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ny0214719
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2010/03/24
|
Jurors in Suffolk Hate-Crime Trial Shown Swastika Tattoo
|
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — Keith Brunjes and his best friend were hanging out watching the HBO prison series “Oz” one day in 2008 when they decided to get homemade tattoos, the kind depicted on the show. They bought ink at a Michaels arts and crafts store, and Mr. Brunjes studied up on the subject. Mr. Brunjes, 18, said he first gave his friend a lightning-bolt tattoo in May 2008, and then a star, using ink, a needle and thread. About a month and a half later, he said, he gave him a third one on his right upper thigh: a swastika. The two friends did not discuss why. “I didn’t ask about it,” Mr. Brunjes said. “He wanted it.” Mr. Brunjes made his comments on Tuesday during his testimony in the hate-crime trial of the friend, Jeffrey Conroy, a Long Island teenager charged with fatally stabbing an Ecuadorean immigrant in Patchogue in November 2008. The authorities say Mr. Conroy and six other teenagers attacked the immigrant, Marcelo Lucero , in a wave of racially motivated assaults and attempted assaults on Latino men on eastern Long Island. The case is being heard in State Supreme Court here in Suffolk County, before 12 jurors and 4 alternates . Eight are men, and eight are women. One is black, one is Hispanic and the rest are white. Mr. Conroy’s feelings about white supremacy have become a crucial element of the case, the first trial for murder as a hate crime on Long Island since the state’s hate-crime law was enacted in 2000. A Suffolk County prosecutor, Megan O’Donnell, told jurors last week that Mr. Conroy’s views on white supremacy were evident in the tattoos on his body and in the statements he made to others. Shortly after Mr. Lucero’s stabbing, Steve Levy, the county executive, called the seven defendants white supremacists . Mr. Brunjes’s testimony on Tuesday appeared to raise more questions than answers about Mr. Conroy’s mind-set. Mr. Brunjes, who has known Mr. Conroy since they were both about 8 years old, said he and Mr. Conroy did not have any conversations about why Mr. Conroy wanted a swastika, and he also testified that Mr. Conroy did not discuss the meaning of the lightning bolt. When Mr. Brunjes modified the lightning bolt tattoo, it resembled the logo of the Gatorade sports drink, Mr. Brunjes said in court. But another young friend of Mr. Conroy’s testified on Tuesday that Mr. Conroy came to her house about a month before the stabbing and showed her the lightning bolt. The friend, Alyssa Sprague, 17, told him at the time that she thought it was the Gatorade logo. “He said, no, it was white power,” Ms. Sprague testified. For the first time, the jury was shown photographs of the swastika tattoo and Mr. Conroy’s other tattoos, on a large screen that was visible to jurors and most of the courtroom gallery, where relatives and friends of Mr. Conroy and Mr. Lucero were seated. After Mr. Brunjes gave Mr. Conroy the swastika tattoo, Mr. Brunjes testified, Mr. Conroy told him, “If I ever go to jail, I’m screwed.” Mr. Conroy, now 19, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder as a hate crime as well as other charges. He was 17 when Mr. Brunjes gave him the swastika, which Mr. Brunjes described as being about one inch by one inch. Mr. Conroy’s father, Robert Conroy, said in an interview last week that he did not know that his son had the swastika tattoo on his leg, and that if he had known, he would have taken his son somewhere to have it removed. He said his son did not believe in white supremacy and did not fully understand the symbol’s meaning and history when he got the tattoo. “I was so mad when I found out that he had this,” Robert Conroy said. “He doesn’t wear it proudly. It was just kids being stupid.” Mr. Conroy’s lawyer, William Keahon, has made it a point during the trial to have the young men and women who testify list, one by one, Mr. Conroy’s black and Hispanic friends. Asked outside the courtroom if his client had racist tendencies, Mr. Keahon responded, “Absolutely not.” He described the tattooing as “two young kids acting like jerks.” Under cross-examination, Ms. Sprague told Mr. Keahon that she first spoke with a detective about the case in November 2008, shortly after the stabbing, but did not mention Mr. Conroy’s white-power statement at the time. She said she first told the prosecutor about it two weeks ago. A Hispanic man who prosecutors say was chased by the seven teenagers earlier that evening in Patchogue also testified on Tuesday. The man, Hector Sierra, 57, who was born in Colombia, said he was walking home from his job as a waiter about 11:30 p.m. when he noticed a red or brown sport utility vehicle drive slowly past him. The vehicle stopped and four people stepped out and began running toward him, Mr. Sierra testified. “They caught me from behind and started punching me,” Mr. Sierra said. He escaped serious injuries. Mr. Sierra said he did not get a clear look at the attackers’ faces, and he did not identify Mr. Conroy as one of them. Prosecutors have charged Mr. Conroy and the six other defendants with second-degree attempted assault as a hate crime against Mr. Sierra. They say that the seven teenagers that night were riding in a red S.U.V.
|
Conroy Jeffrey;Lucero Marcelo;Patchogue (NY);Hate Crimes;Hispanic-Americans;Immigration and Emigration;Tattoos;Murders and Attempted Murders
|
ny0233713
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2010/08/12
|
Huge Ice Island Splits From Greenland
|
STOCKHOLM (AP) — An island of ice more than four times the size of Manhattan is drifting across the Arctic Ocean after breaking off from a glacier in Greenland , potentially threatening shipping lanes and oil platforms. The iceberg is moving toward the Nares Strait, which separates the northwestern coast of Greenland and Ellesmere Island of Canada. If it makes it into the strait before the winter freeze, the iceberg will probably be carried south by ocean currents, hugging Canada’s eastern coast until it enters waters busy with oil and shipping activities off Newfoundland. “That’s where it starts to become dangerous,” said Mark Drinkwater of the European Space Agency. Scientists say this ice island is the biggest in the Northern Hemisphere since 1962.
|
Ice;Greenland
|
ny0077360
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2015/05/08
|
Queens Pizzeria Owners Charged in Cocaine Smuggling Operation
|
A restaurant in Corona, Queens, was the center of an international drug-trafficking ring that smuggled cocaine in the linings of cardboard boxes containing produce, federal authorities said on Thursday. The husband-and-wife team running the restaurant, Gregorio and Eleonora Gigliotti, hid shipments of cocaine in refrigerated cargo containers marked “fresh cassava,” the authorities said, and then distributed it in New York and in Italy to members of ’Ndrangheta, Italy’s most powerful organized crime group. The Gigliottis were charged along with their son Angelo and another relative in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, while 13 people were arrested on Thursday in Italy, accused of being involved in the cocaine operation. Video footage released by the Italian police showed Italian officers and agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation searching homes and cars and arresting one of the suspects in the southern region of Calabria in pre-dawn raids. The Gigliottis immigrated from Italy about 40 years ago, according to a document filed by Ms. Gigliotti’s lawyer, and have three children and two infant grandchildren. She cooked at Lucia’s, a bar in Corona, while raising their children, and then in 2012 the Gigliottis opened Cucino a Modo Mio, Italian for “I cook it my way.” Mr. Gigliotti did not have a criminal record and “was above suspicion,” Andrea Grassi, head of the first division of a special Italian police unit known as SCO, said on Thursday at a news conference in Rome. The authorities said they were not sure when Mr. Gigliotti started his double role as a “restaurateur at night and drug trafficker by day,” Mr. Grassi added. After putting a wiretap on the phone of the pizzeria, agents searched shipments of the cassava bound for the Gigliottis’ wholesale-produce warehouse. In October 2014, they found 44 kilograms of cocaine inside cardboard boxes of cassava, and in December, they found an additional 15 kilograms inside the boxes. Photos released by the Italian police showed that flat bags of cocaine had been transported within the lining of cardboard boxes containing the produce. The street value of the two cocaine shipments was $2 million, prosecutors said in court documents. Other shipments were seized in Spain and Holland, including one three-ton cargo of cocaine that the police are further investigating to see if it is linked to “the same cartel,” officials said on Thursday. The Gigliottis tracked their shipments and payments closely, according to government wiretaps and prosecutors’ filings that recounted some of the recorded conversations. Ms. Gigliotti traveled to Costa Rica to deliver about $400,000 in cash to the suppliers there, for instance. And when Mr. Gigliotti could not get information about a shipment in summer 2014, he left a message for one of the Costa Rican sources: “Listen to me. If I don’t have the container by this next week, I’ll go over there. I know where you live, where they live. Don’t make me blow my mind. Do your job, send me the container.” Ms. Gigliotti also talked of violence when discussing an associate who owed them money with her husband: “Hurting him in front of his kids, Grego, we’re going to look bad,” she said. “Bring him here and bang him up over here. You have someone grab him here at night, he’ll learn.” Prosecutors said Gregorio and Angelo Gigliotti were associated with the Genovese crime family. The yearlong investigation was called Operation Columbus, given the mid-October timing of the first seizure of cocaine. It grew out of another operation that led to the arrests, in February 2014 , of 24 people in the United States and Italy accused of being part of a ’Ndrangheta heroin- and cocaine-smuggling ring. Italian officials said on Thursday that shortly after that operation had ended, their American counterparts flagged Mr. Gigliotti and his family as persons of interest suspected of drug trafficking, and a new investigation began. Mr. Gigliotti came to the authorities’ attention, court documents suggest, after a man charged in a separate mob drug-trafficking case started cooperating with the government and said his cocaine supplier had sold drugs to Mr. Gigliotti. That cocaine supplier also began informing, telling prosecutors that Mr. Gigliotti bought drugs from him and shipped them to Italy. Mr. Gigliotti “controlled” an employee at a commercial shipper “who would allow packages with drugs to pass through Italian Customs,” according to the cocaine supplier, and Ms. Gigliotti would then travel to Italy, pick up the packages and distribute them there. Back in the United States, the Gigliottis used Atlantic City casinos to convert the drug-payment money from euros to dollars. The Gigliottis were arrested in March, when agents searched Cucino a Modo Mio and their house and found guns, ammunition and brass knuckles. New charges against them were unsealed this week. The investigation showed that even after major setbacks like the arrests last year, criminal organizations like the ’Ndrangheta could easily resuscitate. “The actors may change, but the big families are always there in the background,” said Nicola Gratteri, one of the Italian prosecutors who worked on the case. It also showed the global reach of the group. Jim McGovern, chief of the criminal division for the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York, said American law enforcement was committed to “uncover the efforts of criminal organizations seeking to gain a foothold in New York and the rest of the United States.”
