has nothing to do with the government at all,” a spokesman said in a statement. “It was produced by an individual from an external accountancy firm. It has no authority, and we don’t recognize any of the claims it makes.” Chris Grayling, secretary of state for transport, told BBC Radio on Tuesday, “It’s certainly not a government report.” As for Britain’s departure from the union, known as Brexit, he said, “It’s a complex process, albeit with some simple objectives.” The British press, already fluttery over the complications of leaving the European Union and the uncertainties of a trade deal with a President Donald J. Trump who, as a candidate, expressed opposition to free trade, seized on the memo, which The Times said was drafted on Nov. 7 by a “consultant” working for the Cabinet Office, a government department that supports the prime minister. According to The Guardian, the memo was “understood” to have been written by a consultant at Deloitte and was unsolicited by the government. “This was a note intended primarily for internal audiences,” said Mark Smith, a spokesman for Deloitte, confirming the Guardian report. “It was not commissioned by the Cabinet Office, nor any other government department, and represents a view of the task facing Whitehall,” he added, referring to the central government administration. “This work was conducted without access to No. 10 or input from any other government departments.” How ‘Brexit’ Could Change Business in Britain Britain has started the clock on leaving the European Union, and will be out of the bloc by March 2019. Here is how “Brexit” has affected business so far. But the memo to a large extent said what is widely understood: The government has not yet finished its internal debate on what kind of relationship it wants with the European Union, nor has it set its priorities for any negotiation; and the cabinet remains divided between those favoring as clean a break with Brussels as possible and those who want to preserve duty-free access to the huge European market. That negotiation would not begin in any case until Britain invokes Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which sets a two-year limit for talks with the other 27 member states about Britain’s exit. A ruling by the High Court, which is being appealed by the government, said Parliament must have a debate and vote on invoking Article 50, which is not solely in the jurisdiction of the British cabinet. While the memo spoke of six months before the government could agree on a negotiating strategy, Mrs. May has said she intends to invoke the article by the end of March. She has said little specifically about what she favors, other than a deal that allows immigration controls as well as access to the European single market, which many European officials regard, at least for now, as incompatible. For now, as the memo suggested, she is trying to keep her Conservative Party together to avoid early elections. The memo also pointed to Britain’s well-understood need for more trade negotiators and lawyers to work through that future relationship. Having been a member of the European Union for more than 40 years, Britain had no need for trade negotiators and clearly needs to hire more, and quickly; any deal will be legally intricate. Given budget cuts and computerization, today’s Civil Service is reported to be the smallest since World War II, at 400,000. The memo’s figure of 30,000 extra civil servants seemed high, however, given that the entire staff of the European Commission — Brussels’ supposedly mighty bureaucracy — is 33,000, according to official figures . David Archer, who is recruiting lawyers and trade negotiators to suggest to the government, said 10 percent of the résumés he is now receiving are of “good quality,” with required experience. The number of civil servants is down 20 percent since 2010, Mr. Archer said, and many civil servants are unhappy with Brexit. “Morale is awful and rock bottom,” he said. Mr. Archer, director of the executive search firm Circle Square, said that the government was training civil servants internally, and looking to law firms, former ambassadors and former trade negotiators. “It’s a problem, since we haven’t negotiated at an international level since 1973,” he said. There are about 600 trade negotiators worldwide, Mr. Archer said, including 40 currently in London. Robert Bourns, the president of the Law Society, said the government was doing its best at recruiting for Brexit, but with only a few months before Article 50 is invoked, “this is an enormous task.” Much of current British law has been developed in Europe, Mr. Bourns said. He added that the government recognized that the number of lawyers capable of drafting legislation had been reduced over time, and needed to be increased. Mr. Grayling, a prominent Brexit supporter, said the government has “people in my department and in other departments working with the Brexit department,” adding, “I don’t know what 30,000 extra people would do.” According to the memo, various government departments are working on more than 500 projects related to Brexit, which is more than they can handle. It also repeated widespread reporting about Mrs. May’s management style, which is secretive. It said her tendency of “drawing in decisions and details to settle matters herself” or with a small circle of aides would prove unsustainable. “It may be six months before there is a view on priorities/negotiation strategy as the political situation in the U.K. and the E.U. evolves,” said the document, titled “Brexit Update.” Members of Parliament who favor a quick Brexit attacked the memo as intended to harm their case. John Redwood, a prominent Conservative who supports Brexit, said: “It’s complete nonsense. You don’t need consultants who are against Brexit and trying to undermine it. They are not speaking for the government, and I’m very glad they are not. Brexit can be much quicker, better and cheaper than they think.” Another pro-Brexit legislator, Steve Baker, said: “This gloomy memo carries all the hallmarks of the campaign we know is in progress to defy the will of the British people.”
|
Brexit;Theresa May;Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu;Civil service;Great Britain;EU
|
ny0079960
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2015/02/07
|
On Campus, Obama Makes Case for Plans Including Free Community College
|
INDIANAPOLIS — President Obama on Friday pressed voters to demand that their representatives reach across the political aisle to pass initiatives in his budget including free community college, more generous child care subsidies and new roads and bridges, making the case for his agenda in a heavily Republican state. “The way folks all across America can help is to let your members of Congress know these things are important,” Mr. Obama told about 400 people at a town-hall meeting here at Ivy Tech Community College. The president said that if Republican leaders did not agree with him on how to finance the plans — he has proposed higher taxes on wealthy individuals and multinational companies — “then they should show me another way.” “But your voice letting them know that this is important — not because it’s partisan, but because it’s the right thing to do for America — if they hear that from enough people, then that’s going to make a difference,” the president said. On a day that saw the release of an encouraging employment report indicating growing economic momentum, Mr. Obama said his top priority for the remainder of his term was to help bolster Americans’ paychecks so they could benefit from the same forces that have lifted the stock market and corporate earnings. “My No. 1 priority is to make sure that the American people’s wages and incomes are going up,” he said, asserting that his budget “could put thousands of dollars back in the pockets of hard-working middle-class families.” Mr. Obama argued that in an increasingly competitive economy, people of all backgrounds need affordable opportunities to get an education and upgrade their skills. “This is not you get two years of free goofing off,” Mr. Obama said of his plan for free community college education, which would require students to maintain a 2.5 grade point average and attend at least half-time. “You have to put in the effort.” He also acknowledged that the public backlash against part of his plan to finance the $75 billion community college initiative, doing away with a tax benefit for 529 college savings plans, prompted his administration to drop that idea. “When you looked at the statistics, the folks who used them most were folks who were a little more on the high end,” Mr. Obama said in his first public remarks about the proposal, describing the original rationale for it. He noted that he has such accounts for his two daughters. “I’ll be honest with you,” he said in response to a question from an attendee. “There were enough people who already were utilizing 529s that they started feeling as if, ‘Well, you know, if it’s changing like this in midstream, even if I’m not affected right now, I like the program,’ it wasn’t worth it for us to eliminate it. The savings weren’t that great.”
|
Barack Obama;US Politics;US Economy;Community college;Federal Budget;Indianapolis
|
ny0126176
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2012/08/01
|
Yemen: Police Storm Ministry
|
Police officers loyal to the ousted leader Ali Abdullah Saleh stormed the Interior Ministry on Tuesday, setting off clashes in which at least 15 people were killed and 43 wounded, according to security officials. The police officers had been demonstrating outside the ministry, accusing the new government of corruption. They were later joined by pro-Saleh tribesmen, a security official said. The Saleh loyalists remained in control of the building hours after they stormed it, as well as nearby streets, the official said. Mr. Saleh stepped down six months ago after a popular uprising, but many of his supporters still hold crucial positions.
|
Yemen;Demonstrations Protests and Riots;Saleh Ali Abdullah;Police;Deaths (Fatalities);Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- )
|
ny0229488
|
[
"business"
] |
2010/07/22
|
Markets Decline on Bernanke’s Economic Comments
|
Wednesday was a good day on Wall Street until Ben S. Bernanke uttered two words: “unusually uncertain.” That cautious assessment of the economy from Mr. Bernanke , the chairman of the Federal Reserve, sent the stock market into an afternoon slide that underscored the fragility of investor confidence. While Mr. Bernanke’s views, delivered during his twice-yearly testimony before Congress, were largely in line with previous statements from the Fed, his testimony nonetheless sent the broad stock market down nearly 1.3 percent. “The market seemed to focus on that ‘unusually uncertain’ comment a minute or so in and we never recovered,” said Philip J. Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors. “And then it got progressively worse from there.” Mr. Orlando continued: “Investors are just very nervous right now.” The Dow Jones industrial average fell 109.43 points, or 1.07 percent, to 10,120.53. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index declined 13.89 points or 1.28 percent, to 1,069.59, and the Nasdaq composite index dropped 35.16 points or 1.58 percent, to 2,187.33. It was a quiet day until Mr. Bernanke began to speak at about 2 p.m. Then, as his testimony got under way, stocks ground progressively lower. The passage that seemed to unnerve investors the most was this: “Of course, even as the Federal Reserve continues prudent planning for the ultimate withdrawal of extraordinary monetary policy accommodation, we also recognize that the economic outlook remains unusually uncertain.” That was all it took for the stock market. Andrew Pusateri, an analyst with Edward Jones, said it appeared the market had a change of heart because of the remarks about uncertainty and the possibility of needing future steps to bolster the economy. “I think he is saying that more or less without extra measures we would slide back into a double dip,” he said. “I think that is the fear.” Before Mr. Bernanke’s comments, investors had reacted cautiously Wednesday despite corporate earnings reports that, in better times, might have been reason for optimism. But Mr. Orlando said many believe that the latest quarterly results were “baked into the cake.” What matters is where the economy and corporate profits go from here. “It is the next six months or 12 months that we are worried about,” he said. John Canally, economist for LPL Financial, said he thought the market was unusually jumpy as it continued to field discouraging data on housing, unemployment, consumer sentiment and bank lending. “The market is a little spooked by the fact that the Fed is a little uncertain,” he said. Financial stocks — which were up in early trading, despite lingering uncertainty over the effect of the sweeping financial legislation signed by President Obama Wednesday — sank more than 1 percent. Five other industry groups also fell that much. Two big banks, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo , reported results that topped analysts’ forecasts. Shares of Morgan Stanley rose $1.58, to $26.80, and Wells Fargo gained 13 cents, to $26.26. Earnings from Apple and Coca-Cola also beat expectations. Apple closed $2.35 higher at $254.24. Coca-Cola shares rose 84 cents, to $54.08 The Treasury’s 10-year note rose 20/32, to 105 9/32. The yield fell to 2.88 percent, from 2.95 percent late Tuesday.
|
Stocks and Bonds;Company Reports
|
ny0296238
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2016/12/01
|
Gilded Gift-Giving: The City That Leaps From the Page
|
“It is a time when one is filled with vague longings; when one dreams of flight to peaceful islands in the remote solitudes of the sea, or folds his hands and says, What is the use of struggling, and toiling and worrying any more?” Sound familiar? It could refer to the end of the year, a time when you’re thinking about getting away, or about buying new books to give as holiday gifts; some ideas on that subject follow in this column. It’s also how Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner described the Gilded Age in their 1873 novel of the same name. Esther Crain, who created the Ephemeral New York blog, has produced a second book about the 19th century’s golden era, as a follow-up to her three-dimensional tome on the period that came with a stereoscopic viewer, produced in 2014. “The Gilded Age in New York: 1870-1910” (Hachette, $35) is a beguiling, lavishly illustrated book that — emerging from the center of the epoch, Madison Square — epitomizes what Ms. Crain calls the city’s incredible energy and sense of its own greatness and destiny. Image From “Silent Beaches, Untold Stories,” collecting scrap iron during the late 1930s or early ’40s. Credit Courtesy of the New York City Records Department “Silent Beaches, Untold Stories: New York City’s Forgotten Waterfront” (Damiani, $39.95) culled by Elizabeth Albert, a professor at St. John’s University, is a stunning guide to 10 offbeat and pristine sites that have so far been spared the incursion of high-rise condominiums or private swim clubs. Among the places illuminated in fiction, poetry and art are Dead Horse Bay in Brooklyn, where the beach is littered with old bits from glass bottles and remnants of the working animals who ended up in a glue factory there, and Hart Island, where Jacob Riis photographed the poor being buried in the 19th century, much the same way as they are today. Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel celebrates more than 50 years of architectural preservation with the sixth edition of “The Landmarks of New York: An Illustrated, Comprehensive Record of New York City’s Historic Buildings” (New York University Press, $75). This chronological guide by a determined advocate catalogs 1,352 landmarks and 135 historic districts, both the familiar and the unheralded. “New York Landmark Posters” (Ziga Media, $16.99) by the artist and photographer Michael Ziga, is also available as a handsome wall calendar. “A Celebration in the Raw: Oysters” (Abbeville Press, $24.95) by Jeremy Sewall and Marion Lear Swaybill reveals everything you wanted to know about the shellfish that made its restaurant debut on Broad Street in 1763 and soon became synonymous with New York City. City Lore celebrates its 30th anniversary this year with “The Poetry of Everyday Life: Storytelling and the Art of Awareness” (Cornell University Press, $26) by Steve Zeitlin, a folklorist and the nonprofit cultural center’s founding director. It’s a “how-to book for everyone,” the poet Bob Holman writes, “where language itself becomes a way of life.” “Rescue Me!” (Aperture Foundation, $15.95), with photographs by Richard Phibbs and text by Richard Jonas, is an impassioned and poignant appeal to find permanent homes for adopted animals. Royalties benefit the Humane Society of New York. Richard Sandler’s “The Eyes of the City” (powerHouse Books, $49.95) is a black-and-white vista of what David Isay describes in his forward as “a fiercely political meditation” on painful truths captured by a powerful street photographer. “Shop Cook Eat New York: 200 of the City’s Best Food Shops, Plus Favorite Recipes” (Rizzoli New York, $27.50) by Susan Meisel and Nathalie Sann provides a bountiful neighborhood tour to whet one appetite or another.
|
Publishing;Historic preservation;Photography;NYC;Books;Gifts;Holidays
|
ny0071121
|
[
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] |
2015/03/28
|
Steve Lavin and St. John’s Part Ways
|
A week after leading St. John’s back to the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament for the first time in four years, Coach Steve Lavin has agreed to part ways with the Red Storm, the university announced Friday. “Coach Lavin returned high expectations to our men’s basketball program and represented St. John’s in a positive way,” Chris Monasch, the university’s athletic director, said in a statement . “We appreciate his commitment to the program and to our student-athletes over the past five years.” The two sides had been discussing an extension of Lavin’s contract, which had one year remaining, according to a person with knowledge of the negotiations. Another person who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the discussions said that Conrado M. Gempesaw, the new president of St. John’s, seeking to make a splash, might already have had his sights set on a replacement: the former St. John’s star Chris Mullin, who is an adviser for the Sacramento Kings but has never coached. “I enjoyed celebrating our student-athletes’ accomplishments in my first year at St. John’s,” Gempesaw said in a statement . “We look forward to building on this foundation as we strive to continue the tradition of success that the St. John’s basketball program has achieved for more than 100 years.” After coaching U.C.L.A. from 1996 to 2003 and then becoming a broadcaster at ESPN, Lavin, 50, arrived in Queens for the 2010-11 season with high expectations, leading the Red Storm to the N.C.A.A. tournament for the first time since 2002 — albeit with many players recruited by the former coach, Norm Roberts. Lavin followed with what was called the No. 3 recruiting class in the nation for 2011-12, which energized the fan base. Articulate and at times introspective, Lavin brought a professorial approach to the St. John’s sideline, which was not surprising, considering that his father, Cap, was a longtime English teacher in the San Francisco area, where Steve was raised. Lavin proudly maintained a close relationship with his roots. He brought on Gene Keady — the former Purdue coach who gave Lavin his start as a graduate assistant in 1988 — as an adviser. Lavin’s top assistant coach, Rico Hines, was his first recruit at U.C.L.A. Lavin used to refer to those associates, seated on either side of him on the bench, as his “circle of life.” Some of the excitement from his inaugural season waned, though, after Lavin had surgery for prostate cancer in October 2011 and coached only four games that season. He opted to recover and travel the country recruiting as a “general manager,” leaving the coaching duties for 2011-12 to his assistant, Mike Dunlap. The Red Storm finished 13-19. After Dunlap left to coach the Charlotte Bobcats, Lavin returned, and results improved incrementally, but again the Red Storm failed to reach the N.C.A.A. tournament, souring some of the expectations of the St. John’s fan base. The Red Storm finished 17-16 in 2012-13 and 20-13 in 2013-14, earning bids to the National Invitational Tournament in both years. With a highly motivated senior class, St. John’s made strides this year, but its depth was challenged after two players, Keith Thomas and Adonis De La Rosa, were declared academically ineligible as the season began. A stretch of brilliant play in February helped Lavin to his second straight 20-win season (21-12), but the Red Storm faded down the stretch, losing their last three games by an average of 22 points. Adding to the appearance of dysfunction, center Chris Obekpa was suspended for violating team rules on March 15, the day St. John’s was selected to its 28th N.C.A.A. tournament appearance. Without him, the Red Storm lost to San Diego State , 76-64, in the first round. “In life, change is inevitable, so I take the long view,” Lavin said in a statement. “I’m grateful for my time teaching at St. John’s University.” St. John’s has not won an N.C.A.A. tournament game since 2000, but its tradition, its location in New York City, its membership in the Big East Conference and its connection to Madison Square Garden, where it plays home games during conference play, will make the job an attractive one. But the roster is in flux. D’Angelo Harrison, Jamal Branch, Phil Greene IV and Sir’Dominic Pointer — all seniors and four of the team’s top six scorers this year — are leaving, and the sophomore guard Rysheed Jordan may enter the N.B.A. draft. And moments after the announcement Friday, Scout.com reported that guard Brandon Sampson, Lavin’s top committed prospect for 2015-16, had reopened his recruitment. In addition to Mullin, Manhattan’s Steve Masiello, Rhode Island’s Dan Hurley and Iona’s Tim Cluess are expected to be top candidates for the opening.
|
College basketball;Steve Lavin;Chris Mullin;St John's;Dan Hurley
|
ny0272644
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2016/05/26
|
Matt Harvey Seeks to Rediscover Swagger After Falling to 3-7
|
WASHINGTON — Steven Matz finished the sixth inning here Wednesday by striking out the major leagues’ leading hitter, Daniel Murphy. Then something really crazy happened: Matz kept on pitching. He zipped through the seventh, survived Bryce Harper in the eighth, and turned his 2-0 shutout over to Jeurys Familia, who closed out the Washington Nationals in the ninth to give the Mets a series victory. Matz improved his career record to 11-1 in 14 starts. “Somehow, being in New York this year, he’s gone a little bit under the radar with some of the other guys we have,” David Wright said. “But that was about as dominant a performance as I’ve seen this year.” It is hard for a pitcher like Matz, or even Noah Syndergaard, to get much attention in the shadow of Matt Harvey. Both were slotted after Harvey in the World Series last fall, and again in the rotation to open this season. The Mets long ago anointed Harvey as their headliner, for better or worse. In Washington this week, their only blemish was the latest Harvey Day clunker, on Tuesday night. His starts are no longer cause for giddy anticipation. Harvey has not pitched beyond the sixth inning all season. He begins well enough, then falls apart, then leaves. When Harvey does not pitch, the Mets are 24-12. When he does, they are 3-7. Yet the Mets cannot get enough. Image Matt Harvey had the support of Mets fans as he took the mound Tuesday in Washington. Credit Alex Brandon/Associated Press Despite all the evidence — the fading fastball in the middle innings, the .509 opponents’ batting average in Harvey’s third time through the order, the persistent failure to minimize damage — the Mets will not skip his turn in the rotation. They will not send him to the minors or the bullpen. They will not even slide in Logan Verrett somewhere to give Harvey extra rest. The Mets’ plan is for Harvey to work in the bullpen on Friday but throw fewer pitches than he did in his session last week. Perhaps that will keep him fresher for his next start, on Monday. They insist he is healthy. The Mets, plainly, are desperate to bring back the caricature of Harvey as their swaggering savior. They are baffled, not only by his 6.08 E.R.A., but also by the lost soul they see on the mound. “I said, ‘Listen, what we’ve got to get away from is “Woe is me” — we’ve got to get back to who you are,’” Manager Terry Collins said. “One of the things I still think about any time I talk to Matt Harvey is the guy who walked into my office the first spring training and said, ‘I’m not here to show you what kind of stuff I have, I’m here to make your team.’ And the next spring training he said, ‘I’m not here just to be one of the starters, I’m here to be the best in baseball.’ And at the end of that year, although he got hurt, he was the best in baseball. That’s the guy we’re trying to get back.” Fair enough. Anyone can dream, or cite a hopeful precedent. There is the Cole Hamels example: young pitcher stars in the World Series, struggles for a year, resumes ace status. There is the Stephen Strasburg example: Tommy John patient takes time to harness consistent excellence, then dominates again. All the ingredients that have made Harvey great remain. In time — maybe next season, maybe even next week — they should coalesce again, and he will reclaim his place among the game’s elite. But he is not there now, and the Mets seem to think that following the same every-five-days pattern will produce different results. “I think we saw some positive signs last night, actually,” John Ricco, the assistant general manager, said Wednesday morning. “We’re watching him, and we look at a lot of the numbers, and we saw some encouraging signs. The easiest to see is a little bit of the velocity is starting to come back — he touched 97 — but even some of the more detailed stats showed some improvement. Those are the things Dan’s working on.” Dan Warthen, the pitching coach, has not spoken about Harvey’s struggles. The Mets have refused to make Warthen available to reporters. Shielding the organization’s foremost pitching expert from questions about a pitcher is absurd, but it underlines the sensitivity the Mets seem to feel. An insecure, ineffective Harvey rocks their world. Harvey basks in the spotlight when times are good and coverage is fawning. He rarely speaks otherwise, and sometimes, to be fair, he is burned when he does. His honesty in March about a blood clot in his bladder led to crass, if predictable, headlines. Harvey — who once posed naked, with only a room service tray, for ESPN The Magazine — cannot seem to laugh at himself anymore. “Saying nothing’s better than saying the wrong thing,” Collins said he had told Harvey, regarding the news media, and Collins has a point. But with a night to reconsider, Harvey again declined an interview request on Wednesday. His insights would help fans understand what he thinks is happening. But really, the important answers will come on the mound, where Harvey once strutted with macho fury. His opponents at Citi Field on Monday will be the Chicago White Sox. The team and the setting should evoke a warm memory. On May 7, 2013, Harvey pitched the best game of his career: nine shutout innings, 12 strikeouts, no walks, one infield single at home against the White Sox. So much has followed, but the one constant is that Harvey commands attention every time he takes the mound. For Mets fans, you might say, it was once almost like a national holiday — and on Monday, it actually is. Happy Memorial Day, Matt Harvey. Everybody wants a reason to celebrate.
