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ny0097303
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2015/06/02
|
After Punter Steve Weatherford Is in Wreck, He Practices With the Giants
|
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — A majority of the Giants’ off-season workouts are voluntary, although in the N.F.L., where contracts are not guaranteed, attendance is expected and most players comply. Last week, punter Steve Weatherford was home in San Diego for a few days while his wife, Laura, gave birth to the couple’s fourth child. While Weatherford was rushing to get back to the Giants’ complex for Monday’s practice, his flight to Newark on Sunday night was diverted to Washington because of thunderstorms. He rented a car around midnight and was cruising on the New Jersey Turnpike about 45 minutes south of his Hoboken home when his car struck a large pool of water and began to hydroplane. “I don’t know how many times the car spun around, and then it became clear I was going to hit the median,” Weatherford, who was not seriously injured, said Monday. “I was blessed that the airbags worked, and while I had a busted lip and some cuts and burns, I was O.K. I walked out of the car and was just getting ready to call 9-1-1.” But instead, Weatherford saw another car splash into the same pool of water and lose control. That car crashed into Weatherford’s vehicle. Weatherford said that he helped the other driver out of his car and that the two waited on the median for about 10 minutes until state troopers arrived. Weatherford was driven home by the authorities. “If this had happened at 4 in the afternoon with busy traffic all around instead of almost 4 in the morning, I’m not sure I’m here right now,” Weatherford said in the locker room. He arrived at the training complex around 7 a.m., was checked out by team medical personnel and then participated in practice just after 11 a.m. “I’m feeling O.K., although some general, overall soreness is starting to set in,” Weatherford said. “But it actually felt good to be out there on the field. There was some normalcy to being at practice after an unforgettable day that was like no other day in my life.” It was the second potentially life-threatening episode involving a Giants player this year. Tight end Larry Donnell was on a jet that skidded off a snowy runway at La Guardia Airport in March. Donnell, who was uninjured, was returning to the Giants’ headquarters to sign his contract. “Thank God he’s all right,” Coach Tom Coughlin said of Weatherford. “That’s a scary, scary thing. It’s difficult to talk about. He wanted to get back to the field with his teammates.” Weatherford mentioned that he had missed three workouts last week and that he had not previously missed an off-season training activity in his pro career. “I was home doing the right thing by my family,” he said. “But I had to get back to my other family, too.” The Weatherfords had a daughter, Josie Jaclyn. “I was blessed, and then I was really blessed,” Weatherford said. “Not just the birth of my daughter, but just being here — being alive. It makes you realize how fragile life can be.” BECKHAM NURSES HAMSTRING Since a hamstring muscle strain caused Odell Beckham Jr. to miss four games last season, and nearly all of the off-season workouts and training camp, even the mention of the injury reoccurring causes a stir. Such was the case Monday when Beckham sat out most of a workout with what Tom Coughlin called a sore hamstring. Coughlin said Beckham’s absence was “precautionary” and quickly added that it was not the same hamstring that had given Beckham so much trouble last year. That injury was initially called “a tweak,” as if it were minor. It proved to be a major loss and held back the team’s new offense for months. Beckham, who was not available to reporters after the workout, fielded punts and participated in certain individual exercises Monday. He did not take part in the full team drills. In a statement released by the Giants, Beckham said this year’s injury did not worry him. “I try not to even think about last year,” he said. “Comparing this to last year is just not even comparable.” Donnell had his left foot in a protective boot Monday. He has tendinitis in his Achilles’ tendon.
|
Football;Steve Weatherford;Giants
|
ny0013625
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2013/11/08
|
Twice-Broken Leg Hasn’t Deterred a Giant
|
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — In the Giants’ final preseason game, Coach Tom Coughlin assessed risk versus reward before playing running back Andre Brown. He decided the risk was minimal and the reward could be substantial. Brown had fractured the fibula in his left leg against the Green Bay Packers last Nov. 25 to abruptly end what had been a breakthrough year for him. With a new season about to begin, Coughlin felt Brown was not quite as sharp as he wanted him to be for the opener and thought a limited workload under game conditions would be helpful. With many Giants starters reduced to spectators and fewer than two minutes left before halftime, Marcus Forston, a New England Patriots defensive tackle, ended Brown’s night before Coughlin could. Forston’s helmet smashed into Brown’s left leg, striking him exactly where a metal plate had been surgically implanted to shield the previously injured area. X-rays revealed a small fracture that was enough to force the seemingly star-crossed Brown onto injured reserve for the second consecutive season, with a designation to return. No one could have imagined a risk so great. “You could have been a millionaire if you played Lotto,” Brown said Thursday as he sat at his locker, trying to make sense of an occurrence so freakish. “That’s how it broke the odds.” With Brown set to return for Sunday’s home game against the Oakland Raiders, bolstering a position ravaged by injuries, Coughlin did not express regret about his handling of Brown. “Quite frankly, he was in a position where we needed him to play a little bit better, and that’s why he played 19 plays in the last preseason game,” Coughlin said. “Sometimes you get a feel for a guy — he needs to do more, you want to get him more involved — so that’s what we wanted to do.” Coughlin also could not have envisioned that Brown (6 feet, 227 pounds) would become the eighth back employed by the Giants, who have lined up David Wilson, Da’Rel Scott, Brandon Jacobs, Peyton Hillis and Michael Cox in addition to fullbacks Henry Hynoski and John Conner. They continue to search for a back who can stay healthy and run effectively behind a shuffled offensive line. They rank 30th among 32 teams in rushing yards per game (69.9) and yards per carry (3.2). Wilson, the team’s speedy first-round draft choice last year, was expected to share the load as an excellent complement to Brown, a punishing runner between the tackles. Wilson has been sidelined since Oct. 6 with a herniated disk in his neck; he was placed on season-ending injured reserve. Brown says he can help the Giants gain offensive momentum. With consecutive victories over the Minnesota Vikings and the Philadelphia Eagles, the Giants improved to 2-6 before last weekend’s bye, keeping their faint N.F.C. East hopes alive. “I haven’t been getting too much sleep because it’s like Christmas,” Brown said of his return. The Giants drafted Brown out of North Carolina State in the fourth round in 2009. He endured a tremendous setback when he ruptured his left Achilles’ tendon during practice at his first training camp, costing him his rookie season. He was waived by five clubs before he rejoined the Giants and made the practice squad in 2011, allowing him to watch from a painful distance as the team won the Super Bowl. Brown had two carries totaling a 1-yard loss before his emergence last season. He rushed for 385 yards and a team-leading 8 touchdowns, including one in each of his last five games, before he was hurt. As Brown spoke, he clutched a carbon fiber pad he will entrust with keeping his left fibula intact for the remainder of his career. “I have faith in this thing,” he said. EXTRA POINTS VICTOR CRUZ, the team’s leading receiver, returned to practice Thursday. He wore a red noncontact jersey as a precaution after sitting out Wednesday with a neck injury. He expects to be at full speed by Sunday. Cruz said of an Oakland defense that allowed 7 passing touchdowns and 407 passing yards on Sunday against Nick Foles and the Philadelphia Eagles, “We see some opportunities if we’re able to read things the way we want to.”... TRUMAINE McBRIDE, who has improved at cornerback, was out with a groin injury. ...The Giants activated Markus Kuhn and placed fellow defensive tackle Shaun Rogers (knee) on injured reserve.
|
Football;Sports injury;Giants;Andre Brown
|
ny0009949
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2013/02/28
|
Hong Kong Grapples With Aftermath of Deadly Balloon Accident
|
HONG KONG — Relatives of nine Hong Kong residents who were killed in a fatal balloon accident in Egypt were headed to Cairo on Wednesday to claim the bodies, a day after the balloon exploded into a fireball while preparing to land. The five women and four men from Hong Kong who died in the accident on Tuesday were part of a group that was on a 10-day visit to Egypt, and they were taking the balloon for a tour over the ancient temples of Luxor when it burst into flames, killing 19 people in all. Immigration officers from Hong Kong have been dispatched to travel with the families of the victims to Cairo, where the bodies have been transported to four hospitals. The Hong Kong travel agency that handled the trip to Luxor, Kuoni Travel, said Wednesday that it was arranging for the six other members of the tour who chose not to participate in the balloon trip to leave Egypt and return to Hong Kong, and five will return to Hong Kong Friday. The disaster unfolded in just minutes as the pilot was pulling a rope to stabilize the balloon when a gas hose ripped and a fire started, security officials said. Besides the nine people from Hong Kong who were killed, four Japanese, two French, two Britons, a Hungarian and an Egyptian also died. The victims from Hong Kong were from three families who took the tour, which cost roughly $1,400 per person. Kuoni Travel said it was considering extra compensation for the families in addition to the $7,000 they are already eligible to receive. The accident has posed a new challenge to Egypt’s already struggling tourism industry, which has only begun to recover from the turmoil that followed the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Egyptian state media reported that some of the dead had been “cremated” in the fireball. The Health Ministry said it would use DNA testing to identify the remains, although Kuoni Travel itself released the names of the Hong Kong victims, identifying them only by their family names. Raymond Ng, a general manager for Kuoni Travel, said the agency had used the company the handled the balloon tour, Sky Cruises, regularly in the past. “We have a set of criteria when it comes to which hot-air balloon company we use,” he said. “Most importantly, the company needs to be well known, and has taken enough safety procedures.” Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Japanese victims were two couples in their 60s from Tokyo, but the ministry did not release their names.
|
Hong Kong;Egypt;Balloon;Fatalities,casualties;Leung Chun-ying;C.Y. Leung
|
ny0041739
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2014/05/18
|
North Carolina Governor Tested by Own G.O.P. as Legislators Return
|
RALEIGH, N.C. — As legislators returned to town last week, 10 months after a tumultuous 2013 session when Republicans passed one deeply conservative bill after another, one Republican seemed a bit like the odd man out. That would be Gov. Pat McCrory, who ran for office in 2012 as a moderate bridge builder and then found himself the face of a party whose restrictions on abortion, voting access, and benefits for the poor and unemployed played out in the most polarizing legislative session in memory in what had been a relatively moderate Southern state. The legislature has a less ambitious agenda this time. Protesters are promising another round of the Moral Monday marches that drew national attention to the Statehouse. But one of the main questions of the session is whether Mr. McCrory, a former bipartisan mayor of Charlotte, can influence the powerful Republican leadership. “He was very ineffective,” said Sam Watson, 64, a mortgage broker in Raleigh, who voted for the governor but said the General Assembly had gone too far. “I think the majority of the legislature is further right than the majority of the people.” On Wednesday, Mr. McCrory unveiled his budget for lawmakers. It included a 2 percent raise for teachers, a response to a sharp outcry after last year’s session, when teachers were stripped of tenure protections and denied a raise for a sixth year. Mr. McCrory, who declined to be interviewed, defended through a spokesman his role in last year’s session, but added that he would be more of a factor this year. “I will probably be more assertive and proactive than in the first year, which I frankly thought was extremely assertive — we passed a major tax reform, transportation reform and a vocational education bill to increase opportunities for high school students that enroll in career and technical education programs,” he said. But Chris Fitzsimon, director of the left-leaning NC Policy Watch , called Mr. McCrory the “mayor” of North Carolina, saying the governor had been relegated to a quasi-ceremonial role. “He’s out somewhere every day touring a factory, cutting a ribbon, and yet he can’t get any significant policy through the General Assembly and he can’t stop things he opposes,” Mr. Fitzsimon said. This legislative session is likely to run two months or less and feature fewer ideological points of contention. It is unfolding in the glare of a United States Senate race. Thom Tillis, the Republican nominee , who is speaker of the House, has an interest in tamping down controversy as he prepares to run against the incumbent, Kay Hagan, in what could be a pivotal race for control of the Senate. “My primary job is to run an efficient legislative session,” Mr. Tillis told reporters. Just as significant as what Mr. McCrory put in his budget proposal, delivered at a news conference, was what he left out. There was scant mention of his top policy initiative of the last two years, a Medicaid overhaul, which he had to set aside after members of the Republican leadership said they would not take it up. Nor have they seemed inclined to move ahead on a small item whose stalemate has become an embarrassment in the Executive Mansion: regulating puppy mills, which the first lady, Ann McCrory, has embraced as a personal cause. Ms. McCrory has lobbied to end abuse by large commercial dog breeders, as has the governor. The initiative’s failure, analysts said, is symbolic of the governor’s lack of clout. “It truly annoys him and continues to this day,” said Rick Henderson, managing editor of Carolina Journal , a publication of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank in Raleigh. Mr. McCrory asked lawmakers again to move against puppy mills, speaking almost apologetically. “We’re not going to give up,” he said, adding that his Labrador retriever mix, Moe, would join the lobbying with his own website. Image Mr. McCrory’s budget seeks raises for teachers but not the Medicaid overhaul he had prized. Credit Travis Dove for The New York Times Representative Edgar V. Starnes, the House majority leader, credited the governor with leadership in brokering a compromise in 2013 with Senate leaders who wanted to eliminate state income taxes. Instead, a single rate for all taxpayers was set. “He brought the House and Senate leadership together in his office and sat us down and said we need to get this moving,” Mr. Starnes said. “The governor was proactive before a stalemate and battle lines were drawn.” Other supporters note the limits of Mr. McCrory’s influence because both houses of the legislature have veto-proof majorities. His two vetoes last year, of bills concerning immigration and the drug-testing of welfare recipients, were easily overridden. More recently, Senator Phil Berger, the powerful president pro tem, scarcely mentioned the governor in an hourlong preview of his chamber’s to-do list for reporters. He referred in passing to two of Mr. McCrory’s initiatives — increasing teacher salaries and cleaning up coal ash ponds — as “starting points.” The threat from ash left from burning coal to generate electricity became a top concern after a major spill into the Dan River in February. The governor, a former employee of Duke Energy, which was responsible for the spill, was embarrassed by the episode. He has proposed removing ash from some of Duke’s 33 sites close to drinking water, though not all, as environmentalists had demanded. Some Republican leaders in the legislature publicly scolded him for not consulting them before drafting a plan. Last year, critics accused the governor of a sharp pivot to the right as he signed bills to end the state’s earned-income tax credit for the working poor, make deep cuts in unemployment benefits, and establish a right to carry concealed guns in bars and parks. But close observers said the governor had little choice given the solid conservative control of both houses. “People were expecting something different from him: He ran as a Mr. Fixit,” said Mr. Henderson, the Carolina Journal editor. “They were not anticipating that the General Assembly had a very, very clear, not secret agenda that they’d been talking about for years, and they went ahead and passed the agenda.” Representative Nelson Dollar, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, gives Mr. McCrory some credit for what the governor calls the “Carolina Comeback,” an economic bounce that Republicans attribute to their tax cuts and other business-friendly policies. Unemployment has fallen from 9.5 percent when Mr. McCrory took office to 6.2 percent. Critics say part of the unemployment drop was caused by a decline in the size of the work force, as discouraged workers stopped looking for jobs. Tax cuts shifted more of the burden from the rich to the middle class and working poor. Polls show the General Assembly’s ideological tilt is out of step with North Carolina as a whole, which is a battleground in national elections. An Elon University Poll last month found only 37 percent of voters said the state was headed in the right direction, although the number was eight points higher than immediately after last year’s legislative session. Kelly Minsley, 37, a physician in Raleigh, said she had voted for Mr. McCrory and agreed with most policies of the General Assembly, but was disappointed in his leadership. “I think he was a very good businessman, but in government it’s more about relationships,” she said. Stopping at a paint store in the North Hills section of the capital, Charles Snyder, 72, who owns a construction company, called himself “a lifelong registered Republican” but said he was unhappy with the state’s conservative direction. He lamented that the governor did not have more control over lawmakers. “If he agrees with them, he’s fine,” he said. “If he disagrees, he’s emasculated.”
|
US Politics;Governors;Republicans;Pat McCrory;North Carolina
|
ny0215567
|
[
"sports",
"cycling"
] |
2010/04/18
|
Contador Moves In Front
|
Alberto Contador has won the fourth stage of the Vuelta de Castilla y Leon to take the overall lead. Contador completed a time trial around Ponferrada, Spain, in 20 minutes 30 seconds to take the lead from Igor Anton.
|
Bicycles and Bicycling;Contador Alberto
|
ny0275841
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2016/02/09
|
Ireland: Nationalist Tie to Hotel Killing
|
Irish nationalists opposed to Northern Ireland’s peace process have told the BBC they were behind a fatal shooting on Friday at a boxing weigh-in at a Dublin hotel, saying it was retaliation for the killing of an ally in 2012. One man was killed and two others wounded when gunmen dressed like special forces operatives opened fire with automatic weapons, an attack that shocked the country weeks before a Feb. 26 parliamentary election. A spokesman for Ireland’s police said it was investigating the shooting and could not confirm if the two were linked. In a statement to the BBC in which an agreed code word was used, a man claiming to speak for the leadership of the dissident group Continuity I.R.A. said its members were responsible, saying it was retaliation for the fatal shooting in September 2012 of Alan Ryan, another militant nationalist.
|
Murders and Homicides;Continuity IRA;Terrorism;Northern Ireland;BBC;Ireland;Dublin;Boxing
|
ny0214554
|
[
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] |
2010/03/08
|
UConn Women Win in Big East Tournament and Tie Their Record
|
HARTFORD — The Connecticut women’s basketball team tied its N.C.A.A. record for consecutive victories Sunday by winning its 70th straight game. Not that Coach Geno Auriemma was, or is, counting. The surest way to stop such a streak, he said, is to start worrying about it. “Maybe it’s supposed to be a big deal, but what does 70 in a row do for you if you lose tomorrow night?” Auriemma said after the top-ranked Huskies routed Syracuse, 77-41, in the quarterfinals of the Big East women’s tournament at XL Center. Connecticut (31-0) has not lost since April 6, 2008, when it fell to Stanford in the national semifinals. The Huskies can break the record in the Big East tournament semifinals on Monday against Notre Dame , a 75-67 winner over St. John’s earlier Sunday. The Fighting Irish (27-4) have already lost twice to Connecticut this season, more recently by 25 points on March 1 . Connecticut also won 70 straight games between Nov. 9, 2001, and March 11, 2003, but there does not appear to be an opponent capable of beating the Huskies this season. “They’re the best team in the country, by far,” Notre Dame Coach Muffet McGraw said. “I don’t think there’s anybody close to them. We’ve seen it close up twice, and I haven’t really liked the view from my seat.” The Huskies had not played since beating Notre Dame, but they did not seem too affected. Nicole Michael and Erica Morrow, who entered the game as Syracuse’s top scorers, combined to miss all 17 shots they took from the field. The Orange shot 21 percent. Connecticut barreled to a 17-2 lead in the first six minutes against the ninth-seeded Orange (22-10), which had lost to the Huskies by 21 points on Feb. 24. By halftime, UConn had a 27-point lead, and Tina Charles, the 6-foot-4 center, had 21 points. Charles eventually tied a career high with 34 points and set a tournament record by making 16 field goals. The junior forward Maya Moore had 16 points, including the 2,000th of her career when she stole a pass in the second half and cruised in for a layup. Charles whooped when Moore’s milestone was mentioned at a postgame news conference. Asked if she thought about polishing off the drive with a dunk, the 6-foot Moore smiled bashfully and said, “In the heat of the moment, anything can happen.” Moore said, “Any record or history doesn’t really mean anything unless we can accomplish our next goal, and that’s beating Notre Dame.” Moore did not play the last 13 minutes. Charles pulled on a blue shirt with 9 minutes 11 seconds left after popping in short shots on four consecutive possessions. When the little-used senior Jacquie Fernandes made a touch pass that resulted in a basket, Moore and Charles jumped up and down. “Coach always tells us there should be no surprises at this point of the season, so we’re going to be ready,” Charles said. RUTGERS 63, GEORGETOWN 56 After scoring only 3 points in regulation, the sophomore guard Nikki Speed hit a 3-point basket to force a second overtime, then banked in an off-balance three-pointer in the second overtime to lift Rutgers (19-13) into a semifinal game Monday against West Virginia. The Scarlet Knights, whose N.C.A.A. tournament hopes rested on a strong performance in this tournament, scored only 4 points in the first 14 minutes but rallied to take a 5-point lead with six minutes left in regulation. Georgetown (25-6) was ranked 12th nationally. NOTRE DAME 75, ST. JOHN’S 67 Forward Devereaux Peters scored 11 of her 13 points in the second half and Skyler Diggins scored 21, two shy of her career high, as No. 6 Notre Dame rallied past the 16th-ranked Red Storm, which beat the Irish in New York last month. St. John’s (24-6), down by 7 midway through the first half, went on an 11-0 run over four minutes and outscored the Irish by 21-8 to finish the half leading, 36-32. But St. John’s, which starts two freshmen and a sophomore, showed its postseason inexperience down the stretch. The Red Storm held a 63-59 lead with six minutes to play before Notre Dame went on a 12-0 run. (AP) WEST VA. 47, DEPAUL 41 The No. 7 Mountaineers (27-4), the second seed in the tournament, clamped down on the seventh-seeded Blue Demons (21-11), giving up only one basket in five minutes after DePaul tied the game, 36-36, with 6 minutes 4 seconds to play. The junior guard Liz Repella hit four 3-pointers for West Virginia and finished with 16 points. DAVE CALDWELL
|
College Athletics;Basketball;University of Connecticut;Auriemma Geno;Big East Conference;University of Notre Dame
|
ny0230914
|
[
"world",
"africa"
] |
2010/09/07
|
South Africa Unions’ Strike Suspended
|
PRETORIA, South Africa — South Africa ’s trade unions Monday suspended an almost three-week-old strike by hundreds of thousands of government workers that had closed schools and hamstrung ambitious new efforts to expand urgently needed medical services in the region’s richest but most inequitable economy. As rowdy striking teachers chanted just outside a news conference, labor leaders here said they had not yet accepted the government’s offer, but would consult their members over the coming weeks and continue negotiating. The government has proposed a 7.5 percent pay raise that is double the rate of inflation, but short of the 8.6 percent unions had demanded. “We are going to take what is on the table back to our members,” said Thobile Ntola, president of the South African Democratic Teachers Union , or Sadtu, which represents 230,000 teachers. But other union officials said they thought the strike was effectively over. Relative to inflation, the government’s offer was significantly better than raises given over the last five years. Some strikers had begun returning to work in recent days. The wage gains are being weighed against the strike’s toll. It has damaged health and public services — for illnesses like AIDS and tuberculosis — that are critical to millions of poor people, who cannot afford the private hospitals and schools that many middle-class people use. It has bitterly strained relations between Cosatu , the trade union federation, and its ally, the governing African National Congress . Mr. Ntola blamed the government, and President Jacob Zuma, who made a trade development visit to China during the strike, for the crippled public services. “What has the president done?” he asked. “He has left for China.” But the strike has also tarnished the reputation of the unions. Many critics and other South Africans saw unions as fighting for the interests of those who already have good jobs at the expense of the one-third of their countrymen who are out of work. The government has said new hiring might be frozen to help pay for increased salaries and benefits to 1.3 million workers. And there have been widespread incidents of workers who did not strike. Strikers marauded through a major Durban hospital, brandishing whips and threatening doctors and nurses. In Johannesburg, women in the final stages of labor and even a man with a severed hand were turned away from public hospitals, while fragile newborns had to be moved to private hospitals from wards barren of nurses. After many such reports, the government set up special courts to deal quickly with strike-related violence. A nurse working at a public hospital in the city of Pietermaritzburg was stabbed in the shoulder by three assailants whose faces were covered, said Chris Maxon, a spokesman for the provincial health department. And a nurse who works at the largest public hospital in Johannesburg is in intensive care after being attacked in Soweto. While insisting on the justness of the strike, Cosatu — which represents two million union members — condemned the violence and apologized Monday, just hours after the strike was suspended, to the more seriously injured nurse. There are deep divisions among strikers about what to do next. Many nurses and teachers from the biggest and most militant health and teachers unions are still insisting they will reject the deal now being offered. “Sadtu won’t sign,” said Charles Masilela, an English teacher and union leader in Mpumalanga Province, who was protesting outside the news conference. “That’s the mandate members have given to leaders.” When Mr. Ntola addressed the Sadtu strikers, telling them before the formal announcement that the strike was suspended, there were no cheers or applause. “There comes a time in any strike when we must weigh our options,” he said. Chris Clopper, who leads a smaller teachers union whose members are mostly white, said afterward that the strike had effectively ended. The strike “lost its impetus” since the government improved its offer to workers a week ago, Mr. Clopper said. And teachers had already been trickling back to work. The cost in lost wages, he said, just was not worth the small gains in salary they might yet win by prolonging the strike. “Once I showed my guys these figures, they said, ‘Let’s call it a day,’ ” he said.
|
South Africa;Strikes;Labor and Jobs;Organized Labor;African National Congress
|
ny0189231
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2009/05/20
|
Swine Flu Tests Bloomberg’s Political Skills
|
With up to eight cases of swine flu at Rikers Island, the head of a labor union on Tuesday was demanding that part of the jail be shut down for the safety of its workers there. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg , speaking at a news conference, was having none of it. Mr. Bloomberg said he respected the labor leader, Norman Seabrook, but quickly added, “If he is an epidemiologist, it’s the first time I’ve heard of it.” The H1N1 epidemic has showcased the mayor’s strengths: his ability to marshal top-notch experts, dispense common-sense advice and exude confidence in a time of crisis. But as the public health scare intensified — with the flu possibly claiming the life of a 16-month-old Queens boy, and causing seven more schools to close — it has also shown the weakness of Mr. Bloomberg’s “Father Knows Best” approach. Public health experts have applauded the city’s efforts to handle the outbreak, which have included daily briefings by the mayor, notices sent home with students and late-night phone calls to parents by school administrators. But ordinary New Yorkers complain that they are not getting a full picture of the epidemic, and that a lack of transparency has left them confused and anxious. The city has not established standard guidelines for whether to close a school, saying it is essentially a subjective assessment. Information on absences and illnesses at the many schools that remain open has not been consistently made public. Thousands of parents have pulled their children out of classrooms, even if they display no symptoms of the flu, setting off a chain reaction that has hollowed out several schools across the city. Dmytro Fedkowskyj, the Queens parent representative on the citywide education panel, asked why some schools in his borough remained open despite absentee rates of 25 percent. “How can we do it one way in one place and differently in another place?” he asked at a scheduled meeting of the panel on Monday. Eric N. Gioia, a Queens councilman, said that “the city’s communication needs to improve dramatically,” and that the lack of information was inciting the kind of panic the city is trying to tamp down. Over the last week, Mr. Gioia said, his Facebook page has been bombarded with messages from anxious parents, including a mother who asked why, if city health workers in masks were cleaning her daughter’s school, “is there no information being conveyed to parents?” Mr. Gioia has called on City Hall to disclose its criteria for closing schools, how many students are absent from each school and which schools have been tested for H1N1. Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city’s health commissioner, said the administration had consistently told New Yorkers “what we know and what we don’t know” about the illness and was now confronting “an explosion of information and rumors.” The decision to close schools, he said, was based on a combination of factors, including the number of students complaining of illness, the number actually exhibiting symptoms, and absentee rates — and how quickly those numbers grow. “It is a judgment call,” he said. Asked if the city could make such an analysis public, Dr. Frieden said he had already spelled out his decision-making process at press conferences. The mayor expressed sympathy for the family of the 16-month-old boy, Jonathan Zamora Castillo of Corona, Queens, saying “every parent, myself included, can appreciate the grief.” By Tuesday night, the health department said an initial test had not indicated that the boy was infected by H1N1, but further tests were needed. But some of Mr. Bloomberg’s attempts to reassure the public about the flu with statistical perspective have at times misfired, parents said, revealing a tin ear. After the city closed three schools in Queens because of an outbreak of flulike symptoms, Mr. Bloomberg said, “You’ve got to remember, we’re talking about 4,500 students here in a city of 8.4 million.” Maria Dapontes-Dougherty, whose son, Thomas, an eighth grader at Intermediate School 227 in Jackson Heights-Corona, became sick with a 102-degree fever over the weekend, said the mayor’s calculation “comes off as a little cold, mostly because they’re not even testing any of these kids anymore.” “It’s almost like he’s dismissing the future of the world,” she said. Ms. Dapontes-Dougherty, who is president of the District 30 parent council, said that 447 of the 1,400 students at the school were absent on Tuesday, but the staff had told her that the school was not allowed to close because not enough children had fevers of over 100.4 degrees. City health officials insist that the epidemic remains mild by many standards, reminding the public that seasonal flu claims about 1,000 lives in New York each year, while H1N1 is known to have caused one death here: Mitchell Wiener, 55, a middle-school assistant principal from Queens. But the spread of the virus, however lethal or not, has intensified public anxiety. The city said there were four confirmed and four probable cases of swine flu at Rikers Island, the city’s jail complex. And seven more schools closed, three of them — Public School 130 in Lower Manhattan; P.S. 35 in Hollis, Queens; and Merrick Academy Charter School in Jamaica — ordered by the city and four voluntarily, including the prestigious Horace Mann School . Across the city, 19 schools have been ordered closed in the last week, almost all in Queens, and five have shut down voluntarily. City health officials said closing schools was a last resort, since students are likely to transmit the virus outside of the classroom, and homebound children will miss lessons and force parents to skip work. “There are not huge benefits and pretty high costs,” Dr. Frieden said. Dr. Carole Mitnick, assistant professor of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School, said the Bloomberg administration’s approach to the disease had dovetailed precisely with the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “There are times where the classrooms are half empty in February and March in our hemisphere,” Dr. Mitnick said. “Just because a lot of stuff is going around, nobody considers closing schools unless you can’t keep kids safe or can’t educate them properly.” But the city’s approach has not satisfied Mr. Seabrook, president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association , who said he planned to file a lawsuit against the city to force the closure of part of the jail. Mr. Bloomberg has dismissed the idea of closing Rikers for decontamination. “Turning prisoners loose in the streets of the city is not something that we plan to do,” he said on Sunday. “The only thing that would be shocking is if there were no cases at Rikers Island.”
|
Swine Influenza;Bloomberg Michael R;New York City
|
ny0149597
|
[
"business"
] |
2008/09/30
|
With Wachovia Sale, the Banking Crisis Trickles Up
|
The crisis gripping the nation’s banks took a troubling turn on Monday as investors’ confidence in even the largest and strongest institutions spiraled lower. Financial shares plunged 16 percent on one of the darkest days for the American stock market since the 1987 crash. After the House of Representatives rejected a rescue for the financial industry Monday, fears grew that more banks, particularly small and midsize lenders, could run into trouble unless a new plan emerged quickly. Even shares in the three banks that have survived the crisis as the largest in the industry — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup — fell more than 10 percent Monday as anxiety gripped markets. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which transformed into bank holding companies last week, fell more than 12 percent. Regional banks were punished even more severely as investors scrambled to figure out which of them might fall next in the absence of a bailout plan . National City Corporation, Downey Financial Corporation and Sovereign Bancorp, lenders pressured by substantial exposure to soured mortgages, were especially hard-hit, falling 63 percent, 48 percent and 36 percent respectively on the heels of the government’s seizure Thursday of Washington Mutual, the largest savings and loan . “With the credit markets drying up and bank-to-bank lending rates through the roof, the ability of these banks to weather the storm is being called into question,” said Jim Eckenrode, a banking analyst at TowerGroup, a financial services consulting firm. Wachovia plunged more than 70 percent after it was sold to Citigroup on Monday. Citigroup will pay $1 a share, or about $2.2 billion, for Wachovia’s banking operations. Citigroup will assume the first $42 billion of losses from Wachovia’s riskiest mortgages and transfer to the Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation $12 billion in preferred stock and warrants. In exchange, the F.D.I.C. will absorb all losses above that level. The reshaping of Wall Street since the collapse of Lehman Brothers just two weeks ago has also touched off a wave of shotgun mergers among the nation’s commercial banks. Those with relatively deep pools of financing are scouring the landscape for weak targets that they believe can give them a more dominant position in the marketplace when the dust from the present financial crisis settles. “What we have gotten is 10 years of consolidation in the last 10 days,” said Michael Poulos, a partner at Oliver Wyman, a financial services consulting firm. “The current situation has created opportunities for acquirers that are really unprecedented.” The past decade, in many ways, has been a golden age of banking. Profits were high, buoyed by fat lending margins and relatively few loan losses. Plenty of money was sloshing around in the financial system. And Wall Street’s loan packaging machine helped ensure it would not go dry. Now, that has all changed. Only the strongest banks are bound to survive. “Over the next two years, we are going to see a lot of consolidation,” said Jimmy Dunne, the senior managing principal of Sandler O’Neill & Partners in New York. “There will be the forced consolidation that we are seeing. There will be bank failures that will follow it up. And then, after a while you will see a large amount of consolidation among smaller and midsize banks.” Bankers say that the industry is quickly headed to a new era dominated by two types of banks. On the one hand, there will be small community banks and credit unions that offer personalized service and take advantage of their local ties. On the other, there will be behemoths like Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase that compete on the breadth of their products and potential cost savings from their size. But the towering presence of the biggest banks brings heightened concerns. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup now sit on more than 30 percent of the industry’s deposits. For consumers, that may turn out to be good news. “They can afford to pay higher rates for deposits and be more aggressive on going after business,” said John Kanas, the former chief executive of North Fork Bank, which he sold to Capital One Financial in 2006. And the bigger the balance sheet, analysts say, the safer customers’ deposits are, because the government will be less likely to allow the institution to fail. Charles Geisst, a Wall Street historian at Manhattan College, said that belief was now firmly embedded in the financial culture. “Bank of America, Citi, and JPMorgan are going to be quasi-state entities now. They will never be allowed to fail, and they will be closely monitored,” he said. “They are surrogates for the American economy.” Americans have long had deep reservations about a concentration of corporate power, and for decades reined in banks for just this reason. The McFadden Act of 1927 permanently established the Federal Reserve system, but in a political compromise, imposed a ban on banks opening new branches across state lines. As a result, retail banking was fragmented across the nation. That remained the case until 1994, when banks won a battle to change the law to permit the creation of national franchises. The result was a wave of consolidation in the late 1990s, paving the way for the formation of the banking industry’s current giants and a handful of big regional lenders. At a state level, the same thing had occurred in Texas’s banking industry in the late 1980s which, in many ways, may turn out to be a model for today’s nationwide mess. For years, Texas banks lent aggressively to oil and gas partnerships and real estate developers on the belief they would always get paid back. But with a sharp decline in oil prices and a sudden change in the tax laws, the market collapsed. The result was that virtually all of the largest banks in Texas — names like Republic Bank, InterFirst Bank, First National City Bank, and Texas Commerce Bank — either failed or were snapped up by bigger, out-of-state institutions. Crippled by their widening losses, they pulled back on the amount of money they lent. North Carolina National Bank, which acquired several ailing Texas banks during this period and was Bank of America’s predecessor, earned the nickname “No Cash for Nobody” for its reputation as a stingy lender. But as the economy rebounded, the bigger banks began gaining a bigger share of the Texas market. Community banks, offering personalized service, saw an opening as a popular alternative. Today, the Texas market is dominated by Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase. But Frost Bank of San Antonio is the only midsize Texas bank left standing, along with a number of smaller lenders.
|
Wachovia Corp;Citigroup Incorporated;Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures;Banks and Banking;Subprime Mortgage Crisis
|
ny0267418
|
[
"technology"
] |
2016/03/06
|
It’s Discounted, but Is It a Deal? How List Prices Lost Their Meaning
|
SAN FRANCISCO — As traditional retailing falters, shutting stores and shedding workers, online merchants are reaping the rewards. People like the convenience of e-commerce, and they love the feeling that they are getting a deal. The perception of a bargain is fostered by online retailers’ use of something variously labeled list price, suggested price, reference price or manufacturer’s suggested retail price. Whatever its name, the implication is that people are paying much more somewhere else. But with many products online, you could not pay the list price even if you wanted to. That is because hardly anyone is actually charging it. It is a sales tactic that is drawing legal scrutiny, as well as prompting questions about the integrity of e-commerce. If everyone is getting a deal, is anyone really getting a deal? Here is one recent example of how retailers use list prices to motivate online buyers: Le Creuset’s iron-handle skillet, 11 ¾ inches wide and cherry in color. Amazon said late last week that it would knock $60 off the $260 list price to sell the skillet for $200. Sounds like a bargain, the sort of deal that has helped propel Amazon to over $100 billion in annual revenue. Check around, though. The suggested price for the skillet at Williams-Sonoma.com is $285, but customers can buy it for $200. At AllModern.com , the list price is $250 but its sale price is $200. At CutleryandMore.com , the list price is $285 and the sale price is $200. An additional 15 or so online retailers — some hosted by Amazon, others on Google Shopping — charge $200. On Le Creuset’s own site , it sells the pan for $200. Image Recently, Amazon said it would knock $60 off the $260 list price to sell a Le Creuset skillet for $200. On Le Creuset’s own site, the pan was selling for $200. “Everyone expects a deal on the web,” said Larry Compeau , a professor at Clarkson University who is an expert on pricing strategies. “Nobody wants to pay retail. Some sellers are now willing to deceive consumers to make the sale.” The use of list prices online is at the heart of a case in a California Court of Appeal. Overstock.com, a popular online merchant, was found liable in a lower court for using misleading reference prices to exaggerate potential customer savings. It was fined $6.8 million, twice the size of the next-largest penalty for false advertising in California. In its appeal, Overstock said it followed “standard industry practices” to come up with its reference prices. Internet retailers including Wayfair, Walmart, Rakuten (formerly Buy.com), Crate & Barrel and Williams-Sonoma employ list prices to varying degrees. Amazon, the biggest e-commerce player, uses them extensively and prominently. If some Internet retailers have an expansive definition of list price, the Federal Trade Commission does not. “To the extent that list or suggested retail prices do not in fact correspond to prices at which a substantial number of sales of the article in question are made, the advertisement of a reduction may mislead the consumer,” the Code of Federal Regulations states. The F.T.C. declined to comment. “If you’re selling $15 pens for $7.50, but just about everybody else is also selling the pens for $7.50, then saying the list price is $15 is a lie,” said David C. Vladeck, the former director of the F.T.C.’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “And if you’re doing this frequently, it’s a serious problem.” All of the retailers declined to be interviewed, as did Le Creuset. Amazon pointed to a disclosure on its website where it says the list price can have many origins: It can be the price on the product itself, it can be the price suggested by the manufacturer or supplier, or it can be Amazon’s guess as to what the list price should be. The retailer also said its list prices “may or may not” represent the prevailing price “in every area on any particular day.” “The list price has become a meaningless piece of information,” said Mr. Compeau, who was an expert witness for the California district attorneys who brought the case against Overstock. Image “Some sellers are now willing to deceive consumers to make the sale,” Prof. Larry Compeau said. Credit Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist for The New York Times Meaningless, but useful. Even as the importance of a fixed list price has waned in the physical world, it has become more deeply embedded online. Retailers, as Amazon indicated, often are supplied with list prices by the manufacturer or the brand. “The manufacturer uses list price in an aspirational way — it’s what they wish they could charge,” said Victor Rosenman, the chief executive of Feedvisor, a start-up that helps e-commerce companies price competitively. “Then the retailer says to his customer, ‘The manufacturer recommended X, but I’m selling it at Y. It’s a better deal,’ ” Mr. Rosenman said. “As to how that price compares to anyone else, it’s your job as a consumer to figure out.” The Overstock case went to trial in late 2013. In one example cited by the district attorneys, a man bought a patio set from the retailer. It cost him $450, a discount of 55 percent from the list price of $999. The buyer was somewhat alarmed to find a Walmart price tag on his purchase for $247, a price he confirmed was the going retail price. Overstock said that was a simple error, but among the evidence presented during the trial were internal documents indicating that deals were not as good as they seemed. “Oh I think it’s been established that the ‘List Price’ is egregiously overstated,” one Overstock memo said. “This place has some balls.” In another email, Overstock asked a supplier to increase its list price, presumably so the Overstock price would appear even cheaper by contrast. An internal Overstock survey revealed during the trial found that its reference prices were on average 15 percent higher than the highest price that could be found online. Overstock maintained to the appeals court that “injury to consumers was minimal” and said the $6.8 million in penalties was “grossly disproportionate.” A spokesman declined to comment. In an earlier era, list prices were intended to prevent retailers from gouging customers — if $40 was printed on the box, a customer might flee if charged $60. Manufacturers also wanted to signal quality by discouraging deep discounting. They hoped retailers would stick to the printed price. List or reference prices are still used as selling tactics in the physical world, and companies routinely are sued for abusing them. J. C. Penney, for instance, set aside $50 million in November to settle a class-action suit in which it was accused of tricking customers into thinking they were getting big discounts. But online, list prices are even more important. “Offline retailers need blowout sales to draw traffic due to the costs of visiting a store — driving, then parking, walking and searching,” said Rafi Mohammed , a consultant and author of “The 1% Windfall: How Successful Companies Use Price to Profit and Grow.” “Online retailers don’t use blowout sales since it’s so easy to shop there. But to provide confidence to consumers that they are consistently getting good deals, it’s even more important for them to provide price comparisons.” After the Overstock suit, online pricing policies are coming under greater scrutiny. Two customers sued Amazon in late 2014, saying its list prices violated false advertising laws by bearing no relation to the prevailing market prices. The case was dismissed after Amazon pointed out that its customers gave up their right to sue in favor of binding arbitration. “This court may hope that Amazon would take every possible step to maximize consumers’ ability to make informed decisions,” United States District Judge Cynthia Bashant wrote in her decision . “The law of contracts, however, imposes less lofty expectations.” Last month, a proposed class-action suit was filed against Wayfair in California asserting that the retailer falsely advertised discounts for items that it had never sold at a higher price. “The referenced former retail prices were fabricated,” the plaintiffs claimed. Wayfair declined to comment. Image The Mini-Prep Plus Processor was recently advertised on Cuisinart’s website for $40. At the same time, Amazon stated the list price as $75, and its own selling price as $40. One manufacturer, Cuisinart, acknowledged that list price had little meaning. Consider the Mini-Prep Plus Processor, displayed on its website for $40. Amazon says the list price is $75 , but in recent weeks was charging $40. That was also roughly what Belk, Bed Bath & Beyond and Kitchen & Company charged. Amazon listed dozens of third-party merchants offering the product, usually from $40 to $50. The Cuisinart Webstore, a separate entity from Cuisinart, sold it for $40. Mary Rodgers, a spokeswoman for Cuisinart, said the $75 list price was “the highest price you could actually see the product being sold for.” She said as far as she knew, no one was selling the processor for that price.
|
E Commerce;Price;Sales and Discounts;Retail;Online advertising;Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry;Lawsuits;Amazon;Overstockcom
|
ny0100391
|
[
"business",
"dealbook"
] |
2015/12/18
|
Swiss Regulator Bars 6 Former UBS Workers in Currency Inquiry
|
LONDON — A Swiss regulator said on Thursday that it had barred six former managers and traders at UBS from the financial industry in an investigation into manipulation of the foreign currency markets. UBS was among a group of the world’s largest banks that paid a combined $4.25 billion in November 2014 to settle with British and Swiss regulators and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the United States over their role in manipulating foreign currency markets. The Swiss bank also agreed in May to pay more than $500 million in additional fines to the Justice Department and other authorities in the United States for its role in the manipulation of currency markets and benchmark interest rates. On Thursday, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, known as Finma, said it was blocking the former head of global foreign exchange trading at UBS from holding senior management positions at institutions supervised by the regulator for four years. The former head of the global foreign exchange spot trading desk was barred for five years. The regulator also barred, for at least one year, four former traders on the foreign exchange desk at UBS in Zurich. The regulator did not identify any of the individuals by name, but said none of those involved were still active at UBS. “Finma concluded that the individuals in question were directly responsible for the serious breaches of regulation at UBS in this business,” it said in a news release . The regulator said its investigation had determined that those responsible for management of foreign currency trading at UBS “tolerated, and at times encouraged, behavior which was improper and against the interests of clients.” Managers, the regulator said, were aware that traders were able to use group chats to share information and the potential risk of doing so, but failed to implement adequate systems and controls and to consistently monitor them for compliance with internal and external rules. The regulator said traders shared confidential client information, sometimes revealed the identity of clients to third parties and traded ahead of client orders in a practice known as front-running. Traders also repeatedly tried to manipulate foreign currency benchmarks, the authorities said. A UBS spokesman declined on Thursday to comment. The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority began enforcement proceedings against 11 UBS employees in November 2014. Following its investigation, the regulator discontinued proceedings against four of those in August. Proceedings continue against one other UBS employee, the regulator said.