|
Drug Abuse;Cocaine and Crack;Gregorio Gigliotti;Eleonora Gigliotti;NYC;Corona Queens;Cucino a Modo Mio;'Ndrangheta;Costa Rica;Italy
|
ny0274025
|
[
"business",
"dealbook"
] |
2016/02/03
|
ChemChina’s Bid for Syngenta Leaves Monsanto in the Cold
|
The advance of the China National Chemical Corporation, a state-owned company, on Syngenta leaves Monsanto in a thorny spot. The Chinese company, known as ChemChina, is nearing a deal for Syngenta, the Swiss seeds and pesticides maker. Its friendly nature and the cash involved probably make it better than a similarly valued offer last year from the American rival Monsanto, whose merger options are getting tougher. Having kicked off the industry’s mating season, Monsanto is for now on its own. It made repeated overtures to Syngenta to combine the world’s leading players in seed production and crop protection. Its most recent offer was 470 Swiss francs in cash and stock per share in August 2015. Syngenta argued that Monsanto was trying to buy it on the cheap at a low point in the agrochemical cycle, but it now looks ready to accept a similar price from ChemChina. By offering all cash, the Chinese company could wind up being less intrusive for both employees and senior management. Monsanto can try to argue that ChemChina’s bid is problematic anyway. Competition concerns seem unlikely, but there’s a risk that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States will fret over Chinese ownership. That Syngenta’s stock price is still 16 percent below the expected sale price suggests that investors do harbor some doubts. Even so, Monsanto would probably need to sweeten its offer to overpower ChemChina’s. Its last one is now worth about 426 Swiss francs for each Syngenta share. Matching ChemChina’s figure, even with just 75 percent cash, would increase Monsanto’s debt to more than four times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, analysts at Bernstein say, a risky level given the weak commodity cycle. Alternatively, Monsanto could look elsewhere. The merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont puts additional pressure on it to find a deal partner. BASF’s crop protection business is the third-largest in the sector and would make a sensible target. But BASF, a German conglomerate, has no need to sell low when the business is in a slump. There may be other joint ventures available to Monsanto, but the M.&A. seeds are looking harder to sow.
|
Mergers and Acquisitions;China National Chemical Corporation,ChemChina;Monsanto;Syngenta;Foreign Investment
|
ny0185783
|
[
"nyregion",
"westchester"
] |
2009/03/08
|
New York Sees More Revenue in Expanding Bottle Deposit Program
|
LARCHMONT WITH two teenage children, and the taste for fizzy drinks that comes with them, Becky Salko rarely leaves a refundable can or bottle unredeemed. Though her take from hauling the empty cans and bottles to her local supermarket — from 85 cents to $2.50 a visit — doesn’t go far, Ms. Salko, 49, a Larchmont preschool teacher, said there was no good reason to leave behind the containers and the 5 cents each that comes with returning them to the store. “I take every possible bottle back to Stop & Shop, scrunch them and use the money from them to food shop,” she said. “To me it just feels like free money.” The load of cans and bottles toted to supermarkets each week could get heavier under a plan to expand the bottle redemption program included in Gov. David A. Paterson’s 2009-10 budget proposal. The proposal to expand the state Bottle Bill , which since 1982 has required a 5-cent refundable deposit on beer and soda cans and bottles, would require vendors to also charge a 5-cent deposit on the three billion bottles and cans of water, sports drinks, iced teas and juices that New Yorkers consume each year. Dairy products, infant formulas, wine and gallon-sized containers would be exempt. Mr. Paterson’s proposal also calls for beverage distributors to transfer the millions of dollars in unredeemed deposits to the state’s Environmental Protection Fund rather than keep them, as they do now. Similar bills passed the Assembly in recent years but were not heard in the Senate. But Mr. Paterson’s proposal is one of many things being considered in his budget plan, providing more incentive for it to be passed, said Assemblyman Robert K. Sweeney, a Babylon Democrat who heads the Assembly’s Environmental Conservation Committee. Supporters hail the proposed changes as a way to improve recycling rates while adding to state coffers. But opponents, including beverage manufacturers and distributors and large retail chains, say the proposal places an undue and expensive burden on their industries to collect, refund and recycle bottles and cans. The proposal would mean about $118 million next year for the Environmental Protection Fund, up from $93 million, according to state estimates. (The Container Recycling Institute , which calculates the figures another way, says the amount would jump to $218 million from $144 million.) The Environmental Protection Fund pays for programs like land acquisitions and waterfront revitalizations and finances zoos and farmland protection. The proposal would have far-reaching environmental benefits, as people are apt to recycle bottles when there is money attached and, under the current law, nonredeemable bottles make up a disproportionately large percentage of litter found in parks, streets and riverbanks, said Pete Grannis, commissioner of the State Department of Environmental Conservation. Since the bottle law took effect 27 years ago, more than 70 percent of beer and soda containers — 90 billion bottles and cans — have been recycled, he said. (Only about 38 percent of cans and bottles are recycled in states without bottle bills, said Judith Enck, Mr. Paterson’s deputy secretary for the environment.) “It really does provide an incentive for recycling, and I do believe it’s pretty clear that the original bill didn’t contemplate the drinking habits of today’s world,” said Assemblyman Adam Bradley, a Democrat from White Plains. “Everybody drank soda.” County officials say the governor’s proposal also promotes their environmental agenda. Susan Tolchin, the deputy county executive, said that while the proposal’s impact on recycling in the county is uncertain, the benefits of reducing waste and sending much-needed money to the state are clear. But opponents said that the measure would cost consumers more and could have ramifications for Westchester beyond the potential for increasing the price of bottled drinks. The bottle bill proposal, along with Mr. Paterson’s proposed 18 percent tax on nondiet sodas, has the Pepsi Bottling Group considering moving its headquarters from Somers to Connecticut, taking more than 1,000 jobs with it. “Essentially what we’ve created is a tax,” said Jonathan M. Pierce, a spokesman for Real Recycling Reform , which opposes the bill. The group includes representatives of Snapple, which is headquartered in White Plains; the Food Industry Alliance of New York State, which represents the grocery industry; the New York State Restaurant Association; and distributors who work for Heineken USA, based in White Plains. Mr. Pierce said that the money kept by distributors is used to finance the deposit, redemption and recycling program to begin with and that beverages would ultimately cost more, possibly as much as 15 cents per bottle, if the proposal became law. Although consumers would still be able to get back 5 cents a bottle, the rest would be needed to meet the increased cost of operating a broader bottle-redemption program, Mr. Pierce said. “It’s going to increase the cost of doing business in New York,” he said, “and it’s going to increase the cost of a trip to the grocery store.” SUPPORTERS dispute that contention, saying the only legitimate cost increase associated with the proposal would be 1.5 cents per bottle — the handling fee distributors must pay retailers to collect, refund and recycle the bottles would increase to 3.5 cents from 2 cents. “That’s totally at the whim of the companies,” Ms. Enck said. “There is no way it’s going to cost 10 cents a bottle to handle this.” As the program works now, distributors charge the 5-cent deposit per can or bottle to stores, which then charge consumers that amount. Consumers can take empty bottles and cans back to the store in exchange for the refund. Stores get their deposits, plus the 2-cent-a-container handling fee, when they return the bottles and cans either to the distributor or to a private company, which many large supermarkets use. In addition to unclaimed deposits, distributors also get to keep money earned from selling bottles and cans to recycling companies, which often prefer material collected from redemption systems over curbside pickup because it tends to be mixed with fewer nonrecyclables. Retailers say there are hidden costs in the return system, like setting aside space for redemption machines, sanitation costs and paying staff to keep that space maintained and lighted. Not all business leaders agree that the proposed changes would cost them. Peter Sobol, legislative liaison for the Empire State Beer Distributors Association, said the neighborhood beer and soda stores that his group represents support Governor Paterson’s proposal as long as the handling fee stores receive is increased to meet costs. He called it unconscionable for distributors to keep unredeemed deposits when the economy is in shambles. “Not many are sharing in that pot,” Mr. Sobol said. “At a time when everything is being cut back — health care, education — for the state not to grab these unredeemed nickels just doesn’t make sense.” Ms. Salko, the Larchmont teacher and recycler, said she firmly believed that attaching money to recycling made it more attractive, particularly for children like her son, Michael, 14, who takes a recyclable water bottle to school daily. Mr. Pierce said he does not buy that argument, saying the state is more interested in recouping money from unredeemed deposits than promoting environmental responsibility. If more and more people recycle, he said, there will be little money left for the state to claim. Ms. Enck, however, said losing cash to high recycling rates is the least of her worries. “We would love to have that problem,” she said.