|
Baseball;Matt Harvey;Mets
|
ny0103652
|
[
"business",
"global"
] |
2012/03/29
|
Europe Levies Big Fines for Freight Cartel
|
BRUSSELS — The participants in a freight cartel were caught not so much red-handed as green-fingered. Seeking to conceal their price-fixing activities, employees from freight companies like United Parcel Service and Kuehne & Nagel used nicknames like Head Planter, Gardener, Cat Weasel and Horticulturalist, the European Commission said Wednesday. They also shared an unusually strong interest in asparagus, “marrows” and “baby courgettes,” which they discussed in e-mails and during meetings in pubs and restaurants including a traditional Italian establishment near Heathrow Airport. But rather than sharing tips on gardening, the participants were using the names of vegetables as code words for surcharges on important trade routes between Europe and the United States. “These participants in these cartels were fully aware of the illegal nature of their activities, and they often took specific measures to try to conceal their behavior,” said Joaquín Almunia, the European Union competition commissioner. “Many European exporters and consumers of imported goods may have been harmed as a result.” The horticultural terminology was used in one of four cartels, known as the Gardening Club. The other cartels, which combined many of the same companies, were also involved in fixing prices of various freight forwarding charges during periods from 2002 to 2007, the commission said. Mr. Almunia announced total fines in the case of 169 million euros ($225 million). Kuehne & Nagel, a Swiss company involved in all four cartels, was fined 53.7 million euros, the largest amount. Karl Gernandt, the chairman of Kuehne & Nagel, said his company was considering bringing an appeal because it was “of the opinion that the commission has not correctly investigated the facts” and had “drawn significantly incorrect factual and legal conclusions.” Panalpina World Transport, also based in Switzerland and involved in three of the cartels, including a “Breakfast Meetings” cartel that met in Hong Kong and fixed surcharges on routes between Europe and China, was fined 46.5 million euros. Panalpina said it might appeal the decision, adding that its position was “supported by independent economic evidence, that the infringements likely did not affect prices paid by Panalpina’s customers.” Deutsche Bahn, and its Schenker and Bax units, and Yusen Air and Sea Service of Japan, were among companies that received reductions in their fines for cooperating with regulators. U.P.S., based in the United States and involved in three of the cartels, was fined 9.8 million euros. DHL, which was involved in all four cartels, and Exel — both subsidiaries of Deutsche Post — were not fined because they had alerted the antitrust agencies to the cartels.
|
United Parcel Service Inc;DHL International GmbH;Fines (Penalties);European Commission;Freight (Cargo);Kuehne & Nagel;European Union;Europe
|
ny0008025
|
[
"world",
"africa"
] |
2013/05/08
|
Disease Is Ravaging Continent’s Staple
|
Scientists say a disease destroying entire crops of cassava has spread out of East Africa into the heart of the continent, is attacking plants as far south as Angola and threatens to move west into Nigeria, the world’s biggest producer of the potatolike root that helps feed 500 million Africans. Africa, which suffers debilitating food shortages, is losing 50 million tons a year of cassava to the cassava brown streak disease, said Claude Fauquet, a scientist and co-founder of the Global Cassava Partnership for the 21st Century. He said the results could be catastrophic if nothing is done to halt the disease.
|
Africa;Cassava;Agriculture;Yucca Mountain
|
ny0073281
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2015/04/03
|
Militants Carry Out Deadly Attacks on Army Checkpoints in North Sinai
|
CAIRO — Militants in North Sinai simultaneously attacked two army checkpoints before dawn on Thursday, killing at least 13 Egyptian soldiers and two civilians, security officials said. The attacks ended a lull in such violence that had lasted several weeks. Both assaults involved the use of car bombs followed by gun battles with the militants, and the security officials said at least 15 of the attackers had been killed. Eighteen other soldiers and a police officer were also wounded, officials said. The Egyptian Army and security forces have been fighting for more than 20 months to stamp out an incipient Islamist insurgency based in North Sinai, set off by the military ouster of President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Militants have killed hundreds of soldiers and police officers in such attacks, which have mainly targeted security forces rather than civilians. The main Sinai-based militant group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, last fall declared itself a “province” of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. The army has sought to impose a tight seal on the area near the city of Sheikh Zuwaid, where the attacks occurred. In the last few months, it has resorted to destroying hundreds of homes near the border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in an attempt to restrict access to smuggling tunnels that might aid the militants. Yet attacks on security forces have persisted. An assault on a military checkpoint in the area in October killed more than 30 soldiers and set off a hunt for what the Egyptian authorities believed was an army insider who had given the attackers information about troop movements. In January, a wave of several coordinated bombings across the region killed 44 people, according to reports in the Egyptian state news media. Since January, however, attention has shifted to other groups of evidently less-seasoned militants who have sought to attack empty stores or other businesses in Cairo and across the country. Carried out by shadowy new groups with names like the Popular Resistance Movement and Revolutionary Punishment, the attacks typically used improvised explosives to strike electric utility stations or storefronts in an attempt to discourage investment in Egypt. Banks and businesses tied to the United Arab Emirates or other Persian Gulf monarchies have been frequent targets, notably including Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food outlets operated by a Kuwaiti company. One of the groups, Revolutionary Punishment, claimed responsibility this week for the killing of an off-duty security officer, Khaled Mohamed, who was leaving morning prayers at a mosque in his village in the province of Monofeya, reviving fears that the groups could turn to more lethal violence. The group said it had dedicated the attack to Islamist prisoners who had been sentenced to death and accused the officer of overseeing torture. On Thursday, Revolutionary Punishment also claimed responsibility for the killing in Giza of a high-ranking security officer, Brig. Gen. Atef el Islambouly. “Worse is yet to come,” the group declared in a message on Twitter. But security officials countered that the general had been shot by criminals while responding to an armored car holdup, then died of his wounds. In any event, the recent attacks follow a period of especially heightened security across the country, after Egypt held a major conference for international donors and investors in mid-March in Sharm el Sheikh, in South Sinai. The newer militant groups had said in their statements that they were singling out corporations participating in the conference, and the gathering appeared to make a tempting target for either the Sinai-based militants or the newer groups. But security around the conference was overwhelming, with rows of uniformed soldiers lining the roads around Sharm el Sheikh, and the event passed without incident. The killing of the security officer this week in Monofeya and the militant attacks in the North Sinai have been the first major assaults since then. The Egyptian authorities have declared the area of North Sinai around Sheikh Zuwaid a closed military zone, restricting access and barring journalists.
|
Egypt;ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State;Terrorism;Civilian casualties
|
ny0254558
|
[
"sports"
] |
2011/07/08
|
New World Cup Order
|
The undoing came on an innocent enough play, a free kick by Sweden that caromed off a startled American defender. But when that carom sent the ball careening straight into the corner of the net , it was the clearest sign yet that the world order of women’s soccer had been reset. The United States team had lost in the group stage of a Women’s World Cup for the first time, and that was only the start of the madness in Germany. Norway, once a big threat to American dominance in the sport, did them one worse and didn’t advance out of the group stage. China, the other world power, isn’t even in the tournament. And Brazil, whose women’s team once got no respect in that soccer-mad country, is now the team that seems likely to bounce the United States when they meet in the quarterfinals on Sunday. This is not your older sister’s World Cup. On WSJ.com , Matthew Futterman and Laura Stevens take a look at the new order of things, a Women’s World Cup that is looking more and more like the men’s version, with England and France rising to power and Germany already sitting on top. Sweden used Wednesday’s inspired effort to join the ranks of the elite, writes Beau Dure on espnW.com , a club the United States team may fall out of should Brazil manage anything close to the 4-0 drubbing it handed the American team in 2007. To avoid that, there has to be a big improvement in play and some changes by Coach Pia Sundhage, writes Grant Wahl on SI.com . The United States team can beat Brazil, writes Jeff Kassouf on Foxports.com , and if you listen to the players, they have every belief that they will, writes David Leon Moore in USA Today . But if they don’t, there is no longer a reason to be surprised. Whatever happens, it will be better than the soccer news coming out of the Netherlands, where FC Twente’s stadium collapsed during renovation work, killing one person and injuring more than a dozen others. Stateside, this picture makes it look as if Phoenix’s Chase Stadium was in for trouble, but the scary-looking dust storm left the site of the All-Star Game intact, if caked in dust. Baseball had plenty of other drama as well, with Albert Pujols returning to the Cardinals lineup and almost helping St. Louis come back from eight runs down against the Cincinnati Reds. Derek Jeter stayed in the Yankees’ lineup and inched ever closer to the 3,000-hit mark, which means the once-panicking Yankees are now icing the Champagne for the coming milestone, Jon Paul Morosi writes on Foxsports.com . The final vote to fill the last All-Star spots is going on, with MLB.com giving the festivities a jolt of silliness courtesy of the animators at JibJab . In jurisprudence news, the guilty plea by the Canadian doctor Anthony Galea could have some athletes nervous about his cooperation with the government, Michael McCann writes on SI.com , and the judge in the Roger Clemens case turns out to be no one you want to mess with, writes Les Carpenter on Yahoo.com . The sports obituaries got a little too crowded with the deaths of the former N.B.A. player Armen Gilliam, remembered for his powerful game and personality, and the former N.F.L. star John Mackey , whose impact on the league goes far beyond his playing accomplishments. Mackey was once the president of the N.F.L. players union and fell victim to dementia, which means he sums up most of the issues still plaguing his sport today. All of which makes a little upheaval in the world of women’s soccer feel like a stroll in a biergarten. Follow Leading Off on Twitter: twitter.com/zinsernyt
|
Women's World Cup (Soccer);Soccer;Baseball;Mackey John;Gilliam Armen;Clemens Roger;Galea Anthony;Jeter Derek;Pujols Albert
|
ny0043778
|
[
"technology",
"personaltech"
] |
2014/05/15
|
Saving Your Favorite Videos on YouTube
|
Q. My YouTube mobile app has a nice “+” button for adding a video to my playlist of favorites, but I don’t see a similar button on the desktop browser version of YouTube. How do you do it from the computer? A. Log into the same YouTube account you use to watch and save videos to playlists on your mobile device. When you find a video on the YouTube site that you want to add to a playlist, go to the strip of text buttons below the video window and click “Add to.” A box appears, giving you the option to add the selected clip to an existing playlist or a new one you can create. When logged into YouTube on the computer, you can find your playlists at https://www.youtube.com/view_all_playlists . Backing Up an iPod Nano Q. How do I back up music from my iPod Nano to a new PC? A. If you originally loaded all the music on the iPod through iTunes on your previous PC, transferring the iTunes library to the new computer moves everything that is on the iPod to the new PC. Apple describes several ways to move your music to a new computer at support.apple.com/kb/HT4527 . When you plug the player into the new computer, it may ask to resync everything, but if all of the iPod’s content is already on iTunes, it should be fine. If you have music bought from the iTunes Store, you will need to authorize the new PC to play the files by going to the Store menu in iTunes, choosing Authorize This Computer and entering the name and password you used to buy the songs. Songs and albums bought from the iTunes Store can also be copied from iPod to iTunes on the computer by going to the File menu in iTunes with the iPod connected and selecting Transfer Purchases. Apple’s own solutions for backing up music are geared toward those who use iTunes and the iTunes Store. If your iPod contains music from several sources — like songs converted from compact discs — or even manually copied from different computers, a third-party utility program can copy the music to the new PC from your connected iPod. (Apple’s iTunes synchronization copies only music from the computer to the iPod; using iTunes to copy non-iTunes Store music back to the computer typically results in an erased iPod.) You can find plenty of inexpensive iPod-transfer shareware around the web. Most can deposit your iPod’s music into a dedicated folder on the PC for safekeeping, or even back into iTunes. Sharepod and CopyTrans are two options for Windows. TIP OF THE WEEK The spell-check function of Microsoft Word helps catch typos and other errors in documents, but the program’s grammar and style settings can also alert you to things like misused words, clichés, overly long sentences, gender-specific nouns and subject-verb disagreement. To manage the built-in grammar police in recent Windows versions of Microsoft Word, click the File tab, select Options and then Proofing. On the Mac edition, go to the Word menu, choose Preferences and click the Spelling and Grammar icon. In the box that appears, you can choose to have Word check the grammar as you type, and you can also have the program check writing style as well. Click the Settings button to get to the various rules you want to enforce — or not. Along with “standard” writing, Word can monitor several writing styles, including casual, technical and formal; customization is available, too. While Word’s rules for grammar and style may not be for everyone (like creative writers), the program may at least provide general guidelines for composition. J. D. BIERSDORFER
|
Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry;iPod;iTunes;YouTube;Microsoft;Apple;Mobile Apps
|
ny0232426
|
[
"business",
"economy"
] |
2010/08/11
|
For Those With Jobs, a Recession With Some Benefits
|
One of the distinctive features of the Great Recession has been the enormous number of people who have been out of work for months on end. Almost 45 percent of today’s unemployed workers have been without a job for at least 27 weeks. In no other downturn since World War II did the share exceed 26 percent. For many of these long-term unemployed, the financial and psychological damage will last for years. For most other workers, however, the situation has had a perverse, and mostly overlooked, silver lining. Unemployment has been concentrated among a surprisingly small number of people, given how deep the recession has been. The nation’s pool of jobless workers has not been constantly changing. Instead, it’s been relatively stable — mostly because the hiring rate of new workers plunged in 2008 and still has not recovered. The drop in hiring has actually been steeper than the rise in layoffs. Compare the current slump with that of the early 1980s, which was similar in severity. Over the course of 1980, 18.1 percent of the labor force was unemployed at some point. In 2008, the first year of this slump, only 13.2 percent was, according to the Labor Department’s most up-to-date data. That number surely rose in 2009, but it is unlikely to have come close to the 1982 peak of 22 percent. If anything, the slowdown of the recovery in the last few months has made the recession even more concentrated. It has put off the day when the job market will be strong enough to re-employ many of the long-term jobless. But inflation has fallen to zero, which helps the purchasing power of everyone fortunate enough to have a job. Given that the economy seems to have entered this new phase — a new slog — I wanted to use this week’s column to sketch an updated portrait of the economy. The highlights follow. More detailed information is posted on the Economix blog. Wages Are Rising Again In the deep economic slump of the mid-1970s, the average hourly pay of rank-and-file workers — who make up four-fifths of the work force — fell 6 percent, adjusted for inflation. In the early 1980s, the average wage fell 3 percent. Even in the mild 1990-91 recession, it fell almost 2 percent. But since this recent recession began in December 2007, real average hourly pay has risen nearly 5 percent. Some employers, especially state and local governments , have cut wages. But many more employers have continued to increase pay. Something similar happened during the Great Depression , notes Bruce Judson of the Yale School of Management. Falling prices meant that workers who held their jobs received a surprisingly strong effective pay raise. This time around, nominal wages — the numbers people see in their paychecks — have risen throughout the slump, as companies have passed along some of the impressive productivity to their (remaining) workers. Meanwhile, inflation has been almost non-existent, except for parts of last year, when real wages did briefly fall. Obviously, real wages could begin falling again if inflation picks up or more employers cut pay. And many workers are already struggling with big debts and diminished 401(k) accounts. Still, the contrast is pretty stark. The typical jobless person has been out of work six months. The typical worker has received a raise. Central U.S. Does O.K. The hardest-hit parts of the country have been manufacturing regions, like Michigan , Ohio and Rhode Island , and areas that had huge housing bubbles, like California , Florida and Nevada . The least affected area is a band running from the Dakotas and Minnesota down to Texas and Louisiana . Continuing the concentration theme, this band includes some of the manufacturers and other businesses that have emerged from the recession the quickest. This pattern probably helps explain why the Senate has taken such a leisurely approach to helping the economy in recent months. Many of the states in the best shape also have small populations and, as a result, outsize political power. In Nebraska , where the unemployment rate is 4.8 percent, there is one United States senator for every 900,000 people. In Florida, where the unemployment rate is 11.4 percent, there is one senator for every nine million people. A White-Collar Slump The first two years of the downturn were disproportionately blue collar. In 2008 and 2009, the construction industry shed 25 percent of its jobs, and manufacturing lost 16 percent. This year has been different. Manufacturing — especially of so-called durable goods, like computers and machinery, many of which are purchased by companies — has been adding jobs. Many white-collar fields, meanwhile, are losing jobs: state and local governments, publishing, telecommunications. Retailers have added jobs, but more slowly than the rest of the economy, as consumer spending has remained tepid. This shift from blue to white collar is the main reason the downturn has also become more female. In a turnabout from the previous two years, male employment has risen by almost one million this year, while female employment has fallen by 300,000. For similar reasons, employment has risen this year among people who never attended college and fallen among those who did. Over all, though, the downturn has still exacted a much harsher toll on the less educated. The unemployment rate for college graduates is still just 4.5 percent, and the gap between their pay and everyone else’s is larger than it has ever been. For most college graduates, the Great Recession has not lived up to its name. And there is good reason: in today’s high-tech, global economy, educated workers remain very much in demand. They make their companies more productive and the American economy more competitive. They expand the size of the economic pie. If you have doubts, take a look at the last century. In the early 20th century, Europe decided that a high school education would be wasted on the masses. The United States instead made high school universal , and its newly skilled work force helped build everything from the hugely productive factories of the Midwest to modern Hollywood to the world’s most innovative retail and technology sectors. Over the long term, the best response to the current downturn, by far, would be for the country to regain the global lead in education. Of course, that will take years, maybe decades. It will not come soon enough to help the seven million people who have been out of work — and are still actively looking for work — for six months or more. They will need a different kind of help. Maybe it’s a new kind of jobless benefit, like a lump-sum payment that is fairly generous but still them gives an incentive to find new work as soon as possible. Or maybe it’s a new kind of retraining program that, unlike so many past failures , lives up to its promises. Whatever it is, it will need to be something more innovative than the current safety net — which was, after all, created for a very different kind of downturn.
|
US Economy;Economy;Jobs
|
ny0254736
|
[
"science"
] |
2011/07/12
|
Getting a Handle on the Cosmic Dust Caused by Supernovas
|
Although it is known that a supernova, the violent explosion of a star, is one source of cosmic dust, the origin of the large amounts of dust needed to form planets and stars like the Sun has long been unclear. Now, with the aid of the European Space Agency’s powerful Herschel Space Observatory , astronomers have been able to detect massive amounts of cosmic dust emitted from a supernova that became visible almost 25 years ago. “We are looking at the sky at wavelengths that have never been observed before,” said Mikako Matsuura, an astronomer at University College London and the study’s lead author. She and her colleagues report their findings in the journal Science . The supernova was detected in 1987 in a small galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud, about 160,000 light-years away. It occurred when an aging star’s core collapsed, creating a violent explosion visible to the naked eye from Earth. Light from the supernova highlighted a giant ring of material more than six million miles long. Herschel, which was sent into orbit in 2009, was able to detect very cold dust particles in the ring. The dust in the center of the star’s remains is about minus 420 degrees Fahrenheit, Dr. Matsuura said. She and her team reported that the explosion generated enough cold dust to form more than 200,000 Earths. Such explosions are enough, they believe, to create the large clouds of dust seen in young galaxies. By studying this dust using Herschel and other telescopes, the researchers hope to better understand how galaxies, including the Milky Way, are formed. “Planets are made from interstellar dust, and so are all creatures on planets,” said Michael Barlow, another astronomer at University College London and a co-author of the study. “We are made of interstellar dust, ultimately.”
|
Stars and Galaxies;Astronomy and Astrophysics;Telescopes and Observatories;Science and Technology
|
ny0129226
|
[
"us"
] |
2012/06/21
|
Florida: Sanford’s Embattled Police Chief Loses His Job
|
Police Chief Bill R. Lee Jr. of Sanford, who drew criticism for his department’s handling of Trayvon Martin ’s killing, lost his job on Wednesday. In a news release, City Manager Norton N. Bonaparte Jr. announced that Mr. Lee was immediately relieved of his duties. “We need to move forward with a police chief that all the citizens of Sanford can support,” Mr. Bonaparte said. In April, he announced that the chief had agreed to resign, but the City Commission rejected the resignation. Mr. Lee has been on administrative leave.