|
Regulation and Deregulation;UBS;Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority;Fines
|
ny0075332
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2015/04/22
|
N.F.L. Draft Watchers Favor Jameis Winston Over Marcus Mariota
|
At the N.F.L. draft each year, a parade of tackles, safeties and linebackers streams to the podium to try on hats with logos and hold up jerseys. But for all the pundits’ talk about how teams desperately need a center or a cornerback, the choices that create the most excitement will always be the quarterbacks. And this year there are two big names. After months of debate between backers of Jameis Winston of Florida State and Marcus Mariota of Oregon, a consensus is building. Just about every N.F.L. watcher and beat reporter who has put together a mock draft is projecting that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will take Winston as the No. 1 pick in the draft on April 30. It should be said that the Bucs have not publicly committed to Winston, and the conventional wisdom has been wrong before. Still, the smart money right now is clearly on Winston. The consensus is not as strong on Mariota; many pundits speculate he will go at No. 2 to the Tennessee Titans, though trades may be involved. Others have him going sixth to the Jets, or even lower. On NFL.com , Lance Zierlein, a Houston sports radio host, has him going 12th to the Browns, while the television commentator and former lineman Brian Baldinger has him dropping all the way to 20th to Chip Kelly and the Eagles , though he acknowledges that Philadelphia might have to trade up to land him. Both players seem to have the credentials to be successful. Mariota averaged 9.3 yards per passing attempt in his career, and 10.0 in his senior year. He threw only 14 interceptions over three seasons. Winston had a similar 9.4 yards per attempt mark , but threw 28 interceptions in two seasons, 18 last year alone, the second highest total in Division I. Both had phenomenal team success. Winston was 26-1 as a starter, with a national title. Mariota was 36-5. Each won a Heisman Trophy as well. And by all reports, both men had strong performances at the N.F.L. combine in February in Indianapolis. Their playing styles differ: Winston is more of a pocket passer and less comfortable scrambling, while Mariota is mobile and prefers to roll out more. Like just about every rookie, each will face a transition to the different style of the pro game. The dark clouds over Winston are his off-the-field problems . He was accused of raping a fellow student in 2012 but did not face criminal charges and was cleared of violating the university’s code of conduct. He was suspended for half a game for shouting an obscene phrase on campus and was cited for shoplifting crab legs. But sketchy behavior, or worse, has seldom stopped N.F.L. teams from drafting players they think can help them. There are other quarterbacks in the draft. Brett Hundley of U.C.L.A., Garrett Grayson of Colorado State and Bryce Petty of Baylor are on teams’ radar and could go in later rounds. But while there are exceptions, quarterbacks selected in the first round have a much better success rate. Of the top 10 quarterbacks in yardage in the N.F.L. last season, eight were first-round selections and four were selected first over all (the Manning brothers, Andrew Luck and Matthew Stafford). The only exceptions were Drew Brees (second round) and Tom Brady (sixth). The occasional Kurt Warner or Tony Romo succeeding as an undrafted player is a rarity. One who might be passed over this year is Blake Sims, the quarterback at Alabama, which was No. 1 in the country for most of the season. Despite his college glory, he is considered short at 5 feet 11 inches. And his accuracy and ability to transition to the pro game are questioned . He seems more likely to join another Alabamian, Greg McElroy, and Chris Leak of Florida as quarterbacks who achieved great team success in college but did not seem to have the tools to be N.F.L. starters. The Mariota/Winston question will soon be answered. And then it is time to start thinking about 2016 , when Cardale Jones of Ohio State, Connor Cook of Michigan State and Christian Hackenberg of Penn State could be first-rounders.
|
Football;Jameis Winston;Marcus Mariota;Sports Drafts and Recruits
|
ny0121516
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2012/09/03
|
Pakistani Blasphemy Case Shifts as Cleric Is Arrested
|
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Muslim cleric at the forefront of a campaign to prosecute a Christian girl for blasphemy has suddenly found himself at risk of facing the same charges, after one of his colleagues went to the authorities and accused him of falsifying evidence of burned holy papers. The surprise arrest might change the direction of a case that has brought the world’s attention to Pakistan ’s controversial blasphemy laws, which critics say are regularly used to exploit and intimidate minorities. And it bolstered the possibility of a speedy release for Rimsha Masih, the girl awaiting trial in prison on charges she burned Muslim sacred documents; her bail hearing is scheduled to resume Monday. The cleric, Muhammad Khalid Chishti, 30, who leads a mosque in the impoverished Mehr Jaffer neighborhood on Islamabad’s outskirts, was arrested by a contingent of police officers late Saturday, presented before a judicial magistrate Sunday morning, and taken into police custody for 14 days. Until his arrest, Mr. Chishti had cast himself as a holy man who was incensed at a desecration and had passionately exhorted local residents to protest and demand the harshest of punishments for the accused girl, who family members and police officials say is a developmentally disabled minor. The demonstrations sent hundreds of Christian families fleeing the neighborhood after threats were reported. Mr. Chishti, 30, said in an interview Friday that he had been appointed as a lead cleric in Mehr Jaffer almost 10 months ago. During a fiery sermon at Friday Prayer, he angrily defended himself and urged people from the neighborhood to stand by him. “As long as people are with me, no one can force me to leave this neighborhood,” he said in the sermon. He also said that several religious leaders were in contact with him, urging him to make peace with the neighborhood’s Christian residents. He denied that he was trying to provoke locals. Mehr Jaffer remained peaceful and no protests broke out Sunday after the arrest of Mr. Chishti, residents said. But there were signs of palpable anger as local residents said they were unhappy over the arrest of their religious leader. “After evening prayers today, around 200 people of the neighborhood committee sat down for deliberations,” said Mohammad Zaheer, a resident. “They have decided that they will show solidarity with Khalid Chishti and distance themselves from Zubair,” he said, referring to the man who has testified against the cleric. Mr. Chishti found his fortunes reversing late Saturday when Hafiz Mohammad Zubair, a muezzin, or prayer caller, at his mosque appeared before a magistrate and said that the cleric had added two pages of the Koran to a heap of burned pages of the Noorani Qaida, a holy text used to teach the Koran to children, that was seized from Ms. Masih. “I tried to stop him, but he said that this would strengthen our case,” Mr. Zubair was quoted by police officials as saying. No immediate reason was given for Mr. Zubair’s testimony. Such accusations about Mr. Chishti are not new, however; some neighbors had accused the cleric of being a troublemaker and of instigating locals as details of the case surfaced last month. But the kind of testimony given by Mr. Zubair is rare in incidents of accused blasphemy, where much of the details are murky or disputed, as people are generally afraid of inviting the wrath of religious figures and leaders who use their pulpits to whip up a storm of public anger, often leading to violent protests and riots. Indeed, even if charges are dropped against Ms. Masih, some neighbors believe she will never be safe. At times, even just the rumor of blasphemous acts in Pakistan have led to lynchings or other violence, particularly against minorities. Late last month, a group of influential Islamic clerics urged the police to investigate the charges against Ms. Masih and prosecute her accusers if the charges proved to be fabricated. On Sunday, Mr. Chishti was brought before a magistrate blindfolded and with his hands tied, surrounded by police officers and commandos. “I have done nothing wrong,” he said during brief comments to reporters.
|
Demonstrations Protests and Riots;Muslims and Islam;Vandalism;Masih Rimsha;Pakistan;Christians and Christianity;Chisti Mohammad Khalid
|
ny0244510
|
[
"sports",
"rugby"
] |
2011/04/05
|
National Rugby Teams Wonder if Rest Is What's Best
|
WELLINGTON — Mention the words rest, reconditioning and Rugby World Cup in the same sentence to New Zealanders, and they are likely to break out in a cold sweat. In a country where rugby is king, no one has forgotten, and very few people have forgiven, New Zealand coach Graham Henry for the controversial decision in 2007 to withdraw 22 leading All Black players from the first seven weeks of the Super 14 competition before the World Cup in France. It was a ploy Henry and his coaching and fitness staff believed would keep the players fresh and allow them to peak for the global showpiece, but it frustrated the five New Zealand Super 14 coaches and angered fans and broadcasters of the Southern Hemisphere tournament. It also backfired spectacularly as New Zealand suffered its earliest-ever exit at the World Cup when it was bounced out by France in the quarterfinals. The failure to lift the Webb Ellis Trophy almost cost Henry and his assistant coaches Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen their jobs, and they have had to work hard in the four years since to re-establish the good will and support of the fans and Super Rugby franchises. It was a harsh lesson to have learned, but Henry, a former school headmaster, has certainly done that. This year, there will be no wholesale withdrawal of the players, although with agreement from the franchise coaches, New Zealand’s key players will not play every match in the extended Super Rugby competition. Some, such as New Zealand captain Richie McCaw and Mils Muliaina, are already experiencing an enforced period on the sidelines because of injuries, though nothing serious enough to keep them out of the World Cup. The man who was the architect of New Zealand’s conditioning plan in 2007, Graham Lowe, is now the Scottish Rugby Union’s director of performance. And perhaps surprisingly, given the backlash after New Zealand’s failure four years ago, he has backed a move by Scotland coach Andy Robinson to withdraw five of his key World Cup players from their club duties in the lead-up to the tournament this year in New Zealand, which begins Sept. 9. Prop Allan Jacobsen and hooker Ross Ford, who play for Edinburgh, and lock Richie Gray, Scotland captain Alastair Kellock and flanker John Barclay, who all play for Glasgow, will miss the remainder of the Magners League because Robinson wants them to rest and recover from their Six Nations campaign and get themselves in peak shape for the World Cup. “Ross Ford and Allan Jacobsen have had high game time in the previous three years and have played a lot of rugby this season. We feel it is in their best interests to be unavailable for Edinburgh now,” said Robinson, who made the decision to withdraw the players in conjunction with medical and fitness specialists. “Richie is being taken out of action for Glasgow. He has had double the game time this year compared to last, and the intensity of the matches in which he has been playing has also increased. It is important for his development over the next two to three years that we have made the decision we have now.” It is a move that Robinson conceded had disappointed the coaches of Glasgow and Edinburgh, Sean Lineen and Nick Scrivener. Both teams are struggling near the bottom of the Magners League and felt the return of their international players for the final four matches of the season could have provided a late-season boost. But, like their New Zealand counterparts were four years ago, they are in a difficult position, as Scottish Rugby — the governing body in Scotland — funds the two clubs, which are the only professional teams in the country. “Any coach will always want to field his strongest possible team — that’s natural, and I’m no different,” said Scrivener, who became Edinburgh’s interim head coach following Rob Moffat’s departure in January. “Player welfare has always been a top priority for Edinburgh, and we recognize and understand the need to balance our players’ commitments in what is a very busy rugby year.” It is that issue of player welfare and how much rugby is too much that is a tricky one to balance. When England won the 2003 World Cup, the core group of players who played in the final in Sydney had played virtually every other England test match that year, plus almost a full season of club rugby. It left them battle-hardened and an effective, cohesive unit. It was a similar tale for South Africa in 2007, where its leading players took part fully in the Super 14 that year, which was won by the Bulls, a Pretoria team. While frontline Springboks were rested for part of the Tri-Nations series, it had no ill effect when they came together for the World Cup, and they went on to defeat England in the final. It does no team any good if players are overplayed or are made to perform while injured, but most players will tell you they are never 100 percent fit, as years of using their bodies like battering rams takes its toll. But they will also tell you that they need to play rugby regularly to stay match fit and get in top form. Having a month off now may do wonders for the five Scottish players, allowing them to recover from niggling injuries and rest and recondition their bodies. But no one will know for sure whether the gamble has paid off until Scotland steps out on the global stage in a few months.
|
Sports Injuries;Rugby (Game)
|
ny0224087
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2010/11/23
|
New York City Plans Bike-Sharing Program
|
The Bloomberg administration is set to move ahead on Tuesday with plans to create a large-scale bike-sharing program that would make hundreds or even thousands of bicycles available for public use throughout New York City — a nimble, novel form of mass transit that has already become mainstream in cities like Washington and Paris. The city plans to release a solicitation for proposals from companies interested in operating the program, which would allow riders to rent bicycles from kiosks installed across a swath of the city, according to two people who have been briefed on the plan. The program would probably run on a subscription model, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plan had not yet been made public. The introduction of a bike-share program is a long-awaited victory for Janette Sadik-Khan , the city’s transportation commissioner, who has banned cars from parts of Broadway in Midtown and installed more than 250 miles of bicycle-only lanes along major avenues in multiple boroughs. It would also make New York the latest in a string of American cities that have begun experimenting with communal bikes. Denver and Minneapolis started similar programs earlier this year, and Boston received a $3 million federal grant for a bike-sharing network to begin in the spring. Several public agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area announced last month that they would collaborate on a $7 million bike-sharing pilot expected to begin by the end of 2011. Ms. Sadik-Khan declined to comment on Monday. But last year, in an interview, she described New York as “an ideal city for cycling” and said she would consider a bike-share program “tailored to meet our needs.” “There’s a lot of interest in it,” she said at the time. “Half of the trips in New York are under two miles, and we’re essentially flat, so we’re in a great position to be able to take advantage of that way of getting around.” The city first floated the idea of a bike-sharing program in 2008, but some officials were said to have expressed reservations about giving over city streets and sidewalks to a program that would require a sizable footprint. In Paris, for instance, parking spaces were removed to make way for hundreds of rental kiosks. Advocates, however, have hailed bike-sharing as a cheap, environmentally friendly alternative mode of transportation that is perfectly suited to a dense city where residents often take short trips. In New York, officials are hopeful that the winning vendor would cover the costs for the program, according to one of the people who has been briefed on the proposal. In Paris, a vendor agreed to supply the bikes and oversee the program in return for exclusive outdoor advertising rights in the city. Officials at the Transportation Department declined on Monday to provide details about how much the program might cost riders. In Washington, where a bike sharing program began in September, a day pass costs $5 and an annual membership costs $75. The first half-hour of use is free with a membership, with small surcharges added for additional time. An exhaustive proposal released by the city in 2009 offered a glimpse of how a bike-sharing program might look in New York. The study, by the Department of City Planning, envisioned an initial rollout of about 10,000 bikes that could be placed at automated kiosks below Central Park in Manhattan and in areas of Downtown Brooklyn, with a majority of bikes available in dense business districts. In Paris, the pioneer of bike-sharing, the bikes are used up to 150,000 times a day. But there has also been widespread theft and vandalism; bicycles have ended up tossed in the Seine, dangling from lampposts and shipped off to northern Africa for illegal sale. Told of the plan late Monday, Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, expressed excitement for the idea. “Bike sharing has rapidly moved cycling into the mainstream in similar big cities,” he said. “The Big Apple will take to it like we’ve never lived without it.”
|
Bicycles and Bicycling;Bloomberg Michael R;Sadik-Khan Janette;New York City;Manhattan (NYC);Downtown Brooklyn (NYC);Renting and Leasing
|
ny0165079
|
[
"us"
] |
2006/07/27
|
Judge Upholds Sale of Urban Garden in Los Angeles
|
A judge upheld the sale of an urban garden in South Los Angeles to a developer for more than $5 million, but those who once worked the now-bulldozed plots vowed to keep fighting. In a 19-page ruling, the judge, Helen Bendix of Superior Court, rejected the contentions in a lawsuit filed against the developer, Ralph Horowitz, and the city over a 2003 deal that sold Mr. Horowitz back land originally seized from him through eminent domain. The 14-acre garden sits in a gritty industrial area. For about 14 years, it was farmed by about 350 mainly poor, Hispanic immigrant families.
|
Agriculture;Urban Areas;Los Angeles (Calif);Suits and Litigation
|
ny0283355
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2016/07/30
|
Acceptable Losses for Chris Sale: Some Throwback Jerseys? Maybe. A Game? Never.
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CHICAGO — The last line on Bill Veeck’s Hall of Fame plaque calls him “a champion of the little guy,” a wink to the time he used a 3-foot-7-inch pinch-hitter to draw a walk for his St. Louis Browns. Veeck, who also owned the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox, was a pioneer for the outrageous (Disco Demolition Night), the morally just (signing Larry Doby to integrate the American League) and, he boasted, baseball fashion. Forty years ago, in announcing that his White Sox would soon wear new uniforms, Veeck promised to add “elegance to baseball styles.” He predicted that the team’s home, Comiskey Park, would “replace Paris and New York as the fashion center of the world.” Veeck’s untucked, collared jerseys lasted for six seasons on the South Side, and while Veeck was a visionary, he did not account for the strong-willed, string-bean left-hander who would one day refuse to wear them. Chris Sale, the A.L.’s premier pitcher for the past five seasons, rejected the throwback uniforms last Saturday, cutting them up in a clubhouse tirade that resulted in a five-game suspension. He returned to the mound at Wrigley Field on Thursday, working six innings during a 3-1 loss to the Chicago Cubs. Teammates hugged him as he entered the clubhouse. “When you feel like you’re out on an island, you feel lonely, you’re just sitting there on the couch at 7 o’clock,” Sale said from the bench in the visiting dugout after the game, “and I get the text messages I got from the people I got them from — current, former, guys around the league — and then coming in today and having that, it gives you what you need to get by.” Sale’s suspension cost him five days’ pay — $250,000 — plus $12,700 for the destroyed uniforms, which he now owns. He said he hoped to somehow use the episode to raise money for charity. “Hopefully, we can help somebody, help a group of people with this whole fiasco or hoopla, or whatever you want to call it,” Sale said. Image White Sox players in August 2015 wore a version of the untucked throwback jerseys that Chris Sale destroyed. Sale said players had found them too loose. Credit David Banks/Getty Images Call it a bizarre but revealing slice of life at the trading deadline. Sale, 27, is under club control through 2019. The White Sox, who started 23-10, stood two games under .500 after Thursday’s loss. Every contender could find a place for Sale, and if he is not moved before Monday’s nonwaiver deadline, he could be the prize of the trade market this winter, given a weak class of free agent starters. “It’ll be good for him when it’s over,” Manager Robin Ventura said, referring to the deadline. “It’s hard not to have it distract you, because your whole life changes — everything from moving to getting reacclimated, everything changes. So there has to be something in there that is a distraction if your name’s in something.” Sale said he wants to stay, though he is eager to win. He is probably the best player in baseball (with Seattle’s Felix Hernandez) who has never appeared in the postseason. Sale, who is 14-4 with a 3.17 earned run average, has made five All-Star teams in a row. “I love exactly where I’m at,” he said. “I have an unbelievable group of guys in that clubhouse. We’re pulling for each other, through and through. So I’d like to stay here with this group of guys and make a push for the playoffs, because I love those guys, no doubt. And I think we deserve it.” The White Sox last reached the playoffs in 2008, two years before drafting Sale in the first round. As an organization, they are intensely loyal to employees and rarely concede to long-term rebuilding. Ventura, who played 10 seasons for the White Sox and was named manager in October 2011 with no experience in the role, said he expected no changes. Sale told MLB.com this week that he had wanted Ventura to fight for him in the flap over the untucked uniforms, which players found too loose in a throwback promotion last season. Sale said he had simply wanted a different throwback — the 1982-86 style, tucked in, with SOX across the front — and was dismayed that the team had prioritized business over player comfort. “No offense to anybody that disagrees with him,” infielder Tyler Saladino said, “but unless you know what it’s like to be Chris Sale and to go out only 33 or 34 times a season, with the competitive nature he has — obviously what he did is not right, but if you’re going to make him go out like that, his mind’s not going to be on the game. “Who wants that? Ask every fan, if they truly knew his mind was thrown off by that, they’d be like, ‘Get that jersey off him then — put the one he likes on,’ you know? Every person would say that. Nobody would say, ‘We want a picture of Chris Sale with an untucked jersey.’” The uniform episode was only the most recent example of Sale’s passion. In 2015, after a brawl with the Kansas City Royals, Sale tried to confront them in their clubhouse before a former teammate, Alex Rios, intervened. This spring, Sale berated Chicago’s executive vice president, Kenny Williams, after the sudden retirement of Adam LaRoche, who was asked to stop bringing his son to the clubhouse so often. “When the Adam LaRoche thing happened, everybody asked, ‘Who’s our leader?’ and I said, ‘There’s our guy right there,’” said third baseman Todd Frazier, who joined the White Sox in a trade last winter, referring to Sale. “I didn’t know if it was him for sure until that happened. He’s a leader, he’s a great pitcher, and he doesn’t necessarily need to talk. Once he gets out on the field, he just dominates. You look up to a guy like that.” Sale said he would speak with teammates and coaches individually — not to apologize, exactly, but to let them know his state of mind and thank them for their support. Ventura played down the need to repair relationships. “He’s a great kid — this hasn’t changed that,” Ventura said. “We’ve seen him do some really great stuff. I know I’ve done some stuff that I wouldn’t want people to know. We’re in an age where, with what he’s doing as his job, sometimes you don’t get that luxury.” Sale did not want to revisit specifics of the suspension after Thursday’s loss, or say what he regretted about it. The result — missing a start and forcing relievers to cover for him — did trouble him, he said, because he hates to let his teammates down. “My emotions, clearly, I pitch with a lot,” Sale said. “I’m a pretty competitive person. You just try to keep those in check maybe a little bit more — and use them, maybe not abuse them.” He added: “There’s no doubt that my emotions have gotten me to this point. I don’t think I’d be the same person without them.” The White Sox would not want him to be. Whatever is wrong with their roster, Sale is not the problem. In time, the uniform drama will simply be a colorful — if costly — curiosity on a stellar record. Blame Bill Veeck. An untucked baseball jersey is ridiculous, anyway.
|
Uniform;Baseball;White Sox;Chris Sale
|
ny0233699
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2010/08/12
|
As E-Books Gain, Barnes & Noble Tries to Stay Ahead
|
In the movie “You’ve Got Mail,” Tom Hanks played the aggressive big-box retailer Joe Fox driving the little bookshop owner played by Meg Ryan out of business. Twelve years later, it may be Joe Fox’s turn to worry. Readers have gone from skipping small bookstores to wondering if they need bookstores at all. More people are ordering books online or plucking them from the best-seller bin at Wal-Mart. But the threat that has the industry and some readers the most rattled is the growth of e-books. In the first five months of 2009, e-books made up 2.9 percent of trade book sales. In the same period in 2010, sales of e-books, which generally cost less than hardcover books, grew to 8.5 percent, according to the Association of American Publishers, spurred by sales of the Amazon Kindle and the new Apple iPad . For Barnes & Noble , long the largest and most powerful bookstore chain in the country, the new competition has led to declining profits and store traffic. After the company announced last week that it was putting itself up for sale, Leonard Riggio, Barnes & Noble’s chairman and largest shareholder, who has declared his confidence in the company’s future, hinted that he might make a play to buy the company himself and take it private. For readers, e-books have meant a transformation not just of the reading experience, but of the book-buying tradition of strolling aisles, perusing covers and being able to hold books in their hands. Many publishers have been astounded by the pace of the e-book popularity and the threat to print book sales that it represents. If the number of brick-and-mortar stores drops, publishers fear that sales will go along with it. Some worry that large bookstores will go the way of the record stores that shut down when the music business went digital. “The shift from the physical to the digital book can pick up some of the economic slack, but it can’t pick up the loss that is created when you don’t have the customers browsing the displays,” said Laurence J. Kirshbaum, a literary agent. “We need people going into stores and seeing a book they didn’t know existed and buying it.” Carolyn Reidy, the chief executive of Simon & Schuster, said in an interview that e-books currently made up about 8 percent of the company’s book revenue. She predicted that it could be as high as 40 percent within three to five years. “E-books are moving faster and faster all of the time, which makes things look harder for bricks-and-mortar stores,” said Mike Shatzkin, founder and chief executive of the Idea Logical Company, which advises book publishers on digital change. Iris Reeves, a 53-year-old administrative assistant in East Texas, is one of the bookstore holdouts. Nearly every weekend, she and her husband drive 60 miles to the nearest Barnes & Noble for a long browsing session. She buys several paperbacks (thrillers, science fiction and paranormal romance) and he buys nonfiction (with a few auto magazines thrown in). She has watched with alarm as dozens of bookstores, both independents and chains like Crown Books, have disappeared. Beyond Barnes & Noble and Borders, the only other retailers nearby that sell new books, she said, are religious bookstores. “I don’t want to lose the option of actually going into a bookstore and handling a book,” Ms. Reeves said. “I like going up and down the aisles, seeing what’s there. If I had my druthers, it would be paper books all the way.” Whoever ends up in control of Barnes & Noble’s 720 retail stores will have to grapple with the fundamental changes in the industry — and if the shift to e-books continues, prove that Barnes & Noble can be as successful on the digital side of bookselling as it has been for print. William Lynch, the chief executive, said in an interview on Friday that the chain was retooling its stores to build up traffic, add products like educational toys and games, and emphasize its own e-reader, the Nook. “We think we’ve got the right strategy,” Mr. Lynch said. “The growth in our e-books business is about nine months ahead of our plan.” It is a rare moment of uncertainty for the company. In the 1990s heyday of the superstore, Barnes & Noble reigned supreme, expanding its reach rapidly and dazzling customers with an enormous array of books and steep discounts that smaller, independent stores could not match. Mr. Riggio, a tough and innovative figure, was hailed as the most powerful man in the book business. “As Barnes & Noble grew, there was a lot that was very good for publishers and authors,” said David Steinberger, the chief executive of the Perseus Books Group. “They were energetic, they were aggressive, they were terrific on author events. They were terrific at broadening the selection available.” But recently, Barnes & Noble has had to contend with Amazon.com, which has led on e-books and whose vast selection of print books is available online. The release of Apple’s iPad in April only increased interest in e-books. “This company is going to go through a really fundamental existential struggle,” said Peter Osnos, the founder and editor at large of PublicAffairs, an independent publisher. “What you have is this aggregation of factors — the changes in the way book buying is taking place, the general sluggishness of the economy, the management issues at Barnes & Noble. All of those things together create a set of problems which are really quite striking.” At the expansive Barnes & Noble store in Manhattan’s Union Square, the changes sweeping the company and the industry are on full display. Shelves have been stripped bare to make room for toys and games, as a sign dangling from the ceiling cheerfully announces. “I’m in favor of anything that brings traffic in the store,” said Ms. Reidy of Simon & Schuster. “If it’s toys or games that brings a family into the bookstore, then I say fine.” The company is also taking significant steps to capture the digital market. In September, it will begin building 1,000-square-foot boutiques to showcase the Nook in all of its outlets. Samantha Robinson, a 24-year-old student, paused outside the Union Square store last week, a newly purchased Nook in her hand. “I’m going to buy as many books as I can on the e-reader, because they’re less expensive,” Ms. Robinson said. And if she stopped buying print books altogether? “I wouldn’t miss it,” she said. In a twist straight out of the movies, some publishers speculated that many of the independents that survived the big chains over the last 15 years might be in an unusually stable position. By the American Booksellers Association’s count, there are more than 2,000 independent bookstores in the United States. “Being small and privately held allows us to be more nimble,” said Chris Morrow, owner of the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vt. “Our competitive advantage has been the curation aspect — knowing our customers and picking the right books. “We still have that competitive advantage,” he added. “Barnes & Noble doesn’t have that.”
|
Electronic Books and Readers;Barnes & Noble Incorporated;Book Trade and Publishing
|
ny0169989
|
[
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] |
2007/05/27
|
A Lifetime in a Deli (With a Little Break to Be an Opera Star)
|
AFTER a “Closed” sign hung on the door for several months, a Hawthorne landmark is up and running again, just in time for a special milestone. Winzig’s Deli, owned and operated by Lilly Winzig, 84, reopened last month after cancer sidelined her for the winter. But Ms. Winzig, a Hawthorne native and former globetrotting opera star, will be celebrating the store’s 92nd anniversary on Memorial Day — sipping a Dewar’s on the rocks at a party in her honor next door at Gordo’s Restaurant. Ms. Winzig’s life story and the history of the hamlet are in many ways intertwined. Born in 1923, she was to be named Barbara, until an associate of the family named Rose Hawthorne Lathrop — a nun, the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne and the woman for whom Hawthorne is named — decided Lilly was a better fit. It was Easter, she reasoned, and the name just seemed right. Ms. Winzig was born at 429 Commerce Street, in the same building as the deli; she still lives there. Touring Europe as a young soprano half a century ago, she opted for the stage name Windsor, deciding her surname sounded too German in the post-Nazi era. A framed flyer from a performance shows reviews from Amsterdam, Rome and London; The New York Herald Tribune said she had “the stage presence of a diva.” “I’ve been everywhere,” she said. “But I was always homesick for Hawthorne.” Winzig’s Deli has been in the family since her parents opened it in 1915 (her mother used to cook for a duke and duchess in Vienna, she says). On the wall, there’s a framed black-and-white photo of the store, on a dirt road, the Winzigs lined up in front. A sign offers “Turkish Trophies” cigarettes. She has run the place since 1971, has never married and still refuses to hire help. “It’s always been a family-run store,” Ms. Winzig said. “If a customer needs to talk to someone here, I want them to know they’re talking to a Winzig.” Fourteen years after being treated for breast cancer, she received a bone cancer diagnosis in November. She took time off, then reopened April 9. She says she has cut her hours to 50 a week, from 90. “The doctor said I’m good for another 14 years,” Ms. Winzig said with a smile. At 84, she retains much of the glamour from her diva days; her silver hair is impeccably styled, her face framed by long, glittering earrings. Store traffic is a bit light these days, but Ms. Winzig says her customers turn up from all over Westchester — people who grew up on her homemade roast beef and ham, who now bring their families. On Monday, Ms. Winzig will assemble dozens of her closest friends to celebrate 92 years of Winzigs serving the people of Hawthorne. But she has her eye on a bigger milestone: “I want the store to get to be 100,” she says, “and I want to be there to see it.”
|
Westchester County (NY);Cancer
|
ny0197351
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2009/10/12
|
Louis Armando Peña Soltren Arrested in 1968 Hijacking
|
A fugitive who has been living in Cuba for four decades to avoid prosecution for his role in an airline hijacking surrendered to federal law enforcement authorities in New York on Sunday, ending his distinction of being one of the F.B.I.’s longest-known fugitives. Louis Armando Peña Soltren, 66, was arrested at 1:30 p.m. after debarking his plane from Havana, federal law enforcement officials said. An F.B.I. spokesman said Mr. Soltren had arranged his return to Kennedy International Airport with the F.B.I. and State Department because he wanted to see his family, including his wife, who lived in either Puerto Rico or Florida. The authorities declined to provide additional details about the arrangement. Nearly 41 years ago, Mr. Soltren had come to the very same airport, where he boarded Pan American Flight 281 bound for Puerto Rico on Nov. 24, 1968. As the plane was flying just south of Bermuda, carrying 96 passengers and seven crew members, Mr. Soltren stormed the cockpit with two other men, armed with guns and knives they had smuggled onboard in a baby’s diaper bag, according to the decades-old indictment. (It was signed by the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Robert M. Morgenthau, who was 49 at the time.) The men ordered the pilot to change course for Havana — a startlingly common occurrence at the time. In 1968, more than 30 planes were hijacked or attempted to have been hijacked to Cuba, including two that day. Passengers on the Pan Am flight described the plane being escorted by Cuban Air Force fighter jets as it approached the island. As it landed, Cuban soldiers cheered, according to news accounts at the time. One of the hijackers had scrawled inside the plane, “Long live free Puerto Rico.” Over the next decade, Mr. Soltren’s two accomplices were arrested and sentenced for their role in the hijacking, as they returned to the United States. But Mr. Soltren never left Cuba, where he was protected from prosecution. On an island full of fugitives from the United States government, he eventually became known as one of the longest staying guests. (In recent years the American government has estimated the number of federal fugitives in Cuba at about 70.) Last month, Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District, filed a request in United States District Court asking that the case against Mr. Soltren be activated, explaining: “The government believes that the defendant will be returning to the United States shortly.” In a statement, Mr. Bharara said that Mr. Soltren “will finally face the American justice system that he has been evading for four decades.” It was not immediately clear if the Cuban government played any role in Mr. Soltren’s return. He faces charges that include air piracy and kidnapping, and could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted on all counts, said a spokesman for the United States attorney’s office. He is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday. “It is an example of the principle that, for the F.B.I., fugitive cases don’t become closed cases until the fugitive is brought to justice,” Joseph M. Demarest Jr., the assistant director in charge of the F.B.I.’s New York office, said in a statement. The two other men charged in the hijacking, Jose Rafael Rios Cruz and Miguel Castro, were sentenced to 15 and 12 years in prison respectively for threatening the lives of flight crew members. Two other men were arrested in relation to the case, though charges were only brought against Alejandro Figueroa, who was acquitted in a bench trial in 1969. Mr. Figueroa was described then as a leader of the Puerto Rican Movement for Liberation.
|
Pan American Airways;Hijacking;Soltren Louis Armando Peña;Cuba
|
ny0236088
|
[
"us"
] |
2010/01/14
|
Administration Loosens Purse Strings for Transit Projects
|
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will make it easier for cities and states to spend federal money on public transit projects, and particularly on the light-rail systems that have become popular in recent years, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Wednesday. Administration officials said they were reversing guidelines put in place by the Bush administration that called for evaluating new transit projects largely by how much they cost and how much travel time they would save. Transit advocates have long complained that such cost-effectiveness tests have kept many projects from being built — especially light-rail projects, since streetcars are not fast — and made it much harder for transit projects to win federal financing than highway projects. Mr. LaHood said the administration would establish new guidelines that take what he called “livability” into account — evaluating projects not only by how much they shorten commutes but also by their environmental, community and economic benefits. “We’ll finally be able to make the case for investing in popular streetcar projects and other transit systems that people want — and that our old ways of doing business didn’t value enough,” Mr. LaHood said to thousands of engineers, academics and transportation officials attending the annual convention of the Transportation Research Board, a division of the National Research Council. Proponents of streetcars credit them with reviving cities as new housing, stores and businesses are built near the lines. They see streetcars as a step toward reversing suburban sprawl and reducing dependence on foreign oil. But opponents say that light-rail systems are simply too expensive to build and operate, given that comparatively few people ride them, and that the vast majority of Americans continue to commute by car — often between homes and jobs that are in the suburbs. Mr. LaHood spoke as Congress considers a second stimulus bill to try to create jobs and give more aid to states and the unemployed. In his remarks, the secretary said he hoped the Senate would soon take up a version of a stimulus bill that contained “a robust investment” in all aspects of transportation.
|
Transit Systems;Obama Barack;LaHood Ray;Cable Cars and Trams;American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009)
|
ny0217086
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2010/04/15
|
Arrest in Bryant Park Shoeshine Arsons
|
A 71-year-old shoeshiner, apparently angry that he was not permitted to work at a stand outside Bryant Park, set fire to it on two separate occasions in recent weeks, fire officials said Wednesday. The shoeshiner, John Edward Swain, was arrested by fire marshals and charged with two counts of arson. Mr. Swain, who lives in the Bronx, had also worked at a shoeshine stand in Grand Central Terminal, the authorities said. The case of the Bryant Park fires had been something of a mystery ever since the first one on March 22. In the middle of the night, the Bryant Park stand, near Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, on the north side of the New York Public Library, went up in flames. Investigators could find neither a motive nor a suspect, leading them to believe at the time that the fire may have been a random act of violence. But a few weeks later, at 1:15 a.m. on April 6, a replacement stand was consumed by flames as well. Firefighters arrived and put it out, and learned that witnesses had spotted a man standing in front of the booth as it burned. The man apparently turned and ran from the scene when the witnesses yelled at him. Jim Long, a spokesman for the Fire Department, said fire marshals had canvassed the area for video surveillance and received a few leads that led them to Mr. Swain. He said Mr. Swain had shined shoes by Bryant Park in the past but was told at some point that he could do so no longer. The shoeshine booth, owned by the Bryant Park Corporation, was being used by several vendors; they usually charge $5, $6 for boots. “He seemed to be upset about being told he couldn’t work those stands any longer,” Mr. Long said of Mr. Swain. After tracking down Mr. Swain and interviewing him at length, Mr. Long said, he eventually confessed. “Not to sound corny,” he said, “but it was just good old reliable police work.”
|
Arson;Bryant Park (NYC)
|
ny0202398
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2009/08/20
|
Cuts of Meat, With a Side of Culture
|
“Stick your hand in there,” said Jeffrey Ruhalter, offering the business end of a recently gutted chicken. “That bird was breathing three hours ago. Feel that warmth? That’s life .” It was not long after dawn, and Mr. Ruhalter — 54 and looking eerily like Steve Buscemi might if he were a long-haired butcher — was pacing behind his meat counter at the Essex Street Market, on the Lower East Side, reverently discussing living creatures, an odd topic given that so many dead ones surrounded him on the shelves. “Do you know what a butcher really is?” he asked, steepling his hands as if in prayer. “A butcher is a member of your family who makes sure that what goes into your children’s stomachs is fresh, healthy and precisely what they need to survive.” Epistemology had Socrates, and religion had Aquinas, but the great philosopher of the meat purveying business may be Mr. Ruhalter, an advocate for decency in eating and a fourth-generation butcher who construes his occupation in almost Platonic terms. There is no such thing, in his world, as a butcher who simply sells you sirloins on a Wednesday afternoon. A butcher gets involved in his community: He lectures (as Mr. Ruhalter does on New York City history); he welcomes food tours (does that, too); he writes recipe books (ditto); teaches classes on how to carve animals (a few times every week); hosts art shows at his counter (one of which attracted the director of the Guggenheim Museum); even stars in his own pending reality show on TV (more on that to come). “There’s no such thing as ‘just being a butcher’ anymore,” he says, adding a pair of air quotes — and the funny thing about this radically expansive vision of the job is that it’s usually expressed in the three feet between his carving counter and his display case, a space not only as tight, but as spartan, as a phone booth. As if to prove that a butcher should never be contained behind his counter, Mr. Ruhalter suddenly leaves his shop, Jeffrey’s Meat Market , walks straight into traffic — the cars come screeching to a halt — then strolls into the new hotel across the street, taking a croissant from the buffet and sitting among the diners eating breakfast to relate the story of his recent “recession dinners.” “I walked right in, like I did now, and told the guy, ‘I want to feed 100 people here, for free — you provide the space, I’ll provide the steaks.’ ” (Long story short: It happened.) “Community. That’s what I mean.” It’s a notion of the butcher’s trade fashioned over more than 50 years, beginning when Mr. Ruhalter was a child accompanying his father to the meatpacking district on West 14th Street. The memories (of big men pushing him on handcarts through hook-hung sides of beef) have given him a density, a sense of authenticity, that his customers seem to hunger for, even more than for his delectable cuts of meat. “I’m a piece of antiquity kept alive,” he says, which, of course, is what TV is hoping to catch. The show will follow Mr. Ruhalter not only behind his counter, but also on his various excursions through the neighborhood — the strangest of which came when he suddenly cut a thick steak from a short rib, speared it with a fork, walked outside and down the block to a nearby pizzeria, then, without a word to anyone — including the baffled staff — stepped behind the counter and gently laid the steak down sizzling on the grill. “Help yourself to a beverage from the cooler,” he casually suggested. “By the way, how do you like your meat?”
|
Meat Packers and Butchers;Lower East Side (NYC);Essex Street Market
|
ny0170407
|
[
"technology"
] |
2007/05/25
|
Coming Soon to Wal-Mart: 2 Dell PCs
|
Dell, in a first step toward transforming its ailing strategy of selling direct to consumers, said yesterday that it planned to offer computers at Wal-Mart Stores , starting in June. It is a tightly restrained move. The computer company will sell only two models of multimedia computers, from Dell’s low-end Dimension line, though they will be available in more than 3,000 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico, Wal-Mart said. The computers will sell for less than $700. The retailer said the two models would also be available in its Sam’s Club stores and outlets in Canada. The shift is as symbolic as it is substantive. Dell pioneered the direct-to-consumer sales model for made-to-order electronics, but has seen its growth falter in recent years with the rise in popularity of notebook PCs, which are challenging to customize and which customers like to touch and feel before buying. Michael S. Dell, the company’s founder, returned in late January as its chief executive, vowing to rethink the direct sales strategy he pioneered. The deal with Wal-Mart is the first step in that process, a Dell spokesman, Bob Pearson, said. Mr. Dell had signaled the change in a memo to employees last month. “The direct model has been a revolution, but it is not a religion,” he wrote. The spokesman declined to say what developments might be next, or when the company would announce further developments. In an interview this month, Alex Gruzen, Dell’s senior vice president in charge of PC sales, said, “If we do anything in retail, it will be incremental.” He said there was “no sense or perception” that the direct-sales model was broken. But the development comes as the overall computer market is growing while Dell’s own share of the market is falling. Dell has experimented with retail before. In the early 1990s, it sold through a number of mass merchants like Best Buy, Costco and Sam’s Club, but it ended that practice in 1994, citing low profit margins. Last May it said it would open two mall stores as a test, making them a hybrid of Dell’s direct strategy and a conventional electronics store. It displayed Dell products, but customers ordered a PC, television or printer online from the store. Products were delivered to the customer as if they had ordered from a PC at home, as most of its customers do. The company opened only one store, in a Dallas mall. The risk for Dell in selling through stores, analysts said, is shrinking profit margins because it has to share some of the profit with the retailer. The company, by virtue of selling only two low-end desktop computers through a single retailer, is unlikely to see a considerable material impact to its financial returns, said A. M. Sacconaghi, a securities analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. But analysts expect that Dell will continue to expand its efforts to sell through middlemen. Mr. Pearson, the Dell spokesman, declined to discuss the financial details of the deal or whether the company expected to see any deterioration of profit margins. Margins have been shrinking as the company tried a strategy of lowering prices to win back market share from Hewlett-Packard and Asian-based PC makers like Lenovo and Acer. Dell has said it plans to announce its financial results next Thursday for its fiscal first quarter ended May 4. The immediate financial impact aside, the deal is nevertheless a move in the right direction, said Samir Bhavnani, an analyst with Current Analysis West, a computer industry market research firm. “They got products on the shelf of the No. 1 retailer in the world,” Mr. Bhavnani said. He also said it indicated that the company was yielding to consumer demand for more interaction with the products. “Dell is finally listening to its customers.” Selling direct to consumers has given Dell considerable financial advantages. Not only did Dell not have the expense of retail stores or of paying retail partners, but custom-ordering of computers allowed Dell to keep lower inventories of parts and finished products. The drawback to that strategy came as notebooks surged in popularity. Dell’s customers have no place to see and test laptop computers before buying them. Particularly troubling for Dell has been its sales of notebooks; in the fourth quarter, it said its shipments rose only 2 percent, compared with a 20 percent growth in the market over that period in the United States. Mr. Bhavnani said he would have preferred an announcement that Dell would begin selling laptops at Wal-Mart stores. Still, he said, Dell might be well served in delaying such an offering as it improves the much criticized look and feel of its portables before putting them side-by-side against other manufacturers in a retail setting. Executives said the company was redesigning its product line and would be selling the new models this summer. “If they wait until they have more compelling products, the customers’ first experience will be better,” Mr. Bhavnani said. But there is also a risk to selling low-end desktop computers through Wal-Mart, said J. P. Gownder, an industry analyst with Forrester Research. Mr. Gownder said that Dell must be careful not to have its name brand become associated entirely with the value end of the personal computer market. “They don’t want to get their brand name too closely associated with Wal-Mart,” he said. Separate from its announcement with Wal-Mart, Dell said yesterday that it planned to sell three new computers — two desktops and one laptop — loaded with the Linux operating system. The company said it decided to offer the computers after receiving extensive feedback from consumers who wanted an alternative to the Microsoft operation system loaded on most personal computers sold for retail. Mr. Bhavnani said the new systems further demonstrated an effort by Dell to transform. “It shows an openness,” he said.
|
Dell Inc;Wal-Mart Stores Inc;Retail Stores and Trade;Sales
|
ny0255552
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2011/09/01
|
Yankees’ Hughes Fizzles in Chance to Remain in Rotation
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BOSTON — With his position in the rotation possibly at stake, and the game and first place hanging in the balance, a series of bizarre events conspired to turn an improved effort by Phil Hughes into an ultimately disappointing one. Hughes was clinging to a one-run lead Wednesday night when a fluttering moth entered the fray, and changed the course of the game, and perhaps the pennant race. One batter later, a ball did an amazing balancing act along the outfield retaining wall, allowing the Red Sox to tie the game on their way to a breezy 9-5 victory that extended their lead to a game and a half in the American League East. It happened so quickly. With one out in the sixth, Hughes was in the middle of his motion, about to release a 3-2 pitch to Josh Reddick, when the moth flew into his right eye. Hughes continued to throw the pitch, but it went well wide of catcher Francisco Cervelli, giving the Red Sox their first base runner of the inning. “Yeah, a moth flew in my eye on the 3-2 pitch,” Hughes acknowledged reluctantly. “That’s why I yanked it and missed my location by eight feet.” With Reddick on first, Red Sox Manager Terry Francona called for a hit-and-run play with Jason Varitek at the plate. Varitek ripped a sharp ground ball down the left-field line that refused to go foul. It sped along the line like a train on a track, and then, just as left fielder Brett Gardner moved into position to cut it off, it rolled up onto the top portion of the angled retaining wall of the left-field grandstand. It traversed the wall for a few feet, then dropped back onto the field and slipped past Gardner, rolling into the corner as Reddick scored to make it 5-5. “As long as this stadium has been here,” Gardner said, referring to the 99-year history of Fenway Park, “that’s probably never happened before.” As Hughes said, “That was the cherry on top of that inning.” But it wasn’t. Hughes got Marco Scutaro to pop up for the second out, then left in favor of Boone Logan. Jacoby Ellsbury greeted Logan with a two-run home run , one of three two-run shots the Red Sox hit. In addition to Ellsbury’s blast off Logan, David Ortiz hit one in the fifth off Hughes, and in the eighth Varitek hit one into the Red Sox’ bullpen off Luis Ayala. Hughes (4-5) started out well, and for a while kept the Yankees in the game. In his final start to make a definitive statement that he should retain his spot when the Yankees trim the rotation from six starters to five in the coming days, Hughes had decidedly mixed results. He allowed six runs for the second straight game, this time in five and two-thirds innings. Manager Joe Girardi was pleased with the outing, which he noted was a vast improvement over the previous one, in which he gave up the six runs in two and two-thirds innings. “I thought he threw the ball well,” said Girardi, who noted that the Red Sox were a stiff challenge for any pitcher. Girardi added that he would not yet announce a decision about whether Hughes will get another start. “Let’s just see what happens,” he said. On Thursday, A. J. Burnett has his chance to prove he still belongs in the rotation, although the Yankees say they will base their decision on much more than just the most recent starts. But current impressions do make a difference. Burnett faces the Boston left-hander Jon Lester, who is 14-6 with a 3.09 earned run average, with Burnett’s position in the rotation very much at stake. “It’s out of my hands,” Burnett said Wednesday afternoon, before quickly correcting himself. “I mean, it’s not out of my hands. Let me rephrase it. It’s not out of my hands. I can definitely take this opportunity to change some minds.” If he feels he needs to change minds, then perhaps Burnett feels the Yankees have already concluded that he should go to the bullpen. “It’s probably entered his mind,” Girardi said. Burnett has not done well against the Red Sox this year, allowing seven earned runs in five and two-thirds innings. He also had a terrible August, going 1-2 with an 11.91 E.R.A. Since joining the Yankees in 2009, his record in August is 1-10 with an 8.10 E.R.A. “It doesn’t matter what month it is,” Burnett said. “You’ve still got to execute.” INSIDE PITCH The Yankees will make some of their September call-ups on Thursday, and suggested that the catching prospect Jesus Montero would be one of them. Joe Girardi said that Montero would be a designated hitter, but that he would not be afraid to put him behind the plate, although not as a starter because of Montero’s inexperience catching the Yankees pitchers. ... Derek Jeter collected two hits and moved past Craig Biggio and into 20th place on the career list with 3,061 hits. ... Alex Rodriguez told Girardi his sprained left thumb was improved and he expected to swing a bat in practice Thursday for the first time since he aggravated the injury on Sunday. ... Russell Martin, who is recovering from a sore left thumb, did not start for the second straight game, but said he was improving.