|
Recycling of Waste Materials;Shopping and Retail;Environment;Larchmont (NY)
|
ny0084873
|
[
"business",
"dealbook"
] |
2015/10/14
|
Taking Measure of Volkswagen’s Cooperation
|
Elton John has a song called “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word,” but for Michael Horn, the chief of Volkswagen’s American subsidiary, that was just about the easiest thing to say at his appearance before a House subcommittee last week. Mr. Horn offered “a sincere apology” for the company’s use of computer software to evade emissions testing of its diesel engines, but few details about how it planned to fix the problem. While apologies can be comforting, the company’s cooperation with investigators will be the true measure of how it will be treated by the Justice Department in its criminal investigation. And on that front, there is reason to question just how cooperative Volkswagen will be as it faces scrutiny that now includes a second computer program that affected how emission controls operated in its cars. Mr. Horn laid the blame for the software that operated as a “defeat device” to fool laboratories conducting emissions tests on “a couple of software engineers who put this in for whatever reason.” In response to Representative Joe Barton’s expression of incredulity at such a claim, Mr. Horn agreed that “it is very hard to believe.” That approach is consistent with the narrative Volkswagen has offered about who is responsible since the Environmental Protection Agency filed a notice on Sept. 18 that the defeat device violated the Clean Air Act. The company has emphasized that senior management was not involved in any decisions regarding the software, pointing to low-level employees as responsible for any misconduct. Volkswagen’s former chief executive, Martin Winterkorn, said in a statement announcing his resignation that he accepted responsibility for the “irregularities” in the engines “even though I am not aware of any wrongdoing on my part.” The supervisory board, roughly the equivalent of the board of directors for an American corporation, backed his position by emphasizing in a statement that Mr. Winterkorn “had no knowledge of the manipulation of the emissions data.” Matthias Müller, Volkswagen’s new chief executive, attributed the problem to a few employees, disclosing that four employees had been suspended by the company. So at this point, the company seems to be portraying the installation of the software as something akin to an episode of “The Big Bang Theory” in which a few nerdy computer scientists engaged in some back-room high jinks to help avoid a minor nuisance like emissions standards – cue the laugh track. The notion that rogue employees slipped a major component of the engine’s software past all the company’s engineers, not to mention the outside supplier of its engine management system, Robert Bosch GmbH, does sound like quite a stretch. Designing a new automobile is a multibillion-dollar endeavor, with constant testing to ensure it meets engineering and regulatory standards. And the company built its advertising campaign in the United States around the benefits of its diesel engine technology, so meeting those standards was not like a stray bolt tucked under the seats. The Justice Department has put a renewed emphasis on how well companies identify individual wrongdoers, including senior management, as the measure of corporate cooperation. Although Volkswagen has promised a vigorous internal investigation, the company’s position, announced at the outset, that Mr. Winterkorn and other senior managers were kept in the dark could affect the thoroughness of the inquiry. One challenge prosecutors in the United States will face is obtaining evidence that can be used to prosecute individuals. In a typical investigation, the company turns over documents to the Justice Department, which can also issue grand jury subpoenas compelling individuals to produce records and testify. If necessary, investigators can obtain a search warrant to enter a company’s offices to seize files and computers if there is concern that incriminating evidence might be destroyed. That can provide a trove of valuable information. But those tools are not available because Volkswagen’s offices are in Wolfsburg, Germany, well beyond the Justice Department’s reach. German investigators searched the company’s headquarters and elsewhere last week looking for evidence of who was responsible for installing the software, but whether that information will be shared with American authorities remains to be seen. Germany is well known for having much stricter personal privacy laws than the United States, and that may hamper how much can be disclosed to aid in prosecuting individuals. The Justice Department expects companies to share the results of their internal investigations. As a show of good faith, many agree to waive the protections of the attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine to provide information that might not otherwise be available to prosecutors. General Motors earned plaudits from Preet Bharara , the United States attorney in Manhattan, for its “fairly extraordinary” cooperation that included an extensive report from its investigation and continuing access to confidential information developed by its lawyers. Whether Volkswagen will be equally forthcoming is not yet clear. Information the company shares with American authorities could strengthen potential claims by state attorneys general and car owners seeking compensation from the company for the diminished value of cars with the software. Mr. Horn said that the company did not plan to buy back its vehicles and wanted to install a fix for them, but that is unlikely to slow a legal process that could add significantly to Volkswagen’s costs if the company provides a road map to any violations. One potential avenue for obtaining information is the whistle-blower program at the Securities and Exchange Commission, which offers rewards of 10 to 30 percent of any recovery for violations. Although no one inside Volkswagen blew the whistle about the software, the company’s position that rogue employees were responsible for installing the software could encourage an insider to come forward to point the finger at those higher up the corporate ladder who may have known about the defeat device. Mr. Horn, Volkswagen’s top leader in America, was a convenient punching bag at the House subcommittee hearing, pointing out that he could not promise to provide documents from the corporate headquarters because there are “quite a number of people above me.” The real test of the company’s cooperation will depend on how much it is willing to share with prosecutors at the Justice Department who want to trace responsibility for the violations as far up into corporate management as possible.
|
Volkswagen;Justice Department;Cars;Michael Horn;Ethics Misconduct Malfeasance
|
ny0062286
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2014/01/10
|
Obama Announces ‘Promise Zones’ in 5 Poor Areas
|
WASHINGTON — A year after promising to direct federal attention and support to needy areas across the country, President Obama said Thursday that the government would begin helping five economically hard-hit communities fight poverty and assist children. In a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Obama said the five areas would become “Promise Zones,” where federal agencies will cut through red tape in an effort to give struggling residents a chance at better lives. “We will help them succeed,” Mr. Obama said as he stood with children who have benefited from a similar community in Harlem. “Not with a handout, but as partners with them, every step of the way. And we’re going to make sure it works.” The president first mentioned the idea of Promise Zones in his State of the Union address last February. In that speech, he vowed that in 2013, his administration would “begin to partner with 20 of the hardest-hit towns in America to get these communities back on their feet.” On Thursday, he announced the first five: San Antonio, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Southeastern Kentucky and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. “Your country will help you remake your community on behalf of your children,” Mr. Obama said, promising that the goal is that a child’s success be determined “not by the ZIP code she lives in but by the strength of her work ethic and the scope of her dreams.” White House officials said the Promise Zones initiative would not provide new money, rather it would be aimed at providing the local governments and agencies “aid in cutting through red tape to get access to existing resources.” Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, said schools “can’t do this by themselves.” He added, “Bringing in nonprofits, companies and all of us working together is the only way to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty.” In a phone call with reporters, Mr. Duncan said the Promise Zones would receive extra points when applying for existing competitive grants awarded by the Department of Education. He said that some communities, for example, might use grant money for expanding preschool for disadvantaged 3- and 4-year-olds. San Antonio has promised more job training through a partnership with St. Philip’s College. Los Angeles has said it will focus on access to technical education. In Kentucky, leaders say they will work with Berea College to run “career readiness programs.” And in the Choctaw Nation, officials vowed to work on bolstering early literacy programs. Officials said the administration hoped to expand to 20 Promise Zones by the time Mr. Obama leaves office.