|
Martin Trayvon;Sanford (Fla);Lee Bill Jr
|
ny0085956
|
[
"us"
] |
2015/07/16
|
Nonprofit Groups Sue Over Airport Body Scanners
|
A group of nonprofit organizations filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to force the Transportation Security Administration to complete the rulemaking process for the use of body scanners in airports, a step that would potentially allow citizens to challenge aspects of the rule in court. The agency failed to complete the rulemaking process before the equipment went into use in airports, and it retroactively submitted a proposal and asked for public comment four years ago after receiving an order from a judge. But the agency has yet to release a final rule.
|
TSA;Scanners;Airport security;Lawsuits
|
ny0265961
|
[
"us"
] |
2016/03/29
|
Mother Mary Angelica, Who Founded Catholic TV Network, Dies at 92
|
Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, a cloistered Franciscan nun who founded the largest Roman Catholic television network in the country, and used it unstintingly to criticize liberalizing trends in the Catholic Church, died on Sunday. She was 92. The cause was complications of a stroke, according to a statement posted online by the Eternal Word Television Network, the media organization she founded. Mother Angelica began the Eternal Word Television Network in 1981 with $200, a makeshift studio in a monastery’s garage in Irondale, Ala., and one on-air personality, herself. By the time she retired in 2001 after a series of debilitating strokes, her homespun half-hour program of advice and commentary, “Mother Angelica Live,” was the anchor of a 24-hour Catholic programming network reaching over 100 million homes in the United States, South America, Africa and Europe. In a YouTube video announcing her death, Raymond Arroyo, the managing editor of EWTN News and a biographer of Mother Angelica, said she was the only woman in television history to found and lead a cable network for 20 years. A 1995 profile in Time magazine called her “an improbable superstar of religious broadcasting and arguably the most influential Roman Catholic woman in America.” Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, a member of the network’s board of governors, said in its statement that Mother Angelica “succeeded at a task the nation’s bishops themselves couldn’t achieve.” Mother Angelica’s television persona, which survives in network reruns and perennially popular YouTube clips, was that of a shrewd yet grandmotherly nun from a seemingly bygone era. Her face framed in full nun’s habit and filling the screen almost edge to edge, she answered viewers’ questions at a leisurely, sigh-punctuated pace that accommodated the long digressions that became her trademark. She wisecracked about nuns, once describing the ones who taught her in parochial school as “the meanest people on God’s earth.” She dispensed religious opinions sometimes at odds with Vatican policy. She lectured teenagers on fornication, bishops on theology. And at her most passionate, she attacked feminists and other liberals she saw as undermining the authority of the church. It was a television style that made her irresistible to traditionalist Catholics, who never warmed to American church leaders’ efforts, after the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65, to demystify rituals and nudge congregations toward greater social engagement. That audience contributed generously to her enterprise, donating what The National Catholic Reporter estimated at $25 million annually in 1994. Mother Angelica’s outspokenness on church issues — her pet peeves were gender-neutral language in the liturgy and a change allowing girls to become altar servers — made her both friends and enemies among the Catholic faithful. It also brought her into conflict with members of the church hierarchy. In 1993, when a World Youth Day event in Denver featured a woman playing the role of Jesus Christ in a Passion play, she called it “blasphemous,” and delivered a litany of complaints during her show about what she called the “ungodly” influence that liberals were having on the church. “I am so tired of you, liberal church in America,” she said. “I resent you pushing your anti-Catholic, ungodly ways upon the masses of this country.” Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee, a prelate identified at the time with the church’s progressive wing, called her remarks “disgraceful, un-Christian, offensive and divisive.” The administrative body of American bishops, then known as the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, asked that the segment be pulled from the network’s lineup of reruns. Mother Angelica refused. A more significant clash occurred in 1997, when Mother Angelica criticized Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles for proposing changes in the sacrament of holy communion that she viewed as a breach of core church doctrine. “I’m afraid my obedience in that diocese would be absolutely zero,” she said. “And I hope everybody else’s in that diocese is zero.” Cardinal Mahony demanded an apology and a retraction of her call for disobedience. He received a grudging apology, which Mother Angelica then obscured with a long on-air explication of her complaint. At the cardinal’s request, the Vatican began an inquiry into her work. No disciplinary action was taken. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI awarded Mother Angelica the Cross of Honor for distinguished service. It is the highest award a pope can give to a member of the laity, the term by which the church defines everyone except ordained priests. Mother Angelica was born Rita Antoinette Rizzo on April 20, 1923, in Canton, Ohio, the only child of John and Mae Rizzo. Her father abandoned the family when she was 5, and she spent much of her early life plagued by an array of stomach ailments. In 1943, she claimed to have been cured by a Catholic faith healer, signaling the beginning of her interest in a religious vocation, according to a 2007 biography written by Mr. Arroyo, “Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles.” After she took vows as a member of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration, a contemplative order of Franciscan nuns in Canton, another physical ailment — a spinal injury suffered in a fall, followed by two years of chronic pain — led her to promise to build a new monastery if cured. Her prayers answered, she set off in 1962 with four other sisters of her order to start Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Irondale, a place with almost no Catholics. There, Mother Angelica began writing booklets and recording audiocassettes to introduce Catholicism to her new neighbors. When a local television station gave her a half-hour of airtime, her on-camera charisma attracted Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, which began airing her show on its satellite network. In an interview with The New York Times in 1989, Mother Angelica described how a visit to a television studio in Chicago ignited her entrepreneurial drive, and led to the birth of her worldwide enterprise. “I walked in, and it was just a little studio, and I remember standing in the doorway and thinking, it doesn’t take much to reach the masses,” she said. “I just stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Lord, I’ve got to have one of these.’”
|
Obituary;Eternal Word Television Network;Catholic Church;Nun;TV;Angelica
|
ny0241486
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2011/03/05
|
Mideast Unrest Is Costing Russian Arms Industry
|
MOSCOW — In its statements and actions, Russia has joined the international community in condemning the violence by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya against his citizens. But that has not stopped Russia from counting up its business losses from canceled arms sales to Libya. Russia will lose $4 billion because of the unrest in Libya and the subsequent United Nations embargo, Sergei V. Chemezov, the director of the Russian state company in charge of weapons exports, said on Friday. Over all, unrest in the Middle East has toppled or threatens to topple several governments that are longtime customers of Russian military industries, Mr. Chemezov said, and the total losses could reach $10 billion. The comments by Mr. Chemezov, a close ally of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, reflected the business calculations that are a world away from the pain of the conflicts on the ground. He characterized the financial setbacks as “lost opportunity costs” so far because factories had not yet incurred outlays to build the orders for Libya. In 2008, Russia waived Libya’s Soviet-era debt in exchange for new weapons orders. “We signed contracts, but they had not yet taken effect,” he said. “The money we could have received, but we will not receive, is about $4 billion.” Mr. Chemezov declined to say what was on Libya’s new order list, but he said recently that Russia had shipped mostly spare parts for the country’s Soviet-built weaponry. Through his job at the giant Russian state company Rostekhnologia, Mr. Chemezov is one of the world’s largest arms dealers. He expressed regret that Libyan weapons may now find their way onto the black market, and he took pains to emphasize that Russia adheres strictly to United Nations rules in its sales of lethal machinery around the world. Russia supported the arms embargo that was recently imposed by the United Nations Security Council, despite knowing the cost to its domestic industries, he said. “We are a civilized country,” Mr. Chemezov said. “We understand that any violation of human rights, whichever side is doing it, whatever our friendly relations with them, all the same, we need to support the people, the simple people. We cannot allow them to kill people for no reason.” When the sanctions took effect, Mr. Chemezov said that Rostekhnologia immediately turned around a ship laden with aircraft spare parts that was bound for Libya, though it “had nearly reached Libyan shores.” Russia is hardly alone in suffering or risking setbacks because of the overthrow of authoritarian governments in the Middle East. The Libyan Army filled its now partially looted arsenals with weapons from France, the United States, Sweden, North Korea and other countries, according to an assessment by Jane’s Information Group. Libya also has obtained weaponry from the European defense contractor BAE Systems; the American defense company Raytheon; a branch of Saab of Sweden; and Beretta, the Italian gunsmith, according to Jane’s. International weapons experts have expressed concern in particular about photographs showing rebels carrying looted, shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles that look like they are from the former Eastern bloc. If they were to fall into the hands of terrorists on the black market, these missiles could pose a danger to civilian airliners. Mr. Chemezov said Russia was probably not the culprit in the dissemination of these weapons. Russia, he said, has sold no shoulder-fired antiaircraft weapons to Libya since the Soviet Union fell, though it may have provided them before 1992, in which case they would be obsolete. Mr. Chemezov said he had seen estimates that Russia would lose as much as $10 billion if the United Nations expanded arms embargoes to other Middle Eastern or North African countries. Where could the Russian industry, in particular, turn to cover this loss? “There is always Latin America,” he said.
|
Russia;Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- );Arms Trade;Libya
|
ny0052291
|
[
"us"
] |
2014/10/14
|
C.D.C. Rethinking Methods to Stop Spread of Ebola
|
DALLAS — The transmission of the Ebola virus to a nurse here forced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday to reconsider its approach to containing the disease, with state and federal officials re-examining whether equipment and procedures were adequate or too loosely followed, and whether more decontamination steps are necessary when health workers leave isolation units. “We have to rethink the way we address Ebola infection control, because even a single infection is unacceptable,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the C.D.C., told reporters. Health officials still do not know how the nurse , who helped treat the Ebola victim at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital and wore a gown, mask and other protective gear during her interactions with him, became infected. A team of C.D.C. officials — reinforcements sent to Dallas in the aftermath of the second Ebola case diagnosed in the United States — worked through the night at the hospital to identify what was described as a “large group” of health care workers who might be at risk of infection because they treated the original Ebola victim, Thomas Eric Duncan, 42, at the hospital from the time he was admitted on Sept. 28 until he died last Wednesday. How Many Ebola Patients Have Been Treated Outside of Africa? Questions and answers on the scale of the outbreak and the science of the Ebola virus. And they are now watching hospital personnel as they put on and take off their protective garb, retraining the staff and evaluating the type of protective equipment being used. They were considering using cleaning products that kill the virus to spray down workers who come out of the isolation unit where the nurse is being treated. “There are a series of things that are already implemented in the past 24 hours,” Dr. Frieden said. “If this one individual was infected, and we don’t know how within the isolation unit, then it is possible that other individuals could have been infected as well.” The agency’s acknowledgment that substantial changes were needed came in sharp contrast to its earlier tone of confidence. On Sept. 30, Dr. Frieden had declared about Ebola: “I have no doubt that we will stop it in its tracks in the U.S.” He began Monday’s press briefing by saying that “stopping Ebola is hard.” The additional precautions announced Monday were part of what Dr. Frieden described as a “doubling down” on the amount of training, education and support the C.D.C. provides to Texas Health Presbyterian and other hospitals around the country. Image Cleanup crews continued working on Monday at the apartment building in Dallas where Nina Pham, the nurse who contracted Ebola, lives. Credit Cooper Neill for The New York Times It came as the pool of people being monitored for potential exposure to the disease appeared to more than double, from 48 to perhaps more than 100, none of whom had reported any symptoms of Ebola. All of those now being evaluated for the first time were workers at Presbyterian who cared for Mr. Duncan after he was admitted. Though the precise number of workers remains unknown, questions were also being raised about why they had not been monitored previously. Dr. Joseph McCormick, regional dean of the University of Texas School of Public Health in Brownsville, said he was shocked that none of those monitored by officials in recent days were the hospital workers caring for Mr. Duncan after he was put in isolation. Dr. McCormick worked for the C.D.C. in 1976, when he helped investigate the first epidemic of Ebola in Central Africa. “You know that once this guy is really ill and he’s hospitalized, there’s going to be a lot of contact, manipulation of blood specimens, cleaning up if he’s vomiting or if he’s got diarrhea,” Dr. McCormick said. “You certainly can’t assume that because he’s hospitalized and in this unit that everything is fine and everything that goes on will be without any risk. I mean, that’s just ludicrous to think that.” Video Health care workers must learn the proper use of hazardous-material suits and other equipment to prevent the spread of Ebola. The nurse — Nina Pham, 26, a 2010 graduate of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth — had extensive contact with Mr. Duncan after he was admitted. A person who had contact with Ms. Pham was also being monitored, although health officials said the interaction came at the onset of Ms. Pham’s symptoms, meaning it was unlikely that she was infectious at the time. Dr. Frieden acknowledged that officials “have not identified a specific problem that led to this infection,” which left them operating partly in the dark. Officials are considering imposing a requirement that workers at Presbyterian be sprayed with a disinfectant, like chlorine, after they leave an infected patient, often in a side room that is connected to the patient’s room. The procedure, which is used in Africa, is rarely used in American hospitals. “Every option is on the table at this moment,” said Abbigail Tumpey, a C.D.C. spokeswoman. Additionally, someone will be assigned to monitor health workers as they put on their protective gear and take it off, to reduce the risk that they infect themselves, for example, from fluid on gowns or gloves. And the authorities are weighing whether procedures like intubation and dialysis are worth the grave risks they pose to the medical workers who perform them. Such modern medical procedures can extend life, but are complex, and are not part of regular care in the African countries hardest hit by Ebola. Is the U.S. Prepared for an Ebola Outbreak? A look at the government agencies and private entities that were involved in the case of the first person found to have Ebola in the United States. The procedures would be tested as a pilot in Dallas, Ms. Tumpey said, and those that are deemed most useful will be used to update the C.D.C.’s infection control guidance document, most likely next week. The agency would then send alerts via email and news flash updates to clinicians and hospitals. The agency does not have the authority to compel hospitals to change procedures. The health agency has also sent new experts to Dallas, including Dr. Michael Bell, an epidemiologist who has worked on Ebola for the C.D.C., and hospital infection control experts. No decisions have been made on whether Ebola patients should be transferred to one of four specialty hospitals around the country. State and federal health officials seemed to be, in a sense, starting over, two weeks after Mr. Duncan’s diagnosis of Ebola on Sept. 30. They were now identifying, assessing and learning more about a group of health care workers they had largely ignored, to the point that they spent more than 24 hours simply trying to identify who they were. Dr. Frieden described the process as casting the net wider, but on Monday did not address whether he thought officials had made a mistake in not monitoring all the hospital workers initially. How Hospital Workers Are Supposed to Treat Ebola Safely A look at the C.D.C. guidance on protective clothing for workers treating the disease. Dr. Robert L. Murphy, director of the Center for Global Health at Northwestern University, said the missteps in Texas underscored the need to create a national “Ebola czar” with centralized authority to respond to the crisis, an idea proposed Sunday by Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican. Dr. Murphy said that the American public health system is a “state-oriented” one, in which state public health departments have the primary responsibility for fighting the outbreak of an infectious disease like Ebola. The C.D.C., he said, acts as “a central clearinghouse and a reference center, and can provide guidelines and recommendations and assist the states in implementing these policies. But it’s strictly up to the states as to whether they follow those guidelines or not.” Dr. Frieden and other officials briefed President Obama in the Oval Office on the latest in the Ebola situation, aides said. Mr. Obama met with Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services; Susan Rice, his national security adviser; Dr. Frieden; and Lisa Monaco, the president’s homeland security adviser. As health officials struggle to contain the disease in Texas, the political fight in Washingto n over funding levels for public health agencies — and whether reductions have left the country unprepared for a public-health crisis — has reached a fever pitch. The C.D.C.’s overall budget of $6.8 billion in the 2014 fiscal year was roughly similar to what it was four years earlier — a substantial cut, when one factors in inflation, said Sherri Berger, the agency’s chief operating officer. The National Institutes of Health saw its budget decrease to $30.1 billion in the 2014 fiscal year from $31.2 billion in the 2010 fiscal year. The worry over Ebola spread to Kansas City, Kan., where a medic who had worked on a boat along the African coast showed up at the University of Kansas Hospital saying he had previously had a high fever. The man, in his 40s, was isolated in an infectious-disease unit, was undergoing tests and was considered a low to moderate risk for Ebola, said Dr. Lee Norman, the hospital’s chief medical officer. Concern was also evident in Louisiana, where a state judge granted the state attorney general, Buddy Caldwell, a temporary restraining order on Monday blocking the dumping of Mr. Duncan’s incinerated personal items in a hazardous-waste landfill in Calcasieu Parish. According to the C.D.C., Ebola-associated waste that has been properly incinerated is not considered infectious. But Mr. Caldwell, a Republican, said in a statement Monday that Louisianans “just can’t afford to take any risks when it comes to this deadly virus.” In his petition before the court, Mr. Caldwell said that the agencies in his state that regulate medical waste learned about its coming to Louisiana from news media reports, and that no permits for the transportation of the waste had been applied for.
|
Ebola;Dallas;Nina Pham;CDC;Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital;Thomas Eric Duncan;Nursing;Hospital
|
ny0185614
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2009/03/31
|
Disney’s TV Unit in Deal With YouTube
|
Walt Disney ’s television division became the latest media company to make a distribution deal with YouTube on Monday, saying that it would share short-form content with the world’s largest video Web site. Disney refused to comment on reports that it has held talks with both YouTube and another video site, Hulu, about distributing full-length episodes of shows like “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives.” Disney is in negotiations with Hulu to take an equity stake in the site, which is a joint venture of NBC Universal and the News Corporation, according to a person close to the talks who requested anonymity while discussing internal deliberations. A Hulu spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment. For now, ABC seems to want to use YouTube to promote its programs, but not replace ABC.com as a destination for online TV viewing. The deal is similar to one signed last fall with CBS. With its revenue growth slowing, Google has been trying to add professional content to YouTube in an effort to lure advertisers. Professional videos are more appealing to advertisers than videos uploaded by users. Matt Murphy, a senior vice president at Disney and ESPN Media Networks, said the YouTube pages for ABC prime time, ABC News and the company’s cable channels would promote the brands and “drive viewership.” The ABC page will include a module that directs users to ABC.com to watch full episodes. Disney will sell and control the advertising on the video clips, and split the revenue with YouTube. The ad formats will include 15-second commercials before the video starts, overlays and ads next to the video player. YouTube will be embedding ESPN’s video player, the first time the video site has used a third-party player. Jordan Hoffner, YouTube’s head of content partnerships, said the embedding decision “shows our flexibility with partners.” The YouTube deal and the conversations with Hulu suggest an evolution of Disney’s online video strategy, which has primarily focused on drawing visitors to its own Web sites. Mike Vorhaus, the president of Magid Advisors and an expert in online video, said ABC would be wise to distribute its video more widely. Drawing a parallel to Hollywood, he said, ”you don’t just put a movie out in one city.” YouTube draws about 100 million visitors each month, making it an enormous stage for media companies. But many television outlets have been reluctant to share videos with the site. Along with CBS, notable exceptions include ABC’s late-night program “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” which has harnessed YouTube to great effect, drawing 11 million views for its videos in the last month. “Consider this your oasis in a desert of skateboarding dogs and popcorn-eating hamsters,” a message on Mr. Kimmel’s YouTube channel says. With deals like the one with ABC, YouTube is working hard to revise that user-generated reputation. “They need the money,” Mr. Vorhaus said of YouTube, and adding professional video is “how they’re going to get it.” The digital marketing Web site Clickz reported on Monday that YouTube was preparing to redesign its site to make it more suitable for media company content. YouTube declined to comment on the report.