|
Baseball;New York Yankees;Boston Red Sox;Hughes Phil;Burnett A J
|
ny0155857
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2008/06/18
|
A Museum Remembers Shoeless Joe Jackson
|
GREENVILLE, S.C. — Shoeless Joe Jackson died 57 years ago in the tiny, red-brick house on the edge of this city that he shared with his wife, Kate. It was in the 950-square-foot home that he endured the final 10 years of his life and the last of three decades banished from baseball for his role in fixing the 1919 World Series The home was lifted in 2006 from its foundation on East Wilburn Street, sliced from top to bottom, hauled three miles, and reassembled in a parking lot facing the Class A Greenville Drive’s ballpark. On Saturday, the house will reopen as the Shoeless Joe Jackson Baseball Museum and Library at 356 Field Street, the number an homage to his career batting average for the Philadelphia A’s, the Cleveland Naps turned Indians and the Chicago White Sox. He grew up here and played for the baseball team organized by the Brandon Mill, whose cotton lint he swept up as a child. Although it is expected to attract tourists to the city’s redeveloped downtown and west side, the miniature museum is really the passion of one woman who came to love his story. “We want the museum to be ground zero for Joe’s election to the Hall of Fame,” said Arlene Marcley, the president of the museum’s foundation, its curator, publicist and, she adds, its painter and housecleaner too. “We’re not here to argue the case,” she said, standing on the living room’s original pine floors. “We’re here to tell his story. And we don’t know the full story.” Here, his is not a tale of shame but instead one of civic pride in a local sports hero who always said he had done nothing to rig the 1919 World Series for the $5,000 he admitted receiving from gamblers, and who some say has served enough time in purgatory. “People here think if he’s guilty of anything, it was of being naïve,” said Craig Brown, a co-owner and president of the Greenville team, which was told by minor league officials not to call the team the Joes in his honor. A bronze statue near the ballpark depicts Jackson swinging toward the nearby Brandon Mill field that bears his name. The statue stands on bricks from old Comiskey Park, where he played from 1915 to 1920. Raised in Georgia, the 66-year-old Marcley had not heard of Jackson until a local petition began circulating in 1997 to make him eligible for election to the Hall of Fame. She became more interested when Ted Williams lobbied for Jackson to be removed from the permanently ineligible list. She began assembling exhibits about him at City Hall, where she is executive assistant to Mayor Knox White, and started raising $60,000 for the statue, which was sculpted in the City Hall lobby. “Whenever I heard the words, ‘Regardless of the verdict of juries,’ ” she said, shuddering slightly as she recited from Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis’s fiat in 1921 that barred Jackson and seven White Sox teammates even after a Chicago jury acquitted them of conspiracy to throw the 1919 World Series won by Cincinnati. “Landis was a stinker,” she said. The museum lacks Hall of Fame-quality artifacts, including his storied 48-ounce Black Betsy that a collector, Rob Mitchell of Pottstown, Pa., bought in 2001 for $577,610. But it features the house’s original fireplace, awnings, bathroom tub and mirror. There are vintage photographs, a whistle from the Brandon Mill, a short film, items from the Ty Cobb Museum in Royston, Ga., and 2,000 baseball books shelved on the pine walls of the original screened-in porch. There is some irony in the baseball library; Jackson could not read or write. “It’s important that education be central to the museum,” Marcley said. Admission is free but donations will be appreciated to augment the meager, privately financed budget. Marcley says there are enough Jackson fans to make this personal and passionate campaign succeed. “I have five men in my life,” she said. “My husband, my son, the mayor, Joel Poinsett,” — an 18th-century South Carolina statesman for whom the poinsettia is named — “and Shoeless Joe Jackson.” In nearby Simpsonville, Shoeless Joe’s 16-year-old great-great grand nephew, also named Joe Jackson, catches and bats left-handed for the Mauldin High School team. “I’ve think he was a great man,” Joe Jackson said at his family’s dining room table. “Humble. We don’t think he was guilty.” In his living room, a photograph of Shoeless Joe, in his left-handed stance, hangs above one of young Joe Jackson, also a left-handed batter. Young Joe’s mother, Linda, pointed to their similarities in the batter’s box, in particular the wide distance between their feet. Her son hit .387 this season swinging a 32-inch, 29-ounce aluminum bat for the varsity squad. “Joe has no real holes in his swing,” said his coach, Todd Robinson. “He adjusts.” Jackson said he does not brag about his family history. “My parents tell me, ‘Don’t say anything unless someone asks,’ ” he said. But, he said, his friends “think it’s cool.” During a recent class discussion of “The Great Gatsby,” which contains a reference to the Black Sox scandal, Jackson said his English teacher asked him to elaborate on the pock mark on early baseball. “I explained it to her, but she didn’t know I was related,” he said. His teacher, Ida Rainey, confirmed his story, saying: “It’s a common name. I’ve taught a lot of Jacksons.” The Jackson relatives living in the area seem content to let others argue Shoeless Joe’s case. His widow, Kate, told the family, “Just let it be,” said Linda Jackson. But local fans continue to believe in him. “The main thing that keeps him alive is he hit .356 and people intuitively think that someone that great should be recognized by baseball,” said Gene Carney, who wrote “Burying the Black Sox: How Baseball’s Cover-Up of the 1919 World Series Fix Almost Succeeded” (Potomac, 2006). Last year, the Chicago History Museum acquired an archive of documents about the Black Sox case. Peter T. Alter, a curator who has examined the papers, few of which have been seen publicly, said, “There’s no smoking gun that implicates someone new or exonerates anyone.” The uncertainty about Jackson’s culpability in the conspiracy, beyond accepting a lot of cash for the era, motivates supporters like Marcley to advocate having the veterans committee of the Baseball Hall of Fame decide if he is worthy of election. “Baseball should just say it no longer has any authority over Joe,” Marcley said in the bedroom he died in, “and let him be on the ballot.”
|
Jackson Shoeless Joe;Baseball;Museums;South Carolina
|
ny0153538
|
[
"nyregion",
"thecity"
] |
2008/01/27
|
A Man, a Weapon and a Street on Edge
|
AROUND closing time on dark winter evenings, the boutiques of Broadway are incandescent islands among the fluorescent-lit banks and drugstores of the Upper West Side. On Monday, two shop owners from the neighborhood stood in the pool of light cast by Bazaar de la Paz, a store at West 101st Street that sells handmade furniture carved from salvaged wood. They were examining a police sketch taped to the door. “All the women store owners are talking to each other,” said Karin Alexis, who owns an eponymous baby-clothing store near West 97th Street. Ms. Alexis is among the Upper West Side store owners who have lately been rattled by a series of robberies. According to the police, since Nov. 15, six shops on Broadway between 97th and 113th Streets have been robbed, apparently by the same person. One of the businesses, an Aerosoles store at 113th Street, was robbed twice. In most cases, a woman was working the counter alone at the time of the robbery. “I’m like, ‘Work out your issues with your mother someplace else?’ ” said Carole Puzone, the owner of Bazaar de la Paz, who was behind the counter when the store was robbed on Jan. 2. Ms. Puzone said that “an older man with an accent” entered the store about 6 p.m., pulled out a gun and forced her to empty the cash register. “He was very calm,” Ms. Puzone said. She declined to disclose how much cash was taken, but she said, “It was just after Christmas, so there was more money around than usual.” On Thursday, the Police Department released a sketch of the suspect, along with a statement describing him as a Hispanic man 45 to 55 years old and about 5 feet 4 inches tall. Many local store owners said they were struck by the robber’s brazenness. “He’s roaming around, no mask, no nothing,” Ms. Puzone said, leaning against a case of Colombian necklaces and earrings hand-carved from nuts. “He’s blending in.” On Monday evening, she was outside her store waiting for workers who were to install a security camera. She had considered, but rejected, the idea of installing a buzz-in lock. Such a device was not her style. “Who wouldn’t I buzz in?” she said. “And even if I were going to keep somebody out, it wouldn’t be this guy. He looked like a professor.”
|
Robberies and Thefts;Upper West Side (NYC);Crime and Criminals
|
ny0208030
|
[
"business"
] |
2009/06/24
|
Protein Sciences, a Vaccine Maker, Wins Federal Contract
|
A small biotechnology company facing possible bankruptcy and liquidation has been awarded a $35 million federal contract to develop a faster way to make vaccines for pandemic influenza. The award of the contract to the Protein Sciences Corporation of Meriden, Conn., was announced on Tuesday by the Department of Health and Human Services. But only a day earlier, creditors filed a petition in federal bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Del., seeking to force Protein Sciences into bankruptcy and liquidation, saying they were owed $11.7 million. Almost all of that money is owed to Emergent BioSolutions , a vaccine company in Rockville, Md., that lent Protein Sciences $10 million last year in advance of the pending acquisition of virtually all the assets of Protein Sciences by Emergent. The acquisition deal fell apart, and Emergent sued Protein Sciences and its top executives, accusing them of fraud and breach of agreements. The series of events raises questions about whether the government is entrusting part of the nation’s influenza defense to a financially shaky or untrustworthy company. Conversely, the award of the contract could put Emergent into an uncomfortable light for trying to force into bankruptcy a company with promising vaccine technology. Robin Robinson, director of the branch of Health and Human Services that will administer the contract, said the government had spent months doing “two very thorough financial audits” of Protein Sciences. “It was determined that they were healthy enough to go forward with development of this vaccine,” he said. Health authorities are scrambling to come up with enough vaccine to protect the world’s population against the recently declared pandemic of swine flu , which has killed more than 230 people worldwide and sickened more than 52,000. They are worried that the death toll from the strain might rise sharply this winter. “I can’t imagine what legitimate purpose can be served by trying to close the company,” Daniel D. Adams, the chief executive of Protein Sciences, said in an interview on Tuesday. Mr. Adams said that Emergent’s suit was without merit and that its actions were making it difficult for Protein Sciences to attract new investors. But Daniel J. Abdun-Nabi, president and chief operating officer of Emergent, said that bankruptcy “doesn’t destroy the product, and it doesn’t destroy the technology.” It might result in the technology’s being sold to a stronger company, like his own or others, he said. Emergent, which makes the anthrax vaccine used by the armed forces, says it has been more than patient in giving Protein Sciences a chance to pay back the loan. Protein Sciences is one of several small companies trying to make influenza vaccines by methods that are faster than growing them in chicken eggs, the technique now generally used. Instead of growing whole viruses, Protein Sciences produces just a protein from the virus and it does so in genetically modified insect cells. The company, which is privately held, has already applied to the Food and Drug Administration for approval of a seasonal flu vaccine. And last week, Mr. Adams said, the company made its first 100,000 doses of a vaccine against the new swine flu. The federal contract will help Protein Sciences develop its technology and obtain F.D.A. approval. It can be extended up to five years for a total cost of $147 million. If the technology is proved safe and effective and is licensed by the F.D.A, the contract calls for Protein Sciences to establish domestic manufacturing capacity, to provide a finished vaccine within 12 weeks of the onset of a pandemic and to produce at least 50 million doses of a pandemic flu vaccine within six months. Mr. Robinson of Health and Human Services said that for the current pandemic, the Protein Sciences vaccine might be used as a backup to those being supplied by larger companies.
|
Vaccination and Immunization;Influenza;Emergent BioSolutions Incorporated;Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures;Protein Sciences Corporation;Biotechnology
|
ny0136424
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2008/04/25
|
A Man of High Style and Punk Tastes
|
JUST back from a downtown photo shoot for the Chuck Taylor sneakers he designs for Converse — those lucrative laceless ones were his invention — John Varvatos saunters into his Chelsea headquarters wearing a pair of limited-edition python-embossed black leather sneakers. Flashy as spats, but infinitely more practical. Because? Because they’re washable, explains Mr. Varvatos, who has twice won his industry’s ultimate accolade, Menswear Designer of the Year (2001 and 2005). Not that Mr. Varvatos, 53, is in this fishbowl industry for the awards. They’re nice, sure, but his idea of fun is rigging a wire into the lapel of a cotton canvas military jacket and, with one tug, making its wearer appear strategically disheveled. He demonstrates. “When you do men’s wear, it’s less about thinking outside the box than about pushing the walls of the box outward,” he theorizes. “Men want to be evolutionary, not revolutionary.” John Varvatos Enterprises, which started in 2000 with a rebellious “black-less collection,” has evolved into an $80 million juggernaut. He plops onto a distressed-leather armchair and extends his legs, the better to display his footgear. These particular sneakers, available only at his much-ballyhooed new store at 315 Bowery, have laces, and, in a rare nod to convention, Mr. Varvatos, whose style icon is Steve McQueen, favors keeping them laced. His hang-up with most conventions dates to his Detroit adolescence: his parents forbade him to grow his hair long like the rock stars he worshiped and, when Mom and Dad weren’t looking, emulated. Had he had any talent as a guitarist, the python sneakers, as well as the cotton-knit boxer briefs — a men’s underwear breakthrough he conjured by butchering a pair of long johns while working for Calvin Klein in the early 90s — might never have existed. How cool it is that these days he not just outfits, but hangs out with, the same rockers he once idolized, including Detroit’s own Iggy Pop. A bigger hoot? This month he opened his newest, and the Bowery’s first, clothing and lifestyle boutique on the site of the dearly departed punk-rock club CBGB, where he saw the Ramones in 1979. Not yet a designer, he was an owner of a men’s clothing store in Grand Rapids, Mich. He made the trek to New York expressly to see the Ramones and CBGB, whose tattooed interior walls are an integral part of his vision for the store. DESPITE the presence of pickets and an angry online campaign by Bowery traditionalists, Mr. Varvatos giddily presided over the April 17th opening of his offbeat boutique, where the wares include vintage vinyl records and the high-end audio equipment necessary to play them. He understands the negative reaction, but insists it is misplaced. “I walked into that space not so much looking for a retail opportunity, but as a fan with a reverence for the history that happened there,” he says. “No, we don’t sell $10 shirts and we aren’t punk, but I don’t feel like I have to make excuses for bringing a fashion store to the Bowery. If some other tenant — like a bank or a deli, you name it — had taken over the space, would they have preserved the walls? Would they stage free monthly concerts? The decision to move into CBGB’s wasn’t about ringing the cash register.” Chances are good that no other designers accessorize their offices with a custom-made, sky-blue Fernandes electric guitar used by Velvet Revolver and autographed by a cast of characters like Slash, Iggy Pop and Scott Weiland, whose jotting was in pacifist mode: “Make love not war with people.” Mr. Varvatos, who has two grown children from his first marriage, took Mr. Weiland’s advice to heart. He and his wife, Joyce, an art consultant who talked him into moving to the Upper East Side (“It’s not my world,” he says), are expecting their first child in August, just after he expands his empire to San Francisco and Malibu. “Insanity” is his preferred business pace. “I kind of walk to my own beat,” he says. “I don’t think I designed a single piece of clothing until I was 29, which is late. I wasn’t a cookie-cutter person.” Mr. Varvatos still owns the leather biker jacket he bought as a freshman at Eastern Michigan University. He supported himself there and at the University of Michigan — where he earned a degree in education — as a sales clerk at men’s clothing stores. When he graduated, he realized he would rather sell clothes than teach science. He joined Polo Ralph Lauren in 1983, jumped ship for Calvin Klein in 1990, and returned to Polo in 1995 as head of men’s wear design. Mr. Lauren is, he says, a mentor and a friend: “Ralph was the first to really create a brand out of a personal style. He nailed it and he owns it.” Mr. Varvatos, who describes himself as a sponge but not a copycat, has staked out his own turf. “I try to do clothes for guys who want to look masculine but who don’t want to have to worry about looking like a fashion victim every time they walk out of the house.” About keeping that python footwear tied: It makes for surer steps through the urban jungle by he-men who can afford to drop $295 on sneakers. Mr. Varvatos, all in black except for his stubble, which is gray, is the brand. Get the message? O.K., but don’t expect to get a pair of those sneakers. He made just 18 pairs, all for the Bowery store, and sold 17 of them. The 18th, in size 11? On his feet.
|
Varvatos John;Apparel;Bowery (NYC);CBGB
|
ny0181435
|
[
"technology"
] |
2007/06/21
|
Yahoo Buying a High School and College Sports Network
|
SAN FRANCISCO, June 20 — Just one day after the management shake-up at Yahoo , the company’s board was called on to make a decision that had nothing to do with the resignation of Terry S. Semel as chief executive or the appointment of the co-founder Jerry Yang to succeed him. The board voted Tuesday to approve the acquisition of Rivals.com , an online network focused on college and high school sports, a deal the company plans to announce today. The move is intended to bolster Yahoo’s position as an online destination for sports fans, where it competes with ESPN.com , Foxsports. com and others. It is not a major acquisition. But Yahoo executives said buying another content provider underscores the company’s commitment to its media group, based in Santa Monica, Calif., whose strategy has shifted over time and whose future has been a subject of speculation since its chief, Lloyd Braun, left in December. “We are very serious about leading in the media space,” said Scott Moore, senior vice president for news and information at Yahoo. “This deal will help us connect with the college and high school sports fan.” Yahoo executives would not disclose the price of the acquisition, but individuals close to the company put it at around $100 million. Yahoo hired Mr. Braun, a former ABC executive, in 2004, in part to set up a studio to produce original text and video content. But the scope of Mr. Braun’s ambitions were scaled back as he clashed over budgets with top executives at Yahoo headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. He left in December amid a companywide reorganization. Since then, other executives in the media group, including those who ran music, health and food Web sites, have left. Since the departure of Mr. Braun, responsibility for the media group has been divided between Mr. Moore and Vince Broady, who is senior vice president for entertainment. Both report to Jeff Weiner, one of Mr. Semel’s protégés, who is responsible for much of the content and services on the Yahoo portal. The company is not seeking to replace Mr. Braun. Mr. Moore said criticism of the media group was misplaced. Yahoo has been bolstering its offerings, licensing content from a variety of top media partners like ABC, CBS and Fox. Yahoo is the most visited destination for news and finance, Mr. Moore noted. In sports, Yahoo ranked second, with 15 million visitors, to ESPN.com’s 17.5 million visitors in May, according to comScore, a Web audience measuring firm, but its audience is growing at more than twice the rate than that of ESPN.com. Explaining the departure of executives in the media group, Mr. Moore said: “Obviously Yahoo is going through a time of transition. Some people are O.K. with that and others decide to pursue their careers elsewhere.” People close to the media group say Yahoo deserves credit for strengthening the basic technology and design behind many of the media Web sites, but that many of the sites could have been far more successful with more investment. Yahoo’s strength has been as a distributor of content, said Barry Parr, a market analyst at Jupiter Research. “They understand how to license other people’s content, and they have been doing a really good job of that,” he said. “Where they have stumbled is when they have tried to become original content producers.” Despite the wide appeal of its media sites, one of Yahoo’s challenges is that its audience is typically older than that of popular social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and even YouTube, said Stewart Barry, a securities analyst with Think- Equity Partners. “Where most investors are concerned is the relevance of Yahoo 5 to 10 years from now,” Mr. Barry said. Rivals.com would help Yahoo tap a younger demographic, Mr. Moore said. With 1.4 million visitors in May, Rivals.com was the 19th most visited sports site, according to comScore, but its audience declined 14 percent from a year earlier. Rivals.com said it had 185,000 subscribers who pay $100 a year, or $10 a month, for access to premium content and features on the site. Rivals.com currently syndicates its content to various sites, including Yahoo, AOL Sports and SI.com . Yahoo said it would reconsider those deals one by one, as some involve Yahoo Sports rivals. The Web site paidContent.org reported in April that Yahoo and Rivals were close to a deal.
|
Yahoo Inc;Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures;Rivals.com;Athletics and Sports;Computers and the Internet
|
ny0049944
|
[
"us"
] |
2014/10/18
|
Before Ebola, New Czar Handled Political Crises
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WASHINGTON — Ron Klain wanted Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. to prepare for the worst. So as he coached Mr. Biden through weeks of preparations for his vice-presidential debates in 2008, he assembled a notebook filled with questions — and calculated the precise percentage chance that each one would be asked. “Ron could anticipate the questions to be asked of the candidate within a range of about 95 percent,” said Tom Donilon, President Obama’s former national security adviser and Mr. Klain’s partner during that round of debate preparations. Now Mr. Klain, named on Friday by the president to be the administration’s Ebola response coordinator, will have to put his knack for anticipating worst-case scenarios to work on what has rapidly become not just a public health mess for the White House, but a political one. A seasoned crisis-response operative and veteran of Democratic administrations and campaigns, Mr. Klain, 53, is charged with managing the federal efforts to monitor and contain the deadly virus that has touched off a wave of anxiety in the United States and raised questions about the competence of Mr. Obama’s administration. Image Ron Klain, a former chief of staff for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., in 2008. Credit Revolution, via Associated Press After Mr. Biden was elected vice president, Mr. Klain became his chief of staff, the same job he had served in under Al Gore. He is known for his ability to handle high-stakes and fast-moving political and policy challenges. Mr. Klain was the lead Democratic lawyer for Mr. Gore during the 2000 election recount, and was later played by Kevin Spacey in “Recount,” the HBO drama about the disputed contest. His appointment came as Mr. Obama and his team stepped up their efforts to monitor Ebola, which has sown mounting fear among the public despite having infected only three people in the United States. It has also intensified criticism of the Obama administration’s management of a major national challenge, fueled in recent days by reports that two health care workers were infected while caring for an Ebola-afflicted patient at a Dallas hospital, and one worker who subsequently flew on an airplane with a fever. “What we were looking for is not an Ebola expert but rather an implementation expert, and that’s exactly what Ron Klain is,” said Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary. “He is somebody who has extensive experience in the federal government. He’s somebody that has extensive management experience when it comes to the private sector.” Mr. Klain, who left Mr. Biden’s office in 2011, is currently the president of Case Holdings and the general counsel at Revolution L.L.C., companies that were founded by Steve Case, the former chief executive of AOL. Video Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said President Obama had tapped Ron Klain, a chief of staff for two vice presidents, to coordinate the government’s response to the Ebola outbreak. Credit Credit Kevin Lamarque/Reuters Now, Mr. Earnest said, he will be focusing “100 percent of his time on coordinating this whole-of-government response.” The appointment drew criticism from congressional Republicans who said Mr. Klain — who has no record or expertise in Ebola specifically or public health in general — was the wrong person for the job. “Ebola is a health crisis, yet the president has appointed as his new Ebola ‘czar’ a partisan loyalist whose expertise is politics — not health,” said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama. “One would think, faced with the prospect of an epidemic, the president would task an expert in epidemiology, not an expert in political spin.” Yet some former co-workers said Mr. Klain is uniquely positioned to help Mr. Obama get tighter control of a multifaceted government effort to combat Ebola’s spread, and rein in a story that has spiraled out of the White House’s control. “He can see 10 steps ahead, and he’s got the leadership skills, the management skills and the substantive knowledge to figure out how to get in front of this — get out of a reactive stance and into a proactive stance,” said Stephanie Cutter, a former senior White House adviser. “He’s able to solve problems before they happen.” He is also known, including by Republicans, as someone who is empowered to make key decisions and cut deals. John Ullyot, a Republican strategist and communications consultant who worked with him in the private sector and on Capitol Hill, said it was Mr. Klain who met privately with Arlen Specter, the former Pennsylvania senator, to persuade him to switch his party affiliation in 2009 from Republican to Democrat. “Bringing him in is a clear signal to Washington that you have a real decision-maker with the ear of the president to be able to walk in and get a very quick decision on the thorniest issue,” said Mr. Ullyot. Former colleagues say Mr. Klain has a track record of successfully dispatching with knotty problems, policy or political. They point to his work helping Mr. Biden oversee the $787 billion stimulus package, although the initiative has also earned him criticism, since it gave rise to a deal with the solar-panel company Solyndra, which went bankrupt after receiving $535 million in federal loan guarantees. “Ron will hit the ground running,” Mr. Donilon said. “He has deep relationships, he can master huge amounts of information quickly, pull together a staff quite quickly and well, and he will be able to operate at the cabinet level.” Mr. Klain, a graduate of Harvard Law School who was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White, will report directly to Lisa O. Monaco, Mr. Obama’s counterterrorism adviser and Susan E. Rice, his national security adviser.
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Ebola;Ronald A Klain;Appointments and Executive Changes
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ny0266064
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[
"nyregion"
] |
2016/03/16
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Ronell Wilson, Killer of 2 Detectives, Will Not Face Death Penalty
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After years of emotional legal wrangling, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday that a member of a violent drug gang who killed two undercover detectives on Staten Island more than a decade ago will not face the death penalty. Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of Federal District Court in Brooklyn wrote in a decision marked by notes of hesitation that the gang member, Ronell Wilson , was ineligible for execution because he was considered to be intellectually disabled under a relatively recent Supreme Court ruling. Mr. Wilson, 33, was convicted in 2006 of shooting Detectives Rodney J. Andrews and James V. Nemorin at point-blank range during a sting operation to buy guns in 2003. In 2007, a jury sentenced Mr. Wilson to death by lethal injection, but that decision was set aside three years later by a federal appellate panel, which found that a prosecutor had violated Mr. Wilson’s right not to testify by telling jurors that if Mr. Wilson had felt remorse, he would have taken the stand. Because of the brutal nature of the killings, which was never questioned by the appellate panel, the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York decided again in 2010 to seek the death penalty against Mr. Wilson and, again, it was successful. Before the sentence was announced, Mr. Wilson impregnated a guard at the federal jail where he was being imprisoned. And when Judge Garaufis took the bench to issue the second sentence, he also made an angry statement, saying he was “shocked” that Mr. Wilson had managed to carry on an affair with the guard and to turn the jail into his “personal fiefdom.” Judge Garaufis’s ruling that Mr. Wilson was ineligible for execution was largely because of a subtlety in Hall v. Florida , a 2014 Supreme Court decision that found that both I.Q. and so-called adaptive functions like communication and social skills must be considered when determining if a defendant is legally disabled. While the judge did conclude that Mr. Wilson had poor adaptive functions and was in fact disabled — which bars him under the law from execution — he came to his conclusion with a palpable reluctance. “To be candid,” the judge wrote, “the court harbors doubt as to whether Wilson would be considered intellectually disabled by most clinicians. However, the Supreme Court’s decision in Hall strongly suggests that the legal standard for intellectual disability” had become “more protective than the clinical standard.” Nellin McIntosh, a spokeswoman for the United States attorney’s office , declined to comment on the decision. Michael J. Palladino, the president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association , said he was disappointed. “An awful lot of calculated thought went into Wilson’s coldblooded actions as well as his attempt to avoid capture,” Mr. Palladino said. “That hardly spells out mental incapacity.” Image Ronell Wilson Credit U.S. Attorney's Office, via Associated Press The Staten Island district attorney, Michael E. McMahon, said in a statement, “This is a case that will forever resonate on Staten Island, in New York City and within the N.Y.P.D.,” adding, “Our thoughts are with the families of these two detectives and their entire N.Y.P.D. family at this time.” Mr. Wilson’s lawyer, David Stern, praised Judge Garaufis’s ruling. “It was a well-reasoned decision,” Mr. Stern said. “It should make everyone proud that we, as a country, don’t execute people who are intellectually disabled.” A large portion of the 76-page document was devoted to a recitation of the numerous traumas that Mr. Wilson suffered and how they were evidence of his mental disability. Born to an alcoholic father and a mother who smoked crack while pregnant, Mr. Wilson was placed in foster care at age 5. By 6, he was throwing tantrums at school and assaulting his peers so frequently that he had to be restrained by teachers. Before he turned 10, he had been hospitalized three times for psychiatric evaluations after trying to jump out of a window and for standing in the middle of traffic on a busy city street. Judge Garaufis wrote that Mr. Wilson’s criminal life began at age 12, when he was arrested on a charge of throwing a bottle at a police car. His record, according to the ruling, also included arrests on charges of robbery and selling drugs to an undercover officer. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Mr. Wilson, then 19, was hired by a temporary agency to remove debris from ground zero, but he worked just three days. His Social Security records, Judge Garaufis noted, indicated total lifetime earnings of $38. On March 10, 2003, Mr. Wilson, who had by then become a member of a drug gang called the Stapleton Crew, was negotiating an illicit gun deal, unaware at first that the apparent buyers — Detectives Andrews and Nemorin — were undercover officers. But as the detectives drove with him through Staten Island, using crude language to preserve their cover, Mr. Wilson began to suspect that something was amiss. He eventually shot both men in the backs of their heads with a pistol. “The record of Wilson’s life,” Judge Garaufis wrote, “shows a deeply disturbed and intellectually limited child who became a deeply disturbed, intellectually limited and ruthlessly violent young man.” But the judge made clear he did not want to excuse or minimize the “cruelty and depravity” of the killings by issuing a ruling that spared Mr. Wilson’s life. He also acknowledged, “with great sadness,” the pain his decision would cause the detectives’ families. “Having presided over this tragic case for more than a decade,” he wrote, “the court quite frankly finds it impossible to muster any sense of sympathy for this defendant.”
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Murders and Homicides;Ronell Wilson;Attacks on Police;Capital punishment;Rodney J Andrews;James V Nemorin;Intellectual Disabilities;Nicholas G Garaufis;Brooklyn;NYC
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ny0219627
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[
"nyregion"
] |
2010/05/13
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A Sensei Brings Karate to Harlem Youth
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Abdul Aziz, a martial arts practitioner for 45 years and a karate sensei for 25, likens his hands to two protective, potentially deadly weapons. Mr. Aziz, 53, who grew up in Claremont Village in the South Bronx, began practicing at age 8. For the last decade he has taught karate to children at the Harlem Children’s Zone’s Truce Nutrition and Fitness Center. (“Truce” stands for The Renaissance University for Community Education.) He also teaches for the New York City Housing Authority . He lives in the Bronx. The no-frills karate kid: I was this Chihuahua type of kid, a big mouth with a little body and a fighter’s attitude. Thank God I got into martial arts, because all my energies was negative; I wasn’t a bully, but I did fight a lot. It was a tough, gang-riddled neighborhood; for a time, I was in the Black Spades. Brother as teacher: My older brother, Yahkie Allah Sensei, was the ultimate street fighter. I learned my first karate from him. By 16, I was teaching in my own dojo in the perambulator room at the projects, you know, where the baby strollers and bicycles were kept. They let us use it for classes. Karate masters who mattered most: Besides my brother, it was Derrick Williams: in 1978 he took me to my first tournament and helped me to visualize winning. Of course there was Grand Master Reno Morales, and Grand Master Nathaniel McBride. And Abdul Hakim Bilal. He gave me my aikido training and got me off the streets and into competitions in my teens when I was on the wrong path. Now I’m a sixth-degree black belt in five different martial arts systems. Do no harm: I hit somebody on the street, I go to jail in five seconds. Setbacks: My worst injuries are a compressed radial nerve that paralyzed my hand for a year; a stroke in 1999; another stroke in 2006 that left me with blood vessel damage in my head, so I had to quit fighting in 2007. Sensei of many names: My born name is Charles E. Williams Jr. I changed it to Kendu Allah when I was 12 and thought I was God. I was a Muslim, but not a true Muslim. My father was on his deathbed when my youngest son was born 21 years ago, and he begged me to call him Charles E. Williams III, so I did. No, my son hasn’t changed his name! I have five biological children and four steps. I’ve been divorced twice. In 1993, I went to a service at the mosque, and it was like the imam was speaking to me, like God sent me a message through him; that’s when I changed my name to Abdul Aziz and became a full-fledged Muslim. Only Allah is Allah. Dojo etiquette: Anybody can teach someone how to kick and punch someone else in the face. I call what I do positive effect training. My biggest thrill is that over 300 of my students went on to college after they left me. None of the males in my class can wear their pants hanging off their butt: I am like an Olympic coach about that. No negativity. No bitterness. Sure, my kids are dangerous: I’ve got little 8-year-old girls in my class who could knock a grown man out. And good for them; it keeps them safe on the streets. But karate also teaches character. Karate is the art of fighting without actually fighting. Or starting the fight. Karate ni sente nashi: there is no first attack in karate.
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Harlem (NYC);Karate;Martial Arts
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ny0210506
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[
"business",
"media"
] |
2009/12/14
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Accounts, People & Miscellany
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Accounts, People & Miscellany Accounts ¶Pizza Hut, Wichita, Kan., part of Yum Brands, named the Martin Agency, Richmond, Va., a unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies, as its lead creative agency, assuming duties that had been handled by BBDO New York, part of the BBDO Worldwide unit of the Omnicom Group. Spending was estimated at $275 million. Martin was selected after a review that had been narrowed to that agency and Gotham, New York, also owned by Interpublic; BBDO New York withdrew from the review. ¶Capital One Bank, part of the Capital One Financial Corporation, McLean, Va., expanded its relationship with Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners, New York, part of MDC Partners, by awarding the agency assignments for print, radio, digital, out-of-home and nontraditional advertising. Spending was not disclosed. The tasks had been handled internally and by several outside agencies. DDB Worldwide, New York, part of the Omnicom Group, continues to handle television advertising for the bank. A unit of Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal works on direct-marketing and digital assignments for the bank’s credit cards division. ¶The Winston-Salem, N.C., office of Mullen, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, was named to handle accounts for two advertisers with undisclosed spending. The office becomes agency of record for the United States and Canadian markets for Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Winston-Salem. The assignment, which includes creative work along with media planning and buying, had been handled internally. And the office was named the North American agency of record for Kumon Math and Reading Centers, Teaneck, N.J., part of the Kumon Institute of Education Company of Japan, to handle tasks like advertising, public relations, media and digital work. The previous agency for Kumon was Vox Marketing, Boston. ¶The Chrysler Group, Auburn Hills, Mich., shifted two assignments that had been handled by units of the Omnicom Group. Media planning and buying for the Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram brands in the United States, Canada and Mexico will be handled by Universal McCann, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies. Spending for the assignment, previously handled by the PHD unit of Omnicom, has not been determined; the company has been reducing its ad spending significantly. Universal McCann will work on the assignment primarily from Detroit, with the help of offices in New York and San Francisco. And the Chrysler Group expanded its relationship with the Meredith Corporation by awarding the company’s Meredith Integrated Marketing unit the duties for customer relationship management in the United States and Canada. The assignment, with undisclosed billings, had been handled by the Troy, Mich., office of BBDO Worldwide, part of Omnicom. Meredith already publishes custom magazines for the Chrysler Group. ¶Orbitz Worldwide, Chicago, which shifted its creative account in June to Trailer Park, Hollywood, Calif., from Mullen, Boston, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, placed the assignment in review and invited those two agencies to take part. Spending was estimated at $60 million. The review came after the arrival at Orbitz last month of a new vice president for brand marketing, Deborah Italiano. ¶The Sun Products Corporation, Wilton, Conn., chose Mindshare, New York, part of the GroupM division of WPP, as its media agency of record, handling planning and buying for brands like All, Snuggle, Sunlight and Wisk. Spending was not disclosed. Mindshare had previously handled those duties on an interim basis after Sun acquired the North American fabric-care business of Unilever; Mindshare had been the media agency for that business, which included brands like All, Snuggle and Wisk. ¶The Lescoja Corporation, Marana, Ariz., which makes men’s skin-care products, named Unit 7, New York, part of the Omnicom Group, to handle digital tasks like the introduction of a Web site for the Matte for Men line ( matteformen.com ). Spending was not disclosed. People ¶Matthew Charlton, managing director of the Amsterdam office of Modernista, Boston, was named worldwide president of the agency as the Amsterdam office was closed. He succeeds Clift Jones, who becomes worldwide chief operating officer. Also, Matt Howell, director for digital production, was named chief interactive officer, and Chris Wallrapp, director for client service, was named chief marketing officer. The personnel moves are part of changes as Modernista prepares for life after losing its Cadillac and Hummer creative assignments from the General Motors Corporation. ¶John Norman will join the Martin Agency, Richmond, Va., part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, as chief creative officer, effective in February. For his first year at Martin, he will share the title with Mike Hughes, who is also president, while assuming day-to-day responsibility for the creative department; Mr. Hughes will subsequently continue as president. Mr. Norman had been executive creative director at the Amsterdam office of Wieden & Kennedy. ¶Marc Lucas joined Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners, New York, part of MDC Partners, as chief creative officer. He assumes duties from Richard Kirshenbaum, who continues as co-chairman. Mr. Lucas had been executive creative director at the New York office of Razorfish, part of the Publicis Groupe. ¶James W. Price, vice president for media innovation at Empower MediaMarketing, Cincinnati, was promoted to president. The duties of the post had previously been handled by an office of the president, composed of Mr. Price; Lynne Veil, chief operating officer; and Joseph Lowry, chief financial officer. Miscellany ¶Catalyst:SF, San Francisco, is opening an office in New York, to be led by Cody R. Duval as general manager for client services. He has worked at agencies like Campfire and Mechanikal. ¶Story Worldwide, New York, is opening an office in Nagoya, Japan, called Story Worldwide Japan, in partnership with a client, the Toyota Motor Company, for which Story Worldwide manages the global magazine for Lexus. ¶BBDO New York — the flagship office of BBDO Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group — laid off an estimated 20 employees, or 4 percent of the total of about 545. ¶The Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta, signed an agreement with Paramount Pictures, Los Angeles, part of Viacom, to sell licensed products related to the 1946 movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The products, according to brandweek.com , will come out for the 2010 holiday season and include glassware and clothing. The idea stemmed from the appearance of items carrying the Coca-Cola logo in scenes of the film set in Gower’s Drugs.
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Advertising and Marketing;Online Advertising;Trademarks and Trade Names
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ny0109662
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[
"world",
"africa"
] |
2012/05/31
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Kenya: Suspect Is Sought in Blast
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Kenyan authorities were looking for several people who they believe planted a homemade bomb at a crowded market in Nairobi on Monday. Originally, the police said that the explosion, which injured more than 30 people but killed no one, was caused by an electrical malfunction. But on Wednesday, Kenya ’s largest newspaper, The Daily Nation, published a mug shot of a foreign terrorism suspect who the police say has extensive bomb-making experience and recently entered the country from Somalia. Kenya has suffered several relatively small bomb attacks since it sent forces into Somalia in October to fight the Shabab , a militant Islamist group.
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Nairobi (Kenya);Bombs and Explosives;Shabab;Kenya
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ny0277032
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[
"business",
"dealbook"
] |
2016/11/04
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Credit Suisse’s Cost-Cutting Is Hindered by Rising Risks
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The chief executive of Credit Suisse, Tidjane Thiam, recently described Europe’s banks as “uninvestable.” His bank’s third-quarter results make Credit Suisse look just as bad. By limiting increases in its total expenses, the Swiss bank squeezed out earnings of 41 million Swiss francs, or $42 million, well ahead of expectations from analysts polled by Reuters, who had expected a loss of 120 million Swiss francs. Yet profitability is under pressure in Credit Suisse’s wealth management and trading businesses. Adjusted for one-time expenses, Credit Suisse made progress on cutting costs. The bank now exudes confidence that expenses will come in below its full-year target of 19.8 billion Swiss francs. Controlling overhead enabled Mr. Thiam and the bank’s chief financial officer, David Mathers, to absorb a fresh provision of 357 million Swiss francs for litigation, chiefly related to an expected settlement of an investigation into the sale of mortgage-backed securities in the United States. Struggles in the bank’s wealth management division should temper investor enthusiasm, though. In all of Credit Suisse’s private banking businesses, the net margin, which measures pretax profit as a proportion of assets under management, was lower than in the previous quarter. The overall net margin was 26 basis points, down five basis points from the second quarter. By contrast, its rival UBS managed to increase its net margin slightly over the same period to 27 basis points. A continued decline in equities trading is another reason to fret. Credit Suisse was once a top-three player by revenue, but after a year-on-year decline of more than one-third – worse than at its main rivals – it placed sixth this quarter. In the bank’s global markets division, which excludes trading revenue in Asia, returns are dropping well below its probable cost of regulatory capital. Mr. Thiam’s big push into Asia may also be serving up extra risks. Credit Suisse blamed loans secured against shares that had plunged in value for a 38 million Swiss franc provision for credit losses in its private banking business in Asia in the third quarter. The bank says there were only a few such impaired loans, that the average loan-to-value ratio for such lending is 55 percent, and that the losses were unusual. But it’s a reminder that Credit Suisse’s growth push in the region – which is central to Mr. Thiam’s ambitious targets – brings new dangers. In the meantime, Credit Suisse’s margin pains may continue to undo any diet-driven gains.
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Credit Suisse Group;Tidjane Thiam;Earnings Reports
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ny0139156
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[
"technology"
] |
2008/02/18
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A Referral Service That Ensures Someone Actually Makes a Sale
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ONLINE shoppers who can’t decide whether to pull the trigger on their next purchase may be surprised at a new alternative: an offer to get it free. The offer is not a swindle, nor is it a return to the insanity of the early days of the dot-com boom, when retailers practically gave away goods in order to attract buzz and customers. Rather, it is a new marketing method that relies on a web of business relationships to give consumers free goods, as long as they buy something else from a long list of well-known online stores. The idea comes from TrialPay, a company that has recently gained a following among online businesses and investors. Now that the idea is attracting more well-known retailers, analysts said, consumers could see more free offers in the coming months. “This is a very strange, unique animal, but I could see where it would work,” said Dana Gould, an analyst with Financial Insights, a consultant group based in Framingham, Mass. “And since these offers come at exit points, companies are basically saving lost sales.” Stopzilla, which sells computer security software for around $40, already offers 15-day free trials for prospective customers. After the trial period, those who go to the site to uninstall the program are shown a pop-up window asking if they would like to receive the product free. They are then shown a list of companies, including Blockbuster , GameFly and Citi, that have agreed to subsidize the cost of the Stopzilla purchase if the customer agrees to also sign up with them. If they agree, customers are taken, at that point, to a Web site like Blockbuster or Gap, and when they complete their purchase they are sent a code by e-mail for redeeming their free item. Sometimes, these merchants and other TrialPay advertisers, like Gap and Stamps.com, will sweeten the deal with discounts of their own. “All three parties benefit,” said James M. Bortnak, the chief marketing officer of Stamps.com . “The consumer gets a sizable and immediate discount on a purchase, advertisers like us find new long-term customers, and the original merchant is more likely to complete a sale.” Mr. Bortnak said he started using TrialPay’s service in March, after hearing some industry talk about it. He would not disclose details, other than to say it has a “very positive” effect on his business. TrialPay’s service is a twist of sorts on a longstanding online practice, where merchants offer bounties of 5 to 15 percent to Web sites that deliver paying customers. This so-called affiliate advertising model is popular because merchants spend less to acquire customers. Meanwhile, as long as the customers buy more than an item or two, the merchant earns back whatever bounty was paid. As the intermediary, TrialPay receives an undisclosed portion of that commission, and it also uses some technological wizardry to determine which free-product offers a prospective customer is more likely to click on. TrialPay is the brainchild of Alex Rampell, who achieved a measure of fame when, as a 15-year-old in 1996, he wrote a popular software program that allowed AOL users to avoid losing their connections. Mr. Rampell started TrialPay in 2003 as he looked for creative ways to entice software customers to pay for his products. In the first incarnation of the service, he offered customers his PC-security software free, as long as they signed up for a Netflix account. “We made more money on that than we did selling our applications, which cost $25,” Mr. Rampell said. “If someone signed up for Netflix, we might make $40.” The list of merchants who offer free products is heavily weighted toward software companies, Mr. Rampell said, “because almost nobody will pay for software.” Aside from companies like Stopzilla, WinZip and ZoneAlarm, there are roughly 2,500 merchants who now display TrialPay offers to prospective customers, with about 10 signing up daily, Mr. Rampell said. That volume helped increase revenue more than 10 percent, with annual sales likely to exceed $20 million, he added. Based largely on the strength of those figures, TrialPay said it recently raised $12.7 million in financing from, among others, Index Ventures, an early investor in Skype, and Battery Ventures, which backed Akamai Technologies. Merchants who make free offers on their site with TrialPay said that after compensating TrialPay for managing the transaction, they must typically squeeze more business out of the customer to generate a profit. Rick Trefzger, vice president of sales for Stopzilla’s parent, iS3, said his company profits on customers it attracts through TrialPay if those customers renew their annual software subscriptions. Mr. Trefzger said an additional benefit of the service is that it does not diminish the perceived value of his software, as other discount offers might. “It’s not like we’re saying ‘Hey, buy this for less than what you would’ve paid when you first got to our site,’ ” he said. “TrialPay has to follow through with an offer.” TrialPay is yielding improved dividends as it reaches a broader audience of merchants and advertisers, said Will Hunsinger, general manager of Gap.com . And, he said TrialPay attracts customers who frequent stores, like Blockbuster, that one might not immediately consider fertile ground for Gap shoppers. “That’s the kicker here,” Mr. Hunsinger said. “You can reach out into the virtual space and find new customers you wouldn’t have otherwise reached. It’s a little different model, which is something we haven’t seen come out of the Valley in a little while.”