|
Barack Obama;Poverty;Federal Aid;Los Angeles;Philadelphia;Kentucky;Oklahoma;San Antonio
|
ny0197732
|
[
"business"
] |
2009/07/03
|
Exelon Raises Its Hostile Bid for Rival NRG
|
The Exelon Corporation said Thursday that it had raised its hostile bid for NRG Energy , a rival power producer, to nearly $7.5 billion in stock, marking the latest twist in the months-long takeover feud. In its new offer , Exelon said NRG shareholders would receive 0.545 of an Exelon share for each share of NRG stock. That ratio is 12.4 percent higher than the initial offer by Exelon in October. Based on Wednesday’s closing prices, the new Exelon bid values each NRG share at about $28.10, which is nearly 8 percent above NRG’s closing price. NRG, a wholesale power generator based in Princeton, N.J., had repeatedly urged its shareholders not to accept Exelon’s previous offer, calling it “inadequate and uncertain.” But it has said that it remained open to a deal at a “fair price.” Exelon’s new offer values NRG at about $7.45 billion, based on NRG’s 265.3 million outstanding shares. In October, Exelon offered $6.2 billion in stock for NRG. Exelon said that part of the reason it was able to raise its offer was that it found about $1.5 billion in additional cost savings that would flow from a merger. Exelon also factored in NRG’s recent acquisition of Reliant Energy’s retail business in Texas in making the new proposal. “An exhaustive analysis by our internal team, informed by the best third-party experts, resulted in additional synergies, allowing us to increase our offer to NRG shareholders,” John Rowe, Exelon’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. He added that the latest bid was Exelon’s “best and final offer.” In response , NRG urged its shareholders to “take no action at this time” on the latest offer until its board is able to review it. Shares of both companies traded lower on Thursday. NRG’s decline was a bit steeper, suggesting that investors might have expected a bigger increase in Exelon’s bid.
|
Exelon Corp;NRG Energy Inc;Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
|
ny0226477
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2010/10/30
|
Palin Renews Support for Miller in Alaska Race
|
ANCHORAGE — With her endorsement in a simple posting on Facebook in June, Sarah Palin helped propel Joe Miller toward political stardom. On Thursday night, with Mr. Miller’s Senate campaign struggling in the final rush to Election Day, Ms. Palin forcefully restated her support — this time in person, here in her home state. “I read his résumé, I read his accomplishments, I read his passion for America and I think, ‘Are we even fit to tie his combat boots?’ ” Ms. Palin asked. She noted Mr. Miller’s military service in the Persian Gulf war of 1991 and that he had been awarded a Bronze Star. “His commanding officer described him as a true warrior leader, tested under fire, and I say tested under fire then as he is now in this campaign,” Ms. Palin said. “It’s going to make him stronger.” Ms. Palin, the former governor of Alaska, took special aim at one of Mr. Miller’s opponents, with whom she has a long and tense history, Senator Lisa Murkowski. “Let’s call her the candidate for the entitlement party,” Ms. Palin said. With strong backing from the Tea Party Express, Mr. Miller, who supports states’ rights and sharp reductions in federal spending, stunned Alaska and national Republicans when he defeated Ms. Murkowski in the Republican primary in August. But Ms. Murkowski soon surprised people herself, returning to the race last month as a well-funded write-in candidate. The decision infuriated Mr. Miller’s supporters. Ms. Murkowski was initially appointed to her Senate seat in 2002 by her father, the governor at the time, a fact that her opponents point out frequently. She was elected to a full term in 2004. Several hundred people attended the rally, at the Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center downtown, and were screened with security wands as they entered. It was the first time Ms. Palin had appeared at a campaign rally with Mr. Miller, and it followed a string of damaging developments for the candidate. Personnel records released this week under court order showed that Mr. Miller had been disciplined in 2008 for using government computers for political purposes, and then lying about it, when he worked as a part-time lawyer for the Fairbanks North Star Borough. For weeks Mr. Miller had refused to discuss the incident. At one campaign event before the records were released, security guards hired by his campaign handcuffed a reporter who asked him about the disciplinary action. Mr. Miller’s relationship with Ms. Palin had also appeared strained. This month, a liberal blog posted e-mails showing Ms. Palin’s husband, Todd, frustrated by the less than emphatic response Mr. Miller gave a television interviewer who asked whether he thought Ms. Palin was qualified to be president. After weeks of silence, Ms. Palin revived her public support for Mr. Miller on Monday in Twitter and Facebook posts in which she attacked Ms. Murkowski for questioning Mr. Miller’s fitness for office in a televised debate. “Beyond shameful,” she called it on Thursday. Ms. Palin only appeared for her speech, which lasted about 15 minutes. Afterward, she stood away from the stage with her husband and others for a few minutes, chatting, taking pictures and scrolling through her phone as Mr. Miller spoke. He never thanked her publicly and she appeared to leave before he was finished. Ms. Murkowski’s write-in campaign and the difficulty of polling the state’s often unpredictable and hard-to-reach voters have made the race a wildcard. Some Democrats believe their candidate, Scott McAdams, the mayor of Sitka, could pull out a dark-horse victory in the conservative state if his two opponents split the Republican vote. Ms. Palin said little about Mr. McAdams on Thursday, referring to him once in a dig at Ms. Murkowski. Ms Palin said that Mr. Miller was “running against two candidates who are in complete denial about the problems that big-growing government causes for you all.” “One of them is an out-of-touch liberal, and the other happened to be the mayor of Sitka.” While some said the appearance by Ms. Palin could serve as a strong closing argument for Mr. Miller, others questioned the benefits. The governor is not as popular as she once was in her state. “A lot of people told Joe, ‘Don’t do it,’ ” said Dave Dittman, a Republican pollster who has worked recently for the Miller campaign. “A lot said ‘Do it.’ And he decided to do it.” Mr. Dittman added: “I was on the other side. I told him not to. My guess is personally it would tend to energize the opposition, the people who don’t like her.” That idea seem farfetched to Monte Wallace, who whooped and clapped as Mr. Miller and Ms. Palin spoke. “She believes in God, family and country,” Ms. Wallace said of Ms. Palin. “And he does, too.” Mr. Miller told the crowd that his campaign was “still a David and Goliath battle,” and that his supporters had a special weapon to help him get elected: prayer. “I want you to pray like you’ve never prayed before,” he said.
|
Alaska;Miller Joseph W;Elections;Palin Sarah;United States Politics and Government
|
ny0077338
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2015/05/30
|
Jerry Dior, Designer of Major League Baseball’s Logo, Dies at 82
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Jerry Dior, a graphic designer who created one of the most instantly recognizable logos in the history of American marketing — the silhouetted batter that has long symbolized Major League Baseball — but who received official credit for it only 40 years after the fact, died on May 10 at his home in Edison, N.J. He was 82. The cause was cancer, his wife, Lita, said. His death was not made public until this week. Adopted in 1969 to honor professional baseball’s centennial, the red-white-and-blue logo depicts a stylized batter facing an oncoming ball. Now ubiquitous, it appears on the caps, jerseys and helmets of major league players; on umpires’ uniforms; on television graphics; and on billions of dollars’ worth of licensed memorabilia annually. Mr. Dior designed the logo in 1968, while working for Sandgren & Murtha, a New York City marketing concern. At the time, it seemed a routine assignment — an afternoon’s work, he later said — little different from his other projects there, which included package designs for Kellogg’s and Nabisco. As was customary with work-for-hire designs, Mr. Dior received no royalties for his baseball logo, and no public credit. He did not expect to (his is an inherently anonymous calling), nor did he expect his work to endure: Logos are ephemeral things, with clients inclined to revamp them every few years. But this particular logo did endure. By 2008, as ESPN.com wrote that year , it had become “a masterpiece of modern brand design” that was “more iconic and visible than ever.” Yet Mr. Dior, who had never thought to retain a documentary record of the assignment, remained unacknowledged. It was not money he longed for, he said, but the simple act of recognition. “Every now and then I tell someone the story about the logo, and their eyes go gaga, and I say to myself, ‘Hmm, do they really believe me or not?’ ” he told ESPN.com. “I want some sort of foothold or something, so I can prove that I really did this.” Jerry Nicholas Dior was born in Brooklyn on May 14, 1932; his mother was a homemaker, his father a dressmaker. He graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in Coney Island and studied on scholarship at the Art Students League of New York. During the Korean War, he served stateside in the Army. At Sandgren & Murtha, Mr. Dior was glad to land the M.L.B. assignment. A lifelong baseball fan, he adored the Dodgers until they traduced him by quitting Brooklyn in 1957 , after which he threw his support to the Yankees. Image Mr. Dior's logo was called “a masterpiece of modern brand design.” Credit Major League Baseball Per his instructions, he drew a generic baseball player. (In interviews years later, Mr. Dior stressed that the figure was not modeled on Harmon Killebrew as many people, including Killebrew himself, believed.) He executed the design in Magic Marker, originally making it blue and green before switching to a patriotic palette. “It just came to me,” Mr. Dior told The Wall Street Journal in 2008. “I did the rough sketch and cleaned it up a bit, and that was that. I never thought anything about it until I turned on the television and saw it on the New York Mets’ uniforms,” where it was emblazoned for the 1969 World Series. Mr. Dior left Sandgren & Murtha shortly after designing the logo, and in later years he was a freelance graphic artist. But over time, especially as a string of professional sports logos, the National Basketball Association’s among them, were created as deliberate echoes of his design, the anonymity began to gnaw at him. He and his wife petitioned Major League Baseball for acknowledgment, to no avail. Then, in 2008, The Journal profiled Mr. Dior, quoting former colleagues who attested to his authorship of the design. Other news organizations took up the story, creating a groundswell of support. In 2009, after conducting its own inquiry, Major League Baseball officially recognized Mr. Dior as the logo’s creator, holding pregame ceremonies in his honor at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field. “Jerry Dior created a symbol that has stood the test of time,” Bud Selig, then the baseball commissioner, said in a statement that year. “Forty years after its introduction, the ‘silhouetted batter’ is instantly recognized worldwide as the official emblem of Major League Baseball.” Besides his wife, the former Lita Zweier, Mr. Dior’s survivors include four children, Mitchell, Rick, Jed and Donna Dior, and four grandchildren. “I don’t think he ever thought he would be recognized and celebrated the way he was,” Mrs. Dior said of her husband in an interview on Friday. In 2009, Mr. Dior himself described the day he was first acknowledged as “one of the most exciting days of my life.” In 2008, with recognition still eluding him, Mr. Dior was asked by ESPN.com how well he thought his logo had weathered the passing years. “It holds up today as well as it did back then,” he said. “I truly feel it’s part of baseball. So I added a little something to the game, and I’m very proud of that.”