|
Disney Walt Co;YouTube.com;Recordings and Downloads (Video);Television;Computers and the Internet;Online Advertising
|
ny0160256
|
[
"business",
"yourmoney"
] |
2006/03/19
|
Old Options Produce New Hangover
|
TECHNOLOGY stocks are supposed to be the vehicle of choice for investors interested in high-powered gains. So why have many of the biggest names been such laggards lately? It's not that these companies -- Intel, Dell, Texas Instruments and the like -- haven't been making money. In fact, revenues and earnings at these and other bellwether technology companies have been rising nicely. Dell's earnings grew 17.4 percent last year, Intel's rose 15.3 percent, and Texas Instruments' jumped 25 percent. Their stocks, however, are going in the opposite direction. So far this year, Intel has lost 22 percent of its value, Dell has fallen 3 percent and Texas Instruments is down 5.9 percent. To some degree, these companies are in the doldrums because the long-anticipated rebound in technology spending by corporations remains frustratingly elusive. In addition, a glut of technology gear -- like computers, disk drives and storage equipment -- is putting pressure on prices. The Department of Labor said last week that computer prices were down almost 15 percent from a year earlier. That means that even as other companies can increase their profits by raising prices on their products, technology companies cannot. "There is a tremendous undertow of price pressure that is undermining unit growth in what has been a recovery period," said Fred Hickey, a technology stock expert and editor of The High-Tech Strategist in Nashua, N.H. "What will happen if we have an economic downturn? Price pressure will be even more intense in this business." But Mr. Hickey points to something else that is weighing on the shares of some technology companies -- the fact that even as these companies have generated billions of dollars in revenues and earnings growth in recent years, the value of what their shareholders actually own has been declining. Typically, a portion of a company's profits winds up on the retained earnings line of its balance sheet, adding to its net worth. But years of excessive stock option grants to executives and employees are now catching up with these companies, Mr. Hickey said. The result is a decline in their true values. "You're seeing a destruction of book values at some of these companies," Mr. Hickey said, referring to the difference between a company's assets and its liabilities. "There's been a lot of earnings shown, and yet it hasn't gone out in dividends and doesn't show up in the balance sheet. Their shareholders are growing poorer." Stock options are the biggest force behind this trend, Mr. Hickey said. First, they dilute per-share earnings at the companies that dispense them, hurting existing shareholders. Then, to try to reduce the burgeoning growth in stock outstanding that results from option grants, companies spend their owners' cash to buy back shares in the open market. This cuts into the amount of earnings that can be retained by the company and that contribute to shareholder equity. HERE are some data points. In the last two fiscal years, Dell has earned a total of nearly $6.6 billion. During that same period, Dell's shareholder equity has gone from $6.3 billion in 2004 to $4.1 billion this year, a decrease of 35 percent. While Dell has shown earnings growth, the value of what Dell's shareholders own at the end of the day has declined. In the most recent two quarters, Mr. Hickey said, Dell's book value has declined by 48 cents a share. If this pace continues, Dell's book value will vanish in two years, he said. One reason for this is Dell's aggressive purchases of its own shares. In its last fiscal year, which ended on Feb. 3, it spent $7.2 billion to buy back 205 million shares. Jess Blackburn, a Dell spokesman, said the company's buybacks were a shrewd investment that would pay off. "When the price of Dell stock goes back up, as we have faith that it will, we could sell that stock and have a very positive impact," he said. But Dell is not alone in this trend. Intel's shareholder equity, which stood at $38.6 billion in 2004, fell 6.2 percent last year. It spent $10.6 billion buying back shares in 2005. Texas Instruments' stockholder equity dropped from $13.1 billion in 2004 to $11.9 billion in 2005, a decrease of 9.2 percent. The company spent $4.15 billion buying its own shares last year. Tom Beermann, an Intel spokesman, said: "We've had a fairly significant cash position and very strong balance sheet with very little debt. Intel has been on a track to reduce its overall cash balance intentionally through buybacks and stock dividends." He said that "shareholder equity would have been reduced" as a result. Gail Chandler, at Texas Instruments, said: "We intend to continue to deliver great results. We plan to continue to keep costs in line, gain market share and turn in the kind of performance that investors are looking for." Cisco, whose shares have bucked the trend and risen 26 percent this year, saw its shareholder equity decline by 10.5 percent from 2004 to 2005. Cisco's net worth peaked at $28.6 billion in 2002; it is now $23.2 billion, almost 20 percent less. During the six months ended Jan. 28, the most recent figures available, Cisco spent $4.24 billion repurchasing its shares. Heather Dickinson, a spokeswoman for Cisco, said the company's stock buyback program, which began in 2001, had reduced its share count by 16.5 percent. "Cisco believes that for now, our share repurchase program, combined with ongoing strategic investments in our business and maintaining a strong cash balance, are in the best interest of our shareholders." The book values of technology companies have also been hurt by the expensive acquisitions they made to keep their earnings growth going, Mr. Hickey said. Costly write-downs often follow these optimistic purchases, reducing the company's overall values. "We know the history of acquisitions have not been good in the tech world," he said. "NCR and AT&T. Compaq and Digital Equipment and Tandem. Intel poured all sorts of money into smaller acquisitions." (Mr. Hickey has made no bets on the companies mentioned here except for Intel; he owns put options on the company's shares, but his position amounts to less than 0.5 percent of his portfolio.) In better times, technology companies could use their high-flying shares to buy other concerns. Now that the shares are closer to earth, they are borrowing to make acquisitions. Last month, for example, Cisco raised $6.5 billion in bonds, its first debt offering, to help finance its $6.9 billion purchase of Scientific-Atlanta. Borrowing costs will also make a dent in shareholder equity. "Intel's stock price is the same as it was in 1997; Dell is the same price as 1998," Mr. Hickey said. "These big-name companies are not driving any kind of real value for their shareholders and not issuing much in the way of dividends. Instead there has been a wealth transfer from shareholders to company management." After the wild and crazy stock option party of the 1990's, it should surprise no one that one heck of a hangover might result. But it is unfortunate that while managers and employees were the ones overserved, it is the shareholders who feel the most pain.
|
DELL INC;TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC;INTEL CORP;COMPUTER CHIPS;PRICES (FARES FEES AND RATES);STOCKS AND BONDS;COMPANY REPORTS;COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET
|
ny0138205
|
[
"world",
"africa"
] |
2008/05/24
|
Mozambique Fears ‘Exodus’ From Violence in South Africa
|
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Mozambique declared a state of emergency to help its citizens fleeing attacks against foreigners in South Africa , warning on Friday that the “exodus will worsen” as thousands are still housed in makeshift camps awaiting transport back home. The South African police reported more violence on Friday, with sporadic outbursts across the country, including Cape Town and Durban, leaving scores more homeless. A spokesman for the Cape Town police, Billy Jones, said about 400 people had sought shelter on a racetrack after 12 people were injured in overnight attacks on an informal settlement in Cape Town. “The area is quiet now, but we are maintaining a visible presence,” he said, adding that many of the displaced had been moved to community centers and town halls. At least 42 people have been killed and more than 25,000 displaced since attacks began this month by South Africans who blame immigrants for crime and unemployment. Thousands have taken shelter at police stations, churches and other temporary camps. Officials plan to build tent cities on vacant land for them. Predicting an escalating “exodus,” Mozambique’s foreign minister, Oldemiro Baloi, said the state of emergency was declared on Thursday night as thousands of Mozambicans flooded across the border. Mr. Baloi said about 10,000 people had returned on their own while 620 people arrived Thursday in buses arranged by the consulate in Johannesburg. With the emergency declaration, the Mozambican government can release money and aid to help those returning. They are being transported from the capital, Maputo, to their hometowns and given clothes, food, blankets and basic domestic items so they can start again. In Geneva on Friday, the United Nations refugee agency said it was deeply concerned about the attacks against Zimbabweans and other foreigners in South Africa. Jennifer Pagonis, spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said the agency’s monitors had determined that a large percentage of the victims were Zimbabweans, including those who came to South Africa for asylum. “They urgently need both assistance and protection,” Ms. Pagonis said. “While thousands of Mozambicans are reportedly streaming home, many Zimbabweans cannot consider returning home due to the well-known situation in their country.” In South Africa, the police inspector, Sanku Tsunke, said officers were investigating the distribution of pamphlets calling for foreigners to leave the township of Garankua, outside Pretoria. He said the pamphlets warned illegal immigrants to leave by Friday. Other violent episodes have been reported in the eastern province of Mpumalanga, which borders Mozambique. Four shops belonging to Somali businessmen were burned as well as two buses, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported. Violence has also been reported in northern and western areas of South Africa. On Wednesday, President Thabo Mbeki called in the South African National Defense Force for the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994. Soldiers were used in a dawn swoop on Thursday in downtown Johannesburg on three worker hostels whose residents were suspected of inciting violence. In all, 28 people were arrested. The situation in and around Johannesburg, where the worst violence initially broke out, was calmer on Friday. But there are now fears about the spread of disease and illness among the displaced. Bianca Tolboom, a nurse with the international aid organization Doctors Without Borders, said there were concerns about overcrowding and access to clean drinking water. “Some people have been staying in the open air with not sufficient blankets,” she said, “so now the main medical concerns are respiratory tract infections and diarrhea.” “The other main concern is the mental health,” Ms. Tolboom said. “People are very traumatized. There have been a lot of stress-related body pains, high blood pressure.” Ms. Tolboom said people were also suffering from colds and throat and chest infections. “As people continue to stay in these conditions,” she said, “more and more people will get sick.”
|
Mozambique;Immigration and Refugees;International Relations;South Africa;Johannesburg (South Africa);Cape Town (South Africa);United Nations
|
ny0216511
|
[
"business",
"global"
] |
2010/04/09
|
Big Chinese Bank Takes a Step Closer to a Major I.P.O.
|
HONG KONG — More than 20 banks this week submitted their proposals to advise Agricultural Bank of China on its long-expected stock market listing — bringing the Chinese bank closer to launching what analysts believe could be the largest initial public offering ever. The so-called beauty parade of investment banks is a key step in the preparations for any I.P.O., and the fact the bank has invited presentations is a concrete sign that it is pushing ahead with a listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong, possibly before the end of this year. Representatives from domestic and leading international banks have been pitching their advisory services Agricultural Bank in Beijing on Wednesday and Thursday, two people with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday. They declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. The bank’s “request for proposal” — the invitation to banks to submit their pitches — did not detail the magnitude or the expected timing of the I.P.O., these people said. But analysts say the listing could raise well over $20 billion, potentially topping the record $21.9 billion I.P.O. of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, another state-controlled Chinese bank, in October 2006. The exact amount the bank will raise depends in part on how large a stake will be floated — another key fact that remains unclear at this stage. Aspiring issuers typically take several weeks before deciding which of the “beauty parade” banks to mandate. If Agricultural Bank is aiming to list before Christmas, when a lull in market activity typically sets in, a decision on which banks will obtain a slice of the lucrative mandates could come later this month or in early May. Much will depend on how the overall market environment develops in coming months. Sentiment on mainland China and Hong Kong markets has been dented this year by the Chinese authorities’ moves to rein in some of the past year’s crisis-period stimulus measures, and the Shanghai composite index is down about 4.8 percent since Jan. 1. Focused on rural lending, Agricultural Bank was the recipient of a large state bail-out in late 2008. It is the last of China’s main four state-owned banks to attempt a listing. It has more than 24,000 branches and more than 350 million customers. At the end of September 2009, its total assets were 8.6 trillion renminbi, according to its Web site. Agricultural Bank could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
|
China;Initial Public Offerings;Banks and Banking;Hong Kong
|
ny0091706
|
[
"sports",
"soccer"
] |
2015/08/18
|
Parma’s Rebirth Rests on a Ragged Pitch
|
PARMA, Italy — The fields are covered in burnt-out patches. The crossbar of one goal hangs limply, split straight down the middle. Most of the offices inside the spacious headquarters are dark and empty. At first glance, it might seem that the local soccer team — the one that went through a humiliating, and very public, bankruptcy in the spring — is dead. But on a sweltering afternoon a few weeks ago, one of the club’s new executives was giddy. “Look, look,” Luca Carra, the team’s general manager, said as he held out his keychain. “See? I just got the clicker to open up the gate outside.” Carra laughed. He did not hesitate to admit that this is still very much the beginning for Parma Calcio 1913, which is the official name of the entity that was rebooted this month after its predecessor in this complex, the storied Parma F.C., went broke. The new group has a long list of issues to confront, too, among them multiyear financial projections for the club’s attempt to rise from the depths of Italian soccer and the plans of the club’s creditors to auction off virtually everything from the stadium and the training ground, even the shining silverware in the lobby’s trophy case. During a visit this month, Carra’s concerns included items as minor as where to find coffee. “We got a deal with this restaurant across the street where they bring over breakfast, so that’s been good,” Carra said. He also said that hooking up phone and Internet service was a priority because most of the team officials were still going online by using USB dongles from a local mobile phone company. The entire setup is, on many levels, a paradox. Parma (the old version) was a part of Italian soccer for more than a century, finally coming into the spotlight in the early 1990s. It won eight major titles from 1992 to 2002, including three Italian Cups and the UEFA Cup — now the Europa League — in 1995 and ’99. Now, Parma (the new version) has fewer than 10 employees on the business side, a master plan that seeks to overhaul the core philosophy of Italian club ownership and, ultimately, grand designs on earning promotion this season from Italy’s fourth division, Serie D. It is simultaneously trying to figure out how to operate (and pay for) an enormous training complex on the outskirts of town. On its face, the club is the rough equivalent of a motivated technology start-up — which plans to someday be as big as Microsoft — trying to get going by taking over a vacant office park. Image Parma F.C.’s facilities suffered as the once-proud club went broke. Credit Cologero Russo for The New York Times “What we are trying to do here is quite ambitious,” said Marco Ferrari, a digital entrepreneur who is moonlighting as the club’s vice chairman. “We have an entirely new approach for an Italian club and an entirely new model. But we think the system is broken and this is what it needs.” Certainly, it is difficult to dispute the rationale. Money problems have plagued clubs in virtually every country hit hard by the European financial crisis, and Parma is far from the only Italian club to fall into disarray. Ahead of this season, eight other Italian professional clubs at varying levels chose to decline promotions because they could not meet the financial requirements of the next level in the pyramid or folded altogether. Parma’s struggles, though, had by far the highest profile. Financial questions lingered over the club as far back as 2003, when its principal owner, the dairy conglomerate Parmalat, went bankrupt amid allegations of corporate corruption . After a series of owners arrived and departed — the club was sold for one euro twice in two months — Giampietro Manenti took over the club this past February, then promptly sent it tumbling to its nadir when he was arrested a month later on charges of fraud and money-laundering . Unpaid Players For most of the 2014-15 season, the players were not paid, and the team’s creditors hounded the club for payment on debts that Ferrari said reached nearly 200 million euros (now about $220 million). The fallout during the final few months was embarrassing: Bailiffs showed up one day and seized Parma’s trucks and vans after the club missed a deadline on a payment. Rehabilitation and training equipment turned up missing (and was never replaced), leaving players to pay out of their own pockets if they wanted to rehabilitate an injury or, at the worst moments, if they wanted even to have water to drink during a training session. Image Parma players taking a break during training. In Serie D, rules prohibit teams from paying much more than a player’s expenses — the maximum salary after taxes is a little more than $22,000 a year. Credit Cologero Russo for The New York Times The maintenance crews eventually stopped showing up for work; one worker estimated this month that his company, which tended to the fields and grounds around the training center, had bills for supplies and labor of more than $500,000 that went unpaid. In what was surely the most dispiriting moment, the club was forced to postpone a league game in February because it did not have enough money to pay the security guards at its stadium. The next week, it postponed a game at Genoa after the players threatened to strike . For players on a team in one of the top five soccer leagues in the world, the entire season was nothing short of daily embarrassment. Manenti and another executive, Pietro Leonardi, only made matters worse by constantly maintaining that everything was going to be fine, said Alessandro Lucarelli, the team’s captain. “The feeling I remember the most is the feeling of anger,” Lucarelli said. “We were misled and mocked by them. They said there were no problems, and then they left us there to rot.” Image The team’s trophy case in its lobby. The awards could be auctioned to help repay debts. Credit Cologero Russo for The New York Times Lucarelli, who said he lost more than €1 million in salary because of Parma’s mismanagement, added: “Looking back, we should have simply stopped playing and ended the season in February. It would have meant chaos, I understand. But it was what we should have done.” Instead, the team pushed through, scraping by on loans from other clubs and the league to finish the season. In July, after Parma failed to find a new owner to take on its debt — the former baseball player Mike Piazza was part of one group that considered a purchase but ultimately passed — an Italian court ruled that the club would be dissolved. Watching the news, Ferrari, a longtime fan, said he felt compelled to act. He immediately began to recruit investors to reboot the club but made it clear that the group had to think in terms of a complete culture change. The group would seek to maintain surface ties to the old Parma: It will play in the same stadium; it hopes to use the same crest; and from a sports history perspective, it will be known as a continuation so that it can keep the records and trophies of the previous team (provided they are not sold off). From a business standpoint, though, the new Parma would be completely remade. Ferrari found six other investors, including Guido Barilla, the chairman of the pasta company Barilla, and Gian Paolo Dallara, the owner of the top motorsports company Dallara. While most Italian clubs hew to the old-style single-owner model — which, in recent years, has led to the messy intermingling of personal financial problems and club issues — Ferrari and his group wanted the new Parma to set up something akin to the German club model. In Germany, clubs have multiple shareholders, but fans own a stake in the team as well; the system has won praise for delivering stability and responsible spending. Image Nevio Scala, a former Parma coach who was brought in by the new group to serve as the team's chairman. “I want complete transparency and clarity regarding the rules,” Scala said. Credit Cologero Russo for The New York Times The group of Parma investors combined to put up about €2.5 million, said Carra, the general manager, and will own 75 percent of the club’s shares. The other 25 percent, Ferrari said, will be sold to fans, who will also have a guaranteed presence on the board of directors. In one week, 200 fans made at least the minimum buy-in of €500, Ferrari said, with some putting in as much as €40,000. The club’s goal is to have at least 1,000 citizen shareholders by October. “We don’t want their money; we want their loyalty,” Ferrari said. “We’ve doubled their investment in terms of the amount of shares they get — €500 buys €1,000 worth of shares. We’re making it part of the club’s laws that the citizens’ ownership percentage will never fall below 10 percent.” New Financial Rules Transparency and ethics are also a focus of the club. Ferrari said the shareholders planned to be detached from day-to-day operations and had put in a clear system for approving financial expenditures proposed by the professional management. If Carra wants to spend €50,000 for upgraded training equipment, he needs one owner’s signature. If he wants to spend €500,000 on, say, a rehabilitation swimming pool, he needs approval from the full board. Image Parma’s changing room. “What we are trying to do here is quite ambitious,” a club executive said. Credit Cologero Russo for The New York Times “I want complete transparency and clarity regarding the rules,” Nevio Scala, a famed former coach of Parma who was brought in by the new group to serve as chairman, said in an interview. “This was one of my very first requests, and I want the club to be born and follow specific values that have been lost in a lot of modern football.” Scala, who came out of retirement to take the job, will be paid nothing for his first year of work (save for two season tickets to the Teatro Regio, the city’s glorious opera house). Carra, who left a sports marketing company to essentially become the club’s chief operating officer, is paid a nominal salary but said that everyone who had signed on to the project recognized that any true glory lay in the future. This season figures to be humbling, with the reformed Parma playing in a fourth-tier league that is designed for young amateurs. League rules prohibit teams from paying much more than a player’s expenses — the maximum salary after taxes is about €20,000 per year (a little more than $22,000) — and there are numerous age restrictions to ensure that a majority of players on the field at any time are in their early 20s. Many of Parma’s opponents may choose to play “home” games at Parma’s stadium because their own fields seat only a few hundred fans (if that many). Lucarelli, the team captain, agreed to stay with the club despite an enormous pay cut and will play the final season of his career with the renascent Parma. His presence, along with Scala’s as the club’s figurehead, has helped soothe the concerns of the fan base, which desperately wants the club to rise again. So far, public reaction to the new group has been positive. Ferrari said the team sold 5,000 season tickets in five days of online sales, and a crowd of more than 1,000 fans waited outside the stadium on the day that in-person sales began. When a group of players — mostly anonymous teenagers trying to win a spot on the team — went through a perfunctory workout on one recent evening, about two dozen fans stood behind mesh fences watching. Stefano Schianchi, the owner of Bar Gianni, which is popular with Parma fans, said he and most of his friends were not bothered by having to watch what will most likely be a season’s worth of shoddy soccer. After all, he said, there was a period this year when the alternative seemed far worse. “I’ll go and I’ll cheer, of course,” he said. “It will not be Serie A, but it will be something. For a little while, I thought there might be no Parma at all.”
|
Soccer;Italy;Parma;Debt;Serie A;Parma Calcio 1913
|
ny0201177
|
[
"sports",
"soccer"
] |
2009/09/07
|
Losses Test Argentina’s Faith in Maradona
|
ROSARIO, Argentina — Diego Maradona reached into his bag of emotional tricks to try to conjure a victory for Argentina against its archrival Brazil , and save his country’s dimming chances of making next year’s World Cup in South Africa. Maradona, the Argentine coach, had Saturday’s match moved from the capital, Buenos Aires, to a more intimate stadium here. He took the team to church on Thursday, to pray. But none of it had the effect he was looking for. Argentina played listlessly, losing by 3-1 to Brazil, which clinched a World Cup spot and left Argentina hanging. It was Argentina’s first loss to Brazil on Argentine soil in a Cup qualifier, and it left Argentina clinging to the fourth and final automatic qualifying spot in South America with three matches to play. The unthinkable is starting to dawn on soccer-crazed fans here: that Argentina, despite having a roster with the star Lionel Messi and other marquee players, may fail to qualify for the Cup for the first time since 1970. That possibility is almost too much to bear for many Argentines. In a country of few living heroes, the 48-year-old Maradona is a flawed character , a recovering substance abuser who struggled with the trappings of stardom. But time and again, Argentines forgave his faults because of his undeniable brilliance on the soccer field, his almost divinelike inspiration at times. Now his failures as a coach are threatening to sully his legend as perhaps the world’s best-ever player. “I admired him as a player, he is a god for us,” said a dejected Jorge Rodríguez, 55, as he left Rosario’s stadium. “But Maradona is not a coach; it doesn’t work. He showed that tonight. We have some of the best players in the world, and they showed us nothing. They are lacking order, discipline, everything. They need a coach.” On Saturday night, Brazil struck early with a scintillating header by Luisão in the 24th minute. After a second goal by Luís Fabiano six minutes later, on a loose ball in front of the Argentine goal, Maradona turned disgustedly from the sideline and retrieved a yellow water bottle. For much of the night, his face was a mask of confusion and distress. Cries of “Eliminated!” and a series of chants directed at Maradona echoed from the Brazilian cheering section. In the 65th minute, a long, powerful shot from Jesús Datolo caused the capacity crowd of some 30,000 to erupt. But two minutes later, they were silenced again when Luís Fabiano took advantage of another Argentine defensive breakdown, chipping the ball over Argentina’s charging goalkeeper, Mariano Andujar. The result stood, 3-1 Brazil. Many Argentines expressed doubts when Julio Grondona, the president of the Argentine Football Association, named Maradona the coach of the national team last November. He had little coaching experience, and some worried that the stress of the job could lead him back to drug and alcohol abuse. The playmaker Juan Román Riquelme quit the team over remarks he saw as critical of his playing style by Maradona and reporters. In April, Argentina lost to struggling Bolivia, 6-1. Maradona blamed mostly the high altitude of La Paz for the defeat. But a loss at Ecuador cemented fears that Maradona was out of his depth. Argentina has been in dire straits before and still found a way to qualify for the Cup. In 1985, a goal in the final minutes against Peru tied the score, 2-2, and Argentina narrowly slid through. It went on to win the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. In that tournament, Maradona shone on the field, scoring one memorable goal against England and another with his hand , which the referee apparently never saw. Afterward, Maradona famously told the news media that he scored the goal in part with his head and in part with “the hand of God.” In 1993, after Argentina failed to qualify outright, Maradona was called up to help the national team clinch a spot. Argentina had to play two matches against Australia. In the first match in Sydney, Maradona set up the Argentine goal in a 1-1 tie. In Buenos Aires, the Argentines won, 1-0. “Normally, this part is much worse for the team than the Cup itself,” said Sergio Levinsky, an Argentine who wrote the book “Maradona: Rebel With a Cause.” Since taking over as the coach, Maradona has focused on changing the climate around the team. He goes to the players’ homes, and he calls them on the phone. In a bid to further inspire the team, he pushed to move the match on Saturday to Rosario, where the fans would be closer to the field and where Messi, who grew up in the city, would be surrounded by friends and family. “None of what he has done has anything to do with tactics,” Levinsky said. To try to address Maradona’s lack of experience, Grondona assigned Carlos Bilardo, the coach of the 1986 World Cup-winning team, to serve as an assistant. But Maradona has limited the 70-year-old Bilardo’s input, not allowing him to eat with the players or make personnel decisions, Levinsky said. Argentina will next face Paraguay, which is tied for second place, on Wednesday in Asunción. Matches with Peru in Argentina and with Uruguay in Montevideo will be Maradona’s last chances to save face — and not be remembered as the coach who failed to reach the Cup for the first time in 40 years. “Even if we win the Cup, it doesn’t confirm that Maradona is a great coach,” said Omar Bello, the director of an advertising agency in Buenos Aires. “It would just confirm that Maradona is God.”