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Retail Stores and Trade;Customer Relations;Advertising and Marketing;TrialPay;Blockbuster Inc;Gap Inc;Stamps.com Incorporated
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ny0053435
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2014/07/16
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Margaret Low Smith to Leave NPR for The Atlantic
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The senior vice president for NPR’s news operations said Tuesday that she is leaving public radio to run a division at The Atlantic that creates conversation-driven events around topical issues. The departure of Margaret Low Smith, who has worked at NPR for all but four years since 1982, comes just two weeks after the arrival of NPR’s newest chief executive, Jarl Mohn, and leaves him with a major post to fill. As senior vice president for news since 2011, Ms. Smith has overseen a division of nearly 400 journalists. Previously, she oversaw all NPR programming, after working her way up from her first job at NPR, as an overnight production assistant for the newsmagazine “Morning Edition.” Ms. Smith is scheduled to leave NPR on Aug. 1. She will begin as vice president of The Atlantic and president of AtlanticLive in early September. In a telephone interview, Ms. Smith, 55, called NPR her religion, her family and “my reason for getting up in the morning,” but said the new job offered “an irresistible opportunity.” AtlanticLive, which includes the Aspen Ideas Festival held in partnership with the Aspen Institute, is already a thriving business; the organization said revenue for the first half of the year jumped 37 percent. But in recent years, the number of media outlets programming such events has surged. NPR itself recently announced plans for a series of events hosted by the anchor of “Tell Me More,” Michel Martin. “It’s a crowded space, so you have to do something that’s singular and differentiate yourself,” Ms. Smith said of her new mandate. “In some ways they’ve set the standard on this and now they want to up their game even more, both on the editorial front, the ambition front and the business front.” Ms. Smith said the recent turmoil in the top job at NPR played no role in her decision to leave. Kinsey Wilson, NPR’s chief content officer, said in a note to the staff that Ms. Smith’s departure would be felt “as profoundly as any in recent memory.” He cited her role in devising ethical guidelines, naming new show hosts, moving “Weekend All Things Considered” to the West Coast and overseeing necessary budget cuts, among other accomplishments. The budget cuts included voluntary buyouts and staff layoffs, and the cancellation of “Tell Me More.” Ms. Smith called the changes “some really hard decisions that have set us on the right course to be ambitious” in the future. Mr. Wilson said Chris Turpin, the executive producer of “All Things Considered,” who most recently has been acting head of programming, will become the acting head of news.
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Appointments and Executive Changes;NPR;Atlantic Monthly;News media,journalism;Jarl Mohn
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ny0288708
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2016/08/12
|
Letter to Cuomo Reveals State Senate’s Plan to Help Success Academy
|
What the Success Academy charter school network could not get through the courts or from the New York State Education Department, it may get from the governor: the ability to run prekindergarten programs without oversight from New York City. In the final hours of the legislative session this summer, as Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Assembly were pushing to get mayoral control of the city’s schools extended, the Republican-controlled Senate demanded some concessions for charter schools. It introduced a vague provision that appeared to grant the charter schools committee of the State University of New York’s board of trustees new powers to regulate the charter schools it oversees. Charter school supporters claimed that the provision would allow SUNY to waive requirements that limit the number of uncertified teachers that charter schools can employ. But it turns out that the Senate Republicans, who have received substantial support from wealthy charter school supporters, had other goals in mind, as well. In a letter to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo dated June 20, and not previously reported, the Senate majority leader, John J. Flanagan, wrote that the intent of the provision “was to provide SUNY with statutory authority to exempt charter schools from rules and regulations that were hampering innovative teaching and learning.” He urged Mr. Cuomo to direct the SUNY Charter Schools Institute — the administrative entity that supports the work of the charter schools committee — to act quickly to take advantage of the provision. (Mr. Cuomo effectively controls the institute and the committee because he appoints a majority of the SUNY trustees.) Specifically, Mr. Flanagan said that SUNY should give teachers at its charter schools some time to get certified. He also asked that SUNY do something to help charter schools get space in public school buildings. And Mr. Flanagan said that SUNY should do something about the problem of New York City’s universal prekindergarten program. “There are high-performing charters that have opted out of this program, because the regulatory burden imposed by the N.Y.C.D.O.E. was too high,” Mr. Flanagan wrote, referring to the city’s Education Department. In fact, there is only one charter school leader who has opted out of the program after a major battle with the de Blasio administration: Success Academy’s founder, Eva S. Moskowitz. Success, the city’s largest charter school network, began a prekindergarten program last year, serving 72 students at three of its schools. But Ms. Moskowitz refused to sign the city’s contract for prekindergarten, saying it gave the city too much control. The city then declined to reimburse Success for the cost of its program. Success sought redress from the state education commissioner, MaryEllen Elia, and then in State Supreme Court, but both the commissioner and a judge ruled that the city could demand that Success sign the contract in order to be paid. Shortly before the judge issued a decision, Success announced that it was canceling its prekindergarten program for the school year starting this fall. Letter From John J. Flanagan to Gov. Cuomo The Senate majority leader explains the intent behind a provision that the Senate inserted into the mayoral control bill is to give charter schools freedom from some state and city requirements. The 13 other charter school organizations that offered prekindergarten in the last school year all signed the city’s contract. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, who has received large donations from charter school supporters, has often come to the aid of charters in fights against Mr. de Blasio, also a Democrat. The chairman of the SUNY charter schools committee, Joseph Belluck, said that he was aware of Mr. Flanagan’s letter. He said that so far neither the governor nor anyone else had asked the committee to do anything related to the provision, but that he expected to receive some requests from charter school operators. Mr. Belluck said that the institute had still not determined exactly what the law would allow it to do. But he said that he had been troubled by the unclear lines of authority regarding prekindergarten and that he would like for that group to be placed under his committee’s oversight rather than the city’s. “I don’t know the answer as to whether or not this regulation gives us the ability to have a role in that, but if it did that would be something I would be interested in,” he said. Asked if Success believed that SUNY could allow it to operate prekindergarten independent of city oversight, Stefan Friedman, a spokesman for the network, said in a statement, “The legislature gave SUNY broad power to regulate charters, and it’s up to SUNY to decide how it wishes to exercise that power.” Austin Finan, a spokesman for Mr. de Blasio, said: “SUNY will have to determine its interpretation of the new provisions, and we look forward to that dialogue. As we have said all along, we welcome participants of all kinds in the city’s pre-K program, provided they commit to our high standards for program quality.” Asked if Mr. Flanagan inserted the provision to reward the donors who support charter schools, Scott Reif, a spokesman for Mr. Flanagan, said: “Every issue that comes before the Senate is considered and implemented on the merits. Campaign contributions have no effect whatsoever.” Mr. Cuomo’s office did not respond to a request for comment. There has been much disagreement over what exactly the provision would allow the SUNY charter committee to do, and it is possible that Mr. Flanagan’s letter was intended to guard against future legal challenges, by defining a relatively narrow intent.
|
K-12 Education;Preschool;Charter school;New York;Andrew Cuomo;NYC;SUNY;College;John J. Flanagan;State legislature
|
ny0086589
|
[
"business",
"dealbook"
] |
2015/07/21
|
SunEdison to Buy Vivint Solar for About $2.2 Billion
|
SunEdison, a renewable energy company, said on Monday that it and its publicly traded power plant unit, TerraForm Power, would acquire Vivint Solar for about $2.2 billion in cash and securities. The transaction is the latest for SunEdison and follows its agreement in November to buy First Wind, a leading developer and operator of wind farms, for $2.4 billion. Under the terms of the deal, Vivint Solar stockholders will receive $16.50 a share in cash, shares and convertible debt, representing a 52 percent premium to its closing price on Friday. “SunEdison’s acquisition of Vivint Solar is a logical next step in the transformation of our platform,” Ahmad Chatila, the SunEdison chief executive officer and the TerraForm Power chairman, said in a news release . “We expect the Vivint Solar transaction to create significant value for our stockholders through the accretion in our TerraForm Power ownership, the acceleration of our incentive distribution rights and an immediate expansion of our capacity and bandwidth to grow our residential business in the U.S. and globally.” The transaction is subject to shareholder and regulatory approval and is expected to close in the fourth quarter. 313 Acquisition, an affiliate of the Blackstone Group and a Vivint Solar shareholder, has agreed to vote in favor of the merger, SundEdison said. 313 Acquisition owns about 77 percent of Vivint Solar’s outstanding shares following its initial public offering last year. Under the terms of the deal, Vivint Solar stockholders will receive $9.89 a share in cash, plus the equivalent of $3.31 a share in SunEdison stock and $3.30 a share in SunEdison convertible notes. As part of the transaction, SunEdison would sell Vivint’s rooftop solar power portfolio to a subsidiary of TerraForm Power for $922 million in cash. SunEdison intends to fund the cash portion of the merger through new debt and the sale of assets to TerraForm Power. Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs advised SunEdison, while Barclays, Citigroup and Lazard advised TerraForm Power. The law firms Kirkland & Ellis and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom also advised SunEdison and TerraForm Power and the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton advised TerraForm Power’s corporate governance and conflicts committee. Morgan Stanley and the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati advised Vivint Solar.
|
Solar energy;Mergers and Acquisitions
|
ny0039673
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2014/04/26
|
Bruised After Trip, Yanks Stagger Through Lopsided Loss to Angels
|
The Yankees arrived in New York at 3 a.m. on Friday after an eventful seven-game trip in which they lost one starting pitcher to injury, lost another starter to suspension and played two draining series against division rivals, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Boston Red Sox. The eight-day trip was the type that tested a team’s mettle, but most important, it tested the Yankees’ pitching depth. The Yankees arrived home a battered team despite having gone 4-3 on the trip. The Yankees needed a long outing Friday from starter Hiroki Kuroda because of the disarray of their rotation. Instead, Kuroda was battered for eight runs — six earned — in four and two-thirds innings in a 13-1 loss to the Los Angeles Angels. “Over all, my command was bad and all of my pitches weren’t good,” Kuroda said through an interpreter. Michael Pineda’s 10-game suspension for using pine tar in Wednesday’s game against Boston, combined with Ivan Nova’s season-ending elbow injury (he is scheduled to have surgery on Tuesday) have left the Yankees with two holes in the rotation. Relievers Vidal Nuno, who will start Saturday against the Angels, and David Phelps, who will start Wednesday against the Seattle Mariners, have had to fill the roles. Since Nuno and Phelps are making the transition from the bullpen, they are unlikely to pitch deep into games, which will mean that Manager Joe Girardi will almost certainly have to rely heavily on the bullpen in both those starts. Kuroda’s short outing forced Girardi to unexpectedly turn to his other relievers Friday, at the most inopportune time. Almost immediately, the Angels’ offense overwhelmed Kuroda, whose earned run average by the end of his night rose to 5.28 from 4.07. After having struck two hard-hit singles in the first, the Angels hit Kuroda hard again in the second and took a 2-0 lead on a single by Ian Stewart, who entered the game 6 for 13 against Kuroda in his career, and a sacrifice bunt by Collin Cowgill. Kuroda was no better in the third. After retiring the first two batters in the inning, Kuroda allowed a single to Howie Kendrick, who scored on Stewart’s home run to center field. The Angels knocked Kuroda out of the game in the fifth, when they scored three runs, one earned, including a bases-empty homer by Albert Pujols, his ninth homer of the season and the 501st of his career. “Right now, there are certain pitches that are inconsistent,” Kuroda said. “But I need to make an adjustment and get them back.” Specifically, Kuroda said he needed to improve the quality of his breaking pitches. Kuroda said that on Friday, neither his sinker nor his slider were effective. Reliever Bruce Billings replaced Kuroda and became the 18th pitcher used by the Yankees this season — including Dean Anna’s relief turn last week against the Rays — which is the most in the majors. By the end of the sixth, the Angels had an 8-0 lead. They added four more off Billings in the seventh, on a three-run homer by Aybar and a solo shot by Cowgill. It was by far Kuroda’s worst start of the season, and one of the worst starts of his career. The eight runs allowed were the most he has given up in his 185 major league starts. After posting a 5.70 E.R.A. in September last season after an otherwise strong year, legitimate concerns now surround the 39-year-old Kuroda. Most troubling is that Kuroda’s 5.28 E.R.A. is the highest it has ever been in his career after the first five starts of a season. “I think he’ll figure it out,” Girardi said. “I do. I think he’ll find his stuff and he’ll get sharp for us. He’s been a little up and down this year. He’s thrown better. Tonight, he could never find it.” Kuroda offered some humor when asked if adjustments at age 39 are more difficult: “It’s my first time experiencing 39 years old, so I don’t know what to say. But I have to make that adjustment.” With Nova out for the year, questions surrounding Pineda’s ability to bounce back after his suspension and the drop in velocity of C. C. Sabathia’s fastball, the Yankees’ rotation seems as unstable as it has been in some time. The Angels had no such problem from their starter Friday, as C. J. Wilson shut down the Yankees for most of the night. He did not allow a base runner to reach second until the sixth inning, when the Yankees scored their lone run on a sacrifice fly by Alfonso Soriano. Brett Gardner, the only Yankee with two hits against Wilson, summed up the team’s performance this way: “Over all, it was a pretty bad night.”
|
Baseball;Los Angeles Angels;Yankees;Hiroki Kuroda;Cheating
|
ny0041556
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2014/05/02
|
The Netherlands: Greenpeace Stymied
|
Dutch police officers stormed a Greenpeace ship on Thursday and ended the efforts of environmental activists to block a Russian tanker carrying Arctic Ocean oil from mooring at Rotterdam Port. In all, 31 activists were detained. The tanker, which was able to dock safely, was carrying the first oil produced from a platform operated by the Russian energy giant Gazprom in the Arctic. Greenpeace opposes oil production inside the Arctic Circle, warning of the danger of a spill and the threat of worsening global warming caused by the use of fossil fuels. The captain of the Greenpeace ship, Peter Willcox, was among those arrested. Last year, he was among 28 activists and two journalists arrested by Russia after a protest near the platform. They spent months in prison before being released this year.
|
Greenpeace;Oil and Gasoline;Arctic Ocean;Russia;Netherlands;Gazprom;Peter Willcox;Arctic;Ships and Shipping
|
ny0243681
|
[
"business"
] |
2011/03/15
|
Raymond E. Bowman Pleads Guilty in TARP Fraud
|
Raymond E. Bowman, the former president of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage, pleaded guilty on Monday in connection with a $1.9 billion fraud that included trying to deceive the federal bank bailout program. Mr. Bowman, 45, of Atlanta, admitted to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, bank fraud and securities fraud and one count of making false statements. Mr. Bowman also agreed to cooperate with prosecutors’ investigation of the company. Federal prosecutors filed a criminal case against Mr. Bowman last week before United States District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Va. Judge Brinkema has presided over cases resulting from a scheme that the prosecutors said sought to defraud the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program and contributed to the failure of Colonial Bank, based in Montgomery, Ala. Mr. Bowman, who is expected to be sentenced on June 10, faces a maximum of five years in prison on each count, plus a fine of as much as $500,000 and full restitution to victims, according to prosecutors. Judge Brinkema asked prosecutors whether they would file a forfeiture case against Mr. Bowman. “That remains to be seen,” said Charles Connolly, an assistant United States attorney. “The issue we’re exploring is whether the defendant derived any benefit from the fraud scheme.” Two other Taylor Bean executives, including its former chairman, Lee B. Farkas, were charged previously in the scheme by covering up shortfalls at Taylor Bean. Mr. Farkas’s trial on 16 counts is set for April 4. Taylor Bean was once the largest nondepository mortgage lender in the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission said in a statement. Desiree E. Brown, Taylor Bean’s former treasurer, and Catherine L. Kissick, a former Colonial Bank executive, have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, bank fraud and securities fraud and agreed to cooperate in the government’s prosecution of Mr. Farkas. Both also settled securities cases with the S.E.C. Ms. Brown and Ms. Kissick each face 30 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and an order to pay restitution to more than 250 victims.
|
Frauds and Swindling;Decisions and Verdicts;Subprime Mortgage Crisis;Taylor Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp;Securities and Exchange Commission
|
ny0211811
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2017/01/26
|
Bana al-Abed Writes Trump: ‘Please Save the Children and People of Syria’
|
“You must do something for the children of Syria,” reads the note, scrawled in pencil on white lined paper in childlike handwriting. Seven-year-old Bana al-Abed and her mother, Fatemah, posted an open letter to President Trump on Bana’s Twitter account on Wednesday, sharing the message with the hundreds of thousands of users who follow the account. My letter to @realdonaldtrump : I beg you, can you do something for the children of Syria? If you can, I will be your best friend. Thank you pic.twitter.com/rWmgDuBf6P — Bana Alabed (@AlabedBana) January 25, 2017 The page-long letter asks the new president to “please save the children and people of Syria.” Bana first captured global attention when she and her mother created a Twitter account, @AlabedBana, that posted near-daily updates on their life in opposition-held Eastern Aleppo and condemned the government’s role in the violence. The photos and videos from inside the city offered a rare glimpse into life in a war zone, and revealed the struggles faced by a family under siege. Bana and her family are now living in Turkey, after fleeing Aleppo in December. Some, however, have questioned whether Bana actually wrote the Twitter posts herself and if the videos in which she speaks were rehearsed or altered. And supporters of the government of President Bashar al-Assad assailed her as a fraud and a propaganda tool. After her family’s arrival in Turkey, they visited President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara and she was photographed being hugged by Mr. Erdogan. Fatemah told The New York Times that her request to Mr. Trump was a simple one: “Look to the children in Syria like your children.” She said Bana regularly hears news about Mr. Trump and felt it was time to try to get his attention. “Donald Trump is now president. He can do something for the people, especially in conflict zones,” Fatemah said. “And all the world had their opinions about this. And this was our opinion, me and Bana.” Fatemah said the note was intended to urge Mr. Trump to change his stance on Syrian refugees . She wrote it ahead of an expected executive order that would cut the country’s refugee resettlement program and toughen immigration restrictions for people from a number of predominantly Muslim countries, including Syria. Despite Mr. Trump’s repeated remarks on tightening restrictions against Muslims entering the United States, Fatemah said she believed that someday his views may change. “Maybe he will change his mind, I don’t know,” Fatemah said. “But we will keep hoping.”
|
Bana al-Abed;Refugees,Internally Displaced People;Donald Trump;Syria
|
ny0157137
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2008/06/15
|
Tasers Getting More Prominent Role in Crime Fighting in City
|
After decades languishing in the trunks of squad cars, the Taser, the handgun-shaped device that incapacitates people with a pulsating electrical current, is getting a chance at a higher profile in the New York Police Department. The Taser’s career in New York has contrasted with its ubiquity around the nation, as police officials from Wisconsin to California have praised its usefulness, particularly in encounters with the emotionally disturbed. According to the device’s manufacturer, Taser International, more than 345,000 Tasers have been sold to 12,750 law enforcement and military agencies in 44 countries, with 4,500 agencies distributing them to their entire forces. By contrast, about 500 Tasers are deployed in New York. The weapon has not been fully embraced by the Police Department, the nation’s largest police force, partly because of the difficulties in maintaining the devices and in training officers. But it is also because Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly has looked cautiously at Taser technology. Stun guns have a troubled history here: An early model was at the center of a scandal in the early 1980s when it was used to force drug suspects to confess. Mr. Kelly, then a deputy inspector, was assigned to clean up the mess. The old stun gun looked like an electric razor and worked when applied directly to a person’s body. Today’s Taser fires a dart at its target from a distance. Last week, a report on a study of police shootings — commissioned in 2007 after a Queens man, Sean Bell, was killed by officers — recommended that the New York police experiment with using Tasers more. In response, Mr. Kelly said that Tasers would move out of the dark trunks of select police vehicles to sergeants’ crowded gun belts. But he remained cautious, saying sergeants would still be the only ones with the authority to handle Tasers. That population of 3,500 supervisors is larger than most other departments. “This is like turning a battleship around, or an aircraft carrier,” Mr. Kelly said of the challenges of implementing any new law enforcement tool in the Police Department. The New York force, for example, switched later than others from 6-shot revolvers to 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistols. And even then the semiautomatics initially carried only 10 shots, not the regular 16. The shooting report, by the RAND Corporation, suggested that Tasers still required more study in New York, particularly since there was a dearth of reliable data about their use. Christopher T. Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the concern now is whether officers will use Tasers in situations where they traditionally had used much less force, and whether civilians will be unnecessarily and more frequently subjected to their use. “Is it actually an alternative that leads to reduced use of firearms by the police?” Mr. Dunn said. “Or does it lead to increased use of force? The concern is we are going up the ladder of force, as opposed to coming down the ladder.” RAND researchers, in studying the department’s analysis of 455 of its shootings, said that officers might have been able to end confrontations more quickly by using a less lethal device — like a Taser — before those encounters escalated to a point where deadly force was necessary. They did not say that Tasers should supplant handguns. Mr. Kelly, who wants his top commanders to read the RAND study and give him feedback, said he would probably carry out a variation of the RAND suggestion that the department create a pilot program in selected precincts to expand the availability of Tasers. He said two precincts would likely be chosen for the program — one with Tasers and one without them, as a control — based on their work volume and demographics. But, he quickly added, “I cannot stress enough that no decision has been made on this.” Stun guns were introduced in New York in the early 1980s, when officers were confronting a higher number of disturbed people because of the rapid and widespread deinstitutionalization of mental health patients. The devices were not seen as a success. The technology had not been perfected and the devices were kept mostly in Emergency Service Unit officers’ trucks. Several high-ranking officers and sergeants were transferred from the 106th Precinct in Queens after officers were charged with using stun guns on drug suspects during interrogations. Mr. Kelly was assigned by Commissioner Benjamin Ward to clean things up. Perhaps spurred by memories of that scandal, Mr. Kelly added a cautionary line to the new rules of engagement for the Taser. The order, published on June 4, said that putting a Taser directly against someone’s body should not be the primary method of use and that such cases of “touch-stun mode” would be investigated. Currently, the police deploy the Taser about 300 times a year, mainly when responding to some of the 80,000 calls for emotionally disturbed people. Mr. Kelly says that when the Taser has been used, it has worked well. “We have to be careful, we have to be conservative, in our deployment of these devices,” he said. In 2007, 41 people complained of being struck with a Taser by officers and 9 said they had been confronted by officers brandishing one, according to Andrew Case, a spokesman for the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investigates allegations of wrongdoing by officers. Of those complaints, one was substantiated, he said. So far this year, the board has received 17 complaints from people who said they were struck with a Taser by officers and 6 from those who said they were confronted by them, Mr. Case said. None of the 2008 cases have been fully investigated yet; eight have been closed because the victim refused to provide a statement, one has been withdrawn, and the others remain open. The Taser model being used in New York is the M26, which is not the newest version (that is the X26, which is 60 percent lighter and smaller). The M26 is yellow, looks like a 9-millimeter Glock, weighs about 16 ounces and costs about $400. The weapon uses a compressed-nitrogen cartridge to launch two probes that travel 15 to 35 feet. At the end of each probe is a wire that attaches to the skin and clothing. The Taser can work through about two cumulative inches of clothing, said Stephen D. Tuttle, a Taser spokesman. The probes deliver 3,000 volts of electrical current to the body, or 0.36 joules per pulse. (There are 19 pulses a second, and each trigger cycle lasts for 5 seconds). By contrast, a cardiac defibrillator operates with 360 joules per pulse on average, Mr. Tuttle said. The Taser pulses stimulate the motor nerves, impairing communication between the brain and the muscles and essentially incapacitating the person, he said. Kenneth S. McGuire, a sergeant with the Temple University police in Philadelphia, said his 110-member force does not use the Taser, but he would like to change that. In 2006, he became a certified trainer in the use of the Taser. To help him understand the device, he even took a Taser hit to his back. “Basically, the only way I can explain it is if you’ve ever gotten a really bad leg cramp in your calf, if you’re swimming, imagine that in your whole body; that’s how it feels,” Sergeant McGuire said. “Your muscles freeze up, they call it the plywood effect.” He added, “It lasts up to five seconds. And then you’re fine, you’re good to go.” Tasers came under a new spotlight as the image of a square-jawed Mr. Kelly holding a stun gun was beamed across the media landscape on Monday and Tuesday, and as news spread that the nation’s largest police force was taking a fresh look at the device. At the same time, a sea of controversial Taser headlines seemed to crop up. It was not the first time. A video of a student being subdued with a Taser by campus security at the University of Florida during a John Kerry speech in 2007 — and imploring, “Don’t Tase me, bro!” — became a YouTube sensation. On Monday, a 26-year-old man died after he was shocked twice with a Taser by an officer on Long Island trying to keep him from swallowing a bag of cocaine, the Suffolk County police said. The man, Tony Curtis Bradway of Brooklyn, spat out a white powder and “remnants of a plastic bag,” the police said, and he died at a hospital nine hours after the episode. The next day, news broke that a federal jury in California had held Taser International partly responsible in the death of a Salinas, Calif., man and had awarded his family more than $6 million in that civil case. It was the first loss in court for the Arizona company, said Mr. Tuttle, who added that the company had 70 wins or dismissals in civil cases and noted that the jury in the California case had found the company “15 percent” liable for the man’s death. On Wednesday, Sanford A. Rubenstein, a lawyer, announced the filing of a lawsuit against New York City in the case of a retired police lieutenant’s son who had been hit four times with a Taser after the police responded to a barbecue at his Harlem home last August. The man, Alexander Lombard III, who was 18 at the time, “has permanent Taser marks and scarring,” Mr. Rubenstein said. “And he is getting counseling and getting physical therapy.” Also on Wednesday, Amnesty International said it had tracked more than 300 cases since 2001 in which people died after being shocked by a Taser. And although studies have not shown what role the devices might have played in those deaths, “extreme caution” is in order, said Larry R. Cox, the executive director of Amnesty. “They should be fired in circumstances when the use of deadly force would be the only alternative,” said Mr. Cox. He said that the Taser’s billing as a “safe, nonlethal instrument” was faulty.
|
Stun Guns;TASER International;Police;New York City
|
ny0159390
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2008/12/23
|
Iranian Resistance Group Criticizes Iraq’s Efforts to Expel It
|
BAGHDAD — An Iranian resistance group on Monday condemned a renewed push by the Iraqi government to deport its members as a result of undue Iranian influence. Some 3,800 members of the group, the People’s Mujahedeen, live in a fenced-off camp north of Baghdad, where they have enjoyed the protection of the American military since 2003. The Iraqi government notified the group on Sunday of plans to shut the camp and evict its residents as Iraqi forces take control of the area from the United States. “This reflects the hysterical pressure being applied by the regime of the mullahs on the Iraqi government after it signed the security agreement with America,” said a statement by the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran , an umbrella group of which the People’s Mujahedeen is the largest component. Analysts and Iraqi opposition politicians said that the Iraqi government’s determination to expel the group may be an effort to appease Iran, which had initially expressed strong opposition to the security agreement concluded last month between Iraq and the United States. The group, which began as part of the Iranian resistance to Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s rule in the mid-1960s, was driven into exile after Iran’s 1979 revolution and re-formed in Iraq, where it was nurtured by Saddam Hussein. After the American invasion, it was disarmed and its members recognized as refugees by the United Nations. On Sunday, the Iraqi government’s national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, met with the group’s leaders at their base, Camp Ashraf in Diyala Province. “They were told that the government has plans to close the camp and deport its inhabitants to their native country, or voluntarily to a third country, and that staying in Iraq was not an option,” said a statement issued by Mr. Rubaie on Monday. He said the transfer of security responsibilities for the camp from the American military to Iraqi forces was already under way. He said the group was a “terrorist organization” and was “no longer permitted to engage in any political, media, cultural, religious or social activity in Iraq.” The group was listed as a terrorist organization by the United States in 1997 and by the European Union in 2002. But in May, Britain’s Court of Appeal ruled that the British government was wrong to include the group on its list of banned terrorist groups. In 2002, it provided intelligence on Iran’s secret efforts to enrich uranium, which led to United Nations sanctions against Iran and a confrontation with the West that continues today. Since 2003, the group has been thrown into the middle of Washington’s foreign policy dilemmas over what to do about Iran. Despite being officially labeled a terrorist group, it has been protected by American soldiers in Iraq since 2003. The State Department declined to comment Monday on the planned eviction. The camp, a sprawling and self-contained gated community, is a virtual oasis in an arid patch of Diyala. During a visit in 2007, this reporter saw American soldiers from an adjacent military base securing the perimeter. Past the gate, members of the group, many of them women in tan uniforms, drove jeeps past manicured parks, artificial lakes and giant sculptures. One sculpture depicts a dove being released by an extended hand. The compound houses clinics, schools and workshops. Since 2003 the People’s Mujahedeen, who are mostly Shiite, have been assiduously courting Sunni politicians and tribal leaders in the area. In June, they held a large gathering at their camp attended by several prominent Sunni Arab members of Parliament who are openly hostile to the Iranian government. This meeting set off a political storm in Baghdad, with Shiite parties close to Iran calling for the censure of the members. Ali Ansari, director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said the group was “rapidly becoming a political football in the purest sense.” He said the Iraqi government saw ridding itself of the group as way to improve relations with Iran, which remains fearful that the group may rearm. Muhammad al-Daini, a Sunni member of Parliament, says the government is making a mistake by bowing to Iranian pressure to expel the People’s Mujahedeen before getting firm commitments from Tehran that it will no longer arm and finance militias in Iraq. “We cannot blindly accept Iran’s dictates,” he said. During his visit to Baghdad in March, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran was promised that the People’s Mujahedeen would be expelled. “We will strive to get rid of them,” the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, said at a news conference with Mr. Ahmadinejad.
|
Iraq;People's Mujahedeen;Iran
|
ny0109188
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2012/05/19
|
House Rejects a Bid to Bar Some Indefinite Detentions
|
WASHINGTON — The House on Friday turned back an unusual coalition of liberals and conservatives and voted down legislation to reject explicitly the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects apprehended on United States soil. House lawmakers then approved a broad military policy bill that would break Pentagon spending caps agreed to just last summer. The bill, the National Defense Authorization Act for the fiscal year that begins in October, makes clear that House Republicans — and many Democrats — are opposed to including the Pentagon in the coming era of fiscal austerity. The $642 billion measure, approved 299 to 120 , exceeds spending limits enshrined in the Budget Control Act of 2011 by $8 billion. The measure would thwart the Obama administration’s efforts to close the military prison at Guantánamo Bay , Cuba , and would impede its ability to carry out the nuclear arms reduction treaty ratified by the Senate in 2010. In one unexpected twist, Democrats on Friday helped pass a conservative Republican’s amendment that would end the permanent deployment of combat brigades in Europe . “I’ve always felt there could be cuts in defense that don’t in any way compromise defense capability,” said Representative Mike Coffman, Republican of Colorado and a military veteran, who won passage of the cut. Republicans, he said, “tend to focus on spending as a metric of their commitment to defense, sometimes as the only metric.” Well before the final vote, the White House promised a veto if the final version maintained the House spending levels and tied President Obama ’s hands on detainee and nuclear policies. But House Republicans say that the legislation’s bipartisan support should give them leverage at least to demand the cancellation of next year’s automatic across-the-board spending cuts — known as sequestration — when House and Senate negotiators meet to hash out a compromise. “At a minimum, it brings sequestration and the reversal of it front and center at the conference,” said Representative Scott Rigell, Republican of Virginia , whose amendment called for the replacement of those defense cuts with cuts to domestic programs. Democrats said those demands belied the Republicans’ posture of fiscal rectitude. With a budget deficit exceeding $1 trillion, Republicans have taken tax increases and defense cuts off the table, leaving only domestic spending on the chopping block. “These guys are talking out of both sides of their mouth,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland , the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee. “Despite all their talk of deficit reduction, they’re putting more money into the Pentagon than the Pentagon has asked for.” The Defense Authorization Act is required each year to set Pentagon policy and spending levels, but House Republicans have turned it into a showcase for their opposition to Obama administration policies. This year, Democratic leaders had some surprise support. Representative Justin Amash of Michigan , a Tea Party -backed freshman Republican, teamed up with Representative Adam Smith, Democrat of Washington, to declare that terrorism suspects apprehended on United States soil should not be detained indefinitely without charge or trial. But the left-right coalition fizzled in the face of charges that the two lawmakers were coddling terrorists. On the 238-to-182 vote against the amendment, as many Democrats — 19 — voted against it as Republicans voted for it. “We’ve got a ways to go still, but there are a lot of Republicans who are listening now,” Mr. Amash said. “I’m confident that most of them are going to go back to their districts, and they are going to get hammered on this issue.” That left-right coalition did hold when Mr. Coffman proposed to remove the Army’s permanent brigade combat teams stationed in Europe and replace them with a cheaper rotational force, not accompanied by family members, permanent housing and other support. Only 63 Republicans joined him, but that was enough to win approval , given the overwhelming support of Democrats. But over all, the defense bill proved the power of the Pentagon and its diffuse installations, even as Republicans push the nation’s fiscal straits to the top of the political agenda. An amendment by Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California , to reduce spending by $8 billion and stick to statutory spending caps failed, 252 to 170 , with 29 Democrats siding with 223 Republicans. Mr. Rigell conceded that his motivations to block automatic spending cuts were about parochial interests as much as policy. “Ten cents of every defense dollar in the Pentagon’s budget is spent in Virginia, and 20 percent of all jobs in Virginia are dependent on military spending,” he said. The White House has raised concerns about several issues but has focused on three: overall spending levels, detainee policy and nuclear weapons deployments. Administration officials say the bill sets up “onerous conditions” on the retirement of nondeployed nuclear weapons and compliance with the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty , which was ratified in late 2010. The Senate Armed Services Committee will draft its version of the defense bill next week.
|
Legislation;Terrorism;Guantanamo Bay;US Military;Federal Budget;Detainees
|
ny0225781
|
[
"us"
] |
2010/10/10
|
Philippa Foot, 90, Dies; Philosopher Who Posed ‘Trolley Problem’
|
Philippa Foot, a philosopher who argued that moral judgments have a rational basis, and who introduced the renowned ethical thought experiment known as the Trolley Problem , died at her home in Oxford, England, on Oct. 3, her 90th birthday. Her death was announced on the Web site of Somerville College , Oxford, where she earned her academic degrees and taught for many years. In her early work, notably in the essays “Moral Beliefs” and “Moral Arguments,” published in the late 1950s, Ms. Foot took issue with philosophers like R. M. Hare and Charles L. Stevenson, who maintained that moral statements were ultimately expressions of attitude or emotion, because they could not be judged true or false in the same way factual statements could be. Ms. Foot countered this “private-enterprise theory,” as she called it, by arguing the interconnectedness of facts and moral interpretations. Further, she insisted that virtues like courage, wisdom and temperance are indispensable to human life and the foundation stones of morality. Her writing on the subject helped establish virtue ethics as a leading approach to the study of moral problems. “She’s going to be remembered not for a particular view or position, but for changing the way people think about topics,” said Lawrence Solum, who teaches the philosophy of law at the University of Illinois and studied under Ms. Foot. “She made the moves that made people see things in a fundamentally new way. Very few people do that in philosophy.” It was the Trolley Problem, however, that captured the imagination of scholars outside her discipline. In 1967, in the essay “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect,” she discussed, using a series of provocative examples, the moral distinctions between intended and unintended consequences, between doing and allowing, and between positive and negative duties — the duty not to inflict harm weighed against the duty to render aid. The most arresting of her examples, offered in just a few sentences, was the ethical dilemma faced by the driver of a runaway trolley hurtling toward five track workers. By diverting the trolley to a spur where just one worker is on the track, the driver can save five lives. Clearly, the driver should divert the trolley and kill one worker rather than five. But what about a surgeon who could also save five lives — by killing a patient and distributing the patient’s organs to five other patients who would otherwise die? The math is the same, but here, instead of having to choose between two negative duties — the imperative not to inflict harm — as the driver does, the doctor weighs a negative duty against the positive duty of rendering aid. By means of such problems, Ms. Foot hoped to clarify thinking about the moral issues surrounding abortion in particular, but she applied a similar approach to matters like euthanasia . The philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson added two complications to the Trolley Problem that are now inseparable from it. Imagine, she wrote, a bystander who sees the trolley racing toward the track workers and can divert it by throwing a switch along the tracks. Unlike the driver, who must choose to kill one person or five, the bystander can refuse to intervene or, by throwing the switch, accept the unintended consequence of killing a human being, a choice endorsed by most people presented with the problem. Or suppose, she suggested, that the bystander observes the impending trolley disaster from a footbridge over the tracks and realizes that by throwing a heavy weight in front of the trolley he can stop it. As it happens, the only available weight is a fat man standing next to him. Most respondents presented with the problem saw a moral distinction between throwing the switch and throwing the man on the tracks, even though the end result, in lives saved, was identical. The paradoxes suggested by the Trolley Problem and its variants have engaged not only moral philosophers but neuroscientists, economists and evolutionary psychologists. It also inspired a subdiscipline jokingly known as trolleyology , whose swelling body of commentary “makes the Talmud look like CliffsNotes,” the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah wrote in his book “Experiments in Ethics” (2008). Philippa Judith Bosanquet was born on Oct. 3, 1920, in Owston Ferry, Lincolnshire, and grew up in Kirkleatham, in North Yorkshire. Her mother, Esther, was a daughter of President Grover Cleveland. Her father, William, was a captain in the Coldstream Guards when he married her mother and later took over the running of a large Yorkshire steel works. Ms. Foot studied philosophy, politics and economics at Somerville College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in 1942. During World War II, she worked as a researcher at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, sharing a London flat with the future novelist Iris Murdoch . In 1945 she married the historian M. R. D. Foot, after Murdoch left him for the economist Thomas Balogh. The marriage ended in divorce. She is survived by a sister, Marion Daniel of London. Ms. Foot began lecturing on philosophy at Somerville in 1947, a year after receiving her master’s degree, and rose to the positions of vice principal and senior research fellow before retiring in 1988. In 1974 she became a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles, from which she retired in 1991. In the 1970s Ms. Foot revisited some of her assertions about the objective nature of morality, allowing a measure of subjectivism to creep into her discussions of topics like abortion and euthanasia. The influence of Wittgenstein, and his linguistic spin on philosophical questions, became increasingly important in her writing, which dealt scrupulously with the various senses, and pitfalls, of terms like “should,” “would” and “good.” In “Natural Goodness” (2001), she offered a new theory of practical reason, arguing that morals are rooted in objective human needs that can be compared to the physical needs of plants and animals and described using the same words. In a 2001 interview with Philosophy Today , she addressed a colleague’s comment that, in her book, she seemed to regard vice as a natural defect. “That’s exactly what I believe, and I want to say that we describe defects in human beings in the same way as we do defects in plants and animals,” she said. “I once began a lecture by saying that in moral philosophy, it’s very important to begin by talking about plants.” Her most important essays were collected in “Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy” (1978) and “Moral Dilemmas: And Other Topics in Moral Philosophy” (2002). Despite her influence, Ms. Foot remained disarmingly modest. “I’m not clever at all,” she told The Philosophers’ Magazine in 2003. “I have a certain insight into philosophy, I think. But I’m not clever, I don’t find complicated arguments easy to follow.”
|
Philosophy;Ethics;Foot Philippa;Deaths (Obituaries);Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
|
ny0258008
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2011/01/17
|
Patch.com and AOL Bet on Hyperlocal News
|
SAN FRANCISCO — City council meetings, high school football games and store openings may seem like small town news, but they are critical to AOL ’s revival effort. Over the last year and a half, AOL, the former Internet colossus, has spent tens of millions of dollars to build local news sites across the country through Patch.com . The idea is that the service would fill the gap in coverage left by local newspapers, many of which are operating on a string after declines in advertising revenue. Patch has already set up shop in nearly 800 towns. By the end of this year, it expects that to be in 1,000 — each one with an editor and a team of freelance writers. Traffic on individual sites is low; former editors say that the average post attracts just 100 views and that they considered 500 page views a wild success. But the overall traffic is growing quickly. In December, Patch had just over three million unique visitors, 80 times that of a year earlier, according to comScore. Yet over the years, a number of so-called hyperlocal news sites have failed, and the idea is largely unproved financially. For example, Backfence, a hyperlocal forerunner that invited readers to contribute articles, closed after it was unable to attract enough users and advertising. AOL declined to discuss the financial performance of Patch other than to say that it was in investment mode. At the same time, Patch faces competition from Yahoo, Google and local news companies, all vying for a piece of local online advertising — gift shops, plumbers, regional hospitals, car dealers — which is expected to reach $15.9 billion this year, according to Borrell Associates, a market research firm. “The local space is hard, there are a lot of dead soldiers,” said Tim Armstrong , AOL’s chief executive. “But I think we’re happy where we are.” Mr. Armstrong, a former top ad executive at Google, helped found Patch in 2007, during a small boom in hyperlocal news start-ups, including EveryBlock and Outside — all trying to create a digital version of local newspapers. An initial investor in Patch, Mr. Armstrong, who is 40 and lives in Connecticut, has plowed $4.5 million into the site. A few months after becoming AOL’s chief executive in 2009, he led AOL’s $7 million acquisition of the nascent service. A failed effort to find online information about volunteer opportunities for his family in their hometown gave Mr. Armstrong the idea for Patch. He began researching local news and at one point called his local paper to encourage it to create a Patch-like site. “I just wanted something in my town,” he said. “I actually gave the idea to the local newspaper and they didn’t want it.” Patch’s expansion has not come cheap to AOL. Last year alone, the company said, it spent up to $50 million. Mr. Armstrong’s efforts with Patch are part of a broader push to reinvent AOL after a decade of steady decline. Mr. Armstrong is also investing in creating other editorial content; for example, since he took over, the company has bought TechCrunch, the technology blog. Patch’s news coverage varies in its depth. The sites for some towns are full of articles, while others are largely filled with inconsequential briefs. Retaining the thousands of readers needed to make an individual site profitable may be difficult because of the mixed quality, said Ken Doctor, a news industry analyst with Outsell and author of the book “Newsonomics.” “They have a lot of work to do to fulfill their promise,” he said. And competitors are a threat. “Patch is going after the same prize as local newspapers, but so is Google and Yahoo,” Mr. Doctor said. “Everyone is going after those local digital marketing dollars.” Yahoo, for instance, is testing a sort of community hub that pools news articles about individual towns in one place. Google’s local effort does not revolve around news, but rather business listings and user recommendations. Patch’s competitors also include Examiner.com, a news company of local sites that is controlled by the investor Philip F. Anschutz, as well as neighborhood news blogs. News executives are closely watching Patch, said Al Cupo, vice president for operations at the Suburban Newspapers of America, an industry group whose members publish 2,000 newspapers. The fear, still unrealized, is that Patch will lure away readers and advertisers. “Of course there is concern,” said Mr. Cupo, whose organization plans to discuss the potential impact of Patch at a coming conference. “We need to understand this sooner rather than later.” Patch has hired hundreds of journalists, each equipped with a laptop computer, digital camera, cellphone and police scanner. The journalists, which AOL calls local editors, generally earn $38,000 to $45,000 annually, and work from home. They are expected to publish up to five items daily — short articles, slide shows or video — in addition to overseeing freelance writers. Current and former Patch journalists say the operation is like a start-up in that experimentation is encouraged. But the bare-bones staffing — one full-time journalist for each community — can also mean working seven days a week and publishing articles that lack depth simply to meet a quota, they said. Journalistic high points include a 2009 report about hazing of high school freshmen in Millburn, N.J., that was picked up by national television and newspapers, and scoops last year that were later cited by The Baltimore Sun. One was about a hit-and-run accident that killed a 14-year-old boy and another concerned a Baltimore County Council candidate who had failed to pay his taxes for years. But several plagiarism cases have tarnished Patch during its brief history. One journalist posted a photo from a rival site, and then denied it, while two freelancers published articles that were at least partly copied from other sources. A person familiar with the matter, who could not speak on the record about personnel matters, said they were all fired. Warren Webster, Patch’s president, likes to extol Patch’s journalistic credentials by pointing out that his staff includes journalists from major dailies like The Los Angeles Times and seven Pulitzer Prize winners. Many top editors are indeed experienced, but those who do most of the writing tend to be less seasoned. For now, Patch’s focus is on relatively affluent towns that are more attractive to advertisers. Only a few urban neighborhoods have a Patch site, and some of those are run by college students. Posts about the police, schools and local sports generate the most traffic, Mr. Webster said, with events like the recent elections and the New York blizzard sharply lifting page views. “We’re getting a lot of feedback about Patch being the only source of coverage about local road closings and power outages,” Mr. Webster said. But Bill Lynch, editor in chief and publisher of The Sonoma Index-Tribune, a biweekly with a circulation of 8,000 in Sonoma, Calif., doubts that Patch will succeed in his town, despite its big spending. Most residents have never heard of Patch, he said, and its limited staffing means that it will have trouble competing against newspapers with more reporters. “If you ask nine out of 10 Sonomans what Patch is, they’ll just look at you and say, ‘Huh?’ ” Mr. Lynch said.
|
Patch.com;AOL;News and News Media;Computers and the Internet;Online Advertising;Armstrong Tim
|
ny0123020
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2012/09/07
|
Braves Top Rockies, 1-0, Again as Pitcher Flubs Return Toss
|
It is a routine part of the game, something every pitcher from Little League to the big leagues does without even thinking. Throw the pitch, then catch the ball when it is tossed back. Jhoulys Chacin botched that simple task, handing the Atlanta Braves another unlikely win. Led by seven scoreless innings from Tim Hudson, the Braves, the National League wild-card leaders, posted their second straight 1-0 win over the Colorado Rockies , winning both times with an unearned run. It was the first time in more than 28 years that a team triumphed that way in back-to-back games. “It’s one of those crazy things, but baseball is a crazy game,” Braves second baseman Dan Uggla said. “A lot of weird things can happen.” Juan Francisco, not exactly a speedy player, used his legs to score the only run in the second. First, he surprised the visiting Rockies when he dropped down a bunt leading off the inning, reaching first easily. Uggla followed with a ground-rule double. After a pitch to Brian McCann, Chacin (2-5) dropped a routine return throw from catcher Wilin Rosario. Francisco took off for the plate, scoring with a headfirst slide. “I thought I got it, and I put my head down, and I just missed it,” Chacin said. “It’s inexcusable. It’s really embarrassing.” That one play was enough for Hudson (14-5), who stranded eight Colorado runners. Craig Kimbrel got the final three outs for his 34th save. NATIONALS 9, CUBS 2 Adam LaRoche added to his home run tear with a two-run shot and host Washington beat Chicago in a fight-filled game to finish a lopsided four-game sweep. The trouble started with a testy exchange between the Cubs bench coach Jamie Quirk and the Nationals third-base coach Bo Porter in the fifth inning. In the sixth, Chicago reliever Lendy Castillo threw his first pitch of the inning near Bryce Harper’s legs, and the ball sailed all the way to the backstop. MARLINS 6, BREWERS 2 Josh Johnson pitched seven innings and ended his career-worst four-game losing skid, leading host Miami past Milwaukee. RANGERS 5, ROYALS 4 Ian Kinsler hit a leadoff triple in the 10th inning and scored on Michael Young’s single to lift Texas in Kansas City. Josh Hamilton and Adrian Beltre hit back-to-back homers in the fourth to help the Rangers overcome a 3-0 deficit. A’S PITCHER RECOVERING Athletics pitcher Brandon McCarthy was in stable condition in the critical care unit of a Bay Area hospital a day after having surgery for a skull fracture and brain contusion caused by a line drive. McCarthy was hit in the head Wednesday by a line drive off the bat of Erick Aybar of the Angels. DICKEY’S BOOK DEAL Mets pitcher R. A. Dickey has a deal with Dial Books for Younger Readers for three books, the publisher announced.