|
Obituary;Jerry Dior;Logo;MLB
|
ny0274059
|
[
"world",
"africa"
] |
2016/02/03
|
Muslim Conference Calls for Protection of Religious Minorities
|
MARRAKESH, Morocco — At a recent conference held by Muslim scholars to confront violence in the Islamic world, a representative of the Yazidi religious minority in Iraq and Syria said his people desperately needed protection from the Islamic State. “Please help us,” said Hadi Baba Sheikh, the Yazidi representative. “They are killing us and kidnapping our women and children.” The gathering here of about 300 muftis, theologians and scholars last month responded far more broadly by issuing the Marrakesh Declaration , which calls for Muslim countries to tolerate and protect religious minorities living within their borders — among them Christians, Jews, Hindus and Bahais as well as Yazidis and Sabians. They cited the Charter of Medina, established by the Prophet Muhammad after he fled to Medina, in what is now Saudi Arabia, from Mecca in the seventh century to escape an assassination plot. “The Medina Charter established the idea of common citizenship regardless of religious belief,” said Sheikh Abdallah bin Bayyah, a Mauritanian religious scholar and a professor of Islamic studies in Saudi Arabia who helped convene the meeting, in a speech. “Enough bloodshed. We are heading to annihilation. It is time for cooperation.” Since it was issued last Wednesday, the declaration has been welcomed by many, though with some skepticism, and it is only now beginning to gain wider circulation. Some experts said they doubted that the meeting would have lasting impact because it did not include representatives of more extremist movements, like the Muslim Brotherhood. They also said the groups that did attend do not have great sway over young people. “These efforts are compromised from the get-go because of their association with states that don’t have legitimacy among young, angry, frustrated Muslim youths in the Arab world,” said Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and the author of “Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World,” who did not attend the conference. “It’s something that appeals to Western governments, but what’s the follow-up?” “The targeted audience should be people who are predisposed to radicalism,” he continued. “A young Muslim who is intrigued by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria would be more likely to listen to a Salafi scholar than a traditionalist scholar.” Yet for the representatives of persecuted religious minorities who attended the meeting or followed the proceedings from afar, the gathering and the document it produced were a hopeful sign that influential Muslim leaders and scholars were grappling with a serious problem. “I think the declaration is important because it sets a standard for accountability,” said the Rev. Susan Hayward, director of religion and inclusive societies at the United States Institute of Peace and a minister in the United Church of Christ, who attended the conference. “This is a call for action.” She said those who took part in the conference had the clout to cultivate sustainable peace efforts in their homelands. Muslim participants came from 120 countries, and the conference also drew representatives of many other faiths. It was sponsored by King Mohammed VI of Morocco and the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, which is based in the United Arab Emirates. “Conditions in various parts of the Muslim world have deteriorated dangerously due to the use of violence and armed struggle as a tool for settling conflicts and imposing one’s point of view,” the declaration said. “This situation has also weakened the authority of legitimate governments and enabled criminal groups to issue edicts attributed to Islam, but which, in fact, alarmingly distort its fundamental principles and goals in ways that have seriously harmed the population as a whole.” President Obama hailed the conference last Wednesday at a ceremony held in Washington to honor recipients of the Righteous Among the Nations Awards, which honor non-Jews who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. “We know that there were Muslims — from Albanians to Arabs — who protected Jews from Nazis,” Mr. Obama said. “In Morocco, leaders from Muslim-majority countries around the world just held a summit on protecting religious minorities, including Jews and Christians.” The conference did not address tensions within Islam itself, or the discrimination and persecution Muslims sometimes face at the hands of other Muslims. It also did not address the concern that many of the participants represented countries with poor human rights records. Hatem Bazian, a lecturer in Near Eastern studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and editor of The Islamophobia Studies Journal, was doubtful that the declaration would amount to much. He did not attend the conference, but followed it closely via the Internet. “Overwhelmingly, Muslim populations will be in agreement with this declaration,” he said. But “the overall picture is that civil society discourses have been captured by extremists across the board.”
|
Islam;Marrakech;Freedom of religion;Yazidi;Morocco;Religion and Belief;ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
|
ny0141528
|
[
"us"
] |
2008/11/18
|
New Veterans Hit Hard by Economic Crisis
|
After a mortar sent Andrew Spurlock hurtling off a roof in Iraq, ending his Army career in 2006, the seasoned infantryman set aside bitterness over his back injury and began to chart his life in storybook fashion: a new house, a job as a police officer and more children. “We had a budget and a plan,” said Mr. Spurlock, 29, a father of three, who with his wife, Michelle, hoped to avoid the pitfalls of his transition from Ramadi, Iraq, to Apopka, Fla. But the move proved treacherous, as it often does for veterans. The job with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office fell through after officials there told Mr. Spurlock that he needed to “decompress” after two combat tours, a judgment that took him by surprise. Scrambling, he settled for a job delivering pizzas. Mr. Spurlock’s disability claim for his back injury took 18 months to process, a year longer than expected. With little choice, the couple began putting mortgage payments on credit cards. The family debt climbed to $60,000, a chunk of it for medical bills, including for his wife and child. Foreclosure seemed certain. While few Americans are sheltered from the jolt of the recent economic crisis, the nation’s newest veterans, particularly the wounded, are being hit especially hard. The triple-whammy of injury, unemployment and waiting for disability claims to be processed has forced many veterans into foreclosure, or sent them teetering on its edge, according to veterans’ organizations. The problem is hard to quantify because there are no foreclosure statistics singling out veterans and service members. Congress recently asked the Veterans Affairs Department to find out how badly veterans were being affected, particularly by foreclosures. The Army, too, began tracking requests for help on foreclosure issues for the first time. Service organizations report that requests for help from military personnel and new veterans, especially those who were wounded, mentally or physically, and are struggling to keep their houses and pay their bills, has jumped sharply. “The demand curve has gone almost straight up this year,” said Bill Nelson, executive director for USA Cares, a nonprofit group that provides financial help to members of the military and to veterans. Housing, Mr. Nelson said, “is the biggest driver in the last 12 months.” Congress has recently taken small steps to help, banning lenders from foreclosing on military personnel for nine months after their return from overseas, up from three months, and ensuring that interest rates on their loans remain stable for a year. Another relief bill to prevent certain injured veterans from losing their homes while they wait for their disability money was signed into law in October. The protection is good for one year. “We owe these men and women more than a pat on the back,” said Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, who introduced one of the bills. But the short-term measures do little to address the underlying economic difficulties that new veterans face, beginning with the job hunt. Veterans, particularly those in their 20s, have faced higher unemployment rates in recent years than those who never served in the military, though the gap has shrunk as the economy has worsened. (Veterans traditionally have lower unemployment rates than nonveterans.) Recently discharged veterans, though, fared worst of all. A 2007 survey for the Veterans Affairs Department of 1,941 combat veterans who left the military mostly in 2005 showed nearly 18 percent were unemployed as of last year. The average national jobless rate in October was 6.5 percent. A quarter of those who found jobs failed to make a living wage, earning less than $21,840 a year. “You fill out a job application and you can’t write ‘long-range reconnaissance and sniper skills,’ ” said Mr. Spurlock, who searched a year for a better-paying job than delivering pizza, finally finding one as a construction supervisor. The situation is especially troubling for the injured, whose financial problems begin almost immediately. “The wife drops everything to be by his bedside,” said Meredith Leyva, founder of Operation Homefront, a nonprofit group that provides emergency money and aid to 33,000 military families a year, including the Spurlocks. “She stays at the nearest hotel to make sure he is alive. They live that way for months. She either has to quit her job or she is fired. This bankrupts people.” Some injured veterans cannot work at all and must rely on disability checks and other government payouts. The wait for a disability check from the Veterans Affairs Department averaged six months in August, enough to financially crush some families. Those who can work struggle to find employers willing to accommodate their injuries, including mental health problems. The Labor Department recently started a Web site, America’s Heroes at Work, that prods employers into hiring more wounded veterans and explains that post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury are manageable conditions and not necessarily long-term. Some believe that the government has to do more. “There have to be incentives for employers,” said Thomas L. Wilkerson, a retired Marine Corps general who is chief executive of the Naval Institute, an independent nonprofit group. Active duty troops who switch installations also find themselves struggling. Many of those forced to sell their homes this year are finding a scarcity of buyers, or even renters, particularly in states hit hard by the mortgage crisis. Military