|
Soccer;Maradona Diego;Argentina;Brazil;World Cup (Soccer);Messi Lionel
|
ny0012650
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2013/11/16
|
Pacers Rout the Bucks to Go to 9-0
|
Roy Hibbert had 24 points and 8 blocks, both season highs, leading the unbeaten Indiana Pacers past the visiting Milwaukee Bucks, 104-77, on Friday night. The Pacers became the first team since the 2002-3 Dallas Mavericks to open a season at 9-0. Indiana has beaten all four of its Central Division opponents and will have an opportunity to maintain its unblemished record Saturday night at Chicago. Hibbert had plenty of help. Paul George scored 10 of his 22 points in the third quarter, and Lance Stephenson finished with 11 points. The short-handed Bucks (2-6) spent most of the game playing catch-up. With four injured players sitting out, O. J. Mayo led the Bucks with 20 points. Khris Middleton and Gary Neal each had 11 — nowhere near enough to avoid a fourth straight loss. BULLS 96, RAPTORS 80 Luol Deng had 19 points and Joakim Noah scored 18 as Chicago overcame the absence of Derrick Rose to beat Toronto for its first road win of the season. Deng and Noah also had nine rebounds apiece as Chicago earned its third consecutive win. Carlos Boozer and Jimmy Butler each had 14 points for Chicago, which avoided its first 0-4 road start in five seasons. The Bulls had lost at Philadelphia, Miami and Indiana before winning in Toronto. DeMar DeRozan matched his career high with 37 points, and Rudy Gay had 20 points and 9 rebounds. TRAIL BLAZERS 109, CELTICS 96 LaMarcus Aldridge scored 27 points and added 12 rebounds to lead Portland to its first victory in Boston since 2004. Mo Williams scored 18 with eight assists for Portland, which earned its fifth consecutive victory. Jared Sullinger, who missed the last game with a bruised knee, had 26 points and 8 rebounds off the bench for Boston. It was Aldridge’s fourth straight game with a double-double. HAWKS 113, 76ERS 103 Jeff Teague had a career-high 33 points and 10 assists, and Al Horford added 20 points as Atlanta beat visiting Philadelphia. DeMarre Carroll finished with a career-high 21 points for Atlanta. Evan Turner scored 27 points, Tony Wroten had 22 points, and Spencer Hawes finished with 14 points and 12 rebounds for the 76ers. BOBCATS 86, CAVALIERS 80 Michael Kidd-Gilchrist scored 16 points as Charlotte used a strong fourth quarter to defeat host Cleveland. The Bobcats outscored the Cavaliers, 29-22, in the final period to win for only the second time in 16 games at Quicken Loans Arena. Kidd-Gilchrist had 8 points in the fourth. Charlotte had five players in double figures. Kyrie Irving had 18 points and 10 assists for Cleveland, which lost for the first time in four games at home. HEAT 110, MAVERICKS 104 LeBron James scored 39 points, and Dwyane Wade had 17 points, 8 assists and a career-best 8 steals as Miami held off Dallas at home. James made 14 of 18 shots for the Heat (6-3), while Chris Bosh scored 14 points. Norris Cole and Rashard Lewis each added 11 for Miami. Dirk Nowitzki scored 28 points for Dallas (5-4), while Vince Carter added 21 and Monta Ellis had 20 for the Mavericks. NUGGETS 117, T’WOLVES 113 Wilson Chandler scored 19 points, including a 3-pointer and three free throws late in the game, as Denver held off Minnesota at home. SPURS 91, JAZZ 82 Tony Parker scored 14 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter as San Antonio rallied to beat host Utah and extend its winning streak to seven games.
|
Basketball;Pacers;Bucks
|
ny0262262
|
[
"business"
] |
2011/06/14
|
2 Underwhelming Choices for TMX
|
Pity the TMX Group’s shareholders. The owners of the Toronto stock exchange face an unenviable choice of suitor. Neither the London Stock Exchange nor the Maple Group, which went hostile with its counteroffer of 3.7 billion Canadian dollars ($3.8 billion) on Monday, has made a compelling bid for the bourse. On pure value, Maple’s deal looks better. The group of 13 Canadian banks and pension funds is offering 48 Canadian dollars a share, around 6 percent more than the current value of the London exchange’s agreed bid — and it is promising 70 percent of it in cash. But it is a complex structure. Investors will receive the remaining 30 percent at some undetermined point in the future. And it will come in the form of shares in Maple, which at present is a shell company hoping to merge TMX with an alternative trading platform and a securities clearinghouse it does not yet own. If Maple fails to fold in these two, TMX’s shareholders may end up handing over control for 33.60 Canadian dollars a share, around 15 percent below the exchange’s price before it started rising in February amid talk of a possible merger. And they would own one of the most leveraged exchanges in the world. That may make the London bid look more appealing to some. It is a straight stock deal and the present value of expected cost savings, about 350 million Canadian dollars, helps close the valuation gap. But there is no cash in the offer. And the value of the deal looks artificially inflated thanks to the takeover premium in the London exchange’s own stock: the London bourse’s shares have jumped 16 percent since Nasdaq pulled out of the battle for NYSE Euronext last month. If it starts to look more likely that the London exchange will win TMX, there is a danger the takeover hope comes out of its stock. On top of all that, each side is pitching a lackluster and defensive strategic rationale. That makes the choice even more underwhelming for TMX shareholders. They would probably lose out in the end if they chose neither, but there is nothing to make them jump at either one. Little wonder that TMX shares are trading below both the offers. That is the ultimate thumbs down. Prada’s Discount Prada did not become a top fashion brand by skimping on costs. But the Italian fashion house has received a discount on its Hong Kong flotation: banks handling the $2.6 billion initial public offering will receive less than 2 percent of the proceeds. The low figure partly reflects cheaper fees in Italy, where Prada first planned to float. But it is also a demonstration of the company’s clout. Prada’s bankers, including Goldman Sachs and CLSA, a unit of Crédit Agricole, will share a base fee of just 1.2 percent, with a further incentive payment of 0.7 percent. That fee, worth $50 million at the top of the price range, is low compared with other recent Hong Kong public offerings. The luggage maker Samsonite is paying its banks up to 3.25 percent of the proceeds of its offering. An Australian start-up mining company, Resourcehouse, which abandoned its fourth attempt to go public in Hong Kong on June 5, was willing to pay as much as 4.3 percent. By contrast, Prada is getting a deal usually reserved for mega-offerings, like last year’s $18 billion offering of the insurer AIA, in which size allows the issuer to drive a harder bargain. Prada’s Italian origins may have played a role. The company had planned to float in Europe, where competition between big global underwriters and local banks means that underwriting fees for deals of a similar size are 1 percent to 2 percent. But the low fees in Hong Kong also underscore Prada’s appeal. Banks tend to be willing to offer concessions on deals that appear likely to succeed. And despite Prada’s rich valuation and recent market turbulence, institutional investors have already placed orders for five times as many shares as Prada is selling. Prada’s other bargaining chip is that the company gives banks an advantage on future deals. A flurry of similar offerings is expected to hit the market as issuers tap into Asians’ love of luxury. Just as Prada’s financial results are a testimony to the power of its brand with consumers, its fees show it can afford to be demanding with its banks.
|
TMX Group;Prada
|
ny0166572
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2006/08/22
|
Cassadaga: 3 Charged With Helping Fugitive
|
Three people have been charged with harboring an escaped inmate accused of shooting a state trooper, the state police said yesterday. The police said the three allowed the suspect, Ralph Phillips, to stay in their home for several days and helped him elude authorities on Saturday night. Mr. Phillips, 44, broke out of the Erie County Correctional Facility in April. He is wanted in connection with the June 10 shooting of Trooper Sean Brown, who was wounded in the stomach and survived. On Saturday, the state police said, a trooper chased Mr. Phillips into the house, but he sneaked out a back window while the trooper called for help.
|
Prison Escapes;New York State;Police
|
ny0269453
|
[
"world",
"americas"
] |
2016/04/10
|
Argentine Prosecutor May Add Ex-President to Financial Inquiry
|
BUENOS AIRES — An Argentine federal prosecutor is seeking to include former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in a widening investigation into money laundering, according to news media reports on Saturday. The prosecutor, Guillermo Marijuán, made the decision after a financier, who had been jailed in a separate case, gave lengthy testimony on Friday, according to Télam, the state news agency. The judge overseeing the investigation, Sebastián Casanello, must decide how to proceed with the recommendation to investigate Mrs. Kirchner, the country’s president from 2007 until last December, and Julio de Vido, a prominent former minister in her administration. It is unclear whether Mr. Marijuán hasactually filed the recommendation yet. Efforts to speak to his office on Saturday evening were unsuccessful. The money-laundering case has gripped Argentina since 2013 , when Jorge Lanata, an influential broadcast journalist, first revealed allegations of a scheme that involved Lázaro Báez, a construction baron in Patagonia who had ties to Mrs. Kirchner and her late husband and predecessor, Néstor Kirchner, and the financier who testified on Friday, Leonardo Fariña. Mr. Báez was arrested last week and accused of laundering about $5 million. Tracing the arc of the investigation to Mrs. Kirchner, prosecutors on the case have said tens of millions of dollars may have been siphoned off from government funds for infrastructure projects. During her presidency, Mrs. Kirchner asserted that her administration was not corrupt and denied any wrongdoing. Mrs. Kirchner currently holds no public office. On Wednesday, she is scheduled to give testimony in a separate investigation into alleged misdeeds at the Central Bank during the final months of her presidency. Allegations of corruption shrouded both Kirchner administrations. Last year, a former transportation minister was convicted in a corruption case. Mrs. Kirchner’s former vice president, Amado Boudou, has been indicted in yet another corruption case. He has proclaimed his innocence.
|
Buenos Aires;Money laundering;Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner;Corruption;Argentina
|
ny0097635
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2015/06/11
|
New York City Council Suddenly Passes New Police and Firefighter Disability Pension Benefits
|
The New York City Council approved a new package of disability pension benefits on Wednesday for police officers and firefighters in what union representatives and some council members described as a surreptitious process. With little public notice other than an updating of the Council’s website , the legislation sped from Mayor Bill de Blasio ’s office to a Council committee to the full body in less than 24 hours. The council voted 31 to 17 with three abstentions to approve Mr. de Blasio’s proposal, which is aimed at giving relatively new employees benefits closer to those of officers and firefighters hired before 2009, when David A. Paterson, then the governor, vetoed a bill that would have extended the same benefits to all workers. The Uniformed Firefighters Association and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association were jointly seeking a rollback of the 2009 veto, which was made as an effort to curb spending during the recession. Not long before the Council’s vote, hundreds of firefighters, joined by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Patrick J. Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, took part in a rally in Albany to press their case. But the de Blasio administration’s plan did not award as much in benefits, seeking to strike a balance between increasing benefits for newer employees and not overextending the city budget. The hasty vote, which must be backed in Albany to go into effect, adds to friction between Mr. de Blasio and the police and fire unions. The police and fire unions were shocked as they watched the pendulum swing the mayor’s way on Wednesday; just two weeks ago, the unions had 39 council members signed on for a resolution they had fashioned, said Stephen J. Cassidy, president of the fire union. Melissa Mark-Viverito, the Council speaker, appeared to be in lock step with the mayor, Mr. Cassidy said. “The speaker of the Council does whatever she’s told by the mayor,” he said. “That’s good government?” Albert O’Leary, a spokesman for Mr. Lynch, said the mayor’s proposal appeared to be his “third iteration” and was not previously seen by the police union. “They could not give us the courtesy of showing us last night,” Mr. O’Leary said. “This is some shifty way of doing business, I can tell you that.” Ms. Mark-Viverito defended the legislation and the process. Questioned at a news conference before the vote, she said it was up to the news media to see what was on the agenda, though she acknowledged that the Council typically contacted news outlets about legislation. She said the benefits measure was a culmination of previous discussions. “This is not about doing anyone’s bidding as the media loves to portray this,” Ms. Mark-Viverito said. “This is about being responsible to the City of New York financially while taking care of our officers that are on the front line of doing the work to protect our city.” At an unrelated news conference in the Bronx, Mr. de Blasio described his approach as “a better model to protect our first responders,” adding that the proposal trumpeted by the unions “would take us back to so many of the excesses of the past.” “We now want the Senate and the Assembly to recognize that New York City has spoken,” he added. Before Wednesday, the unions had held an edge, noting that female and minority officers and firefighters hired in recent years in an effort to increase diversity were entitled to lesser benefits. Beginning officers and firefighters hurt in the line of duty currently get just 50 percent of their final salaries in disability benefits, which could add up to less than $10,000 annually, or $27 a day. Under Mr. de Blasio’s proposal, they would get 75 percent of a higher base, if they are collecting Social Security disability insurance because they are unable to work. If they are able to work and do not qualify for Social Security, they would get 50 percent of their salaries. In testimony to the Council on Wednesday morning, Dean Fuleihan, the city budget director, explained that the mayor’s plan would cost the city $105 million through the 2019 fiscal year, compared with $400 estimated under the unions’ plan. The sudden pension vote overshadowed legislation that had more support. The Council, by 45 to 5, approved the Fair Chance Act , legislation that was nicknamed “ban the box,” part of a national movement to prohibit employers from discriminating against job applicants who had been incarcerated. Though a law already applies to city contractors and agencies, it will now be a violation for private employers to inquire about an applicant’s criminal history during an initial interview. Once a conditional offer is made, an employer can conduct a criminal-background check. If the employer decides to rescind the offer, the employer must give the applicant a written explanation and hold the job open for three days for a discussion with the applicant. A rally in support of the legislation took place on Wednesday morning at City Hall, with an appearance by Piper Kerman, the author of the prison memoir “Orange Is the New Black.” Marilyn Scales, 52, said after the vote that her 1995 drug conviction had haunted her for 20 years. A Bronx activist with Vocal-NY, a social services group, Ms. Scales said she had just recently started a part-time job and had not had full-time work since she returned from prison. “That question,” she said, referring to a box to check for arrests and convictions on applications, “is discriminatory.”
|
NYC;Pensions and Retirement Plans;NYPD;Fire Department NYC;Patrolmen's Benevolent Association;Uniformed Firefighters Association;Bill de Blasio;Andrew Cuomo;Mario Cuomo;New York City Council
|
ny0199314
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2009/07/01
|
News on Beltran (No Surgery) Relieves the Mets
|
MILWAUKEE — Carlos Beltran is not expected to return until after the All-Star break, and considering the alternative, the Mets could not be happier. His consultation Monday in Vail, Colo., with Dr. Richard Steadman, a noted orthopedic surgeon , confirmed that Beltran had only bone bruises in his right knee and would not need surgery. “There were a lot of questions as to whether there was something new or something else in there, and the word we got from the second opinion was that, no, it was pretty much what we knew it was,” John Ricco, the Mets’ assistant general manager, said before Tuesday night’s 6-3 loss to the Brewers. “Now it’s just a matter of how quickly he’s able to heal.” The short answer is not quickly enough. Beltran may work out in the pool, but he will otherwise rest for a few days until he is re-examined in New York this week by team doctors. They will determine when Beltran could resume activity, but the Mets do not think he will be close to returning by July 7, when he is eligible to be reinstated from the disabled list. As long as Beltran continues to heal, Ricco said, he could be ready when the Mets open the second half July 16 in Atlanta — or soon thereafter. “It’s all dependent on how he feels,” Ricco said. “He’s going to have to get off it for a while until he’s pain free.” Even if that takes a week or two, the Mets are relieved that surgery has not been discussed. Steadman pioneered microfracture surgery , which could have been an option if Beltran had damaged cartilage in his knee. This news practically guarantees that Beltran, who currently holds an outfield starting spot, will not participate in the All-Star Game on July 14 in St. Louis . By then, the Mets also hope that Oliver Perez and potentially Jose Reyes will have returned, too. “That’s part of our strategy going forward,” Manager Jerry Manuel said. “No. 1, you want to survive that, but when you survive it, you hope you got reinforcements. You don’t have no reinforcements, you’re kind of back where you started.”
|
New York Mets;Beltran Carlos;Sheffield Gary;Wright David;Reyes Jose;Baseball
|
ny0178845
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2007/08/20
|
Pet Cruelty Accusations Startle Upscale Enclave
|
SADDLE RIVER, N.J., Aug. 17 — After spending the better part of two decades knocking on more doors than most people will in a lifetime, Fred Ferguson, a delivery driver with DHL Worldwide Express, has seen his share of sights strange and unpleasant. But what Mr. Ferguson witnessed as he peered through the glass door of a colonial style home here in one of New Jersey ’s most exclusive towns the other day left him groping for adjectives: a handful of cats and dogs, fur matted and unkempt, walking aimlessly amid piles of animal feces that in parts of the house was nearly knee high. “What’s a worse word than ‘disgusting’?” Mr. Ferguson, 40, asked. “I didn’t know if somebody was dead in the house.” Not somebody, but something: Twenty-three pets were decomposing inside, some so badly that the authorities could not tell whether they were cat or dog. And the live animals Mr. Ferguson saw were among more than 100 dogs and cats that the authorities said had been neglected for years by an upper-middle-class couple here in a home valued at $2.4 million. Now, the couple — Philip Tamis, a securities broker at Merrill Lynch, and his wife, Cynthia Stewart, who ran her own businesses — face animal cruelty charges, and some experts say the scale of the neglect is among the worst in the state in memory. Beyond the scope of the neglect, it is particularly jarring to many to find it happening here in Saddle River, a high-end, insular and intensely private northern New Jersey town that is home to investment bankers, professional athletes and entertainers. Residents in this community said they hardly believed two of their neighbors could be accused in such an extreme case of neglect. Law enforcement officials and experts in animal abuse said it did not matter that the people accused defied the archetype often cited in such cases. “People say, ‘How can this happen in Saddle River?’ But animal cruelty is everywhere,” said Frank D. Saracino, deputy chief of law enforcement for the animal cruelty task force in the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office. “It can be in a small house in the inner city or a 12,000-square-foot mansion out here. It’s everywhere.” Mr. Tamis, 66, and Ms. Stewart, 49, had recently experienced severe financial troubles. The authorities say their home on Burning Hollow Road, where the animals were found in practically every room, including the basement, is the subject of foreclosure proceedings. Court records show that Mr. Tamis filed for bankruptcy protection in 1997 and 2005; the latter case was closed last month. The investigation is continuing, but one police theory is that the couple might have grown so despondent over money that they were unable to care for the stray animals they had been taking in for several years and became oblivious to the condition of their home. Whatever motivation the police believe led to the allegations, Mr. Tamis and Ms. Stewart now face 20 counts each of animal cruelty, and officials have not ruled out additional charges. Each count carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine and is treated as the equivalent of a disorderly persons offense, a misdemeanor. Prosecutors planned to present the case to a grand jury and seek stiffer penalties. “We’re still finding cats,” James M. Lagrosa, chief of law enforcement for the Bergen County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said Thursday outside the rose-hued stucco house. Officials planned to continue searching for more animals through the weekend, shutting off gas and electricity in the house so that workers could burrow into crawl spaces where kittens and puppies might hide. “We think some of them may be inside the walls,” Mr. Lagrosa said. A strip of yellow police tape was tied to a front-door handle, next to a red placard reading, “This building is declared unsafe for human occupancy.” A pane of glass in the front door offered a glimpse inside. The floors in the living room and foyer were covered with animal feces. A wooden floor in a living room appeared warped, discolored and buckled, a condition that Mr. Saracino attributed to the animal urine that covered it. A bare light bulb hung from the ceiling in the foyer, where matted clumps of animal hair were gathered by the front stairs. Two unopened cans of cat food sat on a spiral staircase, which had Christmas lights strung through its wrought-iron railing, that leads to the second floor. And, in a power outlet over by a far wall, was a plug-in air freshener, clearly overwhelmed. Through the front door came an overpowering stench — a noxious, fermented blend of ammonia, urine and feces — that made even those standing outside the house nauseated. It smelled like someone was burning candles scented like a used litter pan. “And it was even worse when we got here Tuesday,” Mr. Saracino said on Thursday, two days after investigators arrived in response to a call from Mr. Ferguson, the DHL driver. “You should have — — ” He was interrupted by Mr. Lagrosa, who said: “Can we move back a little? I’ve got to get away from that smell.” The police said they arrived just after noon on Tuesday and, after getting no answer at the door, entered the house through the three-car garage. It was there that they discovered piles of trash bags hiding a grisly tally: 18 cats, 2 dogs and 3 other carcasses so badly decomposed that the authorities could not identify their species. “It was stacked two feet high with all the body bags,” Mr. Saracino said. “They put some of them in shoe boxes, taped them up and put them in the trash bag.” Inside the house, investigators made more disturbing discoveries: a bed shredded by cat scratches that the couple apparently still used; young kittens, indicating unchecked breeding; and, everywhere, feces. “You can’t walk six inches without sidestepping feces,” Mr. Saracino said. So much feces had accumulated in the basement — as much as 14 inches deep, Mr. Lagrosa said — that workers wore protective suits and put Vicks VapoRub on their particle masks to ward off the smell. Mr. Tamis and Ms. Stewart arrived home while investigators were beginning to remove the animals. “She just looked and said, ‘Why are you here?’ ” Mr. Saracino recalled. The couple were charged Tuesday night and released a short time later. Their next court appearance is scheduled for Aug. 28. Ever since, Burning Hollow Road has been filled with television news vans and passers-by craning out of car windows. The attention has been unwelcome in this upscale borough of 3,200, where the 2000 census put the median family income at $152,169, about three times the national average, and average home values hover around $1 million. It is a place known for protecting the privacy of its higher-profile residents. Public records show that in recent years at least three professional basketball players — Jason Kidd, Vince Carter and Mark Jackson — have purchased property along Burning Hollow Road, as has the rap star and music producer Sean Combs. Yet “no one in Saddle River will tell you who lives on that block,” said Charles Cuccia, the borough administrator, who called the town “a unique slice of America.” “This by far has been the worst situation I’ve seen here,” Mr. Cuccia said, noting that serious crime is virtually nonexistent in town. “Everybody is concerned about the safety and well-being of the animals.” Anita and Kent Shao stood outside the house Thursday, seeming to disbelieve the reports of what had happened in their neighborhood until they saw for themselves. “It’s a shame,” Ms. Shao said. “Everybody said they’re good people. Something just went wrong.” Records show that Mr. Tamis and Ms. Stewart bought the two-acre property in 1996 for $525,000. The couple took out a $1.3 million construction loan to build their 12,000-square-foot home in 1999; it was assessed at $2.4 million in 2004. The authorities said the couple’s serious financial problems began within the past five years, when one of Ms. Stewart’s business ventures, a corporate recruiting firm in Fort Lee, N.J., failed, but they could not offer details. Two years later, records show, Mr. Tamis filed for bankruptcy, claiming a raft of debts including their $2.2 million mortgage and $25,000 in back property taxes; he said he had only $300 cash on hand. A lawyer for the couple, Santo J. Bonanno, did not return calls seeking comment. Dr. Roman Gleyzer, a forensic psychiatrist at Western State Hospital in Tacoma, Wash., who has not examined the couple but is an expert on criminal offenses like animal cruelty, said it was curious that neither partner discouraged the other from keeping the animals. “It’s strange that this dyad, the couple, was in agreement about this; that they both thought this was O.K.” Dr. Gleyzer said, noting that such cases often involve someone who lives alone and rarely goes out. “It could have started as an altruistic attempt to help animals and save animals,” he added. “Then as time went on they might have become depressed and unable to take care of the animals.” Mr. Ferguson, the delivery driver, who owns a 3-year-old Boston terrier named Pudgy, played down talk that he is a savior to the rescued pets, saying he did what anyone who cares about animals would have done. “It wasn’t healthy in that house for those animals,” he said. “It wasn’t healthy in there for anyone.”