|
Baseball;Colorado Rockies;Atlanta Braves
|
ny0166969
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2006/01/27
|
When Reality Runs Parallel to Accusation
|
THE ruthless strategists who routinely push dissenters over the balcony at Madison Square Garden would like you to take a leap of faith with them. Believe the Garden variety truth, and Isiah Thomas is, as he defiantly described himself on Wednesday, a "pawn" being used for the "financial gain" of Anucha Browne Sanders. Believe their virtuous version of events and Browne Sanders's scurrilous accounts of sexual harassment and retaliation at the hands of Thomas are the vindictive rants of a fired executive. But how can Thomas cast Browne Sanders as a lying opportunist when he has been a known practitioner of deception at every whistle-stop along his career? It was Thomas who whisked into New York in his tailored suit and Crest smile two years ago, offering this glimpse into his tactics as the new Knicks' president: I will lie if I have to. And how can the Garden protectors of Thomas mouth workplace integrity and character without looking so karaoke? It was the Knicks' owner, James L. Dolan, who once flayed a lowly subordinate to tears for serving him a stale Diet Coke and aired his daddy issues in public when he feuded with his Cablevision pop. The problem for Thomas and the Garden isn't Browne Sanders, but their inability to discredit the accuser when they have no credit references. They have tried to sully her, but to their profound disappointment and probable shock, she has had the gall to stand her ground. "To not take the stand and let Madison Square Garden do what they've done to me," Browne Sanders said in a telephone interview, "it does nothing for the women coming up in the ranks." If the Garden underestimates women, it only reveals their overt arrogance and closet sexism. Think about it: the Garden claims to have fired Browne Sanders -- a marketing chief of superlative evaluations -- for incompetence and disdainfully denied her request for a seven-figure settlement. Apparently, it only pays to be an incompetent man at the Garden. In recent years, the surly Shandon Anderson was handed $40 million to disappear from the roster, coaches Lenny Wilkens and Don Chaney were ushered off with seven figures in the mail and Penny Hardaway can bank more than $14 million this year as an Oscar-attired seat-filler on the bench. For his part, Thomas is being paid around $10 million a year for assembling a $120 million version of "Ishtar." And Browne Sanders is the incompetent one? Sexism, of course, isn't sexual harassment. It is impossible to know if Thomas was a no-look groper around the executive office cubicles, but the Garden culture does make it easier to believe the accounts of Browne Sanders because her allegations so accurately jibe with Garden behavior as usual. This exercise works best with an overhead projector, but just for a moment, overlay each accusation made by Browne Sanders in her lawsuit against the Garden reality. Accusation: She was told to create jobs for Stephon Marbury's relatives and was also required to hire Dolan's landscaper even though none were qualified for the jobs. Garden reality: Buddyball is a passion at the Garden. Thomas ordered the dumping of Wilkens's best pal and assistant coach, Dick Helm, to place his longtime friend Brendan Suhr onto the Knicks' bench and payroll. Accusation: A female employee at the Knicks told Browne Sanders that Thomas had ordered her to flirt with certain men connected to the game to make them happy. Garden reality: Thomas was instructed to flirt with Larry Brown to make Dolan happy. Accusation: Browne Sanders was forced to use cardboard cutouts of Knicks players to market the team in ads because Thomas would not make the players available. Garden reality: Real Knicks don't do community service. So when the brilliant commercials ran, who knew the players were cardboard cutouts? Accusation: Thomas told Browne Sanders that he wanted to schedule more Sunday noon games and was working with hotel concierges to direct visiting players to strip clubs on Saturday nights as a "basketball strategy."Garden reality: Guess who has been lap-dancing, too? The Knicks were once accused of transporting strippers across state lines to bring the entertainment on the road. It is not as if Browne Sanders was naïve to the athlete culture. As any woman in the sports industry understands, there is a level of arrested development among some players. "I think I'm pretty thick-skinned, and I'm a realist," said Browne Sanders, 43, a former basketball star at Northwestern. "But was I expecting it in this environment? Absolutely not. I don't feel that anyone should. You have a certain standard you expect when you walk into a professional environment, and what has transpired has been quite the counter." What transpired between Browne Sanders and Thomas isn't known as fact. But many elements of her complaint square with the Garden's history of hubris and male privilege. Thomas and his Garden posse can smear Browne Sanders -- and give her the Jets' stadium treatment and Mayor Bloomberg takedown -- but it is impossible to take a leap of faith with ruthless pushers of deception. Sports of The Times E-mail: [email protected]
|
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN;NEW YORK KNICKS;NEW YORK KNICKERBOCKERS;THOMAS ISIAH;SANDERS ANUCHA BROWNE;SPORTS OF THE TIMES (TIMES COLUMN);SUITS AND LITIGATION;SEXUAL HARASSMENT;BASKETBALL
|
ny0243683
|
[
"business"
] |
2011/03/15
|
Wall Street Shares End Lower
|
Shares on Wall Street closed lower on Monday, following Japanese markets lower, as investors tried to assess the economic impact of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident in Japan. Shares of uranium producers were hit hard, as Japanese engineers struggled to prevent a meltdown at a stricken nuclear plant. Oil prices fell as markets worried that any slowdown in growth in Japan would crimp world demand. The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed down 7.89 points, or 0.6 percent, to 1,296.39. Among the hardest hit names in the index was General Electric, which designed the nuclear reactors at the stricken Fukushima plant in northern Japan. It was down 2.4 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 51.24 points, or 0.43 percent, to 11,993.16, while the technology heavy Nasdaq dropped 14.64 points, or 0.64 percent, t0 2,700.97. In the bond market, prices rose for the benchmark 10-year bond as the interest rate fell to 3.33 percent from 3.4 percent late Friday. Earlier, the Nikkei 225 index plunged 6.2 percent to close at 9,620.49 points, its lowest level since November, even as Japan’s central bank pumped cash into the financial system and eased monetary policy to try and shield the country’s economy from the disaster that hit northeastern Japan on Friday. Crude oil prices in New York trading fell below $100 a barrel before rising slightly. Analysts had anticipated that the shutdown of Japanese refineries could cut demand. In afternoon trading in New York, benchmark crude for April delivery was three cents higher at $101.19 a barrel. “This disaster has in effect temporarily frozen the world’s third-largest economy,” Richard Soultanian of NUS Consulting told The Associated Press. “It seems clear that Japan’s appetite for crude oil may be diminished in the near-term which should provide previously unforeseen slack in international oil markets.” In Europe, stock markets were lower but they appeared to be bolstered by an agreement that European leaders struck early Saturday on measures intended to end the euro zone debt crisis, in part by injecting more flexibility into the way a bailout fund for the euro can be used. The deal bolstered government bond prices in Greece, Ireland and Portugal. In London, the FTSE-100 was down 54.43 points, or 0.92 percent. In Frankfurt, the DAX index was down 114.86, or 1.65 percent. The CAC 40 in Paris fell 50.64 points or 1.29 percent. As the fate of the quake-stricken nuclear reactors hung in the balance, the stocks of uranium producers were hit hard. The stock of Uranium Resources was down 26 percent, for example. Uranium Energy was down 25 percent, matching the decline in Denison Mines Corporation. But stocks of companies involved in renewable energy were boosted. The share price of Suntech Power Holdings was 4.1 percent higher. Insurance and reinsurance companies also suffered, as investors worried about the extent of their liabilities in covering the damage wreaked by the earthquake and tsunami. Swiss Re, one of the biggest reinsurance companies, was down 5 percent. As the crisis at damaged nuclear plants north of Tokyo threatened an energy squeeze for Japanese companies, Jens Nordvig, an economist at Nomura in New York, said there would probably be spillover effects on countries outside Japan, though the overall impact was likely to be small. In the light of the natural disaster, Nomura shaved its estimate of Japanese growth this year, by about 0.3 percent to 0.4 percent, but “that is too little to mean we are going to take any of the other numbers outside Japan down,” Mr. Nordvig said. Guy Lebas, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia, said there was repatriation risk to global markets — Japanese companies and individuals moving money from the United States and elsewhere back to Japan for reconstruction or to have easier access to their savings. Japanese investors, for example, are the second largest holder of Treasuries, after China, and any withdrawal could put some upward pressure on interest rates in the United States, he said. He said there was some evidence of that at the end of last week. But on Monday as fears about the effects of the nuclear reactors remained uncertain, this was offset by investors around the world sending money back the other way, pouring money back into Treasuries as they sought a safe haven, causing them to strengthen.
|
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline;Stocks and Bonds
|
ny0084220
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2015/10/06
|
Supreme Court Justices Seem Wary of Suit in Austrian Train Injury
|
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court did not seem inclined on Monday to let a California woman injured in an Austrian train accident sue in American court. The woman, Carol P. Sachs, lost her legs after trying to board a moving train in Innsbruck. She said she should be allowed to sue the railroad in federal court in California because she had bought her Eurail pass in the United States over the Internet from a travel agent in Massachusetts. It was the first argument of the new term, and there was no evidence of the discord that marked the end of the last one in June. There was, rather, a seeming consensus that the case did not have enough to do with the United States to allow a lawsuit here. “There is one contact with the United States,” said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an expert on jurisdiction. “A pass is bought from a travel agent in Massachusetts, a pass covering 30-odd railroads. That’s all that happened in the United States.” “All of the relevant conduct, the tortious conduct, occurred abroad,” she added. Justice Elena Kagan asked whether buying a ticket in the United States to an opera performance in Vienna would allow her to sue here if she slipped on a puddle and fell there. Her tone suggested that the idea was absurd. Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who has just published a book on the role of American courts in the global economy, said he was not aware of any nation that would open its courts to suits from its citizens for injuries abroad in similar circumstances. The precise legal question in the case was whether the railroad, which is owned by the Austrian government, was entitled to sovereign immunity. Foreign states are generally protected under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, but that law makes an exception for claims “based upon a commercial activity carried on in the United States.” Jeffrey L. Fisher, a lawyer for Ms. Sachs, said the sale of the rail pass was enough to satisfy the exception. “The overall integrated activity of running the railway train enterprise, which includes selling the product and delivering the product,” sufficed, he said. Juan C. Basombrio, a lawyer for the railroad, said it would be impossible for the seller of a Eurail pass in the United States “to warn about all conditions at hundreds of potential railroad stations in Europe.” The federal government supported the Austrian company on the crucial issue in the case, OBB Personenverkehr A.G. v. Sachs, No. 13-1067. Edwin S. Kneedler, a deputy solicitor general, urged the justices “not to draw U.S. courts into what could be very sensitive international questions of having U.S. courts pass judgment on what happens in a foreign country.” Mr. Fisher urged the court to consider the implications of its ruling. On one hand, “you’ll never see a case like this again,” he said. “Not only in the railroad context, but even in the airline industry.” That is because, he said, passes and tickets now routinely specify where suits may be brought. On the other hand, he went on, the court’s ruling could apply to a lot of other types of disputes, including ones arising from financial transactions and employment agreements. Justice Ginsburg did not appear persuaded, saying the court could rule narrowly. “The question is, ‘What does ‘based on’ mean” in the immunities law? she said. “And the court could say ‘based on’ is not based on if all that happened in the United States is the purchase of the ticket.”
|
Supreme Court,SCOTUS;Train wreck;Austria;Carol P Sachs;Lawsuits;Innsbruck;US
|
ny0050655
|
[
"us"
] |
2014/10/10
|
In Race for Attorney General, Contentious Issues but Little Discussion
|
AUSTIN — Some of the most contentious issues that have surfaced in statewide campaigns this year — if Texas is required to disclose the locations of hazardous chemical warehouses, or if sweeping cuts lawmakers made to public education should be defended in court — will fall to the next attorney general. But it is not the candidates for attorney general who have been debating them. The issues have come up most visibly in the high-profile governor’s race, which pits Attorney General Greg Abbott, the Republican front-runner, against State Senator Wendy Davis, Democrat of Fort Worth. In two debates, the candidates have sparred over Mr. Abbott’s ruling in May that the state may withhold information about the location of hazardous chemicals under an antiterrorism law and over his defense of the state’s public school finance system in a case that has been appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the two top candidates for attorney general have met in person just once, when they gave separate speeches to a sheriff’s association in July. State Senator Ken Paxton, Republican of McKinney, has otherwise had few public events since winning his party’s nomination. He entered the final month before the election with more than 12 times as much cash as his Democratic opponent, according to filings with the Texas Ethics Commission. A spokesman for Mr. Paxton’s campaign said in a written statement that, as attorney general, Mr. Paxton would have “a duty to defend the laws of the state,” including its system of financing public schools. The spokesman did not say whether Mr. Paxton agreed with Mr. Abbott’s ruling that exempted information about hazardous chemicals from open records law, but he said Mr. Paxton would consider “the arguments for and against making all information available to the public, including threats of terrorism.” Sam Houston, a lawyer and the Democratic candidate, said in a telephone interview that he would reverse the hazardous chemicals ruling and would seek to settle the public school finance lawsuit. He has challenged Mr. Paxton to a debate, saying the issues that have emerged in the governor’s race were “hugely important questions” that needed to be discussed by the state’s next top lawyer. Image Ken Paxton Credit Laura Buckman for The Texas Tribune Representatives for Mr. Paxton’s campaign have ignored Mr. Houston’s calls to debate, calling them a “desperate ploy” from an underdog seeking publicity. Mark P. Jones, a political scientist at Rice University, said that in a state where Democrats have not won a statewide election in two decades, Mr. Paxton has little incentive to draw attention to his campaign. “The less people know about the attorney general’s race, the more likely they are to vote just based on partisanship,” Mr. Jones said. “Paxton has certainly run a campaign that is flying under the radar.” (Rice is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.) Mr. Houston said his opponent had not been open with the news media or the public since he paid a $1,000 fine for violating the Texas Securities Act by soliciting investment clients in 2012 without being registered with the State Securities Board. A representative for Mr. Paxton has called the violation an “administrative oversight” that has been resolved. Mr. Houston will continue to hope for a debate, he said, because he considered it especially important in an attorney general’s race to be transparent about policy issues. “You can get way off into legalese with all these things if you’re not careful, because it’s complicated,” Mr. Houston said. “But with all of these issues, the devil’s in the details.”
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2014 Midterm Elections;Attorney General Elections;K-12 Education;Greg Abbott;Sam Houston;Ken Paxton;Wendy Davis;Texas
|
ny0019198
|
[
"us"
] |
2013/07/21
|
Demonstrations Across the Country Commemorate Trayvon Martin
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Thousands of demonstrators gathered in dozens of cities on Saturday to commemorate Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager shot to death in a confrontation with a neighborhood watch volunteer early last year, and to add their voices to a debate on race that his death has set off. The demonstrations began around noon at federal buildings across the country. They came a week after the volunteer, George Zimmerman, was acquitted by a court in Florida in Mr. Martin’s killing; days after angry protests erupted in the wake of that verdict; and hours after President Obama said, in a heartfelt address, that “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.” The events were largely peaceful, though those attending in many cities faced sweltering heat — with temperatures in some areas reaching into the 80s and 90s. In Dallas, news reports said about 25 demonstrators had been treated by medical personnel for heat-related problems. In Atlanta, storms also bedeviled protesters, leading to the cancellation of an evening rally in a suburb. Mr. Martin’s father, Tracy Martin, addressing dozens of people outside the federal courthouse in Miami, said, “I vowed to Trayvon when he was laying in his casket that I would use every ounce of energy in my body to seek justice for him.” “I will continue to fight for Trayvon until the day I die,” he added. “Not only will I be fighting for Trayvon, I will be fighting for your child as well.” Isabel Eugene, 16, who also attended the rally in Miami, said: “Before Trayvon Martin, we took precautions, but now it’s worse. It could have been my brother.” At a rally in New York, many people held umbrellas to shield themselves from the overpowering heat. As the crowd of thousands shouted, “We’re all Trayvon Martin,” the Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the organizers of the gatherings, spoke, saying Mr. Martin’s death should prompt a larger movement. Mr. Sharpton then announced a plan to hold a protest in the capital in August to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Mr. Sharpton said he wanted to ensure an aggressive federal investigation of Mr. Zimmerman and fight against Florida’s broad self-defense laws. “Last Saturday we cried,” he said, “but this Saturday we march.” A Week After Verdict, Throngs Rally for Trayvon Martin 16 Photos View Slide Show › Image Chang W. Lee/The New York Times “We’re going to keep the focus on the Justice Department because Trayvon Martin had the civil right to go home that day,” he added. “We cannot have a society where any one of our children can be taken based on someone feeling they had the right to stand their ground. Well, what about Trayvon’s right to stand his ground? And what about our right to stand our ground?” He also reiterated a point that President Obama had made in his speech the previous day. “You don’t know the humiliation of walking in a department store and you’re assumed to be a suspect rather than a customer,” Mr. Sharpton said. “You don’t know the humiliation of being guilty till proven innocent. You don’t know the humiliation of how people judge you based on what your skin color is.” Mr. Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, who also attended the New York rally, stepped up to speak next, choking on her words as she faced the swelling crowd. “Trayvon was a child, and I think sometimes it gets lost in the shuffle, because as I sat in the courtroom, it made me think that they were talking about another man,” Ms. Fulton said. “And it wasn’t. It was a child.” She later added: “Of course we’re hurting. Of course we’re shocked and disappointed, but that just means that we have to roll up our sleeves and continue to fight.” In Atlanta, the site of repeated protests since the verdict, several thousand demonstrators withstood torrential rains at a rally that focused on demanding action from the Justice Department in the wake of Mr. Obama’s comments on Friday. “I need new federal charges along with that feel-good speech,” Marcus Coleman, 39, told a crowd that roared its approval. The protest, on the steps of the city’s federal building, drew two of Dr. King’s children, who invoked their father’s legacy and words while urging the demonstrators to press forward ahead of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington next month. In an interview before his appearance, Martin Luther King III said he believed the verdict had led to an unusually introspective and widespread national conversation about race and the criminal justice system. “This is a tone-setting time that at least sets up a framework for dialogue that has not existed in a long time,” Mr. King said. “People are not as frustrated about the verdict. It’s about consistent, systemic kinds of things that don’t get reported and happen every day in courtrooms across America.” Charlotte Wilson, 70, a retiree from Atlanta, was among those who stood in the front row of the protest and said she believed the next challenge for the demonstrators would be maintaining their intensity. Image People marched across the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday. 1 / 8 “This is powerful, but we have to continue,” Ms. Wilson said. “We have to stick together.” But the Rev. Markel Hutchins, one of the event’s organizers, said he was not anxious that the momentum would fade. “There’s a new level of energy,” Mr. Hutchins said. “There’s a new level of enthusiasm that I personally have not seen since the days of the civil rights movement. Perhaps Trayvon Martin’s death — and perhaps even the not guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial — has inspired and ignited a movement of people who, frankly, needed to be moved.” Several hundred also marched through downtown Los Angeles. Some carried placards that read, “Open season on the black man” and “Federal charges for Zimmerman.” Cindy Holdorff, 46, who is white, attended the march with her 9-year-old adopted son, Sam, who is black. Ms. Holdorff said she had brought Sam to prepare him for the realities of racial prejudice. “He’s been learning about slavery in the classroom, so I said to him, ‘Slavery is over, but unfortunately people still judge people by their color,’ ” she said, adding that that is what she believed happened to Trayvon Martin. “We’re going to go fight because we don’t want this to happen again.” At similar rallies in Washington and other cities large and small, crowds of hundreds held up signs reading, “I am not a suspect” and “Trayvon Martin has civil rights.” On the previous Saturday, after three weeks of testimony, a six-woman jury rejected the prosecution argument that Mr. Zimmerman had deliberately pursued Mr. Martin because he presumed the hoodie-clad 17-year-old was a criminal and instigated the fight that led to the killing. Mr. Zimmerman said he shot Mr. Martin on Feb. 26, 2012, in self-defense after the teenager knocked him to the ground, punched him and slammed his head repeatedly against a sidewalk. In finding him not guilty of murder or manslaughter, the jury agreed that Mr. Zimmerman could have been justified in shooting Mr. Martin because he feared great bodily harm or death. The Justice Department restarted an investigation into the case after the acquittal to determine whether the evidence “reveals a prosecutable violation of any of the limited federal criminal civil rights statutes,” it said in a statement. To win a conviction, the government would have to prove that Mr. Zimmerman acted willfully to violate Mr. Martin’s civil rights, those familiar with such cases have said.
|
Trayvon Martin;Murders;George Zimmerman;Sanford FL
|
ny0112287
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2012/02/01
|
Hurled Shopping Carts at New York Malls Worry Shoppers
|
In sections of New York City where such creations would have been unthinkable a decade or so ago, huge retail centers have blossomed. But as welcome as these symbols of suburbia have been in Harlem and in the Bronx, two unusual crimes there have shaken New Yorkers, who admit to looking up now for the latest, bizarre weapon of choice: the shopping cart, tossed from above. On Monday afternoon, someone hurled a cart from the third floor of a parking garage at Gateway Center in the Bronx; it struck a 52-year-old man and a 30-year-old man on the pavement below. Both were in stable condition on Tuesday afternoon at Lincoln Medical Center in the Bronx, the police said. A witness said the violence stemmed from a dispute among livery drivers. On Oct. 30, Marion Salmon Hedges had been shopping for Halloween candy at East River Plaza in Harlem when two 12-year-old boys dropped a shopping cart from a walkway four floors above. Ms. Hedges nearly lost her life; her husband, Michael Hedges Jr., noted her improvement on Tuesday, but said in a statement that “every day presents new challenges, and she is bravely dealing with the effects of a life-altering injury.” “Our lives have been changed forever, and hearing about this incident reopens the wounds from Oct. 30 when Marion was almost fatally injured,” according to the statement. “There needs to be safety and security measures taken to prevent this from happening again.” Though there were several guards monitoring Gateway Center on Tuesday afternoon, it was unclear if they represented extra security or if the mall would make changes. In a statement, a mall spokeswoman said: “Security has always been and continues to be an operational priority and focus. While this event appears to be an isolated incident, we will adjust and amend our procedures accordingly.” A police spokesman would not provide details of the attack at Gateway Center and said no arrests had been made. A witness, Anthony Clifton, 46, said the episode began when three livery-cab drivers in front of a Home Depot, where the drivers park, argued over a fare. At some point, Mr. Clifton said one of the drivers dashed to the third floor of the garage, grabbed a shopping cart and threw it on the two drivers below. Another cabdriver at Gateway Center, Eddie Garcia, 41, said it was not the first time a shopping cart had been tossed from the mall’s parking garage. A little over a year ago, he said someone dropped a cart onto the roof of his car while he was parked in front of Home Depot. “They have to do something,” another cabdriver, Maximo Pena, 46, said. “The first time it was a car. This time it was a life.” At East River Plaza, additional security guards were added after the October episode, a mall spokesman said. Still, the presence of additional security offered little comfort to Camille Villarini, 30, who was shopping on Tuesday at East River Plaza. “If it happened once, it could happen again,” she said. Chris McGoey, a mall security consultant, said shoppers had little cause to worry. Two episodes did not indicate a pattern, he said, adding that a majority of crimes at shopping malls are vastly different: vandalism, like graffiti and destroying landscaping, and thefts make up 90 percent of those incidents. In Mr. McGoey’s 40 years in the mall security business, he said, he has heard of only a couple of shopping cart attacks. Typically, mall management companies tend to view the more unusual crimes as statistical anomalies, Mr. McGoey said. “There might be a flutter of e-mails, you might have a meeting or two and the media’s usually out there, so they’ll worry about that,” he said. But if there is no pattern or history of criminal behavior, Mr. McGoey added, “they’re going to dismiss it as one of those bizarre happenings.” Nonetheless, many shoppers at the two malls seemed shaken. Stacey Cherebin, 40, said she used to be more worried about being attacked in one of the vast, quiet corners of Gateway’s parking complex. But getting mugged was not her greatest concern on Tuesday. “You can’t shop without having to look up and worry about something falling on your head,” she said. “It’s terrifying.”
|
Gateway Center;East River Plaza;Bronx (NYC);Shopping Centers and Malls;Assaults;New York City
|
ny0200128
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2009/09/04
|
N. Korea Reports Advances in Enriching Uranium
|
WASHINGTON — North Korea declared Friday that it was in the “concluding stage” of tests to enrich uranium. Its statement would appear to end a decade-long debate within American intelligence agencies about whether the country was working on a second pathway to building nuclear weapons . The statement came in a brief announcement by the official North Korean news agency, quoting what it said was a letter from the North Korean government to the United Nations. No details were offered, and the use of the word “tests” suggests that the country may only be experimenting and has not yet undertaken the huge expense required to install the thousands of centrifuges necessary to produce enough uranium for a nuclear weapon. For the North, the new nuclear program would amount to an insurance policy. For decades it pursued another pathway to a bomb, taking the spent fuel from one of its nuclear reactors and producing plutonium. To prove its capacity, the North has conducted two nuclear tests, one that fizzled in 2006 and a more successful detonation in May . In February 2007, the North agreed to dismantle its reactors and stop producing bomb fuel. But it reversed that commitment this year, and on Friday it said it had harvested the remaining spent fuel, which could provide it with enough plutonium for one or two additional weapons. North Korea was believed to already have enough plutonium for about six to eight nuclear weapons. But the existence of a second program to build bomb fuel would give the country something else to negotiate over with the West, and it would create the possibility that the government of Kim Jong-il could try to sell the technology, just as it has sold some of its reactor technology. North Korean officials announced in April that they intended to start a uranium enrichment program . In its brief statement on Friday, the country also hinted at resuming negotiations, saying, “We are prepared for both sanctions and dialogue.” In Beijing on Friday, the United States’ special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, commented on the North’s claim, Reuters reported. Speaking to reporters, he said: “Obviously, anything that the North is doing in the area of nuclear development is of concern to us.” In the fall of 2002, aides to President George W. Bush accused the North of seeking to enrich uranium. North Korean officials first seemed to admit proudly to a covert enrichment program, but they later denied it. Mr. Bush used the episode to refuse to negotiate with North Korea and terminated a 1994 agreement on freezing nuclear operations. But in the aftermath of the failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq, American intelligence agencies began to lose confidence in their assessment of North Korea’s nuclear capacity. During a Congressional hearing in 2007, Joseph DeTrani, one of the government’s senior North Korea intelligence experts, said that the intelligence community was assured only at “midconfidence level” that the North Koreans were involved in a uranium enrichment program. If the North Koreans have only recently conducted tests in uranium enrichment, as their letter stated, it may suggest that the program has been in abeyance and has been resumed for negotiating purposes. The North may also now see enrichment as a cheaper alternative to restarting decrepit nuclear reactors to produce plutonium.
|
North Korea;Nuclear Weapons;Nuclear Energy;Uranium
|
ny0110555
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2012/05/13
|
James Earns Third M.V.P. Award
|
MIAMI (AP) — LeBron James spent two days trying to figure out the right words. An assistant jotted some ideas on notecards, but James ignored them. So when the moment came Saturday to deliver his acceptance speech for winning his third Most Valuable Player award, James spoke emotionally about family, charity, history and what the Miami Heat organization means to him. And he finished with a flourish. “This is very overwhelming to me as an individual award, “but this is not the award I want, ultimately,” James said. “I want that championship. That’s all that matters to me.” James, who averaged 27.1 points, 7.9 rebounds and 6.2 assists, is the eighth player in N.B.A. history to win at least three M.V.P. awards. The others — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Moses Malone — won N.B.A. titles. On Sunday, James will resume the quest for his first. “He’s going to get his,” the Heat’s president, Pat Riley, said. “He will get his championship. And there might be a lot more there, too.” James received 85 of 121 first-place votes, topping Kevin Durant (24 first-place votes), Chris Paul (6), Kobe Bryant (2) and Tony Parker (4).
|
Basketball;Miami Heat;James LeBron;Awards Decorations and Honors
|
ny0290233
|
[
"sports",
"autoracing"
] |
2016/01/17
|
Maria Teresa de Filippis, Pioneer of Auto Racing, Dies at 89
|
Maria Teresa de Filippis, who in the late 1950s became the first woman to compete in Formula 1 world championship grands prix, widely regarded as the pinnacle of automobile racing, died on Jan. 9. She was 89. Her death was announced on the website of the Formula 1 Grand Prix Drivers Club, a group made up of former drivers. The announcement did not say where she died. Formula 1 features open-wheeled cars that today often exceed 200 miles per hour and subject riders to gravitational forces stronger than a space shuttle launch. When de Filippis raced, deaths on the track were more common than they are now. De Filippis was one of a handful of women who have tried to qualify for world championship Formula 1 races. Female drivers were more common in the earlier decades of the 20th century but had become rare by the time Formula 1 took shape in the mid-1940s. Weighing barely 100 pounds when she raced, she drove a rocketlike Maserati 250F that had been modified for her slight frame. De Filippis helped reopen auto racing to women like Danica Patrick, internationally famous for her Nascar and IndyCar prowess, and Lella Lombardi, who became the only woman to register points in a Formula 1 world championship grand prix when she earned half a point for placing sixth in Spain in 1975. But de Filippis’s career was brief. It peaked with a 10th-place finish at the Belgian Grand Prix in 1958. In 2006, she told the British newspaper The Observer that her racing hero, the five-time world champion Juan Manuel Fangio , thought she could be reckless on the racetrack. “He used to say, ‘You go too fast, you take too many risks,’ ” she said. “I wasn’t frightened of speed, you see, and that’s not always a good thing. He worried I might have an accident.” She qualified for three major races, persevering in the face of skepticism from other drivers and race officials. But she said that gender discrimination had rarely been an issue. “The only time I was prevented from racing was at the French Grand Prix,” de Filippis said. “The race director said, ‘The only helmet a woman should wear is the one at the hairdresser’s.’ Apart from that, I don’t think I encountered any prejudice — only surprise at my success.” She retired after Jean Behra , a racer who designed a Porsche Formula 1 car that she drove in 1959, died after crashing during a rainy race in Berlin. De Filippis was born on Nov. 11, 1926, to an aristocratic family in Naples. She said she was goaded into automobile racing by her three brothers, deciding to try racing in a Fiat 500 after they had challenged her ability to drive one, fast. She entered her first race, a hill climb called the Salerno-Cava dei Tirreni, at 22 and finished second over all. She soon progressed through the levels of racing until reaching Formula 1 in 1958. Her survivors include her husband, Theodor Huschek, the general secretary for the Formula 1 Grand Prix Drivers Club; a daughter, Carola; and grandchildren.
|
Obituary;Car Racing;Women and Girls;Formula One;Maria Teresa de Filippis
|
ny0179859
|
[
"business"
] |
2007/08/21
|
Investors, on Edge, Grab Up Treasury Bills
|
The stock market was quiet yesterday, but debt markets were anything but. In a sign that investors are fleeing investments that carry even the slightest hint of risk, the price of short-term government debt soared, sending yields on their biggest drop since the stock market crash of 1987. The return on a three-month United States Treasury bill was 3.09 percent when trading closed yesterday. At the end of July, it was nearly 5 percent. The rush to buy Treasuries offered an indication that the Federal Reserve, which on Friday unexpectedly reduced its rate for loans to banks, might need to do more to reassure investors about the credit markets. The jolt to the market for government debt — traditionally a safe haven for investors because it is backed by the United States Treasury — came as share prices steadied in the wake of the Fed’s action. That move, widely viewed as an indication that the central bank was amenable to lowering its pivotal federal funds rate, propelled markets worldwide to hefty gains. But trading on Wall Street was largely unremarkable yesterday. For most of the session, stocks hovered either slightly above or slightly below Friday’s closing levels on light trading volume. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index closed at 1,445.55, essentially flat, down 0.03 percent from Friday. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 42.27 points to finish the day up 0.3 percent, at 13,121.35. The Nasdaq rose 0.14 percent. The calm yesterday in stock trading masked what many Wall Street analysts said was still very much a market on edge. “There’s just a massive fear factor at play here,” said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. “Investors of every variety are just scrambling into the safety of Treasuries.” The flight into United States government debt reflects the uncertainty over the security of a short-term debt known as commercial paper that companies use to finance day-to-day operations. The stock market has tumbled sharply in recent weeks on fears that credit is evaporating for individuals and corporations alike. Many companies have found it difficult to raise money by selling commercial paper. These markets began seizing up once it became known that some of the debt was backed by risky subprime mortgage loans. “You’re seeing a lot of people scrambling to raise cash,” said Robert F. Millikan, director of fixed income at BB&T Asset Management in Raleigh, N.C. “Nobody can actually quantify the risk right now, so investors are requiring a somewhat exaggerated level of compensation.” The yield on 30-day commercial paper that is backed by pools of assets like home loans and credit cards rose to 6 percent yesterday from 5.28 percent in mid-July, according to data from Bloomberg. Typically, the yield is close to the federal funds rate, which is 5.25 percent. “Banks didn’t expect to have to bail out the commercial paper market,” said Christian Stracke, a senior strategist at CreditSights. “It goes to the heart of the financial system when banks have to take on a lot more risk than they expected and offload it somewhere else.” When the Federal Reserve cut the lending rate last week at its so-called discount window — where banks can go to receive a short-term loan if they find interest rates in the commercial paper market to be prohibitive — it was an acknowledgment that the market had tightened too much. Yesterday the Fed took another step to help ease the disarray in the debt market. In a departure from its normal practice, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said it would cash out of about $5 billion in expiring Treasury bills on Thursday. Normally, the central bank would immediately use that cash to buy a comparable volume of new Treasury bills at auction. But in this case, the Fed’s Open Market Trading Desk in New York will stay out of the auction and hold on to cash — a move the bank said would give it “greater flexibility.” As the markets continued to digest the Federal Reserve’s interest rate reduction, investment strategists said the cut was having the desired effect for now. “Has it solved all the housing-related problems? Of course not,” Ms. Sonders said. “But it eliminated what was in the very near term just a total credit seizure.” Following are the results of yesterday’s auction of three-month and six-month Treasury bills:
|
Banks and Banking;Stocks and Bonds;Credit;Interest Rates;Treasury Department
|
ny0040814
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2014/04/13
|
A Tour of the Heavens Gets an Upgrade
|
The Hudson River Museum , in Yonkers, is already reaping the benefits of its eight-month, $1.5 million planetarium renovation, completed in February. Since the March 8 reopening, school group bookings are up, and so are weekend ticket sales. But not every benefit is obvious to visitors. For one thing, there is considerable improvement in the job satisfaction of Marc Taylor, manager of planetarium and science programs. “I feel much less like I’m spending my time running around climbing ladders in the dark trying to fix things,” said Mr. Taylor, 43, of Manhattan. Before the upgrade, “kids would sometimes giggle when things went wrong, which they often did,” he said recently after hosting an hourlong program in the updated space for a class of second-graders from the Greenvale School, in Eastchester. Some mishaps during past shows, such as the one in which a special effect nearly caught fire, were too serious to giggle over, Mr. Taylor said. “Now we have an attraction where school groups and the public can come and learn without being distracted by the mechanisms behind the presentation,” he said. “I can relax and concentrate more” on what visitors are getting out of the planetarium’s programs. The Hudson River Museum has been projecting representations of the heavens onto its 120-seat dome since 1969; it serves roughly 7,000 weekend visitors and 7,000 area school children annually. Its last equipment upgrade was in 1987, with the installation of a machine known as the Zeiss M1015, which relied on slides, videotape, laser disc machines and mirrors to display the planets, moon, sun and 7,000 other stars The recent upgrade, financed by the City of Yonkers , included a $130,000 rebuilding of the existing dome, which “was not quite the right shape and sort of corroded,” Mr. Taylor said. The rest of the money went toward high-tech equipment including the Ohira-Tech Megastar II , a computerized optical star projector that can display a Milky Way composed of millions of individual stars; a pair of twin video projectors that cover all 2,500 square feet of the dome using nine computers; a new sound system and lighting; and a new power supply. The Megastar and projectors work separately and together. On its own, the Megastar, a colorful apparatus whose squat, rounded body calls to mind the "Star Wars" robot R2D2, generates the sky, but more realistically than its predecessor. Image Every year, thousands of students visit the Hudson River Museum’s planetarium, which reopened in March after a $1.5 million renovation. The new computerized projector displays a more realistic view of the constellations and millions of stars. Marc Taylor, the planetarium’s manager, bottom right, talks about a retired projector. Credit Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times “If you look at the real sky, you see stars just on the verge of being visible. If you don’t have that in a simulation, it doesn’t look right,” Mr. Taylor said. The simulated sky that predated the Megastar “was believable, but it didn’t sort of tease your eyes like the real sky and the new system,” he said. When the projectors work in tandem with the Megastar, orbits and other sky features stay in correct alignment with the stars. During the show “The Sky Tonight,” offered to the public on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, the systems work together to project constellation lines, which illustrate what the sky will look like on the evening of the program. Time travel in the refurbished planetarium is not limited to jumps into the same-day sky, though. From behind his console in the darkened dome, with a few strokes of his keypad, Mr. Taylor demonstrated the way the night sky looked from Earth roughly six months ago, how it will look in six months’ time, and how it will look in 18 months. He can as easily travel backward or forward through centuries using the Megastar and projectors, something that would have taken hours to orchestrate before the upgrade. “Now it’s instantaneous. You tell the computer ‘Go a thousand years into the past,’ and it just does it,” he said. But those journeys have not inspired the biggest oohs and aahs from young audiences since the reopening. “Probably the most spectacular thing is when we take off from Earth. We rise up and you can see the Earth below us,” Mr. Taylor said. During the presentation for the second-graders, a flight through the rings of Saturn to the four moons of Jupiter also prompted appreciative gasps. For Mr. Taylor, a favorite aspect of the new system’s bells and whistles is its ability to display exoplanets, those that orbit suns other than ours. “Those kids who came today?” he said. “When they were born the number of known exoplanets was several dozen. Now it’s in the thousands. And we can see them.” Students like 8-year-old Sofia Caballes, one of the Greenvale second-graders, may be less excited about exoplanets than the chance to leave Earth for a realistic, hourlong ride into outer space. “I liked it in there,” she said after Mr. Taylor’s presentation, on the way to the bus back to school. “I felt like I was on a rocket ship.”
|
Yonkers NY;Westchester;Hudson River Museum;Galaxy;Space
|
ny0006933
|
[
"us"
] |
2013/05/28
|
Texas: Gunman Killed After Shooting 6 People
|
A gunman killed one person and wounded five others in Concho County before being shot to death by the police, the Texas Department of Public Safety said on Monday. The gunman was identified as Esteban Smith, 23, who was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Firing randomly from a pickup truck on Sunday, Mr. Smith killed a 41-year-old woman and wounded the other five people, including the sheriff of the county, which is about 250 miles southwest of Dallas, the authorities said. Mr. Smith was killed in a shootout with a state trooper and a game warden who arrived to assist the sheriff, the authorities said. An assault rifle, a handgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition were found with Mr. Smith, they said. His military rank was not known. Camp Lejeune is home to several Marine Corps commands, including the Second Marine Division, and a Navy unit. A spokesman for the military base was not available for comment.
|
Murders;Texas
|
ny0209143
|
[
"science",
"earth"
] |
2009/12/16
|
Scores Detained in Climate Conference Protests
|
COPENHAGEN — Impatience was clearly rising Tuesday at global climate negotiations here as delegates struggled without success to surmount disputes over issues like emissions targets and financial aid for developing countries. With less than four days left in the two-week conference, a new draft negotiating text circulating among delegates reflected the wide gulf over those issues and others like monitoring emissions of heat-trapping gases. The United States and China remained at a tense impasse over China’s refusal to accept international monitoring on its turf. Yvo De Boer, the chief United Nations official running climate talks, warned that talks were moving too slowly. Carrying an orange-and-white life ring to his midday news conference to make his point, he nodded to the challenge of balancing the needs of the nearly 200 countries involved. “This process is not about ramming the interests of the few down the throats of the many,” he said. “This process is about many trying to address all interests.” Mr. De Boer cited disputes between large and small, rich and poor, vulnerable and resilient, on layered issues ranging from protecting forests to paying to bring more energy choices to places that hardly have any. Todd Stern, the chief climate negotiator for the United States, also warned that was “a great deal left to do.” “The parties are still far apart on a fair number of issues,” he said. As world leaders began making their way to Copenhagen for an uncertain conclusion to the two-week talks, protesters and police also clashed on the streets. For the first time since the two-week conference began, law enforcement officers used tear gas to disperse crowds of rioters, who were reportedly lobbing small firebombs, a police spokesman said Tuesday. Nearly 200 more arrests were made Monday night as the protesters, angered by the lack of progress in negotiations, set fire to makeshift barricades in Copenhagen’s Christiania neighborhood. Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain was expected to arrive Tuesday afternoon, two days ahead of schedule, in an effort to move the talks forward. The Danish presidency of the conference asked nations to pair up — one from a developing country, and one from an industrialized nation— and seek jointly to push other countries to make progress on some of the most difficult issues that still must be resolved. Ed Miliband, Britain’s secretary of state for climate change , for example, will team up with the Ghanaian environment minister, Hani Sherry Ayittey, to lead group talks aimed at ensuring that enough money is put on the table for poor countries. Poorer nations say they need a robust long-term financing commitment from developed nations to cope with climate changes they did not cause, like rising seas. Mr. Miliband and Ms. Ayittey “will be undertaking intensive consultations aimed at breaking through the deadlock on one of the toughest issues on the table in Copenhagen,” the British government said. At his midday news conference, Mr. De Boer said, “What makes this process complicated is that you have small island nations who are about to disappear because of sea level rise, you have oil producers who are legitimately concerned about the future of their economy, you have major industrialized nations who are afraid they will lose jobs and you have major developing countries whose overriding concern is economic growth and poverty eradication.” Speaking at the conference, Al Gore, the former vice president and climate campaigner, called on President Obama and the United States Senate to set a deadline of April 22 — the 40th anniversary of the first Earth Day — for passage of a climate change bill to improve the chances of a binding global treaty next year. When contacted, a senior administration official refused to be pinned down to a date but said, “We’ll do everything in our power to move it as quickly as possible.” Mr. Gore also called for a climate summit meeting next July in Mexico City — six months before a meeting already planned there — to advance efforts toward a treaty on climate change, Bloomberg News reported. On Tuesday morning, lines of government delegates and representatives of environmental organizations seeking access to the conference already stretched several hundred yards outside the venue’s main entrance. The United Nations, which is sponsoring the talks, said in an e-mail statement on Tuesday that more than 45,000 people had applied to attend the conference — three times the capacity of the building “An overwhelming number of those who applied arrived on Monday, causing congestion in the area outside the U.N. venue, which is under the control of the Danish police,” the statement said.