spouses must choose between taking a loss on their homes or riding out the housing slowdown and facing another separation from their loved one. Although the government offers safeguards for some federal employees in similar circumstances, it will not help service members make up the difference if they are forced to sell a home at a loss. What is worse, foreclosure or excessive debt can damage a service member’s career by leading to discharge, the loss of security clearances or, in extreme cases, jail. A 2007 California task force reported that in the Navy, the number of security clearances revoked because of debt increased to 1,999 in 2005, from 124 in 2000. “It’s the crash in the market,” said Joe Gladden, managing partner of Veteran Realty Service America’s Military, who sees families in extremis out of Northern Virginia. “It’s not that they have made stupid decisions.” Mr. Gladden said e-mail messages and phone calls to his office had become so routine that he encouraged military families to share their stories anonymously on his company Web site, vrsam.com . “I am about sick over this situation,” one woman wrote. “Our two young boys have to go without seeing Daddy until we can sell our house. Not only that, but we face the possibility of Daddy deploying to Iraq again. Shouldn’t we be able to spend as much time together until that happens?” For the Hatchers, the financial decline began after Roger, a Navy reservist and father of four, returned from his first tour of duty in Iraq. When he got back to Ventura, Calif., in 2004, his job as a groundskeeper for a school district was gone. He was offered a custodial job for less pay. Mr. Hatcher decided to find another job. He looked for several months, then was redeployed to Iraq. By then, the family had moved to Bakersfield, to a cheaper house near relatives. His second tour was tougher. Iraq had grown more violent, and in late 2006, Mr. Hatcher was blown out of a Humvee after it hit a roadside bomb. The blast injured his shoulder, arm and neck. Back home, Mr. Hatcher, 49, fell prey to nightmares and rages. He drank heavily, said Tami, his wife of two decades. The pain in his shoulder never let up. It took Mr. Hatcher eight months to find a job, and the family fell behind on their house payments. A disability claim filed in 2007 was still pending in August, Mrs. Hatcher said. Mr. Hatcher wound up hospitalized for post-traumatic stress disorder three times. “We noticed there was a change after the first tour, but not as drastic as this time,” Mrs. Hatcher said. “The person comes back a different person, and then you have financial issues on top of it.” His new employer, a construction company, welcomed him back after each medical absence. Still, weeks off the job meant weeks without pay. Meanwhile, the mortgage company ratcheted up the pressure. Feeling cornered, the Hatchers signed a forbearance agreement, which significantly increased their monthly payment. “They knew about my husband’s situation,” Mrs. Hatcher said of the mortgage company. “They wouldn’t work with us.” The Hatchers borrowed from friends and relatives but still came up short. Then two nonprofit groups stepped in to help. One of them, Operation Homefront, negotiated with the lender to keep them in their house. Mrs. Hatcher, a purchasing agent, tried her best to shield her husband from their financial troubles. “It’s putting a big strain on me,” she admitted. “But only one of us can lose it at a time right now, and it’s his turn.” The Spurlocks, back in Florida, were not so lucky. Operation Homefront managed to stop foreclosure proceedings, but the couple had to agree to a deed in lieu, turning over their house to the bank. Their debt was forgiven. The family moved into a rental house and whittled down its credit card debt to $26,000. “It feels impossible right now to pay off our bills,” said Michelle Spurlock, 28, her voice breaking. “I had to get my mom to bring diapers over. We couldn’t go grocery shopping. As soon as we turn a corner, it’s something else.”
|
Veterans;Foreclosures;Subprime Mortgage Crisis;Unemployment;Disability Insurance;Iraq War (2003- );Afghanistan War (2001- )
|
ny0028960
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2013/01/14
|
Falcons Escape Against Seahawks
|
ATLANTA — Through more than 250 games with two teams in 16 N.F.L. seasons, Tony Gonzalez never cried tears of joy. He saw players on other teams do it, of course, watching with envy as his opponents were so overwhelmed by the emotion of a victory that they wept on their shoulder pads. But for Gonzalez, those tears never came. Until Sunday. As Atlanta Falcons kicker Matt Bryant watched his 49-yard field goal sail between the uprights, Gonzalez fell to the ground. He rolled. He screamed. And then, finally, he cried, giving in to the frenzy of the moment as the Falcons beat the Seattle Seahawks, 30-28, to complete a frantic last-minute rally that came, amazingly, after they had blown a 20-point lead. After enduring seasons of regular-season success doused by January disappointment, it was the first playoff victory for Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan (who had been 0-3), the first for Coach Mike Smith (0-4) and, most especially to many in the Falcons’ locker room, the first for the veteran tight end Gonzalez (0-5), who is considering retiring after this season. Not surprisingly, Gonzalez was hardly the only one stunned in the dressing room afterward, as many of the Atlanta players acknowledged being dazed by what they had just experienced. Playing as the No. 1 seed in the N.F.C., the Falcons came out fast, taking a 20-0 halftime lead. Then they were bulldozed through much of the third and fourth quarters, giving up 21 points in the final period and falling behind, 28-27, when Marshawn Lynch powered into the end zone from 2 yards out with about 30 seconds remaining. At that point, many observers thought it was over, and even some Falcons players conceded they were unsure they would be able to recover from that type of stomach punch. Center Todd McClure said it was difficult not to think that “all that hard work is going down the drain.” But with some Falcons fans heading for the Georgia Dome exits, Jacquizz Rodgers returned the Seahawks’ kickoff to the Atlanta 28, and with 25 seconds on the clock, Ryan went to work. Image Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez catching a 1-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter against the Seahawks' Kam Chancellor. The playoff victory was the first of Gonzalez's 16-year N.F.L. career. Credit Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images “We always talk about, in those types of situations, let’s make that first play and get going,” he said. And the Falcons did. Ryan found Harry Douglas for 22 yards to midfield. The play took only six seconds. On the next play, Ryan, who recorded 250 passing yards and threw 3 touchdowns and 2 interceptions, dropped back again. Facing a hard Seattle blitz, he stood in the pocket and hit Gonzalez for 19 yards to the Seattle 31 as the Seahawks’ sideline slumped. Smith then took his last timeout and sent out Bryant, who first waited through a Seattle timeout intended to unnerve him, then coolly blasted his kick through to save the Falcons from another postseason disaster. Atlanta will host San Francisco in the N.F.C. championship game Sunday. “This is something that’s been a long time coming,” said Gonzalez, who finished with 6 catches for 51 yards and a touchdown. He added, “A long, long time coming.” Bryant’s kick also spoiled a sensational effort from Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson, who seemed poised to supplant San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick as the brightest young star of the postseason. Wilson led the Seahawks back from a 14-0 deficit last week against Washington and sparkled again, completing 24 of 36 passes for 385 yards and 2 touchdowns. He also rushed for 60 yards and a score. In truth, that the game was even close in the fourth quarter was remarkable, as the Falcons were dominant early on. Their explosive offense showed all its tricks, with Ryan frequently trying long passes downfield — his best was a 47-yard touchdown toss to Roddy White in the second quarter — while running backs Michael Turner and Rodgers mixed hard running through the line with explosive bursts in the open field. “I like the way we started the game,” said Smith, who saw his team blown out by Green Bay two years ago when the Falcons also were the No. 1 seed. “They never quit, and we had one hell of a game.” The Seahawks, meanwhile, could not get out of their own way at the start. Lynch, who lost fumbles only twice during the regular season, coughed up the ball for the second time in two playoff games after an early 11-yard run, allowing the Falcons to capitalize when Ryan found Gonzalez for a touchdown that made the score 10-0. Then, late in the second quarter, Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll made two decisions that will surely be hot topics for a long time in the Pacific Northwest, and, in both cases, left Seattle without precious points. Image Matt Ryan and the Falcons did all the celebrating in the first half and then again in the closing seconds of their victory over Seattle. Credit Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images First, Carroll opted to forgo a short field-goal attempt on fourth-and-1 from the Atlanta 11 with a little under six minutes remaining in the first half, keeping his offense on the field but curiously putting the ball in the hands of fullback Michael Robinson — not Lynch or Wilson — on a short-yardage carry. Robinson was stuffed, and the Falcons turned the decision into a touchdown that gave them a 20-0 lead. On the Seahawks’ ensuing possession, Seattle again moved the ball deep into Atlanta territory, but Carroll spent his final timeout of the half after the Seahawks got a first down at the Falcons’ 6 with 25 seconds remaining. That left Carroll with no recourse when Wilson was subsequently sacked on third down — Jonathan Babineaux streaked into the backfield — and the Seahawks failed to get off another play before time expired. “There’s five different opportunities to score points in the first half,” Carroll said, “that would have been the difference in the game.” As it turned out, those 6 points lost certainly would have been valuable. The Seahawks surged in the second half, scoring on their first three possessions — including one that came after Ryan threw a brutal interception into double coverage — and slashed through a Falcons defense that spent much of the game without its top pass rusher, the injured John Abraham. Still, Atlanta steadied itself just in time. It was thrilling. It was sublime. It was enough to bring a 6-foot-5, 250-pound man to tears. “It was crazy,” Gonzalez said. “But I’ll do it again next week if I have to.”