|
Cruelty to Animals;New Jersey;Cats;Dogs
|
ny0029232
|
[
"sports"
] |
2013/06/03
|
North Carolina Is Upset
|
Ricky Santiago’s three-run homer in the seventh inning lifted Florida Atlantic to a 3-2 win over the No. 1 overall seed North Carolina in the N.C.A.A. tournament’s Chapel Hill regional. The teams will meet Monday night to determine the regional title. The Tar Heels have not lost consecutive games this season. ■ Ryon Healy had two doubles and a home run to lead Oregon’s 15-hit attack, and the Ducks staved off elimination for the second time with an 11-0 victory over Rice in the Eugene regional. Oregon will face the Owls again Monday night in the regional championship game.
|
UNC;NCAA Baseball;Baseball;Florida Atlantic University
|
ny0039119
|
[
"world",
"americas"
] |
2014/04/29
|
Mexico: Mayor Detained in Organized Crime Investigation
|
The mayor of Lázaro Cárdenas, the city with Mexico’s second-largest port, has been detained as part of an investigation into allegations that he is involved in organized crime, as Mexico struggles to regain control of a region under the thumb of a powerful criminal gang. The gang, the Knights Templar, had so infiltrated the port, in the Pacific Coast state of Michoacán, that the military took it over last year. The arrest of the mayor, Arquímedes Oseguera, on Monday came a day after five people were killed on the outskirts of Lázaro Cárdenas when vigilante groups clashed with gunmen who they suspected were criminals. Mexico this week plans to begin to disarm the vigilantes and restore state authority.
|
Organized crime;Arquimedes Oseguera;Michoacan Mexico;Vigilante;Mexico
|
ny0215325
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2010/04/02
|
Man Arrested in Fatal Stabbing of Two in Subway
|
The police arrested a suspect on Thursday in the subway stabbing deaths of two men, saying he had implicated himself in the Sunday killings on the No. 2 train. Charges were pending against the man, the chief police spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said Thursday evening. Two other men were also in custody in connection with the investigation, though it was unclear whether they would be charged. The arrest of the main suspect came four days after the two victims were fatally stabbed during an encounter aboard a train in Lower Manhattan. The suspects were being held by detectives at the Sixth Precinct station house, at 223 West 10th Street, on Thursday night, the authorities said. Mr. Browne would not say what led the police to the three. The violence broke out on a southbound No. 2 train around 5 a.m. Sunday. One group of seven or eight men had boarded the train at Times Square, heading home to Brooklyn, the police said. The other group, of four or five, were already on board. Words were exchanged. Then, one victim, Ricardo Williams, inadvertently hit a man with some trash he was trying to throw out through the train’s opened doors at the 14th Street station. A fight erupted and Mr. Williams and Darnell Morel, both 24, were fatally stabbed after the attacker flew into a frenzy over the trash episode, the police said. The attacker and an unknown number of his friends ran out of the train at the Christopher Street station . The investigation was hampered because that station has no surveillance cameras in place, a gap in security that is pervasive throughout the subway system.
|
Murders and Attempted Murders;Crime and Criminals;Subways
|
ny0131178
|
[
"world",
"americas"
] |
2012/12/18
|
Mexico’s New Leader Outlines Shift in Antidrug Policy
|
President Enrique Peña Nieto promised on Monday to modify the strategy, spearheaded by his predecessor, Felipe Calderón , of unleashing the military on narcotics organizations. Mr. Peña Nieto proposed a six-point program, which involves alleviating addiction, establishing a new paramilitary police force with 10,000 recruits, folding the Federal Police into the Interior Department and reclaiming public spaces like parks. Mr. Peña Nieto did not say when the plan would go into effect. During a meeting of the National Security Council, Interior Secretary Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong criticized Mr. Calderón’s strategy, which focused on the arrest of drug cartel leaders and depended largely on heavily armed security forces. “Security resources more than doubled, but, unfortunately, crime has increased,” he said.
|
Mexico;Pena Nieto Enrique;Drug Abuse and Traffic;Defense and Military Forces;Calderon Felipe
|
ny0259800
|
[
"business"
] |
2011/06/03
|
James R. Doty Says Audit Firms May Have to Be Rotated
|
Publicly traded companies may be forced to change their audit firms after several years, the chief regulator of the industry said Thursday. James R. Doty, who became chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board this year, said in a speech that he had been disturbed by evidence turned up by board inspectors that many auditors failed to show sufficient independence from their clients. “Considering the disturbing lack of skepticism we continue to see,” he told a conference at the University of Southern California , “the board is prepared to consider all possible methods of addressing the problem of audit quality — including whether mandatory audit firm rotation would help address the inherent conflict created because the auditor is paid by the client.” The idea of forcing companies to change auditors, perhaps every seven or 10 years, has been raised periodically in response to accounting scandals since at least 1977, when Senator Lee Metcalf suggested such a step in the wake of the scandal at Equity Funding, an insurance and mutual fund company that falsified its sales figures. It has been bitterly opposed by accounting firms, which argue that such rotations would do little for audit quality but would drive up costs and create great problems for complex companies trying to explain their operations to a new set of auditors. Such a requirement was considered by Congress in 2002 when it passed the Sarbanes-Oxley bill that established the accounting oversight board, but was not included in the final version. But the law did require that audit partners be rotated off engagements every seven years. Mr. Doty said he had not decided yet whether it was necessary to require changing auditors. But he made clear that he thought changes had to be made to “more systematically insulate auditors from the forces that pull them away from the necessary mind-set.” Mr. Doty took the post in February, after being appointed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. A securities lawyer who served as general counsel of the S.E.C. from 1990 to 1992, Mr. Doty has said he was outraged by some audits the board had inspected, and would consider changes in a number of areas. On Thursday, he cited one auditor who allowed a company to count a sale in the third quarter, even though the contract was signed in the fourth quarter — a move that allowed the company to meet its earnings target. He mentioned another auditor who helped a company conceal an error by suggesting changes in the company’s accounting policies. In each case, the firm had held the account for decades. Another step the board will consider, he said, is to require that the engagement partner sign the audit. Currently audits are signed by the firm without any indication which partner took the lead. Advocates of such a change say partners might be more hesitant to sign off on dubious accounting if they knew their name would be publicly attached to the audit if problems were later discovered. In addition, Mr. Doty said the board would consider forcing audit firms to disclose the amount of work done on audits by other firms, including foreign affiliates that are not inspected by the board. The board has also announced that it will propose possible changes in the information auditors provide to investors. Currently, auditors either approve statements or they don’t, but do not offer any opinions on the relative quality of accounting choices. Financial statements often include many estimates, and auditors now simply conclude whether an estimate is or is not reasonable. That has been a problem in valuing some securities that rarely trade, with the same audit firm approving widely varying estimates by different clients. One possibility may be for disclosures to be made on the range that the auditor deemed reasonable, and where the estimate fell within that range.
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Public Company Accounting Oversight Board;Accounting and Accountants;Doty James R
|
ny0001762
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2013/03/31
|
Egypt Orders Arrest of Satirist for Skits on Islam and Morsi
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CAIRO — Egypt’s public prosecutor on Saturday ordered the arrest of a popular television satirist on charges that included insulting President Mohamed Morsi and denigrating Islam, the state news agency reported, a move that amplified criticisms that the Islamist government is moving aggressively to stifle freedom of expression. The satirist, Bassem Youssef, who hosts a widely watched show modeled on “The Daily Show,” has been the subject of numerous legal complaints filed by Islamist lawyers and citizens who took umbrage at Mr. Youssef’s skewering of Egypt’s political class, including Mr. Morsi, his loyalists and the opposition. But the arrest warrant seemed to represent a sharp escalation of the campaign against Mr. Youssef, with the public prosecutor appointed by Mr. Morsi lending official credence to the complaints. In the nine months since Mr. Morsi took office, his government and the Muslim Brotherhood have endured withering and frequently strident criticism from Egypt’s private news media outlets. Mr. Morsi has been accused of responding with measures that recall the previous authoritarian leaders, including prosecuting critics, confiscating newspapers and placing sympathetic journalists in state news media organs. Last week, the public prosecutor, Talaat Ibrahim, ordered the arrest of five anti-Islamist activists on charges that they had used social media to incite violence against the Muslim Brotherhood. Shortly after the warrant was announced Saturday, Mr. Youssef confirmed on Twitter that he had been summoned and said he intended to visit the prosecutor’s office on Sunday. “Unless they were so kind as to send a police wagon to pick me up today, and save me the transportation,” he added. It was not immediately clear which episodes of Mr. Youssef’s program, which is watched by millions of people on television or on the Internet, had prompted the warrant. Al Ahram, the state newspaper, said Saturday that prosecutors had considered the testimony of 28 complainants and had examined four episodes. One complainant accused Mr. Youssef of denigrating Islam and disturbing security, and demanded that the state take “deterrent measures against him so that others with weak resolve wouldn’t dare to insult Islam.” The unnamed critic also accused the television host of insulting the president, including by “diminishing his stature domestically and abroad.” While private legal complaints have become fairly commonplace since Egypt’s 2011 uprising, the government has signaled that it takes the threat from Mr. Youssef much more seriously, going so far as to appoint a judge to investigate the complaints against him, according to Heba Morayef of Human Rights Watch. “It means you’re prioritizing the case, and dedicating resources to it,” she said, adding that the public prosecutor had ignored numerous complaints of torture and the use of excessive force. Issuing an arrest warrant — without any reasonable fear that Mr. Youssef was trying to flee the country — “is completely unnecessary and definitely a political escalation,” she said.
|
Egypt;Bassem Youssef;Islam;Arab Spring;Mohamed Morsi
|
ny0149569
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2008/09/30
|
Margot Gayle, Preservationist, Dies at 100
|
Margot Gayle, who marshaled shrewdness, gentility and spunk to save the Victorian cast-iron buildings of New York — using a little magnet as a demonstration device — in a crusade that led to the preservation of historic SoHo, died Sunday at her home in Manhattan. She was 100. The death was announced by her daughter Carol. Ms. Gayle began her mission in the late 1950s, when a group of neighbors gathered in her Greenwich Village apartment to plot how to save the Victorian-Gothic curiosity that was the Jefferson Market Courthouse around the corner. A half-century later, not only was the courthouse preserved (as a library), but so were scores of iron-framed buildings, Bishop’s Crook lampposts , stately public clocks and many other wisps of a past that Ms. Gayle had deemed worth keeping. “Why not let people in the future enjoy some of the things we thought were extremely fine?” she said in an interview with The New York Times in 1998. Ms. Gayle’s crowning achievement was helping to win the establishment of the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District, encompassing 26 blocks in what was originally an industrial quarter known as Hell’s Hundred Acres. The designation not only preserved important buildings and artifacts, it also saved SoHo from the kind of large-scale urban renewal that occurred north of Houston Street. “It would be hard to find a district that was so single-mindedly engineered and promoted as that district was by Margot,” Harmon H. Goldstone, a former chairman of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, said in an interview with The Times in 1988. The writer Brendan Gill said in a speech in 1997, “She badgered everyone in and out of government until it became a protected place.” Ms. Gayle combined the skills of an author (she wrote four books), Democratic Party activist, city bureaucrat, newspaper columnist and tour guide to forge such a distinctive public personality that Mayor Edward I. Koch called her the queen of New York. She started organizations like the Victorian Society in America and Friends of Cast Iron Architecture. When she went to Albany to lobby for preservation concerns, she took Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to pose with flattered legislators. People were charmed by her use of a magnet to offer proof positive that a building was, in fact, made of iron. And they could be equally charmed when, in a soft cadence, she sprinkled her conversation with old-fashioned expressions like “nifty,” “gosh-darned” and “goodness knows.” But the soft coating disguised a steely persistence. “Heaven help the person she gets her teeth into,” Gene A. Norman, another landmarks commission chairman, once said. Margot McCoy was born in Kansas City, Mo., on May 14, 1908. Her father was in the automobile business, and the family moved frequently. She attended a different school every year, including one in London. After graduating from the University of Michigan, she went to Atlanta and got a job as a social worker, earned a master’s degree in bacteriology from Emory University and married William T. Gayle, an accountant. During World War II, she did volunteer work publicizing civil defense efforts. After moving to New York, she had a stint as a script writer for CBS Radio, became a freelance magazine writer and started a public relations business. She later held public relations jobs in city government and for 16 years wrote an architecture column for The Daily News. In 1957, having joined the Samuel J. Tilden Club, a Democratic Party reform group, she ran unsuccessfully for the City Council under the slogan, “We need a woman in City Hall,” campaigning with her two daughters in suffragist costumes. That year, she began inviting friends to meet in her living room to discuss the stalled clocks on the four sides of the Jefferson Market Courthouse, at Avenue of the Americas and West 10th Street. A brick-and-stone edifice built in the 1870s, it had had been going unused by the city, and the hands of its clock had been stuck at 3:20 for two years. The group’s stated agenda was to fix the clock, but Ms. Gayle’s real purpose was to save the building from the auction block. Since the clock needed the building for support, the building’s preservation was presented as a necessary afterthought. Even Ms. Gayle’s friends called the courthouse “that ugly old pile.” At Christmas 1959, her committee sent Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. a telegram saying they did not want “two front teeth” but rather a working clock. The mayor took the building off the auction block. Ms. Gayle enlisted more supporters, including the writers Jane Jacobs and Lewis Mumford and the poet E. E. Cummings, and by 1961, the group had raised enough money to restart and illuminate the clock. (They succeeded in having the courthouse reopened as a public library in 1967.) Ms. Gayle soon became a strong voice in lobbying for a landmarks preservation law, which the city did enact in 1965, in response in part to the outcry over the destruction of Pennsylvania Station and Alan Burnham’s seminal study of New York landmarks. Ms. Gayle founded the Friends of Cast Iron Architecture in 1970, a propitious time for opponents of an expressway that would have sliced through SoHo along Broome Street. Her arguments about preserving cast-iron architecture helped kill the freeway plan in 1971. Two years later, the center of what had become SoHo was named a historic district, preserving its low-rise character and bringing back features like cobblestone streets. Ms. Gayle’s marriage ended in divorce in 1957. In addition to her daughter Carol Gayle, of Lake Forest, Ill., survivors include another daughter, Gretchen Gayle Ellsworth, of Washington; six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Ms. Gayle went on to fight to preserve specific cast-iron buildings around the nation, as well as antique street clocks in Manhattan and Brooklyn. She never shied from a cause. When SoHo’s new residents wanted to plant street trees, she opposed them as historically inaccurate in a manufacturing district. Ms. Gayle had not been entirely thrilled with SoHo’s transformation into a chic shopping center but had conceded that it was probably necessary. “That’s the price of getting something saved,” she once said. “There’s got to be money in it for someone.”
|
Gayle Margot;Historic Buildings and Sites;SoHo (NYC);Deaths (Obituaries);Architecture
|
ny0035326
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2014/03/02
|
A Review of ‘4000 Miles’ in New Haven
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When her doorbell rings in the middle of the night, Vera Joseph doesn’t hear it at first. She isn’t wearing her hearing aid. When she communicates with the person on the other side of the door (Leo, her 21-year-old grandson), he can’t understand her because she doesn’t have her teeth in. Vera, one of the two central characters in Amy Herzog’s play “4000 Miles,” which had its opening night on Wednesday at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, may not seem like the firebrand midcentury American Communist she used to be, but no one should see her as a stereotypical little 91-year-old lady either. “My grandmother always impressed me in her ungrandmotherliness,” Ms. Herzog said in a telephone interview from her home in Brooklyn, referring to the woman who inspired Vera. “She was fierce. She was fiercely independent.” “There are moments of tenderness” in the play, Ms. Herzog acknowledged. “But we always err toward letting it be jagged and not sentimental.” Vera, a widow for a decade now, lives in a book-lined, rent-controlled ($1,200 a month) two-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village. Even the script notes that it has probably not been redecorated since the 1960s. In the course of the play’s 95 minutes, Vera smokes marijuana with Leo, tells him about her relative sexual dissatisfaction in both her marriages, makes unkind comments about his girlfriend’s weight and shocks that same girlfriend with tales of how she dealt with one husband’s infidelity. Summing up the bad things men have been known to do in their relationships with women, Vera observes, “It’s more out of stupidity than anything else.” Zoaunne LeRoy, who plays Vera at Long Wharf, has gigantic dramatic boots to fill. Mary Louise Wilson, the Tony Award winner (for “Grey Gardens”), originated the role in the Lincoln Center Theater production, when it opened in 2011, and the Drama Desk Award winner (for “The Trip to Bountiful”) Lois Smith was Vera in New York in an earlier Herzog play, “After the Revolution” (2010), which takes place when the character is in her early 80s. Ms. LeRoy (whose first name is pronounced zo-AHN) has no worries, she said, about the character taking on any cutesiness in her hands. Image Amy Herzog based the character Vera on her grandmother, whom she described as “fiercely independent.” “This woman has been around the block; she’s not cutesy,” said Ms. LeRoy, who came out of retirement in her native Washington State (“out there at the edge of the known world”) to play the role. And “you get your money’s worth for feisty when you get me.” But she understands how the role could be interpreted differently because the character does manifest two different personas, depending on whether her words are coming to her in that particular scene or not. Or sometimes on whether her hearing aid is switched on. When Ms. LeRoy first read the script and became acquainted with the character, “I said, ‘She’s either totally befuddled or she’s Judge Judy,’ ” she recalled. “4000 Miles” is not, however, Vera’s story alone. Leo (Micah Stock at Long Wharf) has just completed a cross-country bicycle trip, a journey that was interrupted by a friend’s sudden, violent death. His New York girlfriend (Leah Karpel) does not want to see him. His mother, back in Minnesota, is upset with him. Others are upset with him because he continued the biking trip after his friend’s death. While Leo claims to have come to his grandmother’s and to be staying there for a while because she is alone and desperate for company, he is the one in greater emotional need at the moment. And he does finally tell Vera the full story in a moving scene whose somber mood is immediately lifted by a revelation so distressing that it is funny. “4000 Miles” is undeniably a drama — it won the Obie Award for best new play and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in drama — but it has large helpings of humor. The purest comedy scene involves Amanda (Teresa Avia Lim), a loquacious young woman Leo has brought home in hopes of a sexual encounter. Amanda is horrified to see, as she takes a look at the living room bookcases’ contents, that Vera’s husband was a noted author of books about Communism. Why such a strong reaction? “Duh, I’m Chinese.” Ms. Herzog, a Yale School of Drama graduate whose other plays include “The Great God Pan” and “Belleville” (which had its world premiere at Yale Repertory Theater in the fall of 2011), has never been coy about her use of real family members as character inspirations. Leo, she says, was based on a free-spirited male cousin. The grandmother who inspired Vera died last April at 96 but was politically active in her final years, Ms. Herzog said, handing out leaflets for a peace organization in Union Square and going to meetings about the impending shutdown of St. Vincent’s Hospital in her New York neighborhood. She also went to the theater, to see herself portrayed in two of her granddaughter’s plays, and was particularly pleased, Ms. Herzog said, that her character had the last line in “After the Revolution.” (The last words were “I’m afraid not. No.”) As for seeing herself portrayed on stage in general, “she said it was overwhelming and sort of out-of-body,” Ms. Herzog recalled. “I just think she thought it was bizarre. She was trying to understand what everybody else thought was so interesting.”