|
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change;Demonstrations and Riots
|
ny0036756
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2014/03/07
|
Crimea Approves a Secession Vote as Tensions Rise
|
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — The volatile confrontation over the future of Ukraine took another tense turn on Thursday as Russian allies in Crimea sought annexation by Moscow and the United States imposed its first sanctions on Russian officials involved in the military occupation of the strategic peninsula. While diplomats raced from meeting to meeting in an effort to end the standoff, European leaders signaled they might join American sanctions and Moscow threatened countermeasures as an already jittery situation was made edgier by the opening of new Russian military drills. The pro-Russia regional Parliament in Crimea crossed another line set by the United States and Europe by voting to hold a referendum on whether to secede from Ukraine and become part of Russia. It scheduled the vote for March 16, hoping to win popular approval for the Russian military seizure of the region. But the authorities in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, backed by the United States and Europe, denounced the move. Hours after issuing his first punitive actions against specific Russians, President Obama reached out to President Vladimir V. Putin in an hourlong telephone call emphasizing a diplomatic settlement. Mr. Obama urged Mr. Putin to authorize direct talks with Ukraine’s new pro-Western government, permit the entry of international monitors and return his forces here to their bases, according to the White House. “Any discussion about the future of Ukraine must include the legitimate government of Ukraine,” Mr. Obama said in his only public remarks on the crisis on Thursday. “In 2014, we are well beyond the days when borders can be redrawn over the heads of democratic leaders.” Early Friday, the Kremlin released a statement describing the phone call. “In the course of the discussion there emerged differences in approaches and assessments of the causes which brought about the current crisis and the resulting state of affairs,” the statement said. “Vladimir Putin, for his part, noted that this had occurred as a result of an anticonstitutional coup which does not have a national mandate.” Video In Yalta and Simferopol, Crimean citizens spoke about the planned referendum on whether to break from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. Credit Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times It went on to say that the current Ukrainian leadership has imposed “absolutely illegitimate decisions” on the eastern and southeastern regions of the country. “Russia cannot ignore appeals connected to this, calls for help, and acts appropriately, in accordance with international law,” the statement said. Mr. Putin, the statement said, appreciated the importance of the Russian-American relationship to global security, and added that bilateral ties “should not be sacrificed for individual — albeit rather important — international problems.” European Union leaders issued a statement in Brussels calling an annexation referendum “contrary to the Ukrainian Constitution and therefore illegal.” The sanctions Mr. Obama approved Thursday imposed visa bans on officials and other individuals deemed responsible for undermining Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity. The administration would not disclose the names or number of people penalized, but a senior official said privately that it would affect just under a dozen people, mostly Russians but some Ukrainians. Among those targeted were political figures, policy advisers, security officials and military officers who played a direct role in the Crimean crisis, the official said. Any of them seeking to travel to the United States would be barred, and a few who currently hold American visas will have them revoked. Mr. Obama also signed an executive order laying out a framework for tougher measures like freezing the assets of individuals and institutions. But the White House held back applying those measures while officials gathered evidence in the hope that waiting would provide some space for Russia to reverse course. The House, in the meantime, approved an economic aid package for the Kiev government and advanced its own sanctions resolution. Moscow, however, gave no indication of backing down, suggesting that it would reciprocate with measures seizing American property in Russia. “The U.S. has the right, and we have the right to respond to it,” Vladimir Lukin, a Russian envoy who has worked on the Ukrainian crisis, told Interfax, a Russian news agency. “But all that is, of course, not making me happy.” Video President Obama said, “Any discussion about the future of Ukraine must include the legitimate government of Ukraine.” Credit Credit Gabriella Demczuk/The New York Times The European Union took a step toward more serious measures by suspending talks with Moscow on a wide-ranging political-economic pact and on liberalizing visa requirements to make it easier for Russians to travel to Europe. European leaders laid out a three-stage process that, absent progress, would next move to travel bans, asset seizures and the cancellation of a planned European Union-Russia summit meeting and eventually to broader economic measures. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who has been reluctant to move quickly toward sanctions, said the European Union was looking for concrete evidence that Russia was trying to calm the situation “in the next few days,” but she noted that Thursday’s events in Crimea made the need for action more urgent. “We made it very clear that we are absolutely willing to achieve matters by negotiation,” she said. “We also say, however, that we are ready and willing, if these hopes were to be dashed and looking at what happened on Crimea, to adopt sanctions.” The moves came as Secretary of State John Kerry met for a second day with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, on ways to defuse the crisis. A top aide said Mr. Kerry urged Mr. Lavrov to talk directly with Ukrainian leaders. “We want to be able to have the dialogue that leads to the de-escalation,” Mr. Kerry told reporters. “We want to be able to continue the intense discussions with both sides in order to try to normalize and end this crisis.” Mr. Kerry also met in Rome with counterparts from Germany, France, Italy and Britain, and expressed support for a push by Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, to establish a “contact group” seeking a peaceful resolution of the crisis. The group would include Russia, Ukraine, Britain, France and the United States, and serve as a way to bring Moscow and Kiev to the table. Mr. Lavrov expressed irritation at talk of sanctions and other retaliation. “There are many one-sided, half-hysterical evaluations in the media,” he told reporters. “I repeated this to John Kerry, who seems to understand that it doesn’t really help the flow of normal work. It’s impossible to work honestly under the threat of ultimatums and sanctions.” Image Pro-Russia protesters got off a police bus in Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, on Thursday and were greeted by supporters, who had forced the police to release them. Credit Uriel Sinai for The New York Times In Crimea, regional leaders said they were confident voters would choose Russia over Ukraine. The City Council of Sevastopol, which has separate legal status, took matching steps on Thursday to hold a similar referendum on March 16. Pro-Russia demonstrators cheered the news and regarded secession from Ukraine as a foregone conclusion. “We’re already Russian,” Natasha Malachuk said as she picketed a local security headquarters. Others objected, particularly the peninsula’s large Crimean Tatar minority. “It’s completely illegitimate,” said Bilal Kuzi-Emin, 25, a Tatar who works as a waiter. A Kiev court has already ruled the Crimean Parliament’s actions illegal. An arrest warrant has been issued for the new regional prime minister, Sergei Aksyonov, who was installed a week ago after armed men seized the Parliament building and raised the Russian flag. Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, scoffed at a planned referendum under the watch of foreign troops. “This will be a farce,” he said in a televised address. “This will be false. This will be a crime against the state.” Dmitri S. Peskov, a spokesman for Mr. Putin, said the Kremlin had been informed of the developments but offered no further comment. Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev said Russia would simplify procedures for people who have lived in Russia or the former Soviet Union to secure Russian citizenship. If the referendum is held and most Crimeans opt to join Russia, it could create a thorny problem for the United States and European countries that typically support self-determination but oppose independence for regions in their own borders, like Scotland or Catalonia. In Crimea, Russian and pro-Russia forces maintained a blockade of Ukrainian military facilities. At a local military office in Simferopol, they used a crane to place heavy concrete barriers to obstruct military vehicles leaving the compound. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said the Russian Navy scuttled an old cruiser in a narrow channel to trap Ukrainian naval vessels in port at Novoozerne. In Donetsk, in the east, Ukrainian police officers ordered pro-Moscow demonstrators, including Pavel Gubarev, the so-called people’s governor, to leave the city’s administration building. Hundreds more pro-Russia demonstrators clashed with the police outside the local headquarters of the national security service in Donetsk, blockading a police bus with parked cars and derailed trolleys and forcing the police to release detained protesters. Later on Thursday, Ukrainian officials said Mr. Gubarev had been arrested.
|
Ukraine;Sanctions;US Foreign Policy;Vladimir Putin;Barack Obama;Crimea;Russia
|
ny0161776
|
[
"us"
] |
2006/05/02
|
Woes in Puerto Rico Force a Shutdown
|
SAN JUAN, P.R., May 1 — Puerto Rico's government ran out of money on Monday and imposed a partial public-sector shutdown, putting nearly 100,000 people out of work and granting an unscheduled holiday to 500,000 public school students. The shutdown, the first in the history of the commonwealth, occurred despite last-minute efforts by members of the Legislature and Gov. Aníbal Acevedo-Vilá to agree on a bailout plan. The police and other emergency services were not affected, but dozens of public offices were closed or were operating on a limited basis. Puerto Rico has a $740 million budget shortfall because the Legislature and the governor have been unable to agree on a spending plan since 2004. Differing sales tax proposals have been presented that would allow the government to secure a line of credit to pay salaries through June 30, the end of the fiscal year. The island currently has no sales tax. All 1,600 public schools on the island closed on Monday, two weeks before the end of the academic year, along with 43 government agencies. Hundreds of government employees stood outside the Capitol in the rain to protest the shutdown and to press legislators to resolve the impasse.
|
Puerto Rico;Budgets and Budgeting;Politics and Government;Finances
|
ny0072383
|
[
"sports",
"golf"
] |
2015/03/06
|
Back to a Short Putter, Adam Scott Is Happy With the Results
|
DORAL, Fla. — Adam Scott looked as if he were paying tribute to the recently departed Leonard Nimoy on Thursday on the greens of Doral’s Blue Monster. Holding his putter in his left hand, Scott rested his right hand, palm down, lightly on the grip and gave his golf ball a modified Vulcan salute. He was greeting a new old friend. For the first time in four years and 83 worldwide starts, Scott used a short putter in his round of two-under-par 70 at the World Golf Championships event. Making his 2015 debut, Scott had 27 putts, two more than J. B. Holmes, who set the pace with a tournament record-tying 62. “Tough golf course except for a couple of guys who shot really low,” Scott said, referring to Holmes and Ryan Moore, who carded a six-under 66 with a double bogey on the last hole. Scott, who missed only one putt inside 15 feet, described himself as “very happy” with his performance on the greens. “I’m trying not to clutter my head with too much thought,” he said. The last time Scott used a conventional putter in competition was at the Sony Open in Hawaii in January 2011. He posted rounds of 72 and 70 to miss the cut. At the time, he was so discouraged by his performance on the greens, he said, “You could have given me a hockey stick and I would have used that.” After consulting with his brother-in-law, Brad Malone, who is also his swing coach, Scott unveiled his broomstick model a month later at the World Golf Championship match play event outside Tucson. With it, he won the 2013 Masters and ascended to No. 1 last year. The long putter will be banned starting next year, and Scott decided there was no time like the present to make the switch. “I thought because I do have to make an adjustment by the end of this year, if I’m going to spend some time doing it, I should try and start now and maybe find the best solution,” Scott said. After experimenting with a couple of models in his practice sessions, Scott settled on one and forged ahead, treating it as if he were taking a test using a No. 2 pencil. He felt prepared, so he did not expect any discernible difference. “My stroke and everything feels as good as it ever has,” Scott said, adding: “It really isn’t that big a deal. It just takes a little while to adjust and change a couple of muscle-memory things.” Scott’s feel on the longer putts was tested early in his round. On the first seven holes, his closest approach was 14 feet. Scott had a 33-footer for birdie on the first that he came within 14 inches of holing. He drained a 14-foot putt on the eighth for the first of four birdies in a five-hole stretch. His stay at four-under was brief. He played the next two holes in three-over. “I played a really good round of golf other than that,” he said. Scott did not throw out the process with the long putter. He kept the modified claw grip he used with the broomstick. He also continues to use the AimPoint Express method of reading greens, in which he reads the slope with his feet and raises fingers on his right hand to correspond with the amount of break. He did not even discard his long putter. Scott brought it with him from his native Australia to use as a training tool. He felt no need, he said, to snap the old putter over his knee so he would not be tempted to go back to it. “It treated me pretty well,” Scott said, “so I don’t think it deserves a snapping.” The switch has invigorated Scott’s putting, which was very good, in stretches, earlier in his career. “It felt a bit like when I switched to the longer putter,” Scott said. “It was a really different, fresh feel, and so is this. I’m not doing things exactly the same as I did them before. It’s been feeling really good.” A change in putters was the least of the adjustments Scott has made since his last trip to the States. After the Tour Championship he replaced his longtime caddie, Steve Williams, with Mike Kerr. On Feb. 15, he became a first-time father when his wife, Marie, gave birth to a daughter, Bo Vera. After nine days of diaper duty, Scott, 34, left Australia and settled in for a six-week stay in the United States that will take him through the Masters. “Yeah, everything was getting a little boring,” Scott said with a laugh, “so I thought just change everything.” Asked about his daughter, Scott said, “I’m missing out on heaps, but even just thinking about her makes me happy. It’s been really good.”
|
Golf;Adam Scott;J B Holmes
|
ny0009163
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2013/02/03
|
Bucks’ Larry Sanders Is a Sudden Sensation
|
When the Knicks’ Tyson Chandler crouched for the tipoff of Friday night’s game against the Milwaukee Bucks, he did not realize that he was matching up at midcourt against a version of his former self, in the opposing center Larry Sanders. “I honestly haven’t watched that much on him,” Chandler said before the game. Eight minutes in, Sanders made his presence known. Iman Shumpert pulled up for 12-foot jumper, but Sanders slapped it into the third row for his 130th block of the season, the most of any player in the N.B.A. Sanders looked into the seats, raised his hand to his forehead and squinted his eyes as if trying to find a shooting star in outer space. He blocked a shot by Carmelo Anthony in the third quarter. The 6-foot-11 Sanders has sneaked up on the league — as he has on guards looking for layups but instead finding his open frying pan of a hand — as the best shot-blocker and the leading candidate for the Most Improved Player award. Sanders put up uninspiring statistics his first two seasons, but his averages per game of minutes, points, rebounds and blocks have all more than doubled this season. He leads the league with 3.0 blocks per game, while playing just 25 minutes a night. In the last two months, he has tied a record that was held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, shown flashes of vintage Bill Russell and, as the Knicks saw in their 96-86 victory Friday night, been transformed into a near replica of Chandler. Teams that excel at stymieing the pick-and-roll rely on long, athletic big men who can quickly challenge guards on the perimeter and then rush back to protect the basket. Chandler often acts as the Knicks’ sole defensive threat because of his exceptional court coverage, and Sanders anchors a Bucks team that is seventh over all in the Eastern Conference standings with the same skill set. “You realize how good he is in the games he misses,” Bucks forward Drew Gooden said. “You don’t have somebody to scare guys from going for layups.” On offense, Sanders, like Chandler, had to end his love affair with low-percentage shots 16 to 23 feet from the basket and focus on closer opportunities. Chandler is now routinely chasing records for the highest field-goal percentages in N.B.A. history. This season, Sanders is taking two-thirds of his shots at the rim and maintaining a field-goal accuracy around 53 percent. Years ago, it would not have been possible to compare Chandler and Sanders as players. Chandler, now 30, was profiled by “60 Minutes” as a ninth grader for his surefire future as an N.B.A. center; Sanders, who is 24, had never played organized basketball until he was 16. At the behest of coaches who were intrigued by his height, Sanders joined the team at Port St. Lucie High School in Florida as a sophomore. In his first game, he put the ball in the wrong basket. But he eventually developed into a star because of his aggressive athleticism and became a two-time conference defensive player of the year at Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2010, the Bucks drafted Sanders with the 15th pick. Sanders was a meager scorer and prolific fouler his first two seasons. But he spent last summer training at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., and figured out how to position himself better and time blocks. “Everything slowed down,” Sanders said. When opponents go for layups, Sanders can now envision the spot on the backboard near where his hand will meet the basketball. When he last played the Knicks on Nov. 28, poor shooting and quick fouls limited his playing time. He then responded with the best three-game stretch of his career, compiling 22 blocks. On Nov. 30, he logged 10 blocks as part of a triple-double — coming off the bench — against the Timberwolves, tying Abdul-Jabbar’s franchise record for blocks in a game. On Dec. 1, Sanders had 18 points, 16 rebounds and 5 blocks against the Celtics, a performance that, had he donned the opposing uniform, could have brought on a Russell déjà vu. The Bucks played in New Orleans two nights later, and Celtics Coach Doc Rivers warned his son Austin, a rookie shooting guard for the Hornets, to stay away from Sanders. Austin did not listen. Sanders swatted Austin’s first two attempts in a span of three minutes, foreshadowing some final statistics: Sanders totaled seven blocks and Austin shot 0 for 5. Banging bodies in the post, Chandler and Sanders got more familiar with each other on Friday night, but unknown to them was their shared passion for art. In September, Chandler held an exhibition that showcased his photographs of New York, London and Tanzania. Sanders posts his penned portraits on the Web, designs skateboards, appears in the film “Movie 43” and is writing a novel. Sanders said he would like to collaborate with Chandler on a project. For now, they share the art of intimidating defense.
|
Basketball;Larry Sanders;Bucks;Knicks;Tyson Chandler
|
ny0199249
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2009/07/01
|
Rev. Brad R. Braxton, Riverside Pastor, Announces Resignation
|
In one version, the surprise resignation on Monday of the senior pastor at Riverside Church in Manhattan, less than a year after his appointment , stemmed from the loftiest of theological disputes. In another, it was the result of a vitriolic campaign of personal attack that began the moment in September when church leaders announced their choice of that pastor, the Rev. Dr. Brad R. Braxton . But by almost all accounts, Dr. Braxton’s decision to give up the pulpit at Riverside reflected a crisis of identity rending not only one congregation and its 2,000 members but the soul of Protestant liberalism in the United States. “It’s about all the issues confronting the progressive tradition within the church,” said Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary and a member of the Riverside congregation. “Liturgy. Theology. Finance. Race and class. This is a tragedy.” In a letter sent by e-mail to members of the congregation late Monday night, Dr. Braxton, 40, said that pre-existing tensions among members had overwhelmed his freshman-year efforts to lead the church, where William Sloane Coffin once presided and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. announced his opposition to the war in Vietnam. “The consistent discord has made it virtually impossible to establish a fruitful covenant between the congregation and me,” he said. Jean L. Schmidt, chairwoman of the church council, said Dr. Braxton’s decision “came as a great shock” when she learned of it several days ago. She said he had the support of the board and the majority of the church congregation. Dr. Braxton’s selection followed a yearlong nationwide search and was endorsed by an overwhelming vote of congregants in September, but longstanding disagreements over the church’s mission found a lightning rod in him, she said. “Very hurtful things were said about him and his family,” she said. She added, with a sigh, “This is a very difficult congregation to pastor.” The disagreements are described differently by each of the many factions at the church, which is officially affiliated with the United Church of Christ and the American Baptist Churches, but describes itself as "interdenominational." The church, on Riverside Drive in Manhattan, has traditionally embraced a broad-spectrum interfaith style of Christian theology for all comers, whether Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, gay, lesbian, transgender or none of the above. In an interview, Dr. Braxton, an ordained Baptist minister, said he saw his mandate as helping the congregation decide “how to bring an interfaith, interracial, progressive religious institution from the 20th century into the 21st century.” According to dissidents, Dr. Braxton went about that by bringing elements of evangelical tradition into church services. They said he called on worshipers to come forward and bear witness to their faith, favored the gospel choir over the church’s traditional choir, and preached at times what they considered a Riverside heresy: that Jesus and only Jesus was the way to salvation. Some members of the congregation may believe that, said Constance Guice-Mills, a member of the church. “But his focus on personal salvation, on the individual, was diametrically opposed to the tradition of Riverside. Here, we believe you achieve salvation by doing social justice. Out in the world. And we have people from all backgrounds. Buddhists.” According to supporters like Ms. Schmidt, the council chairwoman, Dr. Braxton’s theological views were consistent with the Riverside culture. But he also recognized the great challenge facing liberal Protestants — the extraordinary growth of evangelical churches for 30 years. Dr. Jones of Union Theological Seminary said the question plagued every progressive Protestant leader: How to maintain the values of a church like Riverside’s — whose first pastor, Harry Emerson Fosdick, was nationally prominent for challenging the bigotry of the fundamentalist movement of his day — while countering the fundamentalists’ growing spiritual appeal in our time. Dr. Braxton’s difficulty with his flock erupted at a congregational meeting in mid-May. He was confronted with complaints of the theological kind, as well as discord over his salary and benefits package, which was reported to be $600,000. Ms. Schmidt said the actual figure was $457,000. She said Dr. Braxton would remain in the pulpit until the end of the summer.
|
Riverside Church;Braxton Brad R;Protestant Churches
|
ny0140473
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2008/02/24
|
Looking for Music, but Not ‘Celebration,’ to Remember Castro? Put the Radio On
|
JERSEY CITY Somewhere between Bobby Lee Trammell’s “Arkansas Twist” and Lula Reed and Freddie King’s “Do the President Twist”; between the Elite’s “One Potato” and its flip side, “Two Potato”; between Slim Gaillard’s “Atomic Cocktail” and spoken clips from “Dragnet,” “The Nutty Professor” and Phyllis Diller, Dave the Spazz really pulled one out of his hat on Thursday night. “I’ve been waiting 50 years to play that one,” Dave, known outside the studio as Dave Abramson, told his listeners on WFMU radio. That one was Jay Chevalier’s “Castro Rock” from 1960: Down in Cuba where they raise sugar cane Got a brand new dance, it’s a crazy thing Named after a man by the name of Fidel Just stand in one spot and shake like ... wellll It’s the Castro Rock, it’s the Castro Rock If you ever go to Cuba better learn to do the Castro Rock. If any place was going to mark Fidel Castro ’s role in history by unearthing Jay Chevalier, it figured to be WFMU-FM (91.1), which went on the air the year before he came to power in 1959. The station, which is independent and noncommercial, is celebrating its 50th birthday this week during its annual as-brief-as-possible beg-athon, but if Mr. Castro has his spot in history, remarkably, WFMU does too. Since its beginning as the radio station at a now-defunct Lutheran college in New Jersey, WFMU-FM has managed to carve out a niche for itself as perhaps the longest-lived and most admired practitioner of free-form radio programming. That now careers from Mr. Abramson’s “Music to Spazz By” to “Put the Needle on the Record” by Billy Jam (mostly rap and hip-hop), to Phuj Phactory with Ergo Phizmiz, described as “bricolage, ballet, sound tracks, antiquarian humor and vintage curios.” Maybe the film director Jim Jarmusch is being hyperbolic when he proclaims, in the introduction to a book of WFMU art, writing and ephemera, “Hands down, WFMU is the greatest radio station on the planet.” But there’s something of a history of modern communications in the survival of a place that managed to mix yin and yang — controlled chaos and business acumen — to thrive long after its original home, Upsala College, had gone bankrupt. “It’s the little engine that could,” said Vin Scelsa, the longtime New York radio figure now at WFUV-FM, who was there for the creation of WFMU’s current form as a student at Upsala in 1968. “They’ve always remained true to their vision of letting the person on the air be the creator, weaving whatever elements he or she wants to put together.” For its first decade, WFMU operated much like the French club — as a student activity broadcasting lectures, Lutheran services and classical music or jazz. Then, amid the ferment of the 1960s, Mr. Scelsa and his pals cooked up a seamless mix of music, noise, talk and satire that lives to this day, after an interregnum in 1969 when the staff walked out and Upsala shut the place down for 10 months. But it returned, and has since morphed into a world as varied as the one in “The Lord of the Rings.” True fans, for instance, can endlessly ponder the 72-card set of WFMU Airwave Idols, in which they can find out each D.J.’s most embarrassing record owned, favorite movie and record playing when virginity was lost (those last include Miles Davis ’s “Kind of Blue,” something by Lionel Richie, and “If I Die, I Die,” by the Virgin Prunes). WFMU is probably around for two reasons, both linked to Ken Freedman, its general manager since 1985. First, when Upsala went bankrupt, the staff members were prepared to buy the license, make the station independent and later find a new permanent home in a building they bought in Jersey City. The station has a $1.2 million budget, six full-time workers and about 200 volunteers, including almost all the D.J.’s. Second, and most important, WFMU, to use this year’s political coinage, embraced change in a big way. It put up its Web site ( wfmu.org ) in 1993, before most of us knew what a Web site was. It began streaming its shows full time in 1997. Instead of being a dinosaur medium eaten up by new technology, it managed to create an international niche brand. So Mr. Abramson occasionally works as a D.J. at weddings in places like Japan and Tucson for people who listen to him on WFMU. “They know I’m not going to do ‘Celebration,’ ” he said on Thursday at the station. Some of the sound snippets in Mr. Abramson’s aural soup came from the 1959 science fiction movie “Plan 9 From Outer Space.” “Why is it so important that you want to contact the governments of our Earth?” “Because all you of Earth are idiots !” Well, maybe not all earthlings, but it seems to some WFMUers that 50 years of this is way too much fun to ask for. “This is the kind of place that shouldn’t exist but somehow does,” said Tom Scharpling, whose show is modestly titled “The Best Show on WFMU.” “I keep thinking the bad guys will win in the end and take it all away, but somehow it all seems to keep working.”
|
WFMU-FM;Castro Fidel;Trammell Bobby Lee;Diller Phyllis;Jarmusch Jim;Davis Miles;Richie Lionel
|
ny0070005
|
[
"business"
] |
2015/03/03
|
Costco to Offer Citigroup and Visa Co-Branded Cards
|
The warehouse club Costco has chosen Citigroup and Visa to run its co-branded credit card starting next year, replacing American Express, which lost the coveted deal last month. Citigroup will exclusively issue the Costco branded cards and Visa will provide the payment network in the United States and Puerto Rico from April 1, 2016, Costco said. The deal means that Costco customers will be able to use only Visa credit cards at its stores, as is currently true with American Express cards.
|
Credit card;Costco;Visa Inc;Citigroup;Puerto Rico;US;American Express;Retail
|
ny0257880
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2011/01/28
|
N.Y.C. Suspensions More Than Doubled, Report Shows
|
The number of New York City student suspensions more than doubled in the six years after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took control of public schools and as the city moved toward a zero-tolerance approach toward misbehavior, according to a report released on Thursday . The report, compiled by the New York Civil Liberties Union and based on 10 years of previously undisclosed suspension statistics, echoed a nationwide trend toward mandatory suspensions for an increasing variety of infractions. In the city, at least, the suspensions have also kept students away from the classroom for longer periods. The analysis found that suspensions were more prevalent among students in 5th through 10th grades and more frequently doled out in the spring, when most assessment tests are scheduled. The suspensions can be as short as one day and as long as one year, for reasons as diverse as starting a fire, engaging in fights, gambling and cursing. Of roughly 74,000 suspensions given out in the 2008-9 school year, about 11,000 lasted one to five days, while 5,500 ran anywhere from 30 days to one year, the analysis shows. There were roughly 32,000 suspensions in 2002, and the vast majority of them lasted five days or less. Black students, who make up 30 percent of the schools’ enrollment, accounted for more than half of all suspensions every year from 1999-2000 to 2008-9, the period covered by the report. Special-education students, who make up 16.2 percent of the enrollment, served about one-third of all suspensions. There are about 1.1 million students in city schools, and the suspension rate, roughly 1 for every 14 students, is similar to that found in nationwide studies. Donna Lieberman, executive director for the New York Civil Liberties Union , said suspensions could have serious consequences to a student’s education. A national study found that students who had been suspended three times or more in their sophomore year of high school were five times as likely to drop out or graduate late. In New York City, one in five students suspended in a single year is suspended at least twice in one year, the report showed. “The growing reliance on suspensions in New York City schools all too often denies children, often the most vulnerable and in need of support, their right to an education,” Ms. Lieberman said. Last year, the Education Department revised its disciplinary code to decrease the number of offenses that warrant mandatory suspension, known as zero-tolerance infractions, to 21 from 29, as it had been since 2007. There were only seven zero-tolerance offenses listed in the code in 1998. Changes have also been made over time to the definition and scope of some of the infractions. Natalie Ravitz, an Education Department spokeswoman, said the changes were to conform with the times and to give principals more latitude. The department is looking to use more social and emotional mediation to address behavioral issues among special-education students, she said. Altercations that used to call for automatic suspension no longer do; principals can choose to address offenses by calling a meeting with the student’s parents or suggesting another punishment before removing a student from school, Ms. Ravitz said. “Preserving a safe and orderly environment in our schools is critical to our students’ academic success,” she said, adding that “race is not a factor in suspension decisions.” The report recommends ending the zero-tolerance policy and improving access to guidance counselors, social workers and school psychologists. It also asks the Education Department to make its data more accessible; Ms. Lieberman said it took her organization two years to get the statistics on suspensions through a Freedom of Information Law request.
|
School Discipline (Students);Education (K-12);New York Civil Liberties Union;Education Department (NYC);New York City
|
ny0075133
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2015/04/12
|
Diamondbacks’ Overhaul Starts on Mound
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New general managers can be fascinating to watch, partly because of the absence of sentiment in their decisions. The San Diego Padres’ A. J. Preller traded five first-round draft picks in the off-season and dealt another top prospect, pitcher Matt Wisler, to Atlanta last Sunday for the star closer Craig Kimbrel. The Braves’ general manager, John Hart, has shed established players he inherited — Kimbrel, Jason Heyward, Evan Gattis and Justin and Melvin Upton — to restock a weak farm system. In Arizona, the Diamondbacks’ Dave Stewart is trying to build with the commodity he knows best: pitching. Stewart, a four-time 20-game winner, begins his first season as a general manager with several new options on the mound. “Everything depends on pitching,” Stewart said in a recent telephone interview. “Every team I’ve ever been on that was a good team, their pitching was good. So as quickly as our young pitchers can mature is going to determine whether we contend or don’t. I know we’re going to hit and catch the ball. Those things are givens.” Stewart was the Game 1 starter for Oakland in three World Series under Tony La Russa, the Diamondbacks’ chief baseball officer, who gave Stewart his first G.M. job last September. Stewart had been an agent, an assistant general manager and a pitching coach after retiring as a player in 1995. All of those experiences help now, he said, but a fresh outlook might matter most. The Diamondbacks led the majors in losses last season, with 98, and opened this season by shedding or demoting highly paid veterans. They released outfielder Cody Ross, traded starter Trevor Cahill to Atlanta and bumped Aaron Hill from his everyday role at second base. Image Jeremy Hellickson, the former Tampa Bay Rays right-hander, is new to the Diamondbacks' rotation. Credit Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press Arizona will pay more than $16 million combined to Cahill and Ross this season, and Hill is their highest-paid player, at $12 million. The team also sent Yasmany Tomas, who signed from Cuba in December for six years and $68.5 million, to Class AAA. He will play outfield there after struggling at third base in spring training. If nothing else, the moves show that the Diamondbacks are not letting contracts, new or old, determine the makeup of the roster. “I don’t expect to lose 98 games again,” Stewart said. “To put a number on it would be difficult to do, because I don’t know how quickly our guys are going to do what they have to do to get us where we want to be. But we do have the talent and the ability. It’s definitely there.” If it is, it will emerge from pitchers like Archie Bradley, Rubby De La Rosa and Jeremy Hellickson, the former Tampa Bay Rays right-hander, who are new to the rotation. Young position players like infielders Nick Ahmed, Jake Lamb and Chris Owings and outfielders Ender Inciarte and David Peralta will get a chance to prove their value. Stewart traded for other arms who will start at Class AAA, including Robbie Ray — obtained from Detroit in the three-way deal that sent Didi Gregorius to the Yankees — and Allen Webster, who came over from Boston with De La Rosa for the former All-Star Wade Miley. The backdrop for everything, Stewart said, will be adherence to fundamentals and a heady style of play. “We want to play the game right, and we want to be aggressive,” he said. “Those are things I’d like other teams to say about the Arizona Diamondbacks.” Rios Hoping This Is the Year After the Kansas City Royals’ sprint to the World Series last fall, they lost three familiar players to free agency: designated hitter Billy Butler, outfielder Nori Aoki and starter James Shields. They replaced them with three new free agents: designated hitter Kendrys Morales, outfielder Alex Rios and starter Edinson Volquez. Each of those players helped the Royals sweep their opening series against the Chicago White Sox. Image Archie Bradley is a 22-year-old right-handed rookie. Credit Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press Morales doubled twice and drove in two runs in the series, while Volquez allowed one run in eight innings Thursday for a victory. Rios slugged a three-run homer on opening day as he tries to take his name off a dubious list. Rios entered the season with 1,586 career games played, by far the most of any active player who has never appeared in the postseason. The next closest is the Blue Jays’ Jose Bautista, who trails Rios by more than 300 games. Rios, 34, has played for Toronto, the White Sox and the Texas Rangers, earning more than $86 million but never a check for a postseason share. He said he watched the playoffs every year even though he had never qualified. “Every single one of us, our ultimate goal is to play in the postseason and win a world championship,” Rios said this spring after signing a one-year, $11 million contract. “It’s something that I’m still looking forward to, trying to find it, and hopefully I can make it happen here. This team is pretty good; it has what it takes and it showed last year with what they did.” Rios had a miserable season last year, hitting just four home runs for Texas while dealing with injuries to an ankle and a thumb. Healthy now, Rios hit three homers in spring training and enjoyed the company of his new teammates. “I’ve played them for many years and seen how they have developed,” Rios said. “The way they’ve played, it’s exciting. Who doesn’t want to play for a team like that?” If Rios required any more incentive, he need only look at the prize his teammates received on Monday: their 10-karat, white-gold American League championship rings, with 34 diamonds creating a “KC” logo over a custom blue stone. Image Rubby De La Rosa, in his fifth season, previously pitched for the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Credit Matt York/Associated Press Promoting Cancer Awareness Jerome Williams went more than four years between major league appearances, from mid-2007 to mid-2011. When he returned, the story of his journey — through independent ball, the minors and Taiwan — brought him plenty of attention. Williams, who will start for the Philadelphia Phillies against the Mets at Citi Field on Wednesday, had another source of intrigue in his locker then: a pink glove in honor of his mother, Deborah, who died of breast cancer in 2001. But he did not use it until he was nudged by a former teammate, Nomar Garciaparra, who was broadcasting a game Williams would pitch for the Angels in September 2011. “People were already paying attention to how long I’d been out of the game, so I didn’t want more attention on the glove,” Williams said. “When Nomar found out and asked me about it, I told him I didn’t want to use it. He said, ‘No, go ahead,’ and I used it and went eight innings gave up one hit and one run. I was like, I’m going to use it every day.” Williams fully embraced the idea, joining Twitter that month — his name is @pinkpuma36 — and taking cancer awareness a step further this off-season. He had his glove manufacturer, a Taiwan-based company called Woodz, make gloves for him in light blue, green, purple and gold. Each represents something different: light blue for prostate cancer, green for liver cancer, purple for pancreatic cancer and gold for childhood cancers. Major League Baseball allows players to use pink bats on Mother’s Day and light blue wristbands on Father’s Day, but Williams wants to do more. He said he had gotten positive feedback on social media. “A lot of people went out of their way and said thank you for raising awareness,” he said. “Then I had other people giving me other ideas, like an autism glove. There’s a lot of things in the works.” Williams, though, is not just a crusader — he is a ballplayer first, which means he is naturally superstitious. Because he pitched poorly in spring training, Williams said, the pink glove he used then is now out of use. He hopes to use all five colors in games, but if he gets good results with one glove, he may wait awhile before switching. “But they’re all broken in,” Williams said. “It’s just a matter of time.”
|
Baseball;Dave Stewart;Kansas City Royals;Phillies;Jeremy Hellickson;Diamondbacks;Rubby De La Rosa;Archie Bradley
|
ny0004258
|
[
"science",
"earth"
] |
2013/04/10
|
How a Leafy Folk Remedy Stopped Bedbugs in Their Tracks
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Generations of Eastern European housewives doing battle against bedbugs spread bean leaves around the floor of an infested room at night. In the morning, the leaves would be covered with bedbugs that had somehow been trapped there. The leaves, and the pests, were collected and burned — by the pound, in extreme infestations. Now a group of American scientists is studying this bedbug-leaf interaction, with an eye to replicating nature’s Roach Motel. A study published Wednesday in The Journal of the Royal Society Interface details the scientists’ quest, including their discovery of how the bugs get hooked on the leaves , how the scientists have tried to recreate these hooks synthetically and how their artificial hooks have proved to be less successful than the biological ones. At first glance, the whole notion seems far-fetched, said Catherine Loudon, a biologist at the University of California, Irvine, who specializes in bedbug locomotion. “If someone had suggested to me that impaling insects with little tiny hooks would be a valid form of pest control, I wouldn’t have given it credence,” she said in an interview. “You can think of lots of reasons why it wouldn’t work. That’s why it’s so amazing.” But even though there is no indication that the bean leaves and the bedbugs evolved to work together, the leaves are fiendishly clever in exploiting the insects’ anatomy. Like the armor covering knights in medieval times, the bedbug’s exoskeleton has thinner areas where its legs flex and its tiny claws protrude — like the spot where a greave, or piece of leg armor, ends. “The areas where they appear to be pierceable,” Dr. Loudon said, “are not the legs themselves. It’s where they bend, where it’s thin. That’s where they get pierced.” This folk remedy from the Balkans was never entirely forgotten. A German entomologist wrote about it in 1927, a scientist at the United States Department of Agriculture mentioned it in a paper in 1943, and it can be found in Web searches about bedbugs and bean plants. But the commercial availability of pesticides like DDT in the 1940s temporarily halted the legions of biting bugs. As their pesticide-resistant descendants began to multiply from Manhattan to Moscow, though, changing everything from leases to liability laws, the hunt for a solution was on. The first task was to determine exactly how the hooks — the technical name is trichomes — worked. The process was viewed through an electron microscope, Dr. Loudon said. “The foot comes down onto the surface, but as it’s lifting up, it’s catching on these hooks,” she said. “The point is pointing down. So all of their legs get impaled.” “And as soon as one leg gets caught,” she added, “they are rapidly moving legs around and try to get away on the surface. That’s when they get multiply impaled.” Dr. Loudon and her co-authors — Megan W. Szyndler and Robert M. Corn from Irvine and Kenneth F. Haynes and Michael F. Potter of the University of Kentucky — then set out to mimic the mechanism. Using a casting process similar to one a sculptor might choose, the scientists replicated, with polymers from different epoxies, the geometry of the trichomes, the sharp point on their tips and their flexibility and strength. Sometimes the tips of the hooks broke off during the molding process, resulting in a hybrid of biological and fabricated materials. On the natural leaves, bugs were snagged, on average, after six steps, or locomotory cycles. (In one cycle, each of the insect’s six legs moves once.) Once stuck, they tried to free themselves, but they usually ended up just flailing in place around the impaled limb. The bugs, however, were largely unimpeded by the synthetic surfaces. According to the study, it took them, on average, a Hitchcockian 39 steps to be momentarily snagged, but their armor was never pierced, and they usually moved on. The scientists, though, think they know what needs to be done. “Future development of surfaces for bedbug entrapment must incorporate mechanical characteristics of whole trichomes,” they concluded in their paper. And they are far from giving up. As they wrote in the study, “With bedbug populations skyrocketing throughout the world and resistance to pesticides widespread, bio-inspired microfabrication techniques have the potential to harness the bedbug-entrapping power of natural leaf surfaces.” Or as Dr. Loudon said, “It would be our greatest hope that ultimately this could develop into something that could help with this horrible problem.” Already, she said, she and her colleagues have a patent on the technology pending. It has, she said, been optioned by a commercial company.
|
Bed bug;Bean;Research;Pesticide;Journal of the Royal Society Interface;University of Kentucky;University of California; Irvine
|
ny0062620
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2014/01/21
|
Missionary Jailed in North Korea Asks U.S. to Help Free Him
|
SEOUL, South Korea — A Korean-American missionary who has been jailed in North Korea for more than a year appeared at a news conference in Pyongyang on Monday and appealed to the United States government to negotiate with Pyongyang to secure his release. “I believe that my problem can be solved by close cooperation and agreement between the American government and the government of this country,” the Christian missionary, Kenneth Bae, was quoted as saying in an Associated Press dispatch from the North Korean capital. Mr. Bae, 45, wearing a gray cap and uniform with the number 103 on his chest, said that the news conference, attended by The A.P., Xinhua and a few other foreign news media outlets in Pyongyang, was called at his request. He said he had apologized for the anti-North Korean acts he committed and that he had not been treated badly in confinement, The A.P. reported. Xinhua, the Chinese news agency, quoted him as saying that he had benefited from “humanitarian” help given to him by the North Korean government. But Mr. Bae was under guard while he made these comments, and it was impossible to confirm whether he was speaking his own mind. In an interview with a correspondent from a pro-North Korean newspaper in Japan last year, Mr. Bae had made similar appeals, asking Washington to send a high-ranking official to Pyongyang to “apologize” for his crime and help free him. Outside analysts have said that North Korea probably arranged for Mr. Bae to make those comments to outside news media to help focus international attention on his case and force Washington to engage the Pyongyang government. North Korea has also allowed Mr. Bae to send letters to his family and allowed his mother to visit him in October. Among at least seven Americans held in North Korea since 2009, Mr. Bae is the longest-serving detainee. He was arrested in November 2012 after entering the isolated country through its northeastern city of Rason with a group of visitors. Mr. Bae was a missionary trying to build a covert proselytizing operation in Rason, using a tour business as a front, according to a videotaped sermon he gave at a St. Louis church in 2011. In April last year, North Korea’s highest court convicted Mr. Bae of committing “hostile acts” against the country and sent him to a prison camp for 15 years of hard labor. A North Korean government spokesman at the time accused him of plotting to “destroy our system through religious activities against our republic.” Mr. Bae was moved to a Pyongyang hospital in August for back pain and other ailments. His family and the State Department have repeatedly called for his release on humanitarian grounds, citing his health. Washington has also criticized North Korea both for the severity of the sentence and for the secrecy of the judicial proceedings against Mr. Bae. In August, North Korea abruptly withdrew a proposal to have an American envoy visit Pyongyang to discuss Mr. Bae’s release. Mr. Bae remained in North Korean custody even after the North freed another American detainee in December. Merrill Newman, an 85-year-old Korean War veteran who visited North Korea in October, was released after the North’s state-run news agency released a video of him reading an “apology” for his “hostile acts” during the war and while he was visiting the country. North Korea said it also considered Mr. Newman’s age and health when deciding to free him. Mr. Bae represented a bigger threat than the octogenarian tourist. Although North Korea officially says it guarantees religious freedom, human rights activists have long said that its government cracks down on any influence of Christianity, imposing harsh penalties, including executions, against its citizens convicted of contacting missionaries. Under its new leader, Kim Jong-un, North Korea has called for stepped-up efforts to choke off such outside influences. After raising tension with a nuclear test and threats of war last year, North Korea has recently begun reaching out to Washington and Seoul for dialogue. North Korea had previously used Americans detained on criminal charges to gain visits by prominent American officials seeking their release, including two former presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Washington has insisted that there will be no serious negotiation with the North until its government shows concrete signs of giving up its program of nuclear weapons development.
|
North Korea;Kenneth Bae;Missionary;US;Prison;International relations
|
ny0160997
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2006/04/18
|
Acknowledging the Conscience of a Nation
|
ON Christianity's most sacred day, when the infinite possibilities of renewal are affirmed, death cast its tireless shadow across Riverside Church. Even on a joyous Easter morning, some churchgoers had to find their tentative way through the early stages of grief. Death had spared them no more than it does anyone else. From his pulpit, the Rev. James A. Forbes Jr., Riverside's senior minister, read a short list of such people, those who had been close to Sue Julien and to Henry Maddicks, to Sheila Everett and to Eleanor Hyatt, all gone now. Those names, with full respect, probably meant little to most of the hundreds of worshipers who filled the church. The list of the dead contained one other name, though. Surely, almost everyone there recognized it: the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr. He had been Dr. Forbes's predecessor as senior minister of the interdenominational church. But those sitting in the pews on Sunday knew that he was more than that. He was also once the chaplain at Yale University. But he was more than that, too. He was a national conscience. Not everyone agreed with Dr. Coffin, that is for sure. But there is no denying that his was a clarion voice in the land. It shaped opinions across two generations, from his appeals for racial justice to his calls for nuclear disarmament, from his protests to end the war in Vietnam to his pleas that the war in Iraq not even begin. He was a man, Dr. Forbes told the Easter worshipers, who believed in "lifting up the mandate of the kingdom of God for peace, justice and compassion." Dr. Coffin died in Vermont last week. He was 81. There will be a funeral service at Riverside Church on Thursday. His life will no doubt be replayed at length. But it was impossible for Easter Sunday to pass with no acknowledgment of his death from the pulpit. The Rev. R. Scott Colglazier, a Riverside minister, praised Dr. Coffin for "his eloquence of word, his insight of mind, his joyfulness of spirit and his courageous embrace of life." Dr. Forbes quoted Joseph C. Hough Jr., the president of Union Theological Seminary, just around the corner from the church. "Bill was one of God's chosen prophets," Mr. Hough said, adding words that could apply to many whose lives are given to dissent: "He was a great patriot who loved his country too much to leave it alone." Dr. Coffin himself described his frequent attacks on America's policies as amounting to "a lovers' quarrel." In a way, his death underlined striking differences between the antiwar protests of the Vietnam era and those of today. Almost every movement, whether it is deemed just or wrongheaded, needs recognizable leaders to gain strength and to grow. The Vietnam years had no shortage of such people, from moral forces like Dr. Coffin and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to court jesters of the Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin variety. Who's there now for opponents of the Iraq war? Cindy Sheehan? Somehow, it doesn't seem quite the same. ANOTHER difference, more substantive, involves attitudes toward military conscription. Dr. Coffin encouraged young men to resist the draft. In the late 1960's, he was put on trial, along with other national figures, including Dr. Benjamin Spock, the child-rearing guru. They were convicted of conspiracy charges, though the verdicts were overturned on appeal. Today, in the age of the all-volunteer military, some prefer the logic of officials like Representative Charles B. Rangel, the Manhattan Democrat who has proposed restoring the draft as an antiwar tactic. The congressman reasons that those in Washington who make life-and-death decisions might think extra hard before putting their own children's hides on the line. This was not a view of the draft that Dr. Coffin shared. But the results of volunteerism hardly thrilled him, either. It is difficult to imagine that he would have been happy to see one particular group of names that appeared below his on a "prayer list" distributed at Riverside's Easter service. These were the names of 12 young men and women. They appeared under the heading "Called to active military service." The way things are going, some of them may be headed soon enough for the last war that William Sloane Coffin opposed. NYC E-mail: [email protected]
|
MANHATTAN (NYC);RIVERSIDE CHURCH;COFFIN WILLIAM SLOANE;RELIGION AND CHURCHES
|
ny0158877
|
[
"technology"
] |
2008/12/09
|
Panel Offers Ways to Strengthen Cyberspace Security
|
SAN FRANCISCO — License plates may be coming to cyberspace. A government and technology industry panel on cyber-security is recommending that the federal government end its reliance on passwords and enforce what the industry describes as “strong authentication.” Such an approach would probably mean that all government computer users would have to hold a device to gain access to a network computer or online service. The commission is also encouraging all nongovernmental commercial services use such a device. “We need to move away from passwords,” said Tom Kellermann, vice president for security awareness at Core Security Technologies and a member of the commission that created the report. The report , which offers guidance to the Obama administration, is a strong indictment of government and private industry efforts to secure cyberspace to date. “The laissez-faire approach to cyber-security has failed,” Mr. Kellermann said. Restricting Internet access is one of a series of recommendations that a group of more than 60 government and business computer security specialists will make in a public presentation, “Securing Cyberspace in the 44th Presidency,” on Monday. The report has been prepared during the last 18 months under the auspices of the Center for Strategic and International Studies , a Washington policy group, after a number of break-ins into government computer systems. “The damage from cyber attack is real,” the report states. “Last year, the Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, and Commerce, NASA and the National Defense University all suffered major intrusions by unknown foreign entities.” The report describes a laundry list of serious break-ins ranging from the hacking of the secretary of Defense’s unclassified e-mail to the loss of “terabytes” of data at the State Department. The group recommends the creation of a White House cyber-security czar reporting to the president and the consolidation of the powers that have largely been held by the Homeland Security Department under the Bush administration. The report argues that cyber-security is one of the most significant national security threats and that it can no longer be relegated to information technology offices and chief information officers. The commission included the top Democrat and Republican members of the House Homeland Security subcommittee that oversees cyber-security. The chairmen of the commission included Jim Langevin, a Democratic congressman from Rhode Island; and Michael McCaul, a Republican congressman from Texas. Scott Charney, corporate vice president for trustworthy computing at Microsoft; and Harry D. Raduege Jr., a retired Air Force lieutenant general who is chairman of the Center for Network Innovation at Deloitte & Touche, were also on the commission. The report calls for new laws and regulations governing cyberspace. “We believe that cyberspace cannot be secured without regulation,” the report said. The proposed regulations included new standards for critical infrastructure providers like the finance and energy industries, as well as new federal product acquisition rules to force more secure products. The report does not entirely reject the work of the Bush administration. It cites the creation of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, adopted by the government as part of a presidential memorandum issued last January as a good starting point for remaking the nation’s cyber-security strategy. That effort has led to a commitment by the federal government to spend more than $30 billion in the next seven years to enhance computing security.