|
Atlanta Falcons;Seahawks;Matt Bryant;Russell Wilson;Football;Playoffs;Matt Ryan
|
ny0134119
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2008/03/14
|
Erica Jesselson, Collector and Benefactor, Dies at 86
|
Erica Jesselson, a philanthropist and collector of Judaica who, with her late husband, founded the Yeshiva University Museum in Manhattan and donated hundreds of artifacts of Jewish history to it and to other institutions, died Wednesday at her home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. She was 86 and also had a home in Jerusalem. Her death was confirmed by her son Michael. Mrs. Jesselson and her husband, Ludwig, an executive vice president of the investment firm Salomon Inc., endowed the museum in 1973. Mrs. Jesselson was chairwoman of the museum’s board from its inception until her death. Mr. Jesselson died in 1993. The Jesselsons were noted collectors of Jewish art and manuscripts, as well as other documents pertaining to Jewish history, some of them indicative of ancient prejudices. In 1988, for $176,000, the Jesselsons bought at auction the Trent Manuscript, a 510-year-old transcript of an infamous 1478 trial that led to the destruction of a Jewish community in northern Italy. It was donated to the Yeshiva museum. The 614-page manuscript, written in Gothic German calligraphy, details the proceedings against Jews falsely accused of the ritual murder of a Christian infant. Six of the accused were burned at the stake, others were strangled, and the community was banished from Trent. The fictions of the trial were not officially reversed by the Vatican until 1965. Among the other items they donated to the Yeshiva museum were sculptures, paintings, tapestries, an 11th-century Torah ark door from Cairo and an 1818 letter by Thomas Jefferson on religious freedom. Mrs. Jesselson “was involved in every phase of Jewish education, art, and culture throughout the United States and Israel,” Yeshiva University ’s president, Richard M. Joel, said in a written statement on Thursday. Together, the Jesselsons financed a synagogue in Haifa, founded a religious school for girls in Jerusalem and endowed a program for rabbinical scholarship at Bar-Ilan University, near Tel Aviv. Mrs. Jesselson served on the international board of Bar-Ilan University. The Jesselsons were also major benefactors of the Israel Museum, in Jerusalem, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Born Erica Pappenheim in Vienna on March 1, 1922, Mrs. Jesselson was a daughter of Adolph and Paula Pappenheim. When World War II broke out, she and her sister, Lucy, were among 10,000 Jewish children evacuated to England on Kindertransport trains. In 1940, they were reunited with their parents, who had escaped to the United States and found a home in Brooklyn. Mr. and Mrs. Jesselson were married in 1949. In addition to her son Michael, of Manhattan, Mrs. Jesselson is survived by two other sons, Daniel, of Scarsdale, N.Y., and Benjamin, of Israel; her sister, Lucy Lang, of Riverdale; 20 grandchildren; and 9 great-grandchildren. In 2001, Mrs. Jesselson paid $1,017,750 at auction for the First Nuremberg Haggadah, a document intricately illustrated and inscribed in about 1449 in Germany by a renowned artist known as Joel ben Simeon. When Mrs. Jesselson donated the manuscript to the Israel Museum, Rabbi Jerry Schwarzbard, the librarian for special collections at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan, said, “It’s like finding the Declaration of Independence in the attic.”
|
Philanthropy;Jews;yeshiva university museum;Deaths (Obituaries);Jesselson Erica;Yeshiva University;Collectors and Collections;Religion and Churches
|
ny0259468
|
[
"us"
] |
2011/01/14
|
Backers Push a Law School in the Valley
|
Texas produces more law school graduates than it has jobs for. But that has not stopped some lawmakers from proposing that the state build a public law school in the Rio Grande Valley. Supporters of a new school say there is geographic inequity. The public law school nearest the state’s southernmost region is more than 300 miles away, at the University of Texas in Austin. In addition, they point out, the Rio Grande Valley has one of the lowest lawyer-to-citizen ratios in the state. Before the legislative session even began, two Valley lawmakers filed bills to create a new school. State Representative Eddie Lucio III, Democrat of San Benito, said that he was not naïve enough to think that the current Legislature would spend millions on a new law school when it was facing a budget shortfall of as much as $27 billion, but that he wanted to try to keep the issue from being “sent to the back of the line.” The other sponsor, Representative Armando “Mando” Martinez, Democrat of Weslaco, said that even if the school was initially unfinanced, “I’m not looking at leaving here without one.” Even if the state was not facing a huge budget shortfall, making the case that it needs another law school poses a significant hurdle: who would hire the graduates? In 2009, Texas’ nine law schools produced a total of 2,340 graduates. And 1,837 lawyers passed the 2009 Texas bar exam. The Texas Workforce Commission estimates that there will be only about 1,660 lawyer job openings in each of the next five years. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which monitors the state’s higher education needs, also questions whether another law school is needed. Last fall, it released a study on the feasibility of establishing new law schools and concluded that the current number is more than enough to meet current and near-future needs. If lawmakers still want to increase the number of law school slots, the board said, existing institutions should expand course offerings and class sizes. Of course, lawmakers have ignored the board’s advice in the past. State Senator Royce West, Democrat of Dallas, won approval for a new public law school in his district in 2009. Mr. West said that while he appreciated the agency’s diligence, “sometimes, we as legislators don’t always think they are right.” The coordinating board also found little evidence that establishing a public law school encouraged local students to apply. For example, only 2.6 percent of all Texas law students come from the Panhandle, which has a law school at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. South Texans, meanwhile, account for 3.6 percent of all law students in the state. The coordinating board’s study also noted, however, that a law school in a South Texas city like Brownsville could help correct disparities in the state’s legal community, which — unlike the state — is overwhelmingly made up of white men. Mr. Lucio, a lawyer by trade, said: “Strictly from an economic standpoint, do we have enough lawyers to act as general counsels to corporations and work on civil matters? Maybe we do. But we are deficient in other areas like family law, criminal law and immigration law.” Ultimately, it may be the state’s own deficiency in cash that holds up a new school. According to the coordinating board, the cost, over five years, of beginning a brand new law school is $80,484,345.