|
Theater;Amy Herzog;Long Wharf Theatre;New Haven CT;Micah Stock;Leah Karpel;Teresa Avia Lim;Zoaunne LeRoy
|
ny0031874
|
[
"us"
] |
2013/06/14
|
A Promise of Changes for Access to Secrets
|
WASHINGTON — The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee emerged from a classified briefing on Thursday about the leak of top secret surveillance programs and declared that Congress would soon consider legislation to sharply limit the access that private contractors — who operate much of the national security infrastructure — have to the nation’s most sensitive intelligence programs. “We will certainly have legislation which will limit or prevent contractors from handling highly classified and technical data, and we will do some other things,” the chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein, said after a review of the episodes attended by almost half of the members of the Senate. Ms. Feinstein, a California Democrat, said that on Monday the National Security Agency would release more information about the potential terrorist attacks that had been thwarted by its surveillance programs. “There are more than you think,” she said a bit cryptically. The senator has been among the most vocal defenders of the program. Earlier in the day, the security agency director, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, vowed to clear up what he said were inaccuracies and misperceptions about what kind of data the agency collects, and how it uses it. But the disclosure of any further detail, he said, would have to navigate a delicate line between the public’s right to know and divulging material that could tip off enemies. Edward J. Snowden, the 29-year old computer systems administrator who says he gave the documents about the telephone monitoring program and an Internet search program called Prism to The Washington Post and The Guardian of London, was an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton, a private company that administers some of the most sensitive programs for the N.S.A., the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. If Congress enacted such limits it would force a widespread change in the way many of the country’s most delicate intelligence operations are run, and would most likely require the intelligence agencies to hire more staff members of their own to do work that in recent years has increasingly been outsourced. It is unclear how broadly Congress would endorse such changes. “We have a real double standard,” said Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, as he emerged from the meeting. “A few weeks ago we were all complaining that we didn’t have enough information about those kids in Boston and we needed broader intelligence sharing,” he said, referring to the two chief suspects in the marathon bombings. “Now we say we want to clamp down on how the information moves.” Intelligence officials said that limiting the role of companies like Booz Allen would probably prove far more complex than it appears on the surface. “These are not just operators sitting at some computer console,” one senior official said. “Oftentimes, the contractors develop the systems that they are running — they are frequently the innovative force. You want to think twice before you terminate that.” A report published early this year by the office of the director of national intelligence underscored just how difficult it would be to limit the access of contractors. It showed that as of last Oct. 1, 483,263 contractors held Top Secret clearances, compared with 791,200 government employees. A half-million other contractors held lower-level secret and confidential clearances. Video Daniel Ellsberg and Edward J. Snowden maintain that they performed a public service even as others label them traitors. Villains or saints, leakers often cast their actions as a kind of moral crusade. In a separate meeting Thursday on Capitol Hill, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, testified to the surveillance programs’ ability to detect terrorist activity, saying that they could have helped prevent the Sept. 11 attacks had they been in place before then. Mr. Mueller also said that one of the programs recently helped the authorities find a friend of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects in Florida. General Alexander did not elaborate on what kinds of information the National Security Agency would disclose next week, beyond saying that it would involve statistics about the programs in question and give the public a better understanding of how valuable they are. “We have pledged to be as transparent as possible,” he said after emerging from a classified briefing with members of the House. “I think it’s important that you have that information. But we don’t want to risk American lives in doing that. So what we’re being is very deliberate in this process so that we don’t end up causing a terrorist attack by giving out too much information.” General Alexander appeared before reporters in the Capitol flanked by the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, and the committee’s senior Democrat, C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, a bipartisan show of unity reflecting the general agreement among Congressinal leaders that the surveillance programs are worthwhile and legal. General Alexander took no questions from the news media. Mr. Rogers said that grave damage had been done by the disclosure of the programs, which involve a huge database of the logs of nearly every domestic phone call made by Americans and the collection of information from American Internet companies like Google without individual court orders if the request is aimed at noncitizens abroad. “The more we know, the more dangerous this situation becomes,” he said, adding that people believed to be intent on doing harm to Americans were already altering their activities since the existence of the programs became public. Mr. Mueller said in his testimony that the N.S.A.’s surveillance programs, if in place in 2001, could have made a difference in halting the largest terrorist attacks in American history. Before those attacks, he said, intelligence agencies were tracking one of the hijackers who lived in San Diego and were also looking closely at a safe house in Yemen for Al Qaeda. “They understood that that Al Qaeda safe house had a telephone number, but they could not know who was calling in to that particular — that particular safe house,” he said. “We came to find out afterwards that the person who had called in to that safe house was al-Mihdhar, who was in the United States, in San Diego,” he said, referring to one of the 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar. “If we had had this program in place at the time, we would have been able to identify that particular telephone number in San Diego.” The intelligence community’s failure to make that connection was a subject of extensive analysis in the independent 9/11 Commission report. It argued for far wider intelligence sharing. But it was that kind of sharing — placing information that was gathered by many different intelligence agencies into communal computer systems — that put a slide show of the Prism program, a ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and a presidential directive on cyber offense and defense into Mr. Snowden’s hands.
|
Government Surveillance;Classified Information;Keith B Alexander;NSA;US Politics;Dianne Feinstein;Defense contractor
|
ny0072685
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2015/03/15
|
Key to Hawks’ Team Play: Nourish the Individual
|
ATLANTA — The Hawks’ practice gym has bare walls, some cardio equipment crammed behind a baseline and patchwork flooring, a result of a recent leak. Most N.B.A. teams have gleaming, multimillion-dollar facilities. The Hawks spend their time in something that looks straight out of the Cold War. “You know, I kind of like it,” said Kenny Atkinson, an assistant coach. “It almost feels like we’re in a ‘Rocky’ movie.” The gym, which sits beside the team’s locker room at Philips Arena, safely hidden from public view, fits its style. It could be argued that no other team in the league has more effectively maximized its resources. Get them a couple of functional hoops, and the Hawks, with their lunch-pail roster, will take care of the rest. “It’s as important as anything we do,” Coach Mike Budenholzer said of the team’s emphasis on player development. Spend some time around the Hawks, and one word continues to surface: vitamins. It is a metaphor for their philosophy, and it helps explain their record, 51-14 through Friday. They take their vitamins when they hit the cold tub for treatment. They take their vitamins when they lift weights. They take their vitamins when they study film and watch their diets. Above all, they take their vitamins when they head to the gym for individual skill sessions with Budenholzer’s assistants. “It’s that daily nourishment that your body needs,” said Budenholzer, 45, who was hired before the start of last season after spending 19 seasons with the San Antonio Spurs, the last 17 as an assistant under Coach Gregg Popovich. Image Atlanta Hawks' Coach Mike Budenholzer in a game against Philadelphia on Saturday. “It’s as important as anything we do,” he said of the team’s emphasis on player development. Credit Matt Slocum/Associated Press Budenholzer, who acknowledged appropriating the vitamin concept from a fellow assistant with the Spurs, seeks consistent improvement. In Atlanta, he has his players spend as much time working one-on-one with members of his staff as they do in traditional team practice settings. He wants opportunities for Paul Millsap to hone his outside shooting touch and for Jeff Teague to identify passing angles and for Kyle Korver to add a floater to his repertoire. “I think the league is really trending toward shorter practices and more quality individual time,” Atkinson said. “It’s the difference between being in a class with 30 other kids and getting one-on-one tutoring for 20 or 30 minutes.” Before the Hawks faced the visiting Sacramento Kings on Monday night, the public-address announcer revved up the crowd by shouting: “Some still do not believe! Do you believe?” What followed was another clinic in a season full of them. All five starters reached double figures in scoring early in the third quarter. The Hawks assisted on 42 of 53 field goals. They set a franchise record by making 20 3-pointers. And they won by 25 . The win was only minutes old when Budenholzer began thinking about the work that still needed to be done. His staff soon joined him in a theater room at the arena. Budenholzer really likes meetings. He meets with his coaches before practices and after games, when they remove their ties and make plans for the next day. “They’re probably up there right now, deciding whether we should have vitamins or not,” small forward DeMarre Carroll said after Monday’s game. “There will be some coaches fighting for us to get rest, and there will be some coaches fighting for vitamins. So they go in their little room and sort it out.” Once the coaches decide on the schedule — they try to form a consensus, although Budenholzer has veto power — they debrief Wally Blase, the head athletic trainer, who sends late-night text messages to the players with the various times they are expected to report to the arena. Blase also lets the players know which coaches have been assigned to work with them for their vitamin sessions. Typically, no two players have the same schedule, so communication is vital. “We do everything but send smoke signals over their houses just to make sure they know what’s going on,” Atkinson said. Image The Hawks' Mike Scott (32), Kyle Korver (26) and Kent Bazemore after Scott dunked on a breakaway against Sacramento on Monday. Credit Dg/Associated Press In addition, each assistant receives a sheet that details his day: his allotment of vitamin sessions, along with the material that the coaches have agreed to cover. The message is uniform, and the coaches try not to overload the players with information. “It’s not like we say, ‘Here’s 10 things for you to work on,’ ” Atkinson said. “No, here’s one or two.” For Kent Bazemore, most of his vitamin sessions have centered on his reconfigured shooting stroke. Not long after Bazemore signed with the Hawks last year, he began working with the assistant coach Ben Sullivan, who picked apart Bazemore’s mechanics. Bazemore had an elongated motion, and the ball tended to come off his ring finger and pinkie. “Ben’s a very forward guy,” Bazemore said. “He pretty much said, ‘I’ve been looking at your jumper, and I honestly don’t know how you make shots.’ ” Sullivan and Bazemore worked on tightening his form. Once Bazemore improved his consistency, he began to shoot against defenders. In February, Bazemore graduated to pull-up jumpers. He felt confident enough to attempt one against the Miami Heat on Feb. 28. “Every day, it’s film,” said Bazemore, who was shooting 40.7 percent from 3-point range this season through Friday. “If you miss one, you go back and look at your form. Maybe your feet narrowed. Or maybe you drifted. Once you understand all those little things, the rim gets wider.” At the same time, there are shades of the Spurs — an organization that has set the standard for player development — in nearly everything the Hawks do. Image Paul Millsap, practicing in January, has been honing his outside shooting touch. Credit Scott Cunningham/NBAE, via Getty Images Last season, the coaching staff wanted Carroll to focus on getting to the corner for spot-up 3-pointers and used Bruce Bowen, the former Spurs forward, as a model. This season, Budenholzer set out with the goal of adding slashing and pick-and-rolls to Carroll’s game, citing the effectiveness of San Antonio’s Kawhi Leonard. Carroll has become an indispensable part of the Hawks’ starting five, averaging 11.9 points and 5.1 rebounds while shooting 39.4 percent from 3-point range. Darvin Ham, an assistant coach, described Carroll as a “poster child” for the team’s player development program. “He’s become better at everything,” Ham said. The players have bought in, changing their games and even their bodies. Shortly after Budenholzer was hired, he met with his staff to talk about Mike Scott, a 6-foot-8 power forward whom the Hawks drafted in 2012. Did the Hawks want Scott to add bulk and become a consistent post presence, or did they want him to slim down and become a more versatile player who was capable of stretching defenses by developing his 3-point shot? “Oh, it was a war, and I’m not going to say who said what,” Atkinson said. “But there was a debate among the coaches: What do we do with him?” Ultimately, the Hawks opted to turn Scott into a more agile forward. The thinking, Atkinson said, was that Scott would struggle at his height to overpower post defenders, no matter how much bulk he added. So Scott began the process of shedding 18 pounds from his 255-pound frame. It was not easy. “Because I’m fat at heart,” Scott said. “I had to cut down on my snack habits. I ate a lot of Whole Foods. I ate Whole Foods until I didn’t want to eat it no more.” At the same time, Scott concentrated on improving his 3-point shot — fairly new territory for him, given that he had made just six of them as a senior at Virginia. With the Hawks this season, Scott has made 59 3-pointers while averaging 7.5 points off the bench. In Atlanta, where the Hawks have shaped themselves into contenders, there are no secrets. “We’ve just made an enormous commitment,” Atkinson said.
|
Basketball;Mike Budenholzer;Paul Millsap;Darvin Ham;Jeff Teague;Mike Scott;Bruce Bowen;Atlanta Hawks
|
ny0151316
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2008/08/28
|
Two Teams, One Stadium, Two Seat-Licensing Plans
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The Jets ’ and Giants ’ personal seat license plans for their new stadium are as different as their histories and as dissimilar as the West Coast offense and a smash-mouth running attack. But each scheme has the same goal: to persuade fans to help finance the stadium. And plenty of fans will buy those licenses, I hope without too much sacrifice. The teams, by the way, are making few sacrifices — unless you count paying off some of their debt real fast. That is why they need the P.S.L. cash — it will flow in quickly and sate the Jets’ and Giants’ desire for upfront cash to make their bond payments. The chief difference between the plans is how you will choose your seats — if you can afford to sit in the $1.6 billion (and counting) stadium for 10 games a year. Central to the Jets’ strategy is seniority, not where you sit now. Take pictures of your beloved old seats. They won’t matter in the new joint. There is no location, location, location in JetsThink. In its place will be a virtual line of about 22,000 season-ticket holders, arranged by seniority. Seat choice will be made by your place in the queue and your ability to pay. Turn down one option and you are eligible for the next one and the next one, keeping your place in line, until you might land in the upper deck. That will be a safe haven without licenses attached to the 27,000 seats. Woody Johnson, the Jets’ owner and chief salesman, boasted on Tuesday that there wasn’t a bad seat anywhere. Maybe. Fans won’t know until their posteriors are settled in them in 2010. The Giants, having moved first in the P.S.L. dance, chose a more conventional route: They offered fans first dibs on licenses in the equivalent locations they are now in. By doing so, the Giants valued fan routine and tried to keep enclaves together (assuming they could afford to do so). Neighborhoods splinter when property values get too high, especially when those values are unilaterally imposed by the teams, or, more aptly, the landlords. (The Jets will let fans band together to keep their clans of rooters intact, but those seats will be allocated based on the least-senior member.) The Giants have told fans that they may not get their first choice and urged them to give second, third and fourth options. Seniority will determine where they end up. You are entitled to hate both plans. The Giants and Jets didn’t ask if you wanted to pay one-time fees of $1,000 to $25,000 for the right to continue to buy season tickets. Welcome to their world. You’re just helping to pay for it. Both plans will cause fan dislocations, especially in the most expensive sections. I think the sections behind the home bench will be movement hotbeds. The Giants are selling licenses to those 2,113 seats for $20,000 each; the Jets will auction them, hoping the market will bring them prices above their highest fixed license price in two other sections of $25,000 each. I don’t think we need Adam Smith to divine that wealthy fans will snap up the Giants’ most coveted seats, sending some of the longest-tenured, lesser-heeled fans into lower-priced asylum elsewhere. And I fear the Jets’ auction will create a little Monaco. I’d like to believe the Jets when they say that their seniority-based plan is pure because it rewards the hardiest devotees. But I can’t help envisioning a sales free-for-all, especially as fans who would like to keep watching from the upper deck engage in a real-estate battle with those seeking refuge from lower levels to higher regions where licenses are not sold. The Jets acknowledge that the possibility exists that fans who want to be in the upper reaches will be displaced by refugees from the mezzanine or lower levels. So here’s a Giants advantage — fans in Giants Stadium’s upper deck need pay $1,000 to relocate to an equivalent place in the new stadium, seemingly regardless of seniority. I’d also like to believe that both teams will have smoother-than-anticipated sales processes and there will be enough movement between the upper and lower reaches of the new stadium to ameliorate fan misery and dislocation. But far from everybody will be happy, except for those in prime positions on the Jets’ seniority list or those who can afford the highest-priced licenses. But for most Jets and Giants fans, their orderly world — one in which other teams sold P.S.L.’s — has been uprooted. One aspect of the Jets’ plan is clearly superior to the Giants’. The Jets said that they would do their own P.S.L. financing and hold interest rates (for terms of up to five years) to the high single digits. The Giants are routing fans looking for financing to Wachovia, where the interest rate will be based on individual creditworthiness. The Giants never intended to absorb some of the interest costs to assist their fans. But John Mara, the Giants’ co-owner, said recently of the bank, “We’ve hammered at them to be reasonable.”
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New York Jets;New York Giants;Stadiums and Arenas;Football;Johnson Woody;Mara John;small business audience
|
ny0020814
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2013/09/05
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Syria Debate Is Crowding Other Issues on Calendar
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WASHINGTON — The intensifying debate over military action in Syria is threatening to consume the limited amount of time that Congress had allocated this month for dealing with a budget clash and the rest of President Obama’s domestic agenda. Lawmakers are scheduled to return to reconvene Congress on Monday after their annual summer break. With a budget and debt limit clash looming in October, the legislative window had already narrowed for any action on immigration, energy efficiency, a new Federal Reserve chairman and an examination of surveillance laws. Now, with Mr. Obama’s surprise decision to request Congressional authorization for a Syria strike, the political casualties are mounting quickly. “This is drawing the national attention to a foreign policy issue and taking it off of domestic issues like immigration reform and health care implementation,” said Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress , a liberal research group. She said some lawmakers might use the debate as an excuse to avoid action, adding, “I do think people come up with reasons not to do their job.” Congressional leaders in both parties have said they are eager to move quickly on a Syria vote, and the House and Senate began hearings this week. But it remains unclear how long the Syria debate will take. White House officials said they expected the debate to drag out at least into the third week of September. That would scramble the calendar that House and Senate leaders had anticipated when they left the Capitol for vacations earlier this summer. The problem is especially striking in the House, which will barely be in session this month. The Senate is scheduled to work for five straight weeks after a vote Monday night to force senators to return to Washington. The House will be taking nine workdays off during that stretch. More than anything, the war question is likely to siphon attention away from efforts to resolve a simmering fiscal dispute between the parties. Without a Congressional agreement by Sept. 30, the government will run out of money on Oct. 1. Two weeks later, the government’s statutory borrowing limit must be raised to avoid a potentially catastrophic debt default. Washington has been bracing for a fiscal clash for months. Some Republicans in the House have said they are prepared to shut the government down if Congress will not agree to remove money for the carrying out of Mr. Obama’s health care law. Other Republicans have said they do not intend to raise the nation’s debt limit unless the president agrees to more spending cuts. Mr. Obama has said he will not negotiate over the nation’s ability to pay its bills, and has warned Republicans that shutting down the government would be a reckless move. The Syria debate means both sides have less free time to work toward a negotiated settlement on the issues. Kevin Smith, a spokesman for the House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, played down any impact on the fall’s most important matters. “We are confident we can address a resolution on use of force in Syria and still meet our obligations in a fiscally responsible manner,” he said. But Congressional aides in both parties said the Syria debate was already causing disruptions. Mr. Boehner had promised he would bring a bill to finance transportation and housing programs to the floor in September after an ugly defeat in July. That will not happen. The House Judiciary Committee had hoped to begin moving piecemeal immigration legislation, but the bills’ prospects for House action this fall were already slim before the Syria crisis. Now they will probably slip beyond Thanksgiving. Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees had also intended to move significant changes to laws governing the National Security Agency’s phone and Internet surveillance programs — either through stand-alone legislation or a reauthorization of existing intelligence law. That, too, is likely to slip. A Senate Democratic leadership aide said the debate and vote on the war resolution would consume the first week back, putting off a fight over judicial nominations for the foreseeable future. But leaders still expect to turn to a bipartisan energy efficiency bill the week of Sept. 16, as scheduled. White House officials said Congress shouldered the responsibility to get its work done despite the new burden of a vote on military action in Syria. “An American president has to be able to walk, chew gum and juggle at the same time,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama. “The president and his team will do everything they can to implement his overall agenda while this debate happens.” Mr. Pfeiffer added, “This is an important debate, and it’s one the president, the country and the Congress are rightly focused on.” Mr. Pfeiffer said the White House would continue to press ahead with Mr. Obama’s agenda. Former President Bill Clinton delivered a speech on Wednesday as part of the administration’s effort to get people to sign up for health care beginning on Oct. 1. That effort will continue, Mr. Pfeiffer said. But other issues may languish, at least for a while. Aides say some will now slip beyond Thanksgiving, including the annual defense policy bill and a possible fix to the Voting Rights Act in response to a Supreme Court ruling that struck down a key provision of the historic law. Advocates of a comprehensive immigration overhaul had hoped to build some momentum in the House this month toward passage of legislation similar to a bill that passed the Senate this year with Mr. Obama’s backing. That already faced long odds in the House, where many Republicans oppose any effort to offer citizenship to most of the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants. Now, with the Syria debate in Washington, aides said any serious effort on immigration in the House was likely to be pushed back to November or even later. “There’s no question that the debate on Syria is going to take precedence now,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice , a group lobbying for an immigration overhaul. But he said that he was less concerned about the timeline for action than he was the need to build consensus around a solution. “This is less about whether there’s time,” he said. “It’s more about whether there’s a will.”