|
Computer Security;United States Politics and Government;Computers and the Internet;Enterprise Computing;Center for Strategic and International Studies
|
ny0062226
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2014/01/17
|
Seahawks’ Harvin Is Held Out of Practice
|
Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Percy Harvin was still going through concussion testing Thursday and had not been cleared for the N.F.C. championship game against San Francisco. Seattle Coach Pete Carroll said Harvin would miss the day’s practice. He said doctors must clear Harvin for him to be able to play Sunday against the 49ers. Harvin was injured late in the first half of Seattle’s N.F.C. divisional playoff win over New Orleans on Saturday, just his second game of the season. He hit his head hard on the turf after jumping for a pass in the end zone. It was the second big hit Harvin took in the game. Before the injury, Harvin had three receptions. VIKINGS AND TURNER IN TALKS The Minnesota Vikings have had discussions with Norv Turner about their offensive coordinator position under their new coach, Mike Zimmer, Turner said. Turner said nothing had been finalized yet. “Hopefully it works out,” he said. Zimmer, hired Wednesday, was acting quickly to assemble his staff. BENGALS PROMOTE A COACH The Cincinnati Bengals promoted the linebackers coach Paul Guenther to be their defensive coordinator, maintaining continuity for one of the N.F.L.’s top-ranked units this season. Guenther was promoted a day after Mike Zimmer left the position to become Minnesota’s head coach. It was the second time in two weeks that Cincinnati replaced a coordinator with an in-house candidate. They elevated the running backs coach Hue Jackson to offensive coordinator after Jay Gruden was hired to be the Redskins’ head coach. GRUDEN NAMES ASSISTANTS Kirk Olivadotti is returning to the Washington Redskins as inside linebackers coach, and the team’s new coach, Jay Gruden, is retaining Raheem Morris as defensive backs coach and Jacob Burney as defensive line coach. Olivadotti spent 11 seasons with the Redskins, beginning in 2000, and worked the last three years as inside linebackers coach at the University of Georgia. Morris and Burney were on the staff of the former coach Mike Shanahan. COLTS FACE DECISIONS Indianapolis General Manager Ryan Grigson is still not sure which coaches will be back next season — or which players. Grigson declined to comment on speculation that the offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton and the quarterbacks coach Clyde Christensen might take new jobs. Having completed one of the league’s greatest turnarounds — rolling to another 11-win regular season and a division title after a 2-14 2011 season — the Colts will be sifting through options. Grigson is projected to have about $31 million to spend in free agency. First he must decide which veterans to keep. The list of potential free agents includes safety Antoine Bethea, running back Donald Brown, cornerback Vontae Davis, punter Pat McAfee and kicker Adam Vinatieri. BILLS MAKE MOVES The Buffalo Bills hired Jeff Hafley as a defensive assistant. Hafley spent the past two seasons with Tampa Bay and coached the Buccaneers’ safeties last year. The Bills also signed five players to reserve/future contracts, including the former Giants receiver Ramses Barden. TWITTER TROUBLE FOR RECEIVER Cleveland Browns wide receiver Davone Bess posted a potentially incriminating photograph on his Twitter account that could jeopardize his future with the team and lead to N.F.L. discipline. Bess, who missed the final two games of the season for personal reasons, posted a photo of a small package of what appeared to be marijuana. Some of the substance was out of the bag and on a table. The photo was later deleted. A Browns spokesman said the team was “looking further into the situation and will deal with the matter internally.” This is the second time a photo associated with Bess has put him under scrutiny. Last month, a photo on his Instagram account showed Bess lighting a cigar while he sat on an outdoor deck next to a picture of the reggae legend Bob Marley. COWBOY TO PRO BOWL Dallas defensive tackle Jason Hatcher has been added to the Pro Bowl roster, replacing Baltimore nose tackle Haloti Ngata.
|
Football;Seahawks;Percy Harvin;Concussion
|
ny0042908
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2014/05/09
|
V.A. Officials Subpoenaed for Inquiry Into Wait List
|
A House committee voted Thursday to subpoena the head of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Eric Shinseki, and other top department officials, stepping up scrutiny of the agency amid allegations that secret waiting lists were used to cover up long delays for doctors’ appointments. The subpoena from the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs covers all emails and other correspondence related to the “destruction or disappearance of an alternate or interim wait list” at the department’s Phoenix medical center. It asked for all emails from April 9 to May 8 sent to or from Mr. Shinseki; Dr. Robert A. Petzel, the department’s under secretary for health; Will A. Gunn, the department’s general counsel; and five other senior officials. In a statement on Thursday, the Department of Veterans Affairs said it would “review and respond to the subpoena,” but a department official declined to elaborate. The department also said it would conduct “face-to-face” audits of all clinics at department medical centers to “ensure a full understanding” of the policy on how patient access is managed. The committee chairman, Representative Jeff Miller, Republican of Florida, said the subpoena was necessary because the department had been “stonewalling” requests to provide more information about claims that an off-the-books waiting list was used to hide wait times, and that the list may have been subsequently destroyed. “It is unfortunate that we have to come to this decision, but we did not do so without substantial justification,” Mr. Miller said before the panel voted unanimously to issue the subpoena. Image Eric Shinseki, the head of the Department of Veterans Affairs, in February 2013. Credit Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images Previously, Mr. Miller wrote a letter to Mr. Shinseki seeking more information after he said a top Veterans Affairs official had told congressional aides that an “interim list” on a spreadsheet may have been the focus of the Phoenix allegations, but that the spreadsheet had been destroyed. The department’s stated goal is for new patients to see primary care doctors within two weeks of contacting a department medical center; across the country, that goal is met in about 40 percent of cases, Veterans Affairs officials say. Mr. Miller said he doubted the department’s review would prove useful, saying in an email, “When it comes to data on patient wait times and access to medical care, V.A. has a credibility problem that is growing by the day.” After the American Legion called for Mr. Shinseki’s resignation this week, several Republican senators also called for him to step down. No prominent Democrats have made similar calls, nor have Arizona’s two Republican senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, who said they would wait for the department’s inspector general to complete an investigation into the Phoenix center. Other major veterans groups have declined to endorse the Legion’s call. Some lawmakers worry the controversy might unfairly harm the reputation of the Veterans Affairs health system. They point to high patient satisfaction, including a 2004 analysis by the nonpartisan RAND Corporation that found that “the V.A. system delivered higher quality care than the national sample of private hospitals on all measures except acute care,” on which they were comparable. Mr. Shinseki will testify before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on Thursday, according to its chairman, Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont. “The V.A. provides good quality health care to hundreds of thousands of veterans every single day, and veterans have told us in very strong numbers that they appreciate the quality care,” Mr. Sanders said. “I have no doubt that there are problems, and our job is to ascertain the problems in an honest and nonpolitical way, and address them as best as we can.”
|
General Shinseki;Veteran Affairs;Veteran;Robert Petzel;Will Gunn;Jeff Miller;Hospital
|
ny0204524
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2009/01/18
|
Would-Be Senators Describe Job Interview With the Governor
|
For days beforehand, they fretted — as they had not, some said, since graduating from law school. (What will he ask? How hard should I pitch myself? What if I talk too much?) On the big day, there were jitters. One applicant brought crib notes into the room. Another looked at her watch. A third caught himself slipping and calling the interviewer by his first name. In the chair opposite each, Gov. David A. Paterson sat, listening closely, smiling, nodding and occasionally cracking a joke. He asked gentle, broad questions like “What would you do for the State of New York?” while keeping his impressions — and his intentions — utterly obscure. The process has been shrouded in secrecy, as aspirants to the most coveted job opening in New York politics have been brought, one by one, to be interviewed by Mr. Paterson. Now, days before he is expected to reveal his selection, some of those contenders agreed to describe their interviews with the governor, cracking open a window into his process. For several, the encounter — a rare opportunity, with no obvious playbook for how to proceed — was unnerving. “What it felt like was the first day I taught school,” said Randi Weingarten, the teachers’ union president. “ ‘What if these kids think I don’t know what I’m doing?’ ‘What if I can’t answer their questions?’ ” Many of those seeking the job are accustomed to giving speeches in front of audiences or trying to persuade groups of voters over the course of a campaign — rather than one man, in less than an hour. They said that the governor did not spring pop quizzes on them or ask them to lay out their greatest achievements. “I went into the interview very nervous, and the governor really put me at ease, engaging in what was really a casual conversation with no effort at any ‘gotcha’ questions,” said Thomas R. Suozzi, the Nassau County executive. “He didn’t ask me what my position on TARP was, or who the prime minister of Turkmenistan is.” Daniel J. O’Donnell , a Manhattan assemblyman, said Mr. Paterson seemed to be improvising. “He didn’t seem to have a list, and it wasn’t a linear conversation,” he said. “A didn’t follow B didn’t follow C. That wasn’t what it was like. It was pretty clear to me that he was pretty intent on listening.” Though Mr. O’Donnell acknowledged he was a long shot, he said he was still apprehensive. “It’s mind-blowing,” he said. “You bet I was nervous.” He said he did not arrive with talking points. But he did work on one element of protocol. “When I see him, I call him ‘Governor,’ but I know him as my friend David,” said Mr. O’Donnell, whose district overlaps with the State Senate district Mr. Paterson used to represent. “So I can’t help calling him David. I concentrated really hard not to do that, and I only did it once.” Few others were willing to admit on the record to any flubs, though there were some attempts at humor. Steve Israel, a congressman from Long Island who sat down with Mr. Paterson in the governor’s Midtown Manhattan office last month, said he broke the ice by asking whether Mr. Paterson had called him in because the governor knew some people who wanted “some extra tickets for the inauguration.” Elizabeth Holtzman, the former congresswoman, said she reminded the governor of his own remark, at a Nation Institute dinner, that his pick would be a subscriber to the organization’s magazine: “I said, ‘Governor, you made that promise in front of hundreds of people — I’m a subscriber!’ ” There has been much speculation that Mr. Paterson has already settled on Caroline Kennedy for the seat, which is being vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton. But those who met with the governor said they believed they got a fair hearing. Aides to Ms. Kennedy did not respond to messages seeking comment, nor did aides to Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, another likely contender. “I walked out of the interview like most other people walked out of their interviews: feeling good about it and feeling like the field was wide open,” Mr. Israel said. Said Mr. O’Donnell, “It was pretty clear that he didn’t know what the right thing to do yet was.” The interviews occurred over recent weeks, usually at the Manhattan office, but in at least one case in the Statehouse executive chamber. A little awkwardness was unavoidable for people more accustomed to advocating for their constituents than for themselves. Furthermore, many were sitting down as supplicants to a friend. “You have to remember, I’ve known David for years,” said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney. “I was present when he was first elected by the county committee.” Mr. Paterson, the contenders said, had plainly done some homework, speaking of his desire to choose someone who will be embraced by the voters when he or she stands for election in 2010. (Only 60 of the 181 senators appointed since 1913 ran in and won the next election.) “He was well aware of the history,” Ms. Holtzman said. “He talked about it. It was quite clear that he’d done his own historical research, on the process and the results.” But that was nothing compared to the thinking, strategizing, rehearsing — and stressing out — that some applicants went through. “We honed and honed and honed,” said an assistant to one contender, insisting on anonymity to avoid angering the governor by talking about the search process. “It was as if you had to make the entirety of a Senate campaign in almost like a 15-minute pitch.” That applicant, the aide said, focused on electability and appeal to voters in all 62 counties of New York, and spoke not only of retaining the seat, but of delivering votes for Mr. Paterson. “We figured that the major frame that he’s looking through in this is his own re-election in 2010,” the aide said. Aside from making their best cases for the Senate, the contenders said they wanted to make the most of a unique opportunity: a lengthy, exclusive conversation with the state’s most powerful official. “It’s not every day that you get to sit with the governor of New York and talk about the issues that are important,” Mr. Israel said. Most contenders said their conversations lasted around 30 to 45 minutes. Ms. Maloney didn’t have to guess. “Fifty-five minutes,” she said. “I timed it.”
|
Paterson David A;Senate;Politics and Government
|
ny0292359
|
[
"business",
"dealbook"
] |
2016/06/04
|
Finra Arbitration Case Offers a Peek Into a Murky World
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In a recent series of articles , The New York Times explored how corporations are increasingly forcing their customers, clients and employees – through little-read provisions in seemingly innocuous contracts — to use an opaque system of arbitration to settle financial and other disputes. The result has been to deprive many millions of Americans of what they thought was a constitutional right to use the judicial system, as imperfect as it may be, to try to right injustices, perceived or real. Forced arbitration may be the single-largest – and rarely explored – theft of legal rights visited on the American public, without either its knowledge or its choice. Wall Street is one of many industries that benefits from the use of forced arbitration, requiring its employees and its customers into arbitration whenever a financial dispute arises. Most people who work on Wall Street or who have brokerage accounts with a Wall Street firm – in other words, millions of people – do not realize that by signing their employment or brokerage agreements, they have agreed in advance to settle financial disputes with the firm in arbitration, not in court. Adding to this deeply flawed and unfair system is the inconvenient fact that most Wall Street arbitrations fall under the auspices of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the financial industry’s self-regulatory organization. The regulator, known as Finra, owes its existence to the Wall Street firms that sit on its board of governors and generate much of its nearly $1.5 billion in annual revenue. If you have the misfortune of ending up in a monetary dispute with a Wall Street firm (as I once did) and you either work on Wall Street or have a brokerage account with a Wall Street firm, your only redress is basically Finra arbitration. It will come as no surprise that the Wall Street overlords win the vast majority of the cases that get brought before Finra arbitrators. Some 92 percent of the cases involving employee disputes and some 80 percent of the cases involving customer disputes are decided in favor of Wall Street banks. It just would not do for a Wall Street-controlled organization to be handing down rulings adverse to Wall Street’s interests. And the arbitrators themselves, whom Finra pays at least $300 to $425 (for the chairman of the panel) a day for their services, would not last long if they often ruled against the big Wall Street firms. So not only is forced arbitration a major curbing of legal rights, but Finra’s version of arbitration also comes with an additional dollop of what seems like bias. This has long been suspected but is difficult to prove unless you happen to be involved with an arbitration case and have firsthand knowledge of how unfair it can seem. That’s where William Thomas Pair comes in. His case is detailed in subsequent court filings, hearing transcripts and a recording that were provided to me. Mr. Pair, 47, had been in the securities business for 17 years before joining Barclays Capital in September 2010 as a wealth manager, or what used to be called a broker. Barclays heavily recruited Mr. Pair, who used to work at UBS. As part of his contractual agreement to join Barclays, the firm made Mr. Pair a forgivable loan of just more than $1 million, to be extinguished in equal installments over seven years as long as he remained employed at Barclays Capital. This type of deal has become a standard part of luring brokers from another firm. Because Barclays Capital is a securities firm in the United States, and is therefore regulated by both Finra and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr. Pair had no choice but to agree to Finra arbitration if there was a financial dispute. In December 2010, at Barclays’ insistence – Mr. Pair’s continued employment at the firm depended on it — Barclays and Mr. Pair entered into a new loan agreement whereby Barclays Bank would make him a roughly $1 million loan. He used the second loan from Barclays Bank to pay off the first loan that he owed to Barclays Capital. The new loan agreement explicitly stated that any financial dispute between them would be resolved in a New York State court, not in Finra arbitration, because the parent company, Barclays, was a British bank not subject to Finra rules. In January 2014, Barclays fired Mr. Pair. Just under $600,000 remained outstanding on the note. The next day, without Mr. Pair’s consent and in seeming violation of the December 2010 agreement between Mr. Pair and Barclays Bank, Barclays Bank assigned the note to Barclays Capital, its United States securities subsidiary. On May 12, Barclays Capital filed a Finra arbitration against Mr. Pair, seeking the repayment of the balance of the loan. The Finra arbitration was conducted over four days last November in Atlanta. The arbitrators were Robert H. Putnam Jr., the chairman of the panel, along with Perry Lee Taylor Jr. and Chandler R. Bridges. The proceeding was recorded and transcribed. Mr. Pair acted as his own counsel. The gist of Mr. Pair’s legal defense was to ask – correctly, it seems — why he was in Finra arbitration at all. Why had Barclays been able to assign his note agreement from its bank, where a dispute would end up in New York State court, to its securities division, where a dispute would end before Finra’s Wall Street-friendly arbitration system? Why had Finra even accepted Barclays filing of an arbitration request? Finra declined to comment on Mr. Pair’s case. At one point, Mr. Pair said that the wrong party – Barclays Capital — had forced him into arbitration. In a nifty bit of circular logic, though, G. Wayne Hillis Jr., a lawyer for Barclays Capital, countered that because Finra wanted such disputes to be arbitrated, the note was assigned to Barclays Capital after Mr. Pair was fired, ignoring the fact that Barclays Capital was no longer a party to Mr. Pair’s loan. Mr. Pair wanted to know how and why the assignment had happened, which seems like a reasonable line of inquiry. His first witness in his defense was to be Gerard LaRocca, the chief executive of Barclays Capital. Through discovery, Mr. Pair had obtained numerous documents with Mr. LaRocca’s name on them and he saw that Mr. LaRocca had signed the loan assignment to Barclays Capital from Barclays Bank. Not surprisingly, Mr. Hillis, the Barclays lawyer, objected to having Mr. LaRocca appear or to even call into the arbitration case. Barclays did not respond to a request for comment. The arbitration panel then considered Mr. Pair’s request, asking Mr. Pair and Mr. Hillis to leave the room. When they came back in, Mr. Putnam announced that Mr. LaRocca would not be permitted to testify. “We have determined that this particular witness, although he may have signed that assignment in this case, that he really has nothing to contribute to any issues before this panel, including the issues raised by the counterclaims,” he said, according to a recording of the proceeding. “Therefore, we will exclude testimony of this witness.” Also, according to the recording, one of the arbitrators, Mr. Taylor, said about Mr. Pair, “I think we should just slam the door in his face.” The proceeding was barely 30 minutes old. Then the other arbitrators worried rightly that one of the recording devices might have picked up Mr. Taylor’s comment. On Dec. 3, three weeks after the end of the proceeding, that’s exactly what the three Finra arbitrators did . They awarded Barclays Capital the nearly $600,000 in the unpaid loan plus nearly $20,000 in unpaid interest plus another $360,000 in lawyers’ fees for Mr. Hillis. In an interesting twist, Mr. Pair is now trying to vacate Finra’s award to Barclays in a federal court in Georgia. The odds are long, of course, but it’s nice to see this dispute in a court of law where it belongs, instead of in a place where a fair hearing is apparently difficult to get.
|
Arbitration;Financial Industry Regulatory Authority;Barclays;Regulation and Deregulation;Banking and Finance
|
ny0178600
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2007/08/04
|
Night Raid in Iraq: Seeking Militants, but Also Learning the Lay of the Land
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FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq — Capt. Eric Nylander passed the word down the line of soldiers in the darkened Chinook helicopter: “Ice,” meaning the landing area was free of enemy fighters. The helicopter touched down, and the troops, night vision devices fixed to their helmets, scrambled over the canals and through a boggy field to the farmhouses in the distance. The mission was to detain as many of the 31 militants on the soldiers’ target list as they could find, uncover arms caches and generally develop intelligence on an area where substantial numbers of American troops had not been for months. The raid, involving 310 soldiers flown to multiple landing zones northeast of Iskandariya on July 16, was the largest air assault since the Third Combat Aviation Brigade of the Third Infantry Division arrived more than a month earlier. As American forces hunt for insurgents in the Sunni-dominated belts surrounding Baghdad, air assaults have become an increasingly important tactic. The helicopter operations have enabled American forces to leapfrog over bomb-seeded roads and difficult terrain to pursue insurgents in remote regions in rural Iraq. But the Americans have also had to contend with an elusive foe accustomed to fading away in the face of a determined attack. “It was a battle-tested way to operate in Vietnam, and it is still a viable technique for operating now in the current fight that we find ourselves in,” said Maj. Greg Kanicki, the operations officer for the Third Combat Aviation Brigade. The area of the assault, Chaaka Three, is a stretch of soggy farmland northeast of Iskandariya. The canals that crisscross the area restrict the mobility of military vehicles. Some of the important roads have been blocked by powerful, buried bombs and cuts in the road. The Third Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry, was based in the area, at Forward Operating Base Kalsu, late last year, but then was ordered to Anbar Province to establish control over the heavily contested town of Karma. By the time the battalion returned to Kalsu in June, Sunni Arab militants had stepped up their activities in the Iskandariya area. The number of roadside bombs placed on Route Tampa, a major north-south supply route, increased. Sunni insurgents in the area had also begun to press the Shiites to the south. The air assault was a way for the battalion to re-establish its presence in an isolated area, detain insurgents and pick up intelligence on the region. “We’ve been gone a long time, and nobody had really been in the area,” said Col. Valery Keaveny, the Third Battalion commander. The Third Combat Aviation Brigade was to fly in the troops. During its first month in Iraq, the brigade had conducted more than 40 assaults. But this was to be the largest. Four Chinooks and four Black Hawk helicopters were to fly from the aviation brigade’s base on the outskirts of Baghdad to Kalsu, where they would pick up two companies of soldiers. The troops would be ferried to their landing zones one company at a time, along with the “Shark,” communications gear mounted on a four-wheel-drive vehicle that would enable the battalion commander to control the operation. Each Chinook can carry 30 soldiers, compared with 11 for a Black Hawk. But the larger helicopters require more time to unload the troops, making them more vulnerable. Apache attack helicopters would use their night vision system to look for “squirters,” militants who try to run away, so a quick-reaction force on two Black Hawks could be whisked in to nab them. An unmanned aerial vehicle was kept on station. The night of the raid there was no moon, but through the greenish hue of night vision goggles, the helicopters were visible as they flew in to pick up the troops. The soldiers sat waiting in darkness off to the side of the airstrip. The hot wash from the choppers buffeted them as they landed. The first company clambered into the aircraft. Captain Nylander’s company was the second wave. A crucial part of air assaults is making the call on the safety of the landing zones: “cherry,” if there is too much enemy resistance to land, or “ice,” if it is safe to unload troops. But this night, the problem would not be enemy fire during landing, but rather finding the foe. After Captain Nylander’s men rushed down the ramp, they moved in on nearby homes. One of the people who the Americans were looking for was suspected of arranging the travel of foreign fighters into the area. First Lt. Caleb Curlin spied the man’s photo, proudly displayed on the wall of one home. But neither he nor any other Iraqi men were to be found. The homes were filled with anxious women and children who slept through the episode in the steamy heat on mats on the floor. The women insisted that the men in the area had left months ago or had been detained by the Americans. Lieutenant Curlin was not convinced. Efforts to elicit cooperation were no more successful. The lieutenant asked the women if they felt safer with American troops nearby; they said that they did. The lieutenant offered money for help in finding arms caches. The women said they would be happy to volunteer such information without pay, but knew of none. The lieutenant was unhappy that he did not have a mixed group of men and women to question. When men are present, he said, it was possible to question them separately and then check their accounts against those provided by women. The Americans used a portable device to take the women’s fingerprints and scan their retinas, a standard practice to develop a biometric record of the Iraqis in the area. The soldiers searched a wall-high pile of linen and bed mats, leaving them in a heap in the floors, and went through drawers and wardrobes looking for incriminating materials. Soon word came over the radio that other soldiers had had more luck. An arms cache had been located and destroyed. Other suspects had been detained, including two Iraqi men who were observed trying to sneak away along a canal. A small group of detainees were handcuffed, blindfolded and marched to a rendezvous point in the field so they could be flown away along with the troops. There had been no exchange of fire, but far fewer detainees than the 31 people that the soldiers were looking for. Days later, the final tally was reported: Of 11 Iraqis who had been seized, 3 had been questioned and released. Of the 8 who remained in custody, 3 were considered “high-value targets,” meaning senior insurgents. The Americans had also snatched several machine guns, found a car that was used to assemble roadside bombs, seized $2,700 sewn into a man’s suit, and found an Iraqi police uniform and a large number of identification cards. Lieutenant Curlin took a philosophical view. The soldiers had learned more about the Iraqis who lived in the area, including a sheik. And they had a better understanding of the terrain for future operations. “It is good to get a little bit of lay of the land, what it looks like, for the next time you come,” he said.
|
Iraq;United States Armament and Defense
|
ny0275269
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2016/02/10
|
As Donald Trump Wins, Mainstream G.O.P. Is Left to Muddle On
|
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Republican leaders had aimed to bring a swift and orderly resolution to the party’s presidential primaries, avoiding a long and costly fight that could stretch well into the spring. Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary dashed those hopes. Despite strenuous efforts to overtake Donald J. Trump , none of his mainstream Republican opponents stood out from the pack. Now, they are left to muddle forward with no particular momentum into the next contests, in South Carolina and Nevada. If any strong alternative to Mr. Trump is to emerge, senior Republicans say, it will most likely come only after a long nomination fight, spanning dozens of states and costing many millions of dollars. At this stage, his most formidable rival appears to be Ted Cruz, the hard-right Texas senator who won last week’s Iowa caucuses , and who is even less acceptable to traditional party leaders than Mr. Trump. Image Donald J. Trump recorded a lopsided victory in the Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire on Tuesday. 1 / 13 Former Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, who led the Republicans’ campaign committee in the House of Representatives from 2003 to 2006, said there would ultimately be room in the Republican race for just one candidate besides Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz. The New Hampshire outcome, he said, will most likely leave the traditional Republican candidates fighting among themselves. “For the establishment, it’s almost like a hockey fight,” Mr. Reynolds said. “And the gloves are off and the refs can’t get in the middle of it.” For a brief moment after the Iowa caucuses, Republicans believed that Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the third-place finisher there, might catch up with Mr. Trump and perhaps even overtake him in New Hampshire. But after Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey embarrassed him in a debate on Saturday, Mr. Rubio’s support appeared to deflate. He was on track Tuesday to finish with a cluster of runners-up, in a group that included Mr. Cruz and former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida , according to exit polls. After fiercely defending his debate performance over the weekend, Mr. Rubio admitted in a speech Tuesday night that his clash with Mr. Christie had been disastrous, and pledged he would not stumble so badly again. Gov. John Kasich of Ohio finished second in New Hampshire, where he concentrated virtually all his energy and campaign spending in the race and offered himself explicitly as a softer-edged Republican who could work with Democrats in Washington. But Mr. Kasich took less than a fifth of the Republican primary vote. Mr. Christie, whose attacks on Mr. Rubio upended the race but did nothing to buoy his own campaign, said he would return to New Jersey on Wednesday instead of traveling to South Carolina, to decide how to proceed in the race. Michael O. Leavitt, a former governor of Utah and a top adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, said he believed the window for any Republican candidate to clinch the nomination before the party’s convention in Cleveland this summer was rapidly closing. Mr. Leavitt, who has not endorsed a candidate in the race, said he had reviewed the delegate allocation rules for every state and concluded that Mr. Trump would have to capture about 45 percent of the popular vote to win a majority of delegates for the convention. Mr. Trump has not approached that threshold in the polls so far, and Mr. Leavitt said no other candidate was likely to do so as long as so many of them remained in the race. “It will be difficult for him to be a breakaway front-runner,” Mr. Leavitt said of Mr. Trump. “There are a lot of candidates that have staying power, whether it’s by living off the land or a ‘super PAC’ or a combination.” Video A selection of remarks from the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates on Tuesday after Donald J. Trump and Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary. Credit Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times If there was any encouraging news from New Hampshire for national Republican leaders, it may have been from the Democratic primary, where Hillary Clinton lost by a lopsided margin to Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator running on a hard-edge message of economic populism. Democrats acknowledged on Tuesday that the anger that rippled through the Republican electorate had also crossed party lines , and deeply unsettled a race in which Mrs. Clinton once seemed to have an open path to the party’s nomination. Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and Democratic Party chairman, said he expected a long fight on the Democratic side, even if Mrs. Clinton regains a measure of momentum in the South Carolina primary and Nevada caucuses later this month. 2016 Delegate Count and Primary Results According to the Associated Press, Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton have each won enough delegates to claim their party’s nomination for president. “Hillary is going to do much better in states that look much more like the rest of America,” said Mr. Dean, who is supporting Mrs. Clinton. The state of the Democratic race would be more concerning, he said, if not for the apparent disarray on the Republican side. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz are seen as vulnerable in a general election because of their hard-line politics. As election returns in New Hampshire gave little clarity to the Republican race beyond Mr. Trump’s victory, the band of longer-shot contenders announced plans to campaign Wednesday in South Carolina. Mr. Rubio, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cruz have divided up many of the most consequential endorsements there, and George W. Bush, the former president, is expected to campaign for his brother in the state. Mr. Kasich has vowed to compete in South Carolina, but his explicitly moderate brand of Republican politics will most likely be a tougher sell there than in New Hampshire. Mr. Christie’s relatively weak finish in New Hampshire may hobble his efforts there: It is unclear whether he will qualify for the debate in Greenville, S.C., on Saturday. After South Carolina, the Republican race may grow even friendlier for Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz as the campaign heads to a series of conservative Southern states in March. Former Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire said Republican voters would either coalesce behind a single challenger to Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz after the South Carolina primary or risk a free-for-all stretched out over 50 states. “We’ll know after South Carolina,” said Mr. Gregg, who is a Bush supporter. “I mean, if four people come out of South Carolina, we’re into a brokered convention.”
|
Donald Trump;2016 Presidential Election;Primaries;New Hampshire;South Carolina;Nevada;Republicans;Jeb Bush;Ted Cruz;Marco Rubio
|
ny0147946
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2008/07/22
|
Subway Delays Rise, and the No. 4 Line Is Slowest
|
People who hazard the No. 4 subway line each day don’t need the numbers to tell them: It’s slow. Not just slow, it turns out, but of the city’s two dozen or so subway lines, its on-time performance is the poorest and getting worse, according to new statistics released on Monday by New York City Transit. The figures were among a raft of dismal performance numbers included in a report to the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority , which oversees the transit agency. They included a 24 percent spike in the number of delays systemwide, measured over the year ending in May, the latest records available. The indicators come as the authority is considering a second consecutive year of fare increases to help close a budget gap of nearly $900 million. Transit officials said at least some of the performance problems are tied to past budget cuts in subway car maintenance. But officials were at a loss to fully explain the increase in delays. Information about those delays comes mainly from reports by train crews, a method that authority officials acknowledged may not be adequate. “Train crews have a menu of different reasons to choose from when they are delayed,” Howard H. Roberts Jr., the president of New York City Transit, told the authority’s board on Monday. “It’s not clear whether what’s being chosen on the menu is in fact the actual cause.” The agency has started collecting detailed data on the No. 4 line — the Lexington Avenue express — and another poor performing line, the No. 2, to get at the root of the delays. The No. 4, which runs from Woodlawn in the Bronx to Crown Heights and Utica Avenue in Brooklyn, reached its destination on time in only 70.1 percent of its runs in May, the new figures show. That was nearly a 12 percent decline from the same month the previous year. The average on-time performance for the rest of the system was 91.5 percent that same month, a 1.62 percent decline from the previous May, according to the agency. The No. 4’s average on-time performance for the year was slightly better, at 79.7 percent, a 4.8 percent decrease from the previous 12 months. Over all, the system had a 12-month on-time average of 92 percent, a 1.64 percent decrease from the previous cycle. Gene Russianoff, staff lawyer for the Straphangers Campaign, a rider advocacy group, said the agency’s on-time numbers probably don’t reflect how late trains are at busier stations. That’s because trains often make up time in less-crowded stretches before reaching the end of the line, where the number is measured, he said. No. 4 riders say delays are worst between Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan and Union Square. “It’s getting slower and slower,” said Brian O’Connell, an undergraduate student at New York University who takes the No. 4 to his job as an intern with the Brooklyn district attorney’s office. “One day we stopped at Bowling Green, they told us there was a power outage, we waited 30 minutes and then they said we’re not going anywhere. “I had to walk to the A-C at Fulton,” he said, referring to the Eighth Avenue line. “That’s an extreme example, but there are delays all the time.” At the Bowling Green station on Monday, riders let out gasps of frustration and amusement when a station agent’s voice came over the intercom. Because of a stalled train at 59th Street, the agent said, their train would be delayed “16 to 30 hours.” Riders were relieved when the train started moving about six minutes later. But passengers said those kinds of delays and ambiguous messages were common. “They tell us to be patient, I have no choice but to be patient,” said Glenva Brown, 46, who takes the train from the Bronx to Bowling Green on weekdays. Harvey Johnson, 43, an actor, takes the train to a temporary job in the financial district. “There are delays and then there are times when it slows or stops on the tracks and they tell you there’s congestion or track work,” he said. “But you’ve been standing on the platform and you know there hasn’t been a train for 15 minutes, so where’s the congestion?” Transit officials cite track work, customers holding doors, sick and unruly riders and signal trouble as the leading causes for the delays, based on reports from train crews. One mystery: Why have delays on the numbered trains, remnants of the city’s former IRT system, increased at nearly double the rate of lettered trains, 30.3 percent versus 15.5 percent? “It’s almost as if we’re operating two systems,” Mr. Roberts told the board. A board member, Mark Lebow, called the increases “astonishing,” and asked for quick action. “I don’t think you can blame increased ridership, because the commuter railroads have the same increased ridership percentages as the subways do, and they seem to be dealing with it,” Mr. Lebow said. “Their on-time performance is at least as good as it was before and sometimes better.” Mr. Lebow said the problems pointed to a “management issue.” The distance subway cars travel between mechanical problems was also down a total of 24.75 percent in May, and 5.19 percent over the last 12 months, a downward trend that has continued since 2005 despite older cars being steadily replaced by newer models. Mr. Roberts attributed part of the problem to cuts to the agency’s maintenance program. Officials did not have specifics Monday on those cutbacks. But Mr. Roberts said the agency was determined to protect maintenance programs.
|
Subways;Delays (Transportation);Metropolitan Transportation Authority;New York City
|
ny0243250
|
[
"world",
"americas"
] |
2011/03/08
|
Obama Says Guantánamo Trials Can Resume
|
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday reversed his two-year-old order halting new military charges against detainees at Guantánamo Bay , Cuba , permitting military trials to resume with revamped procedures but implicitly admitting the failure of his pledge to close the prison camp. Mr. Obama said in a statement that he remained committed to closing Guantánamo someday and to charging some terrorism suspects in civilian criminal courts. But Congress has blocked the transfer of prisoners from Guantánamo to the United States for trial, frustrating the administration’s plan to hold civilian trials for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed , the self-professed chief plotter of the Sept. 11 attacks, and others accused of terrorism. Officials declined to say whether Mr. Mohammed would be scheduled for a military commission or would await a trial in federal court if Congress lifts its prohibition. Separately, for detainees who will not get trials, Mr. Obama set out new rules in an executive order Monday requiring a review of their status within a year and every three years after that to determine whether they remain a threat, should be scheduled for a military trial or should be released. The order also requires compliance with the Geneva Conventions and the international treaty that bans torture and inhumane treatment. Mr. Obama said in a statement that from the beginning of his administration, “the United States has worked to bring terrorists to justice consistent with our commitment to protect the American people and uphold our values.” He said the new procedures, which had been forecast in news reports, “broaden our ability to bring terrorists to justice, provide oversight for our actions, and ensure the humane treatment of detainees.” Administration officials declined to discuss individual cases, but one senior official said he expected new charges to be brought against detainees within days or weeks. A second official said the administration was committed to bringing “9/11 plotters to justice” but did not explain how that might occur. Among detainees believed most likely to face a military commission soon is Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri , a Saudi accused of planning the bombing of the American destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000. He was subjected to waterboarding , which could open the way to assertions by the defense that he was tortured, complicating any trial. Civil liberties advocates, who have long been critical of Guantánamo, expressed disappointment that the military system remained in place more than two years after Mr. Obama took office. “This is a step down the road toward institutionalizing a preventive-detention regime,” said Elisa Massimino, president of Human Rights First. “People in the Mideast are looking to establish new rules for their own societies, and this sends a mixed message at best.” Still, some lawyers for detainees said the executive order might speed the release of men imprisoned for years without trial, either after a review, a trial or a plea agreement. “If this leads to a meaningful process and a conclusion that a person should be released, that would be an improvement,” said Joseph Margulies, a law professor at Northwestern who has represented Guantánamo prisoners and written a book on the detention camp. Mr. Obama had suggested that he might go to Congress for a law governing indefinite detention. Human rights groups were relieved that he instead issued an executive order, which is easier to undo in the future. They were also pleased that Mr. Obama limited his order to 172 prisoners currently held at Guantánamo rather than extending it to any future detainees. Karen J. Greenberg, director of the Center on Law and Security at New York University , said she was pleased that the executive order left open the possibility that prisoners might be transferred to the United States at some point and that the review panels would include representatives from the Departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security as well as Defense and the director of national intelligence. But Ms. Greenberg added that the order “does nothing to address the underlying moral and philosophical issues at stake at Guantánamo.” Republican lawmakers criticized the president for not working with Congress on a law that would govern the prosecution and detention of terrorism suspects, even as they applauded him for rescinding his ban on military commissions . “I am disappointed the White House chose to put another Band-Aid on this problem, rather than working with Congress to develop the comprehensive and long-term legislative framework we need,” said Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. But several Democrats rallied behind the White House, saying the executive order would guarantee timely trials for the remaining detainees, thus avoiding the risk that courts would just order their release. “The executive order announced today helps clear the way to charge and try our enemies,” said Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. Administration officials insisted that Mr. Obama had not retreated from his pledge to close Guantánamo Bay, despite difficulties in transferring prisoners or trying them in federal courts. Detainees have been released to their home countries and to other countries as varied as Germany and Palau, and a senior official said that process would continue. The new procedures for military commissions guarantee detainees access to a legal representative and to a broader range of classified information, which the detainee’s representative can use to argue his client’s case before the review board. The administration also said it would ask for Senate approval to sign on to an additional protocol of the Geneva Conventions governing humane treatment and fair trials for prisoners held in wartime. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the step would “reaffirm the determination of the United States to treat humanely all detainees in our custody.” Since the beginning of the Obama administration, the Defense Department has transferred 67 detainees from Guantánamo Bay to 24 destinations, including the transfer of 40 detainees to third countries, according to government figures. But the active status of Al Qaeda ’s affiliate in Yemen, the home of the largest remaining group of detainees, has dissuaded the administration from sending prisoners there. And most countries have agreed to accept only tiny numbers of Guantánamo detainees. Today’s total of 172 detainees is down from 242 when Mr. Obama entered office. About 500 detainees were released by the Bush administration.
|
Barack Obama;Military Tribunals;Guantanamo Bay;Detainees
|
ny0142485
|
[
"nyregion",
"new-jersey"
] |
2008/11/30
|
In Montclair, a Show of Philip Pearlstein’s Works
|
“Objectifications” is an apt subtitle for the survey exhibition of the work of Philip Pearlstein at the Montclair Art Museum : The artist has spent the last 50 years painting static nudes in interiors as if they were elements in a still life composition. He has achieved a kind of chilly perfection with remarkable consistency, especially since the early 1990s. Whether painting nudes or portraits, Mr. Pearlstein likes to position his models — they are mostly paid — in dynamic and unexpected poses very much at odds with the conservative tradition of academic figurative realist painting to which he belongs. Sometimes body parts or the top of a head will even stray off the edge of the canvas. He also likes to surround figures with dolls, models, toys and junk objects. These oddly intimate pictures not only invite you into a private universe of languid splendor, but they also mark a dividing line between what we might call old-fashioned figuration and something postmodern. The artist paints what he sees rather than getting obsessed with anatomical accuracy, the hallmark of academic figurative painting. As I have observed before, he is a kind of super-realist. When Mr. Pearlstein began painting figures in the 1950s, expressionism was in vogue. Initially, he emulated this style, as shown here in a series of early and mostly little-known works, among them “Superman” (1952), on loan from the Museum of Modern Art. It is a brushy, expressionistic painting of the superhero powering through a cloudy night sky. Notice the attention to shadowing and choice of a somewhat oblique point of view for the composition, characteristics of his figure paintings in years to come. The inclusion of “Superman” and some other little-known early paintings is one of the distinguishing features of this show, organized by the departing museum director, Patterson Sims. Mr. Sims reveals himself to be a curator of judgment and taste, not only through the judicious selection of artwork but also by its presentation. This is an accessible, inviting and majestic-looking exhibition that unfolds effortlessly in stages. The show is divided into themes arranged more or less chronologically, beginning with the early works. Then comes a section devoted to Mr. Pearlstein’s first forays into painting nude figures in interiors. I found the works in this section fascinating, for the subjects are less apathetic, more sensual and even emotional, like the relaxed yet confident-looking woman in “Model in Green Kimono on Savonarola Chair” (1979). This is figuration with heat, with heart. These early paintings allow us to see Mr. Pearlstein warming up for his later masterpieces, not all of which were available for this exhibition, unfortunately. We see him playing with dynamic configurations of figures, which are often sleeping, sitting or lying down. At the same time he is experimenting with academic painterly devices, most commonly the incorporation of patterned Turkish rugs as a ground on which to position figures, enhancing an illusion of three-dimensionality. From here the show pushes forward to the 1990s, skipping over the ’80s. Alarmed at this abrupt transition, I contacted Mr. Sims, who told me it was simply because of a lack of space. Perhaps, for future exhibitions of the work of artists of this caliber, the museum may consider devoting additional space in the nearby galleries given over to showing the permanent contemporary art collection. But nothing about this show feels piecemeal. With more than 40 works, there is enough artwork to get your teeth into, including three impressively large nude figurative paintings depicting Mr. Pearlstein’s favorite model of late, Kilolo Kumanyika, an East Orange resident and an artist in her own right. Ms. Kumanyika recently gave a tour of the exhibition, which was packed, museum officials said. Besides Mr. Pearlstein’s signature female and male studio nudes, the show also includes lesser known landscapes and cityscapes, and a good selection of his portraits. I don’t think that these are his strongest works overall, but Mr. Sims helps make the case for them with the inclusion of pieces like “Jerusalem, Kidron Valley” (1987-88), a large color woodcut on paper. It is hard not to be impressed by the artist’s technical command of the medium. Conventional wisdom dictates that as artists age, their work tends to wither. Born in 1924 and still painting, Mr. Pearlstein — who has homes in New York City and Highland Lakes — defies such expectations, as a handful of his most recent paintings reveal. Marvel, for instance, at “Two Models and Four Whirly-Gigs” (2007-8), which is lucidly observed and ardently made. Of course the people still look a little bit like props.
|
Pearlstein Philip;Art;Montclair Art Museum
|
ny0270498
|
[
"sports",
"golf"
] |
2016/04/24
|
Ricky Barnes Is on Track for First Victory at Texas Open
|
Ricky Barnes shot a five-under-par 67 to take a one-stroke lead at the Texas Open in San Antonio in a bid for his first PGA Tour victory. Winless in 221 starts, with a career-best runner-up finish in the 2009 United States Open, the 35-year-old Barnes closed with a bogey after a wild drive on the par-5 18th. Brendan Steele, the leader after each of the first two rounds, was second after a 72. ■ Haru Nomura shot a one-under-par 71 to maintain a three-stroke lead in the Swinging Skirts L.P.G.A. Classic in Daly City, Calif.
|
Golf;Ricky Barnes;Valero Texas Open
|
ny0052085
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2014/10/15
|
The Wind, a Wall and a Wide Throw Foil the Cardinals
|
SAN FRANCISCO — Leave it to other teams to blast home runs, deliver clutch base hits or run opponents ragged on the basepaths. The San Francisco Giants have taken a less majestic route through the playoffs, generating most of their offense with a dink here, a dunk there. And so, of course, the hit that delivered the Giants’ 5-4, 10-inning victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday was not a hit at all. It was a sacrifice bunt, one placed with perfunctory execution and not much ambition. With two on and no out, Gregor Blanco did his job in advancing the runners to second and third. But when the left-handed relief pitcher Randy Choate fielded the bunt and sailed his throw down the right-field line, Brandon Crawford raced home with the winning run to give the Giants a two-games-to-one lead in the National League Championship Series. As Choate’s throw, which had the same type of wicked tail as his side-armed fastball, went past the diminutive second baseman Kolten Wong, who was covering first base, the ball bounced until it came to rest in the glove of a catcher in the Cardinals’ bullpen. It was the latest something-from-nothing twist for the Giants. They clinched their division series against the Washington Nationals with a 3-2 victory, their runs coming on a walk, a groundout and a wild pitch. Down to their final strike in Game 2, pinch-runner Matt Duffy tied the score when he raced home from second on a wild pitch. In their previous four games, the Giants had scored 11 times — eight without getting a hit. “Somebody asked me if there is any other way we can score a run other than a nonconventional way,” Giants left fielder Travis Ishikawa said. “I said if there is, we’re going to find it.” Giants starter Tim Hudson added, “Anybody can score on base hits, you know.” The Giants’ unconventional offense fits their unconventional ballpark, which in blustery conditions Tuesday played as important a role as any player. The right-field wall is not smooth and flat, nor does it carry a gentle curve. Rather, it veers in a zigzag from 305 feet at the foul pole to 421 feet in right-center, turning the usual gap between outfielders into a lush green welcome mat for triples. The wall, which rises as high as 24 feet, has acute edges and obtuse angles. It is covered in brick, foam padding, chain link and advertising. On days when the wind blows hard off San Francisco Bay, outfielders navigate toward the ball as if they are heading down Lombard Street. The conditions were just as cruel to a rookie, Cardinals right fielder Randal Grichuk, who was playing his first game here, as they were to the Giants’ veteran Hunter Pence, who has served three seasons as an apprentice learning right field’s quirks. Image Cardinals second baseman Kolten Wong could not corral Randy Choate's throw to first after a bunt by Gregor Blanco, left. Credit David J. Phillip/Associated Press The Giants, already with an early lead, had the bases loaded with two out when Ishikawa ripped John Lackey’s first pitch deep to right. Grichuk thought the ball was gone, but he raced toward the notch in the wall, 365 feet from home. When he turned to wait for a possible carom, the ball landed off the base of the wall about 30 feet to his left. By the time center fielder Jon Jay retrieved the ball, Ishikawa was standing on second and the Giants had a 4-0 lead. “It’s got a lot going on with the brick and the fence and the padding,” Grichuk said. “Balls can shoot off in any direction. There’s a lot going on out there and you throw in the wind, it’s a pretty tricky right field.” But Pence looked like no less the novice in the fourth. When Wong blasted a two-out pitch to right, Pence drifted and turned toward the notch in the wall. But when he did, he lost track of the ball and the wind carried it toward center and around the corner from where he was. The ball hit off the wall, two runs scored and Wong cruised into third, the Cardinals cutting their deficit to 4-2. “I can’t remember a crazier wind than today,” Pence said. “On the ground you feel it going one way, in the air it’s blowing another way and the flags are going another way.” Though they did not have their injured catcher and emotional leader, Yadier Molina, the Cardinals continued to rally, as they have throughout the playoffs. They came back three times to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the division series, including twice against Clayton Kershaw, and had to rally twice to beat the Giants on Sunday. The Cardinals crept within 4-3 when Jhonny Peralta’s two-out grounder eluded third baseman Pablo Sandoval, scoring Jay. And they got even when Grichuk atoned for his travails in the outfield by ripping a line drive off the left-field foul pole in the seventh off Hudson. The Cardinals hit line drives that Blanco, in center field, and Joe Panik, at second base, turned into outs. Then, in the top of the 10th, Sandoval, the bouncy third baseman, made a diving stab of Matt Holliday’s smash down the line. Sandoval’s catch may have saved a run, and it ended the inning. The Giants, meanwhile, had only one hit since their first-inning outburst, and had 16 straight batters retired until the left-handed Crawford drew an eight-pitch walk. Then Juan Perez, after failing on two bunt attempts, looped a single to left. That brought up Blanco, who dropped his bunt delicately near the pitcher’s mound. It was the first time in his life that Blanco remembered delivering a game-winning hit, if it can be called that. Earlier in the playoffs, he acknowledged that the Giants’ offense was ugly, but that it worked. “That’s been us all year,” he said, a function that for the Giants is taking on a beautiful form.
|
Baseball;Playoffs;Giants;St. Louis Cardinals;Randal Grichuk;Randy Choate;Hunter Pence;Yadier Molina
|
ny0042716
|
[
"business"
] |
2014/05/21
|
Goldman Will Sell Metal Warehousing Unit
|
Goldman Sachs has begun a formal process to sell the metals warehousing business it purchased four years ago, a spokesman said on Tuesday. Goldman, one of the few major global banks that has not retreated from commodity markets in recent months, decided to explore a sale after receiving interest from potential buyers, a spokesman said in an email to Reuters. The bank is looking to hive off the most contentious part of its commodities business, Metro International Trade Services, which is based in Detroit. Tightening regulatory and political scrutiny has pushed some Wall Street banks to retreat from commodities; JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley are divesting all or part of their businesses.
|
Commodity;Goldman Sachs Group;Mergers and Acquisitions;Futures and Options
|
ny0026189
|
[
"sports",
"tennis"
] |
2013/08/22
|
Stephens Advances in New Haven
|
Sloane Stephens beat Julia Goerges of Germany, 7-5, 2-6, 6-1, to advance to the New Haven Open quarterfinals. The sixth-seeded Stephens is one of only three seeded players to make it out of the second round in the final tour stop before the United States Open.
|
Tennis;Sloane Stephens
|
ny0199222
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2009/07/08
|
Jill Biden Says Community Colleges Are a Key U.S. Export
|
PARIS — Community colleges could become a tool to help economic recovery in the United States and a model for developing countries debating how to improve their education systems, Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and a longtime teacher, said Tuesday. Mrs. Biden made the comments as she wrapped up a five-day visit to Europe, her first independent trip abroad since President Barack Obama was inaugurated in January. The visit started in Germany, where she celebrated Independence Day on July 4 with U.S. soldiers, and ended in Paris, after a speech to a Unesco conference on higher education. “Community colleges are the way of the future,” she said in an interview by telephone. “Now with people losing their jobs, they’re a great place to go for new training.” Community colleges are higher-education institutions with, typically, open admission policies. They provide vocational and language training and award diplomas. After graduating from such schools, some students transfer to university for full degrees. There are almost 1,200 community colleges among the 4,100 public and private higher-education institutions in the United States, serving almost 12 million students. Mrs. Biden described the schools as one of America’s “best-kept secrets” that could be a model for other countries. They “lead the way in preparing graduates in the fields of green technology, health care, teaching and information technology — some of the fastest-growing fields in America and the rest of the world,” she said. That message resonated in a report released Tuesday by the World Bank, which said countries that aspire to build “world-class universities” to drive development and compete in global rankings of the best international universities may be “chasing a myth.” Countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have announced plans to create world-class colleges from scratch. Such institutions take years to build, cost hundreds of millions of dollars and may still fall short of the economic rewards associated with elite schools, the report says. The Obama administration, Mrs. Biden said, sees higher education as a tool to revitalize the economy and has increased aid to students and unemployed workers, bolstered tuition tax credits and streamlined the financial aid process. Mrs. Biden, 58, earned a doctorate in education from the University of Delaware in 2007. The “second lady,” as she is referred to, divides her time between a suite in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, with a staff of eight, and North Virginia Community College, where she teaches English as a second language. Mrs. Biden now seems ready to carve out a more public role. She said that she would use her “microphone” to promote a handful of causes, including breast cancer awareness, the importance of national service and the support of military families.
|
Biden Jill;Education and Schools;Adult Education;United States International Relations;United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization;Biden Joseph R Jr;Europe
|
ny0152262
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2008/08/01
|
In Ivan Rodríguez’s First Game, Yankees Fall to Angels
|
The Yankees did not meet the Los Angeles Angels this season until Thursday night, three hours past the nonwaiver trading deadline. After their first look at the best team in baseball, the Yankees might wish they had added a few more likely Hall of Famers. They showed one off Thursday, with their new catcher Iván Rodríguez behind the plate. The best thing Rodríguez did was slide in ahead of the tag on a play at home in the seventh inning. He was called out anyway. By then, the Yankees were too far behind to make much of a fuss. The Angels smashed the Yankees, 12-6, getting three-run homers from Torii Hunter, Juan Rivera and Vladimir Guerrero and improving their major league-best record to 68-40. “Our pitching carried us for a long time,” Hunter said. “But for the last three or four weeks, man, I swear, the hitting and pitching have been going. Once all cylinders click on any baseball team, it’s impressive. That’s what we’re capable of doing, and that’s why I came here.” The Angels have added Hunter, Mark Teixeira and Thursday’s winning pitcher, Jon Garland, since the last time the Yankees saw them. The teams play nine more times this season, including three games this weekend, when Sidney Ponson, Mike Mussina and Darrell Rasner will try to tame an aggressive lineup. “Their one-two guys are pains in the butt, and then you get to the power guys,” the Yankees’ Johnny Damon said. “They can beat you with their legs, or they can outslug you. You don’t see three three-run homers in a game too often, but we saw that tonight.” According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Angels were the first opponent to hit three homers at Yankee Stadium of three or more runs each since the Royals did it on Aug. 10, 1986. This time, the first two home runs came off Andy Pettitte with two outs in the third inning. Hunter drove a 2-0 fastball into the right-field seats to make the score 3-0, and Rivera made it 6-0 with a blast to left. By the end of the third inning, Rodríguez had visited Pettitte on the mound five times. Once, Pettitte said, they talked about the runners on base. Another time, they talked about where Rodríguez should set up behind the plate. At another point, Rodríguez simply wanted to encourage Pettitte. They spoke again after the game, without finding much to build on. “Really, there was nothing good,” Pettitte said. “We tried to talk about what might have been good, but there wasn’t a whole lot of positives to take out of it.” Pettitte worked five and a third innings, allowing 9 runs and a season-high 11 hits. Rodríguez went 1 for 3 with a strikeout, a double play and an infield single. He also allowed two stolen bases. “It takes a little bit to get used to a pitcher,” Rodríguez said. “We have to put that behind us and concentrate on tomorrow’s game. I’m pretty sure next time is going to be much better.” Of course, it could not be much worse. According to Elias, no pitcher had allowed two three-run homers in the same inning since Tampa Bay’s Jae Seo on Sept. 25, 2006. Pettitte recovered to last into the sixth inning, retiring seven in a row before Jeff Mathis doubled with one out. Chone Figgins drove him in with a single. After a walk, Chris Britton came in from the Yankees’ bullpen. Britton has had five separate stints in the majors this season, but this was only his fifth appearance in a game. It was one to forget, with Guerrero slamming a three-run homer in the sixth and two more runs scoring in the eighth. It was the first time in more than 30 years that the Angels had hit three three-run homers in a game. The last time was on June 8, 1978, when Don Baylor, Brian Downing and Ron Jackson did it in Oakland. Back then, in their 18th season, the Angels had never reached the postseason. Now they are the most formidable team in the majors, as the Yankees learned from an intimidating introduction. INSIDE PITCH Reliever Edwar Ramírez appealed his three-game suspension for throwing at Baltimore’s Kevin Millar on Wednesday. Orioles starter Daniel Cabrera, who hit Alex Rodriguez the night before, was suspended six games. ... David Wells has joined the updated list of attendees for Old-Timer’s Day on Saturday. Others new to the list include Aaron Small, Mike Stanley and the Hall of Famer Goose Gossage. Bernie Williams was not on the list. ... Víctor Zambrano, the pitcher best known for the disastrous 2004 trade that sent him to the Mets from Tampa Bay for Scott Kazmir, signed a minor-league deal with the Yankees. Zambrano, who has had two reconstructive elbow operations, is working out in Tampa, Fla. ... Andy Pettitte struck out Torii Hunter in the fifth inning for his 1,527th strikeout as a Yankee, passing Red Ruffing for third on the team’s career list. ... Shelley Duncan, who separated his shoulder while playing for Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, started a rehabilitation assignment in the Gulf Coast League on Thursday.
|
Hunter Torii;Rivera Juan;Guerrero Vladimir;New York Yankees;Los Angeles Angels;Baseball
|
ny0013544
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2013/11/08
|
De Blasio, in Puerto Rico, Finds Relaxation and Fellow Red Sox Fans
|
SAN JUAN, P.R. — Bill de Blasio found two fellow Red Sox fans — here. On his second day after being elected New York City’s mayor in a landslide victory, Mr. de Blasio traveled to Puerto Rico to attend an annual conference of Hispanic New York state and city legislators and then take a brief vacation with his wife, Chirlane McCray. On Thursday evening, he and Ms. McCray arrived at La Fortaleza, the governor’s mansion, for a meeting with Gov. Alejandro García Padilla, followed by a dinner. Within moments of greeting Mr. de Blasio, the first lady of Puerto Rico, Wilma Pastrana, told him she was, like him , a Red Sox fan, because she had attended college at Boston University. Her husband jumped in to say that he had been a fan since childhood. The governor said that his grandfather, whom he idolized, disliked the Yankees for not signing one of the pioneer Puerto Rican players, Vic Power (born Victor Pellot). At the time, in 1953, when Power was considered a top prospect for the Yankees, the team had not had a black player, and their the team’s rejection of Power was seen as racially tinged. “He is maybe the only New Yorker that is a Red Sox fan,” Mr. García Padilla said of Mr. de Blasio, “and I’m the only Puerto Rican who is a Red Sox fan.” Mr. de Blasio is expected to speak at the conference of legislators, which is called Somos El Futuro , on Friday night. Mr. de Blasio and Mr. García Padilla said that, given the many New Yorkers with Puerto Rican roots, they were eager to build a close working relationship. “The governor’s dealing with a lot of the same challenges we’re dealing with in New York City,” Mr. de Blasio said, “challenges around public finance , challenges around public safety, and I’m also honored to have a colleague to learn from and work with closely.” Mr. de Blasio called Puerto Rico “an enchanted place” and said he and Ms. McCray took their first trip as a couple here, in 1992. “We went to, of course, San Juan, Luquillo, Ponce, Utuado,” he said, listing the island’s two major cities, along with a beach town (Luquillo) and a picturesque mountain town (Utuado). “Utuado is one of the hidden gems of this island,” Mr. de Blasio said, urging the press corps to “do your research and go to Utuado on this trip.” “We stayed at the paradores,” he said, referring to the inexpensive inns that are promoted by the Puerto Rican government. “We went from one parador to another.”
|
Bill de Blasio;Puerto Rico;Mayoral races;NYC;Baseball;Red Sox;Hispanic Americans
|
ny0158549
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2008/12/19
|
The Direct Approach
|
WASHINGTON —President-elect Barack Obama says that he wants to make his administration more responsive to the American people. To that end, his aides are introducing a host of YouTube and other efforts aimed at bypassing the media and communicating directly with voters. It remains to be seen whether this effort will yield satisfaction on either end of the spectrum—John Q. Public may have as difficult a time getting answers out of government officials as representatives of the mainstream media do. But to get a glimpse of how bypass-the-press might work, look no further than the Bush administration. As it turns out, Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, is ahead of the game on the whole skip-the-press maneuver. Mr. McCormack started filing posts from far-flung regions more than a year ago during trips with his boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice . That was bad enough, as far as reporters covering the State Department were concerned. But reporters got even more ticked off when, Mr. McCormack gave readers of the State Department blog, Dipnote , a firsthand account in September of the historic meeting between Ms. Rice and the Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in Tripoli even before he filled in reporters traveling with him on what had happened. And finally, on Oct. 31, came the icing on the cake, when Mr. McCormack unveiled “Briefing 2.0” in the press briefing room of the State Department. —Standing before flat screen television monitors and high-tech looking computer screens Mr. McCormack didn’t take questions from the press, but — gasp! — from the public. And then he put it on YouTube. It’s not clear yet if Mr. Obama will ever take to YouTube to take questions on his timetable for withdrawal from Iraq . But that issue, interestingly, did come up on Tuesday when Mr. Obama met and held a sort-of press conference with a bunch of grade-school students at Dodge Renaissance Academy in Chicago . (Mr. Obama took more questions from the pint-sized group than he had done from reporters in a press conference just a few minutes earlier.) One student asked Mr. Obama about Iraq, and Mr. Obama replied that he plans to have troops home in a year and a half. (Mr. Obama also was asked whether he was moving to the White House in 2009, to which he replied yes, and then volunteered that he’s getting a dog for his daughters, and that they better clean up after it. “I want to make sure my daughters take care of this dog, and if they do their business, and you’ve got some poop, you don’t just leave it there.”) Mr. Obama’s aides do say that they intend to make full use of the millions of email address that they have collected over the course of the campaign. The Obama-Biden Web site , has an “open for questions” spot that was supposed to be a “two-way dialogue between the transition team and the change.gov community,” according to the Web site. Some of the questions on the “open for questions” site on Wednesday: Q: “Will you lift the ban on Stem Cell research in your first 100 days in office?”--James M., Nashville , TN: A: “President-elect Obama is a strong supporter of Federal funding for responsible stem cell research and he has pledged to reverse President Bush’s restrictions. Q: “What will you do to establish transparency and safeguards against waste with the rest of the Wall Street bailout money?” Diane, New Jersey . Abbreviated answer: “President-elect Barack Obama does not believe an economic crisis is an excuse for wasteful and unnecessary spending. We will put in place reforms to ensure that your money is invested well. All appointees who lead the executive branch departments and rulemaking agencies will be required to conduct the significant business of the agency in public so that every citizen can see in person or watch on the Internet these debates.” YouTube, watch out. Your government is headed your way.
|
Computers and the Internet;US Politics;Barack Obama;George W Bush;YouTube
|
ny0104311
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2012/03/07
|
Obama Rebukes G.O.P. Critics of His Iran Policy
|
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Tuesday forcefully rebuked Republicans on the presidential campaign trail and in Congress for “beating the drums of war” in criticizing his efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program , underscoring how squarely the national security issue had entered the election-year debate. Mr. Obama’s comments, in which he suggested without naming Iraq that the United States had only recently gone to war “wrapped up in politics,” came in a televised news conference. The White House scheduled it on a day when leading Republicans were addressing an influential pro- Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee , known as Aipac, at its annual conference. There, the two leading Republican presidential candidates, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney , assailed Mr. Obama’s foreign policy as ineffective and weak in their appeals to the group. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky , called for Congress to authorize the use of force against Iran . The president was withering in his retort. “Those folks don’t have a lot of responsibilities,” Mr. Obama said. “They’re not commander in chief. When I see the casualness with which some of these folks talk about war, I’m reminded of the costs involved in war” — for those who go into combat, for national security and for the economy. “This is not a game,” he added. “And there’s nothing casual about it.” “If some of these folks think that it’s time to launch a war, they should say so, and they should explain to the American people exactly why they would do that and what the consequences would be,” he said. While the debate over Iran is unlikely to overshadow the economy as the predominant election issue, the heated back-and-forth this week — and the international tension over suspicions that Iran may seek to build nuclear weapons — ensure that it is now a part of the presidential contest. The spark was the Aipac meeting, where members of both parties sought to show their support for Israel, especially against the potential threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. Mr. Obama spoke on Sunday, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel addressed the conference on Monday night after meeting earlier with Mr. Obama at the White House. The president, in his speech to Aipac, said military force was one option on the table for dealing with Iran. At the White House, Mr. Netanyahu told Mr. Obama that he had not made a decision on an Israeli strike, officials said, though he expressed deep skepticism that the president’s strategy of diplomatic and economic sanctions would force Iran to change course. In his speech to Aipac, Mr. Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, accused Mr. Obama of allowing Iran “another appeasement, another delay, another opportunity for them to go forward while we talk.” When he addressed the group, Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, said, “The only thing respected by thugs and tyrants is our resolve, backed by our power and our readiness to use it.” For a president who inherited wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , and has spent three years trying to wind them down, the talk of war plainly rankled. Mr. Obama’s early opposition to the Bush administration’s war against Iraq helped him to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 over Hillary Rodham Clinton , who had voted to authorize force against Iraq as a senator, and he seemed to recall the period in drawing parallels to the current debate on Iran. Citing the costs in lives lost or forever changed at his news conference, Mr. Obama said: “Sometimes we bear that cost, but we think it through. We don’t play politics with it. When we have in the past — when we haven’t thought it through and it gets wrapped up in politics — we make mistakes. And typically it’s not the folks who are popping off who pay the price.” The politics aside, Mr. Obama struck a markedly more circumspect note on Iran a day after he expressed solidarity with Mr. Netanyahu. He reiterated at the news conference the need for time to allow diplomacy and sanctions to work, and rejected suggestions that Iran was so close to a nuclear weapon that the situation needed to be resolved “in the next week or two weeks or month or two months.” The president added that sanctions were starting to squeeze Iran’s oil industry and central bank, and would intensify in coming months. He said that Iran was now signaling that it wanted to return to the negotiating table over its nuclear program, and he emphasized the risks of what he called premature military action. “It’s also not just an issue of consequences for Israel if action is taken prematurely,” he said. “There are consequences to the United States as well.” As a friend of Israel, he said, it is the job of the United States “to make sure that we provide honest and unvarnished advice.” Finally, Mr. Obama made clear that when he said the United States “has Israel’s back” — a phrase he used in his speech on Sunday and in the Oval Office with Mr. Netanyahu — it should not be interpreted to mean that he was giving Israel any kind of go-ahead for a pre-emptive strike on Iran. His statement, Mr. Obama said, was a more general expression of American support for an ally, like Britain or Japan . “It was not a military doctrine that we were laying out for any particular military action,” he said. Mr. Netanyahu and other Israeli officials attached great importance to Mr. Obama’s statement, on Sunday and at the White House, that Israel had a sovereign right to defend itself. It was one of four remarks the president made that Israeli officials said they thought had drawn the United States closer to Israel in recent days. The others were Mr. Obama’s vow to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, his rejection of a policy aimed at containing a nuclear-armed Iran and his explicit reference to military force as an option on the table. Mr. Netanyahu, in his address to Aipac on Monday, appeared comfortable with the results of his meeting with the president, even as he rejected warnings voiced by Mr. Obama and others that a strike on Iran could unleash even more dangerous consequences for Israel and the United States. “It’s about time we start talking about the cost of not stopping Iran,” said Mr. Netanyahu, at one point holding up copies of letters from 1944, in which the War Department, the precursor of what is now the Defense Department, rebuffed an appeal by the World Jewish Congress to bomb Auschwitz because, the American officials said, it might drive Nazi Germany to even more “vindictive action.”
|
Barack Obama;Iran;Nuclear weapon;US Foreign Policy;2012 Presidential Election;Israel;Aipac;Republicans;Rick Santorum;Mitt Romney
|
ny0258708
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2011/01/30
|
Bangladesh Inspects Grameen Bank and Muhammad Yunus
|
DHAKA, Bangladesh — Any other year Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a pioneer of microcredit , would be in Davos, Switzerland, this week. For years he has been celebrated at global gatherings like the World Economic Forum there for helping move millions of impoverished women toward a better life through tiny but transformational loans. Instead, he was in court again on Thursday, facing accusations, considered frivolous by most accounts, that one of his nonprofit companies adulterated vitamin-fortified yogurt. On Jan. 18, he was summoned to a rural courtroom to face charges of defamation lodged by a local politician. Microcredit, the idea that Mr. Yunus popularized as a path out of penury for those long excluded from the banking system, has increasingly come under scrutiny . Scholars have cast doubt on its effectiveness in fighting poverty, and politicians and other critics accuse microfinanciers, many of whom, unlike Mr. Yunus, profit from the loans, of getting rich off the poor. Now, the government of Bangladesh has ordered a wide-ranging inquiry into the microfinance institution he founded 34 years ago, Grameen Bank, after a Norwegian documentary accused him of mishandling donors’ money. Norway’s government has said no money was misused. Still, Mr. Yunus’s troubles will deepen what has become a global crisis in microfinance that threatens to undermine the very concept — small loans to poor people without collateral — on which his reputation rests. Long accustomed to adulation at home and abroad, suddenly, at 70, Mr. Yunus, Bangladesh’s best-known citizen, finds himself very much on the defensive. In an interview at his office here, Mr. Yunus seemed stunned and deeply stung. “There is some kind of misinformation,” he said, his voice trailing off. “I shouldn’t say more.” A pause. “Every word I say will be held against me,” he said finally. On one level, his troubles seem to be largely political. Mr. Yunus, who leads a spartan life, has for decades floated well above the muck of Bangladeshi politics. Then in 2007, while a caretaker government backed by the military ruled Bangladesh, he waded in, egged on by supporters who argued that his leadership was needed in a time of crisis. He declared in an interview that Bangladeshi politics were riddled with corruption. He floated a short-lived political party. Bangladesh’s political class did not take kindly to being lectured by the Nobel laureate. The steely leader of one of the main political parties, Sheikh Hasina Wazed , took umbrage, analysts say. In the 2008 election that restored democracy after a two-year interregnum, Ms. Hasina led her party, the Awami League, back power with a vast majority. Her critics say that in lashing out at Mr. Yunus she is simply trying to eliminate a political rival. But lost in the talk of politics is a more complex question: how to ensure that Grameen Bank, which has 8.3 million borrowers, has loaned $10 billion and has become an indispensable part of Bangladesh’s social and economic fabric, outlives its charismatic founder? Mr. Yunus is now a decade beyond the bank’s mandatory retirement age, and apparently there is no successor in sight. Long-serving internal candidates that might have replaced Mr. Yunus as the bank’s managing director after his retirement have departed acrimoniously. The government recently appointed one of his former deputies, Muzammel Huq, as chairman of the board. Mr. Huq has been a vocal critic of Mr. Yunus, and the promotion of a former underling has been taken as a sure sign that the government seeks to oust the bank’s founder. “I think he is a good man with a small heart,” Mr. Huq said of Mr. Yunus. “He cannot give credit to anyone but himself,” he added, with a wan smile at his pun. Microfinance experts worry that a government takeover of Grameen Bank may turn it into a tool of political patronage and destroy it. Mr. Yunus said that he was eager to step down, but that the transition must be handled carefully to avoid panic among borrowers and the bank’s employees. “I am riding the tiger,” Mr. Yunus said. “I cannot just get off the tiger without drawing the attention of that tiger. So I have to very quietly do it.” The Norwegian documentary accuses him of improperly moving $100 million that has been donated by Norway for microcredit to another Grameen nonprofit organization. The Norwegian government later confirmed that the money had been improperly moved, but it cleared Grameen of any wrongdoing. “There is no indication that Norwegian funds have been used for unintended purposes, or that Grameen Bank has engaged in corrupt practices or embezzled funds,” Erik Solheim, the Norwegian minister for environment and international development, said in a statement. Bangladeshi government officials say they are worried that the handling of the Norwegian money may point to broader problems at Grameen. Mahbubul Mokaddem Akash, an economist at the University of Dhaka who has been critical of Grameen Bank, said that while Mr. Yunus might be personally incorruptible, the bank needed strong governing practices and transparency if it was to thrive once its charismatic founder departed. “The main focus should not be on personal corruption but on prudential management of the institution,” Mr. Akash said. Grameen Bank is different from private microfinance companies that have come into disrepute in recent years, accused of charging exorbitant interest rates and being too aggressive in making loans and collecting payments. Grameen is owned largely by its borrowers, who share its profits. The Bangladeshi government owns 25 percent of the bank and appoints two board members and the chairman of the board. The board is largely made up of poor, uneducated women who are Grameen borrowers. They lack the skills and experience to oversee its complex operations, critics say. Mr. Yunus has tried, unsuccessfully, to get himself appointed as chairman of the board so that he could continue to oversee the bank after retiring from running it. The government has refused. But questions about how Grameen Bank operates have been drowned out in the acrimonious, deeply personal politics of Bangladesh. Ms. Hasina, who had been a supporter of Grameen and microcredit, accused microfinance lenders in December of “sucking blood from the poor.” Ms. Hasina has long resented Mr. Yunus’s success, analysts here say, worried that he will emerge as a political rival. As early as 1996, when Ms. Hasina became prime minister for the first time, she wanted to reduce the independence of Grameen Bank and its founder, according to a senior bureaucrat who worked for her at that time. “She wanted a shuffle of the bank’s leadership,” the bureaucrat said, speaking anonymously for fear of retribution. It got worse when Mr. Yunus received his Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. With the main opposition party, the Bangladesh National Party, divided and weakened, Ms. Hasina had come to see him as a major political threat. “She is afraid that another military government will come and try to use Yunus as its face,” said a retired senior government official who worked closely with Ms. Hasina but who feared being punished if identified. “She wants to tarnish his image so that he becomes less of a threat.” But Mr. Yunus’s supporters are upset that his legacy, so carefully built over decades of serving the poor, has been so swiftly called into question. “This man has done so much for the country,” said Mahfuz Anam, editor of The Daily Star, a leading English-language newspaper. “He does not deserve to be treated this way because of dirty politics.”
|
Bangladesh;Yunus Muhammad;Microfinance;Grameen Bank;Nonprofit Organizations;World Economic Forum;Wazed Hasina;Frauds and Swindling;Politics and Government
|
ny0064119
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2014/06/04
|
A Growing Challenge for Germans Who Live by Bread Alone
|
SCHOPFHEIM, Germany — On Sunday mornings, the line at the backdoor of Fritz Trefzger’s bakery snakes through the courtyard as customers wait for their chance to step into the inner sanctum of his kitchen. Once there, they can pick his small, oblong white bread rolls, and their darker, seeded cousins, fresh off the oven racks. Just as important for the master baker, they can also watch him twist a rich, brown-crusted pretzel to perfection — thick in the lower belly, with arms thin enough to drape neatly on either side — with a few deft turns of his wrist. That was the point, he said, of opening his kitchen to the public, something not normally done at traditional German bakeries. The idea was not only to attract customers, but also to send a message to anyone who might be tempted to pick up their Sunday rolls at the local supermarket, which have made the traditional German bakery an endangered species. “I wanted them to see for themselves, up close, what we do,” said Mr. Trefzger, 58, as he sat in the cafe attached to the bakery that he took over from his father in 1989. “It is important that people learn to appreciate the traditional craft of baking bread.” For now, it seems, they have all but forgotten. Industrial-scale baking and advanced freezing technology have made it possible for mass-produced loaves, rolls and pastries to be frozen and shipped around the country to supermarkets, where they can be heated up and sold for a fraction of the price of a hand-thrown equivalent from a traditional bakery. The shift in culture is so worrying to bakers like Mr. Trefzger that they are taking extraordinary steps to raise the awareness of Germans, and the world, to the uniqueness of their threatened baking traditions. They are reaching out to young people via social media in an effort to attract more of them to the job. Last year, the German Bakers’ Association even applied for the country’s baking tradition to receive special recognition and protection by adding it to the Unesco list of cultural heritages, where it would gain a spot alongside French cuisine and Croatian gingerbread. So far, however, none of those steps has reversed the seemingly inexorable decline of the German bakery. Last year, the number of German bakeries dropped 3.6 percent. Only 13,171 now remain in a country of about 80 million people that six decades ago counted more than 55,000 bakeries in the former West Germany alone. In the past seven years, the number of young people training to become bakers has dropped by a third, to 26,535 in 2013. That is a long fall for German culinary tradition, more commonly associated with sausages, sauerkraut and potatoes. Yet from the days of Charlemagne until the end of the previous century, a staple of the German diet was thick, hearty slices of sourdough-leavened bread made from grains like rye or spelt. The German word for supper, “abendbrot,” means “evening bread.” “Until the 1960s, bread served as the central source of nourishment in Germany,” said Peter Becker, president of the German Bakers’ Association. “People would even make a cross on the bread as a sign of thankfulness. That significance has been lost.” Like many traditional bakers, Mr. Trefzger came to his profession through his father, who instilled in his son the passion for his craft. But, Mr. Trefzger said, many parents no longer want to see their children enter a profession with such grueling hours — craft bakers usually begin mixing dough for the next day’s bread just after midnight — often discouraging even those who show an interest in baking. Then there is the convenience of modern, mass-scale food production, which has enticed Germans as it has people in other industrialized countries. It can be hard to compete with. Siegfried Brenneis, 48, a certified baker and pastry chef from the village of Mudau and a member of an elite group of German bakers who take part in international competitions, said supermarket bakeries had allowed discounters to attract customers through what he called “aroma marketing,” the pretense of handcrafted breads and pastries, even though the goods are not really made on the premises. Comparing the situation to that in neighboring France, where a decline in baguette consumption has also caused concern, Mr. Brenneis lamented that Germans, too, had failed to appreciate the cultural importance of their bread, which includes 3,000 varieties, many specific to certain regions. Schopfheim, nestled in the lush hills of the Black Forest, stands out as an exception. For a town of just 19,000 residents, it has an unusual density of traditional bakeries. Yet farther down the Wiese River, the neighboring city of Lörrach has twice as many inhabitants, but only one traditional bakery. The difference can be credited to bakers like Mr. Trefzger, who is on a one-man campaign to elevate the profile of his craft. On any given Sunday, he will sell 200 to 300 of the rolls that in various corners of the country are called “wecken,” “schrippen,” or most commonly, “brötchen” — which translates as “little breads” — a staple of the extended Sunday breakfasts beloved by Germans. He also hosts three trainees, who take classes at the regional vocational school to earn certification through Germany’s acclaimed dual-training system, which lasts two to three years. Mr. Becker, the head of the national Bakers’ Association, said similar efforts had already helped raise the profile of bread, even if they had yet to arrest the decline in the numbers of German bakeries. The association also plans to make a reality television show that will take viewers into bakers’ kitchens across the country in an effort to find Germany’s best baker. Some of the most promising ideas, however, have come from the newest generation of bakers, like Jörg Schmid, 29, and Johannes Hirth, 28. The pair have created films of what they call extreme baking , which include stunts like baking in a converted pickup truck mounted with a couple of beer tables and an oven into a kitchen-on-the-go. They run a series of courses, like Bread Baking 2.0 or Finger Food Reloaded,at their home bakeries, which have attracted hundreds of participants. “It shows that people are interested in baking,” Mr. Hirth said, adding that he did not view teaching people to bake as a threat to his business. “Those who want to bake at home will always do so anyway, and it still raises the interest in bread.” Not everyone, of course, is concerned with a bakers’ revival. Caspar Oehlschlägel, who lives down the road from one of the oldest bakeries in Berlin, said that since his local supermarket started offering whole-meal bread baked in the store, it was all he ever bought. “Honestly, it’s the best bread that I have ever had,” Mr. Oehlschlägel said. “Just because it is industrial-made bread doesn’t mean that it is bad. Making bread by hand is fine, but it is really something for romantics.”
|
Bread;Bakeries;Supermarkets;Germany;Schopfheim;Fritz Trefzger
|
ny0261498
|
[
"world",
"americas"
] |
2011/06/30
|
Venezuela: Summit Meeting is Put Off Over Chávez’s Illness
|
Venezuela ’s government said it would postpone a summit meeting of Latin American leaders scheduled for next week because President Hugo Chávez was still recovering from surgery in Cuba . The Foreign Ministry said in a statement read Wednesday on state television that “the president is in the middle of a recuperation process and very strict medical treatment.” As a result, the statement said, the government had decided to postpone the two-day summit meeting of Latin American and Caribbean leaders that had been scheduled to begin next Tuesday. Confusion persists as to the president’s condition, which the authorities have attributed to a pelvic abscess. On Tuesday, Cuban television showed photographs of Mr. Chávez with Fidel Castro.
|
Chavez Hugo;Politics and Government;Venezuela;Cuba
|
ny0285920
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2016/09/08
|
Colin Kaepernick’s Anthem Protest Leaves the N.F.L. Necessarily Uneasy
|
After nearly two weeks of conspicuous silence, N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell on Wednesday finally weighed in on Colin Kaepernick’s continuing refusal to stand for the national anthem. No surprise: Goodell, the son of a United States senator and the point man for a group of teams owned mostly by white billionaires, doesn’t agree with Kaepernick. Or, as Goodell said in his carefully chosen and long-overdue words, “I don’t necessarily agree with what he’s doing.” The key word is “necessarily.” On the eve of the N.F.L.’s season opener, it’s a solid assumption that Goodell didn’t necessarily want to speak publicly about Kaepernick at all, which he finally did in an interview with The Associated Press . And it’s a good bet that he didn’t necessarily find it comfortable taking a position on either side of the issue, considering his less-than-stellar relationship with players and a need to appease conservative fans. So Goodell didn’t necessarily come down strongly one way or the other. He was — how shall I put it? — necessarily noncommittal. “I support our players when they want to see change in society, and we don’t live in a perfect society,” he said. “On the other hand, we believe very strongly in patriotism in the N.F.L. I personally believe very strongly in that.” On both of his hands, Goodell has a very sticky situation. But it’s a situation he had to face sooner or later. Ever since Kaepernick’s peaceful protest against racial inequality and police brutality spurred a national conversation in late August, the definition of patriotism — and compulsory patriotism , in the view of those who find it awkward — has stirred debate. That debate is likely to grow even more heated when the first weekend N.F.L. games are played Sunday, on the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. While athletes inside football and out have signaled their willingness to stand in solidarity with Kaepernick, his actions do not have universal support, even in his own league. But more and more players are talking about it. Ben Watson, a tight end with the Baltimore Ravens, said Monday on his Facebook page that he would stand for the anthem but that he respects Kaepernick’s decision not to do so. “His actions and similar actions by figures of the past and present are a vital part of our journey and a key component of the equation for social change and should be respected as such,” Watson wrote. “From the country’s inception, such displays against the status quo are distinctly American.” You know what else is distinctly American? Football. That’s part of Goodell’s problem. Despite the N.F.L.’s insistence that football is growing into an international game, it’s still an American idea willfully cloaked in Americana. Fighter jets routinely fly over stadiums before games. Flags, some fantastically oversize, are unfurled before every kickoff. Color guards march in. The national anthem is sung. But it’s that national anthem that has been problematic lately for Goodell and a league that loves to wrap itself in the flag. Over the past two weeks, Kaepernick’s protest has started a discussion that the commissioner and his league probably didn’t want to have. Eric Reid, Kaepernick’s 49ers teammate, has joined Kaepernick in his protest. So has Seattle Seahawks cornerback Jeremy Lane. Jets wide receiver Brandon Marshall, on WFAN radio on Tuesday, called Kaepernick “one of the biggest patriots out there because he’s standing up for human rights.” As more and more athletes find their voices, Kaepernick and some of his colleagues have moved so far out of the football box that players are now casually talking about constitutional law with the ease they normally display in using the N.F.L.’s military-tinged language of formations and end-arounds and long bombs. The problem, though, is that the N.F.L. has not always been aboveboard in its links to the military, and that is another reason Kaepernick’s stance is touching on a sensitive issue. In raising the issue of patriotism, Kaepernick — perhaps unwittingly — shined a spotlight on the days when N.F.L. teams quietly became business partners with the United States military. For years, the Defense Department paid N.F.L. teams millions of dollars in exchange for the right to have military members stage homecoming events for troops, or unfurl the flag during pregame festivities. Other pro sports teams were involved in the same kind of pocketbook patriotism, but the N.F.L. was the biggest beneficiary, receiving more than $6 million in taxpayer dollars over a four-year period that began in 2011. Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain of Arizona were among those disgusted by the practice after it was uncovered, and they helped make it illegal last year. To the N.F.L.’s credit, it quickly conducted an audit. On Wednesday, the league said it had repaid taxpayers $723,734 last spring, doling out the amount auditors deemed to be inappropriate payments. But as the season opens on Thursday, the N.F.L.’s idea of patriotism — fake or real, paid or free — and Kaepernick’s idea of it remain at opposite ends of the field. “I think they are probably upset and probably worrying about what this does to the firmament of their pregame ceremonies,” Robert Boland, a former N.F.L. agent who teaches sports law at Ohio University, said of league officials. “This is probably not a situation that they want to get into too deeply, given the implications and the bent of society right now. But this issue is going to come to a greater head. I don’t know when, but it will happen.” Boland recalled what Bill Shannon, a former public relations director for Madison Square Garden, decided to do in the 1960s and ’70s when sports officials grew worried about Vietnam protests during the national anthem. The Garden’s lights were dimmed so only the anthem singer could be seen, under a spotlight. It was a neat little trick, but it can’t be done during a daytime football game. For now, the spotlight will remain on Kaepernick and whoever decides to join him — and on the N.F.L.’s claim that it represents much that is good about America. In this debate, we don’t necessarily have to agree on who is right, or who is wrong. But to Goodell’s dismay, it’s a debate that won’t necessarily disappear soon.
|
Football;Civil Unrest;Colin Kaepernick;Roger Goodell;National anthem;49ers
|
ny0000597
|
[
"business"
] |
2013/03/27
|
New Prostate Cancer Tests May Supplement P.S.A. Testing
|
Sophisticated new prostate cancer tests are coming to market that might supplement the unreliable P.S.A. test, potentially saving tens of thousands of men each year from unnecessary biopsies, operations and radiation treatments. Some of the tests are aimed at reducing the false alarms, and accompanying anxiety, caused by elevated P.S.A. readings. Others, intended for use after a definitive diagnosis, examine the genetic workings of the cancer to distinguish dangerous tumors that need treatment from slow-growing ones that might be left alone. The tests could provide a way out of the bitter debate over whether healthy men should be screened for prostate cancer. The problem with the P.S.A. blood test is that many of the cancers it detects are unlikely to cause harm. But there is no reliable way to identify them. So a large majority of men with positive tests undergo surgery or radiation treatment, and many suffer for years, needlessly, from complications like incontinence and erectile dysfunction. In late 2011, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, a government advisory body, provoked a furor by recommending against screening , saying that far more men were harmed by unnecessary biopsies and treatments than were saved from dying of cancer. But if new tests can better determine risk, screening could become more useful. “It’s not that screening doesn’t work; it’s that we haven’t done a great job of targeting treatments for the tumors that need it,” said Dr. Matthew R. Cooperberg, an assistant professor of urology at the University of California, San Francisco who has been a consultant to some of the testing companies. Reducing unnecessary treatments could also reduce the $12 billion in estimated annual spending related to prostate cancer. Test developers hope that such savings will make their tests cost-effective, even at prices that will exceed $3,000 in some cases. More than a dozen companies have introduced tests recently or are planning to do so in the near future. Rather than looking at a single protein like P.S.A., which stands for prostate-specific antigen, many of these tests use advanced techniques to measure multiple genes or other so-called molecular markers. Image Researchers at GenomeDx Biosciences perform genomic analysis. The company plans to market a test this year that would be used after surgery to help determine whether a patient should receive additional treatment. Credit Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times “It’s the cancer for the next 18 to 24 months that will be transformed by molecular markers,” said Dr. Doug Dolginow, chief executive of GenomeDx Biosciences , a start-up planning to introduce a test later this year. Experts caution that it is too early to tell how well most of the tests will perform and whether they will make a difference. Although the tests are intended to help men make treatment decisions, the onslaught of so many could cause more confusion. “It’s a little tricky to find out which one applies to you and whether it will be paid for by insurance,” said Jan Manarite, who runs the telephone help line for the Prostate Cancer Research Institute , a patient education organization. Prostate cancer specialists say screening has declined since the task force recommended against it, but millions of men in the United States still get regular blood tests to measure P.S.A. As many as a million have biopsies each year, with about 240,000 prostate cancer cases diagnosed and 28,000 deaths from the disease. The biggest battle among test developers could be between Genomic Health and Myriad Genetics , which are moving into the prostate cancer field after successes in breast cancer testing. Myriad is known for its test for genetic mutations that raise a woman’s risk of getting breast cancer. Genomic Health’s Oncotype DX test helps determine if a woman should receive chemotherapy. Both companies have developed prostate tests analogous to Oncotype DX. They analyze gene activity levels in the tumor sample obtained by biopsy to gauge how aggressive the cancer is, helping doctors and patients decide whether to treat it. The companies say their tests provide better information than the Gleason score, the main tool now used to assess tumor aggressiveness, which is based on how cells look under a microscope. One study of Myriad’s test looked at stored biopsy samples from 349 British men who were found to have prostate cancer from 1990 to 1996 and did not receive immediate treatment. Image Researchers Elai Davicioni, right, and Jenne Hansentake analyze samples from a prostate tumor in GenomeDx’s lab in San Diego. Credit Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times About 19 percent of the men with the lowest risk scores on Myriad’s test died from prostate cancer within 10 years, compared with 75 percent of the men with the highest risk scores, according to results published last year in the British Journal of Cancer. Still, some prostate cancer specialists say the test, which is called Prolaris and went on sale last year, has not been adequately validated, and sales have been very low. Noridian, the Medicare contractor for Utah, where Myriad is based, said it would not pay for the $3,400 test. Genomic Health says it plans to start selling its test, the Genomic Prostate Score, after releasing supporting data at the American Urological Association’s annual meeting in May. Insurers might be reluctant to pay for the new tests without evidence that men will trust the results enough to forgo treatment if so indicated. The tests still leave some uncertainty, and many men do not want to live with cancer, no matter how slight some test says the risk is. “We already know from conventional information that there are a group of men who are very unlikely to have progression, but they still get treated,” said Dr. Lee N. Newcomer, senior vice president for oncology at UnitedHealthcare. Angel Vasquez, for example, resisted when his urologist told him that he could forgo treatment based on his low Gleason score and P.S.A. levels. “I said, ‘No, my philosophy is if there is something in my body that is not supposed to be there, I want it to come out,’ ” said Mr. Vasquez, 67, of Matthews, N.C. The doctor ordered Myriad’s Prolaris test. Rather than justifying a decision to watch and wait, the test showed the tumor to be more aggressive than thought, a finding later confirmed after Mr. Vasquez had surgery. Image Doug Dolginow, right, chief executive of GenomeDx Biosciences, with Elai Davicioni, president and chief scientific officer. Credit Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times “Had I left it alone, it would have really progressed,” he said. Some experts say that even if the new tests are not perfect, they are better than what is available now. “Even if we can only convince 15 to 20 percent of men that we have enough confidence that they don’t need to be treated, that will be a big step forward,” said Dr. Eric A. Klein of the Cleveland Clinic, who has worked with Genomic Health. Another company, Bostwick Laboratories , already sells a tumor aggressiveness test called ProstaVysion, and Metamark Genetics is developing its own. GenomeDx is focusing on a test that would be used after surgery to help determine whether additional treatment with radiation or drugs would be useful. Danaher already sells such a test. Hologic , MDxHealth and Mitomics sell tests that they say can reduce the number of unnecessary second biopsies, which are often done when a first biopsy is negative but P.S.A. levels remain high. Opko Health , Beckman Coulter and Metabolon are developing tests that would be used in conjunction with P.S.A. screening. Because P.S.A. levels can be elevated for reasons other than cancer, as many as three-quarters of biopsies do not find cancer — and the biopsies can cause pain and infections. One published study showed that Opko’s test could have reduced unnecessary biopsies by about 50 percent, though it would have missed 12 percent of high-grade cancers. Yet another test could come from the discovery by researchers at the University of Michigan that a particular fusion of two genes is found in half of prostate cancers, and only in prostate cancer. “You’d still miss 50 percent of the disease, but at least you know if you have it you have prostate cancer,” said Dr. Arul M. Chinnaiyan, a professor of urology and pathology . He said a urine test was being developed that combines the gene fusion with PCA3, another marker. Some experts say unnecessary procedures can be reduced simply by using the P.S.A. test less frequently, and also by improving imaging. The new tests are “singles and doubles at best,” said Dr. William J. Catalona, director of the prostate program at Northwestern University, who helped bring the P.S.A. test to market in the 1990s. But, Dr. Catalona said, this is only the start. “This field is moving kind of like cellphones,” he said.
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PSA;Prostate cancer;Medical test;Research;Genomic Health;Myriad Genetics
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