|
US Politics;Federal Budget;US National Debt;Immigration;Obamacare,Affordable Care Act;Syria;US Military;Arab Spring
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ny0293166
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2016/06/17
|
Old New York Police Surveillance Is Found, Forcing Big Brother Out of Hiding
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From the mid-1950s to the early 1970s, police surveillance of political organizations in New York was extensive enough to require more than half a million index cards, simply to catalog and cross-reference the many dossiers. But over the ensuing decades, the dossiers themselves were presumed missing or lost. Police Department lawyers said they had no idea where the files had gone. Now, a significant portion of the missing files have been discovered during what the city said on Thursday was a routine inventory of a Queens warehouse, where archivists found 520 brown boxes of decades-old files, believed to be the largest trove of New York Police Department surveillance records from the era. “It’s the whole mother lode,” said Gideon Oliver, a civil rights lawyer who two years ago filed a lawsuit on behalf of a historian seeking records about a group that was a target of surveillance. The boxes, according to a written index, contain extensive files about the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam and the Young Lords, as well as public demonstrations and civil unrest. Files on individuals are also among the documents; at least 15 boxes primarily contain photographs, Mr. Oliver said. The city’s Records Department, in a statement, said it was working to develop rules regarding public access to the documents, though no timetable or process has been set. Image Johanna Fernandez, a professor at Baruch College who is writing a book on the Young Lords. Credit Christopher Gregory for The New York Times The files are bound to resonate not only among those subjected to surveillance decades ago, but also among current activists and organizations that have faced police surveillance and infiltration in the years since Sept. 11, 2001. After the terrorist attacks, the Police Department bolstered its spying capabilities; Muslim organizations and mosques in particular reported extensive surveillance. Others, including activists associated with causes ranging from the antiwar movement to cycling, have also found themselves watched. The files discovered in Queens are from a secretive police unit that began as the anti-Communist “Red Squad.” During the 1960s, it was called the Special Services Division. Today it is called the Intelligence Division. Its activities are subject to rules intended to limit the circumstances under which the police can begin investigating political groups, or maintain surveillance files that capture political activity. The rules, put in place in the 1980s and modified after Sept. 11, emerged from a long-running lawsuit brought by political activists. Pablo Guzman, an early member of the Young Lords, said he hoped to have a chance to inspect the Police Department’s records on the group, which was the target of extensive surveillance and infiltration, he said. “We would be most interested in discovering who they sent in to infiltrate us — who were the undercovers and who was subverting what we were doing?” Mr. Guzman, a longtime television reporter in New York, said. “But we’re not going to find out who the turncoats were, who the agents were. They’re going to redact all that.” Exhibit H From Lawsuit to Obtain Police Documents A lawsuit seeking documents from the New York Police Department includes actual police reports from 1969 and 1970, describing surveillance of the Young Lords. For the past 30 years, the files were supposed to be open to the public, as part of the settlement of the lengthy lawsuit. The city had agreed to release portions to people who asked to see their own file, one of the lawyers, Jethro Eisenstein, recalled. But a significant number of those who sought access were rebuffed, he said. By the time the files were to be made public they were in disarray, rendering the indexing system useless. Civil rights lawyers claimed it reflected a clear effort on the part of the Police Department to stymie public access. “They scrambled the entire system, so it was impossible to find anything,” Mr. Eisenstein said. But the index-card filing system, described in various old court documents, offers insight into the extent of surveillance. A court filing from 1989 provides a sampling of the material in the dossiers. One card referred to signers of a Communist Party petition, while another mentioned a Catholic lay teacher who was involved in labor negotiations with the archdiocese. There are index cards for those who spoke at rallies against the Vietnam War. There is an index card for the person “seated at Table 8 in Albert Ballroom, Americana Hotel, paying $15 for dinner held by Emergency Civil Liberties Committee 12/15/62.” For years the files were believed to have been stored in two rooms at Police Headquarters. The rooms, A10 and 1206, became a topic of fascination and frustration for civil rights lawyers. Over time the files were said to become increasingly disorganized. Ultimately, they disappeared. In affidavits from the past two years, the current occupants of those two rooms, or the detectives who searched them, reported finding none of the surveillance files. “Throughout the ’80s we were pressing for this stuff,” Mr. Eisenstein recalled. “And then it fell from view.” Over time, he said, “the people who were concerned about what was written about them in the ’60s were onto other stuff.” When the documents resurfaced this week, among the first to learn of the discovery was Johanna Fernandez, a professor at Baruch College who is writing a book on the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican organization that began as a reformed street gang in Chicago before evolving into a radical social justice movement. She had requested surveillance files relating to the organization from the Police Department as well as from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which she said was far more responsive in providing records. In 2014, she sued the city to gain access, after years of letter writing had yielded little. In court affidavits, police officials said they found little, despite searches lasting more than 100 hours. The judge, Alice Schlesinger, dismissed the lawsuit in May, expressing frustration at the outcome. In an interview, Professor Fernandez said she had been told by the Records Department that the documents would soon be made accessible not only to scholars but also to the public at large. Taken together, she said, the files tell “the story of thousands of people and organizations in New York City who fought to make the city more just and democratic and were systematically obstructed by the police.” Her own book is largely written, but she said she hoped to incorporate the records into an epilogue.
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NYPD;Government Surveillance;Civil Unrest;Archive;Young Lords;Nation of Islam;Black Panther Party;Civil Rights;Baruch
|
ny0290337
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2016/01/10
|
Two Young Pistons Step Up in a Win Over the Nets
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With Marcus Morris sitting out with left knee tendinitis, Detroit’s two most recent draft picks got a chance to play bigger roles. Stanley Johnson made his first start of the season and scored 8 points. But it was the seldom-used guard Darrun Hilliard who really made an impression. Hilliard scored a season-high 8 points in his most extensive action yet, and the Pistons pulled away at the beginning of the fourth quarter for their third straight victory, a 103-89 home win over the Nets on Saturday night. Andre Drummond had 23 points and 11 rebounds for Detroit and was 11 of 15 from the field. Johnson, a first-round draft pick last year, shot 4 of 13 from the field. Hilliard, a second-round pick, played more than 20 minutes in a reserve role and looked comfortable. “It was good to see him play like that,” Coach Stan Van Gundy said. “Darrun’s going to be a good player; he just hasn’t gotten a lot of a chance so far.” Reggie Jackson had 23 points and 8 assists for Detroit, and Ersan Ilyasova added 19 points and 13 rebounds. Brook Lopez went 8 of 11 from the field and had 19 points and 7 rebounds for the Nets, who have lost four straight. “This has been a theme all season,” Lopez said. “A team makes an early run at us, and we can’t respond, so we spend the rest of the game digging ourselves out of a hole.” The Pistons led by 14 at one point in the first half and were up by 56-46 at the break. The Nets cut their lead to 2 in the third quarter and to 6 entering the fourth. But the Pistons began the final period with a 9-2 run, and a 3-point play by Hilliard made the score 86-72. “He showed what he could do,” Johnson said, adding: “It feels a lot better as a rookie getting your number called, especially in a situation like tonight. To get your number called, you know that Coach trusts in you. He hasn’t really been playing all year, but he knows that he’s next in line.” Donald Sloan had 15 for the Nets, and Joe Johnson added 14. Detroit’s Brandon Jennings, who has looked sharp at times since coming back from an Achilles’ tendon injury, was held scoreless. The Pistons had only three turnovers in the first half, when they outscored the Nets by 19-0 on fast breaks. “There was a lot we didn’t do well,” Nets Coach Lionel Hollins said. “Detroit can run, and we gave them a lot of chances with all of our missed shots.” Morris had not missed a game all season, and Van Gundy said he was not too concerned about Morris’s knee. “He went through the walk-through today, but he just couldn’t get it feeling right,” Van Gundy said. “I don’t think it’ll be long.” CLIPPERS 97, HORNETS 83 Chris Paul had 25 points and 7 assists, and Los Angeles extended its winning streak to eight games with a home victory over Charlotte. Jeremy Lin made his sixth start of the season and scored 26 points for the Hornets. HAWKS 120, BULLS 105 Al Horford scored a season-high 33 points and had 10 rebounds, Paul Millsap added 18 points, and host Atlanta defeated Chicago. Jimmy Butler scored 14 of his 27 points in the third quarter for the Bulls. JAZZ 98, HEAT 83 Gordon Hayward scored 34 points, and Utah ended a three-game losing streak by beating Miami in Salt Lake City. Chris Bosh led the Heat with 24 points. WIZARDS 105, MAGIC 99 John Wall had 24 points and 10 assists as visiting Washington beat Orlando for the 12th straight time. All five Wizards starters and the reserve Gary Neal scored in double figures. The Magic were led by Nikola Vucevic, who had 23 points and 9 rebounds. RAPTORS 108, 76ERS 95 Kyle Lowry scored 10 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter, and DeMar DeRozan added 19, as Toronto won in Philadelphia. Ish Smith scored a career-high 28 points for the Sixers.
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Basketball;Darrun Hilliard;Brooklyn Nets;Pistons
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ny0180384
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2007/08/06
|
Psychiatric Center for Teenagers Is Mired in Patient Accusations of Rape
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A widely respected residential psychiatric treatment center for teenagers in Manhattan acknowledged yesterday that it was cooperating with law-enforcement authorities who have charged three former employees with sexually assaulting girls at the center in recent years. The suspects, all child-care workers for the August Aichhorn Center for Adolescent Residential Care at 23 West 106th Street, were fired in May and early June after being indicted on multiple counts of rape, sexual abuse and sexual misconduct involving at least four girls younger than 17. The allegations were reported yesterday by The New York Post. “The August Aichhorn Center is deeply concerned by the allegations of illegal conduct made by current and former residents against members of our staff,” Dr. Michael A. Pawel, a psychiatrist who is the center’s executive director, wrote in a statement posted on the center’s Web site. The statement added: “Aichhorn has been fully cooperative with the New York County district attorney’s office in its investigation and we will continue to cooperate with all relevant investigations so that it can be determined whether these allegations are true or false.” Court records listed the suspects as Milton Venable, 46, Phree Noel, 32, and Edward R. Tapia, 26, all Manhattan residents who had worked for years at the treatment center and have families and roots in the community. All pleaded not guilty at their arraignments in Manhattan Criminal Court and at the request of their lawyers were released without bail for court appearances later this month and in September. According to the court records, most of the sexual assaults occurred during the last two years, although one occurred in 2002. Mr. Venable was charged with two counts of rape and two of sexual misconduct, Mr. Noel was charged with numerous counts of rape, and Mr. Tapia was charged with multiple counts of rape, criminal sexual acts, sexual abuse and other misconduct. Dr. Pawel’s statement did not name the accused men or detail any of the allegations, but it noted that the center’s patients were among “the most severely troubled teenagers in the New York area,” and that the center had strict rules for handling allegations of misconduct. “The center follows stringent, documented procedures for the protection of both residents and our staff, as a healthy and safe environment is necessary for the successful treatment and rehabilitation of the adolescents in our care,” Dr. Pawel wrote. “All allegations of mistreatment which are brought to our attention are taken seriously, internally investigated and always reported to the proper authorities for an outside, independent review. We have followed these procedures in this matter.” Efforts to reach the accused men and their lawyers were unsuccessful yesterday, although Mr. Venable’s father, Frank, said in a brief telephone interview that the charges against his son were false. Dr. Pawel did not respond to calls, and Carmen Torres, an administrative aide, referred a reporter to his Web site statement. The Aichhorn center, a co-educational residential facility for 32 patients who range from 12 to 16 years old when they are admitted for treatment, takes in some of the city’s most troubled teenagers: boys and girls with records for assault, robbery, arson and other criminal activity, who have been shuttled among foster homes, state hospitals, juvenile detention facilities and mental health centers. Treatments take an average of 30 months. “We get the youngsters nobody else can handle,” Dr. Pawel, who founded the center in 1991, told New York magazine in 1999. The magazine described the center as “part hospital, part jail,” and said the living quarters had the feel of a college dormitory, with rooms decorated with movie posters and the covers of hip-hop magazines. The center, in a six-story brownstone, has four living units — three with eight single rooms and one with four double rooms — and has its own school, a clinic and recreational facilities. The full-time staff of 86 includes therapists, teachers and 46 child-care workers, all of them screened and trained. Rules of the center prohibit staff members from being alone with a patient. The work of the center, which receives more than $5 million in public funding, has drawn wide praise from state and city mental health officials and others in the juvenile-justice field. In 2001, Gov. George E. Pataki hailed the center in a letter to Dr. Pawel. “Through the committed work of community-based organizations like yours, we will continue to advance the well-being of young adults in your community and the entire state.”
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Mental Health and Disorders;Sex Crimes;Children and Youth;Medicine and Health;Assaults;August Aichhorn Center for Adolescent Residential Care;Manhattan (NYC)
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ny0127290
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2012/01/17
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For Packers, Regrets Now, Questions Later
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GREEN BAY, Wis. — The Green Bay Packers’ radio network can be heard from eastern Minnesota to the Dakotas. So Packers fans who tuned in while driving home from Lambeau Field after their team lost, 37-20, to the Giants on Sunday heard an anguished audio moment replayed time after time, regardless of their destination. Strong safety Charlie Peprah, an underperforming backup subbing for the injured three-time Pro Bowler Nick Collins, botched an open-field tackle on a play that turned into a 66-yard touchdown catch for Hakeem Nicks in the first quarter. When Nicks bounced off Peprah, who failed to wrap him up, the radio analyst Larry McCarren, a former Packers center, channeled the former Chicago Cubs announcer Ron Santo and reacted like a fan. “Oh no,” McCarren said repeatedly over Wayne Larrivee’s play-by-play call as Hicks ran to the end zone. That succinctly reflected the emotions here Monday morning. The players, instead of watching film and preparing for an N.F.C. championship game at home against San Francisco on Sunday, arrived at Lambeau to find opaque garbage bags and white corrugated cartons in their oval-shaped locker room. Season over. No repeat Super Bowl title. Time to pack up belongings. “I’m shocked still,” wideout James Jones said. “We felt like we were the best team in the National Football League all year. We proved that all year. We didn’t prove it yesterday. Turnovers, dropped passes. That’s not us. Through the year, we battled back from a lot of that stuff, but yesterday, it just kept on biting us, and we’re packing up Monday. “Everybody’s disappointed because they know the opportunity we let slip away. When you’ve got a bye week and you’ve got to win two games to get to the Super Bowl, and you come out and drop an egg like that, it’s disappointing, especially the talent and the chemistry we have in this locker room.” A remarkable season by Aaron Rodgers — his 122.5 passer rating set an N.F.L. record, and his 45 touchdown passes trailed only Drew Brees’s 46 — carried Green Bay to a 15-1 record and the overall No. 1 playoff seed. But the offense sputtered against the Giants, bogged down by four turnovers, four sacks, six dropped passes and other misfires as the Packers failed to win a single postseason game in defense of their championship. Green Bay’s defense, which surrendered more yards in the regular season than any other team, played poorly as well, and Eli Manning threw for 274 of his 330 yards in the first half. “No one prepared for this,” the veteran wideout Donald Driver said Monday. “Right now, a lot of guys don’t know what to do. “They don’t know when they’re going home, because no one was prepared to leave this week.” Green Bay will look to strengthen its pass rush and fix its pass coverage in the off-season. The Packers never adequately replaced defensive end Cullen Jenkins, who departed for Philadelphia in free agency. Losing Collins for the season to a neck injury in September hurt, too. Collins needed cervical fusion surgery; he said Monday that he would decide in March whether to keep playing or retire. The play of linebacker Clay Matthews, nose tackle B. J. Raji and cornerback Tramon Williams fell off this season as well. Matthews was among the N.F.L. leaders in quarterback pressures yet had just six sacks, well below last season’s 13 ½. Cornerback Charles Woodson, 35, tied for the league lead with seven interceptions, but he mainly covered slot receivers and could be moved to safety. The coaching staff may change, too, with the longtime Packers executive Reggie McKenzie recently hired as Oakland’s general manager. The Raiders are searching for a head coach, and the defensive coordinator Dom Capers and the inside linebackers coach Winston Moss, a former Raider, have been mentioned as possible candidates. The offensive coordinator Joe Philbin interviewed for the head coaching job in Miami, although that was before his son Michael drowned last week. Driver, who turns 37 next month and hopes to play until he is 40, could be let go if the Packers address other needs. Reportedly due $5 million in salary and bonuses next season, the last of his contract, Driver caught fewer passes (37) for fewer yards (445) than he had in any season since 2001. Wideout may be the team’s deepest position, with fixtures in Greg Jennings and Jordy Nelson, and Jones and the rookie Randall Cobb behind them. Unlike his friend Brett Favre, whose bitter departure in the summer of 2008 divided teammates and fans, Driver promised to accept whatever the Packers choose, though he would prefer to retire with the team. “It’s up to the organization to make that decision,” said Driver, a four-time Pro Bowler whose 13 seasons have been spent in Green Bay. “I hope they keep me. If not, I had a great career here. I love them, and that never changes.”
|
Green Bay Packers;New York Giants;Driver Donald;Playoff Games;Matthews Clay III;Rodgers Aaron;Nicks Hakeem;Peprah Charlie;Football
|
ny0263999
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2011/12/31
|
Paul Assails Rivals’ Criticism of His Policy on Iran
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DES MOINES — Representative Ron Paul of Texas assailed criticism of his opposition to United States military involvement abroad, saying he fears an overreaction to worries about Iran’s nuclear program could lead to war. Mr. Paul’s rivals have hammered him for days as too dovish and suggested that he would do nothing to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Mitt Romney again criticized Mr. Paul on Friday in an interview on the Fox News Channel, saying, “I don’t think Ron Paul represents the mainstream of Republican thought with regards to issues, particularly in foreign policy.” Mr. Romney and other Republican candidates have said they would take military action if economic, diplomatic and other pressure did not prevent Iran from building a nuclear device, warning that Tehran could launch a first-strike nuclear attack on Israel. Mr. Paul, though, stuck to his guns. Before a crowd at a public library in Sioux Center, he noted that others say Iran “might get a nuclear weapon someday, and wouldn’t it be good if we have a pre-emptive attack on Iran right now to make sure they never got a weapon.” “I would say no, I wouldn’t do that, mainly because right now there are no signs they are” seeking to build a bomb, Mr. Paul said. And if Iran did build a nuclear bomb, he said, “What are the odds of them using it? Probably zero. They just are not going to commit suicide. The Israelis have 300 of them.” But Mr. Paul was also careful to say that the president is “obligated” to respond to an imminent attack on the United States. “You don’t have to wait until they have put their feet on our soil,” he said. A new poll by NBC News released on Friday again showed Mr. Paul tied with Mr. Romney in Iowa, suggesting that the attacks on his foreign policy positions have so far had little effect. But polls have also showed that Mr. Paul’s opposition to American military intervention abroad is a major reason many Republicans give to oppose his candidacy. Aides said Mr. Paul was scheduled to fly back to Texas on Friday night to spend the New Year’s holiday with his family before returning to Iowa to campaign on Monday with his son, Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky. In the meantime, Mr. Paul’s rivals continued their last-minute sprints across Iowa in the hopes of rallying support among an electorate that appears to remain open to persuasion. Rick Santorum, who has seen his support rise sharply in several recent Iowa polls, was mobbed by reporters during an afternoon stop at a Buffalo Wild Wings Grill and Bar in Ames, where patrons were gathered to watch Iowa State battle Rutgers in the Pinstripe Bowl. Despite a tiny turnout of only a few supporters and some angry yells of “sit down” and “we’re trying to watch football,” Mr. Santorum said he was encouraged by the new energy evidenced by the media scrum that now follows him. “I’m a little bit surprised at the scale of the turnout here today — let me apologize to everybody here,” Mr. Santorum said. “No. It’s great.” Mr. Romney left Iowa on Friday afternoon for a quick overnight jaunt to New Hampshire. But as he campaigned with Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey at a morning rally in Des Moines, Mr. Romney took a sharp jab at President Obama. “He’s in Hawaii right now,” Mr. Romney said. “We’re out in the cold and the rain and the wind because we care about America, he’s out there. He just finished his 90th round of golf.” Small crowds greeted Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota as she completed the final stops on her tour of all 99 Iowa counties. She has been running consistently in the single digits in polls in Iowa despite her heavy focus on the state. A “super PAC” supporting Mrs. Bachmann, No Compromise, tried to secure air time on KCCI, the CBS station in Des Moines, but was rejected because the station said the ad was too shoddy for network television. Campaigning at Doughy Joey’s Peetza-Joynt in Waterloo, Iowa, Mr. Perry continued to criticize Mr. Santorum for seeking earmarks while in Congress. “Please tell me why you asked taxpayers to support the bridge to nowhere in Alaska?” Mr. Perry said to the crowd.
|
Paul Ron;Presidential Election of 2012;United States International Relations;Primaries and Caucuses;Republican Party;Nuclear Weapons;Iran;United States Defense and Military Forces
|
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