|
Law Schools;Texas
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ny0024647
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2013/08/19
|
Poverty Group Appoints City Official as New Chief
|
The Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, an influential social-services organization, is reaching into the Bloomberg administration for new leadership, one week after its longtime executive director was fired amid allegations of financial misconduct. David M. Frankel, the city’s finance commissioner, will take over as executive director and chief executive of the Met Council , which provides legal and immigration aid, food pantries, housing, home care and other services. He replaces William E. Rapfogel , who was dismissed last Monday after serving for two decades in those posts. Mr. Rapfogel is under investigation by Eric T. Schneiderman, the state attorney general, and Thomas P. DiNapoli, the state comptroller, over accusations that, among other matters, he directed one of the Met Council’s insurance companies, Century Coverage Corporation of Valley Stream, N.Y., to make political contributions on his behalf. According to two people briefed on the inquiry, there were concerns that Mr. Rapfogel had overpaid the insurer to make contributions to his favored candidates. After being fired, Mr. Rapfogel apologized, through his lawyer, for unspecified “mistakes.” He also said, referring to the Met Council’s board members and staff, “I let them all down.” Mr. Rapfogel has long had deep political ties. His annual legislative breakfast, on the morning of the Israel Day Parade, typically draws many of the city’s top political leaders, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and, this year, most of the leading mayoral candidates. His wife, Judy, is the longtime chief of staff to the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver. But after news of the scandal broke, the city froze financing for the group’s pending contracts, until its Investigation Department could determine whether city funds were improperly used. In a statement, Mr. Frankel, who starts on Sept. 30, said he was “committed to making sure that we sustain and build Met Council” to aid needy New Yorkers. Mr. Frankel worked for many years as a lawyer and on Wall Street before joining the Bloomberg administration in 2009. As the leader of the Finance Department, a sprawling agency, Mr. Frankel has been criticized by some City Council members, state legislators and civic groups for his handling of property tax assessments and a rent-subsidy program for elderly people. But in a statement on Sunday, Mr. Bloomberg acclaimed him, saying, “David is a leader any organization would be lucky to have.”
|
Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty;William E Rapfogel;David M Frankel;Appointments and Executive Changes
|
ny0019279
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2013/07/07
|
A Review of ‘As You Like It,’ at College of St. Elizabeth
|
ALL THE RAINY WEATHER of late has made for lush greenery surrounding the Greek Theater at the College of St. Elizabeth in Morris Township, where the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey is offering an agreeable outdoor production of “As You Like It.” (And the mosquitoes on a recent night were out in force.) The Forest of Arden, where Shakespeare’s romantic comedy mostly transpires, really need not be represented here by anything more than a platform and the campus’s expansive vista of rolling hills. It is curious, then, that Bonnie J. Monte, the director, does not take advantage of the view in her not especially summery rendition of this romance. Designed by Jonathan Wentz, the central scenic unit consists of half a curved wall mounted on a turntable that the actors shift to reveal an austere throne room for the story’s occasional scenes at court. The reverse side presents a modest line of artificial-looking cypress trees to suggest Arden. Lacy metal arches that flank the main setting afford the audience glimpses of the real countryside, but Shakespeare’s pastoral lark seems a bit cramped here. Image Raphael Nash Thompson, left, as Corin the shepherd, and Touchstone, played by Robert Clohessy. Credit James Morey/The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey Spectators can bring seat cushions, blankets or low beach chairs for their use — a good idea, since the amphitheater’s grassy cement tiers are unforgiving, and Ms. Monte’s leisurely production clocks in at about 2 hours and 30 minutes, including an intermission. So even with some good acting by the company, and the intrinsic charm of this romance about exiled aristocrats finding love amid shepherds and goat-girls, expect to spend rather a long night in the Forest of Arden. After a busy opening act, which features a nifty slapstick bout of wrestling and all that anyone needs to know about the incipient sweethearts Rosalind and Orlando, the play settles down into the woods for a contrasting series of humorous interludes concerning love in rural surroundings. The leading lovers are neatly played by Caralyn Kozlowski, who gives her high-spirited Rosalind a sweet, musical voice, and by Matthew Simpson, whose Orlando is nicely impetuous. Trimly disguised as a boy in a leather jerkin and tricorn hat, Ms. Kozlowski persuasively conveys Rosalind’s underlying emotions when she is bantering with the unknowing Orlando. Robert Clohessy portrays Touchstone, the court jester, with a bluff good humor as he woos the goatherd Audrey, who is given to nonstop giggling as played by Kristen Kittel. Jennifer Mogbock’s forthright shepherdess Phebe obviously has little use for Craig Bazan’s hapless Silvius. If Celia’s last-minute attraction to Jordan Laroya’s dour Oliver seems unlikely — blame Shakespeare for the contrivance — Maria Tholl always imbues the lady with a pert sense of the ridiculous. Although Rosalind and Celia are prettily gowned in pink and lavender by Paul Canada for their initial scenes, many of the other characters wear drab clothes that appear to be 18th-century in style and decidedly warm for this time of year. Perhaps their gloomy attire partly accounts for the rote turns by Bruce Cromer as a pair of good/bad dukes and Greg Jackson as the melancholy Jaques. The director’s most felicitous touch, which amused the audience quite a bit, was to costume five actors as a flock of sheep whose occasional baas and continuous grazing around the feet of the other players lent an appropriately bucolic note.
|
Theater;New Jersey;As You Like It;Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey;Morris Township NJ;Matthew Simpson;Caralyn Kozlowski;Maria Tholl;Robert Clohessy;William Shakespeare
|
ny0278288
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2016/11/09
|
How Does the Electoral College Work?
|
What is the Electoral College? The Electoral College is a group of people that elects the president and the vice president of the United States. (The word “college” in this case simply refers to an organized body of people engaged in a common task.) As voters head to the polls on Tuesday, they will not vote for the presidential candidates directly, in a popular vote. Instead, they will vote to elect specific people, known as “electors” to the college. Each state gets a certain number of electoral votes based on its population. The electors are appointed by the political parties in each state, so if you vote for Donald J. Trump on Tuesday, and Mr. Trump ends up winning the popular vote in your state, then electors that the Republican Party has chosen will cast votes for him in their state capitals in December. The electors are asked to cast their votes on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. This year, that’s Dec. 19. But most people don’t pay attention to that because, technically, it’s the election of the electors that matters. And on Election Day, we’re electing the electors who elect the president. Got it? How many electoral votes does it take to win the presidency? It takes at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. There are 538 electoral votes in all. In 2008, CNN projected Barack Obama as the winner of the presidential election after the then-senator skyrocketed from 220 electoral votes to 297 votes after results from some Western states, including California, came in. Has an elector ever ‘gone rogue’ or broken his or her promise? Would that be legal? Yes, this has happened many times. There’s even an insulting name for an elector who does so: a “faithless elector.” But faithless electors have never affected the final result of any presidential election. And there haven’t been many in modern times; the last time was in 2004 , when an anonymous elector in Minnesota cast his vote for John Edwards instead of the Democratic candidate, John Kerry. (Other electors thought that this might have been an honest mistake.) More than a dozen states do not have laws on the books to punish faithless electors, meaning that an elector could legally change his or her mind and defy the popular vote. But according to the federal archives : “Electors generally hold a leadership position in their party or were chosen to recognize years of loyal service to the party. Throughout our history as a nation, more than 99 percent of electors have voted as pledged.” Do electoral votes have a direct impact on Senate or congressional elections? They do not. How many electoral votes does each state have? Every state gets at least three electoral votes, because a state’s number of electors is identical to the total number of its senators and representatives in Congress. Seven states have the minimum three electors. Washington, D.C., also has three electoral votes, thanks to the 23rd Amendment, which gave the nation’s capital as many electors as the state with the fewest electoral votes. California has the most electoral votes, with 55. Texas is next, with 38. New York and Florida have 29 apiece. Here’s a map with the numbers. Do all of a state’s electoral votes go to one candidate? In every state except two, the party that wins the popular vote gets to send all of its electors to the state capital in December. In the nonconforming Maine and Nebraska, two electoral votes are apportioned to the winner of the popular vote, and the rest of the votes are given to the winner of the popular votes in each of the states’ congressional districts. (Maine has two congressional districts and Nebraska has three.) Has anyone ever won the electoral vote while losing the popular vote? Yes, this has happened four times. (At this point, people who were tuned in for the 2000 election are sneering at this explainer.) In 2000, Al Gore was found to have won the popular vote by more than half a million votes, despite having lost to George W. Bush in an election that was sealed by a Supreme Court decision . Andrew Jackson won the popular vote in 1824, but eventually lost the election to John Quincy Adams. In 1876, Samuel Tilden had more popular support than Rutherford B. Hayes, but lost the electoral vote. And Grover Cleveland lost the 1888 election to Benjamin Harrison despite winning the popular vote.
|
Electoral College;US Presidential Elections
|
ny0191223
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2009/02/03
|
His Stage, the Street; His Rapier, a Peeler
|
Somehow, Joe Ades got people’s attention as the crowds swirled by at the Union Square Greenmarket, on their way to eyeing and buying the produce. He was the white-haired man with the British accent, the expensive European suits and shirts — the man selling the $5 peeler. For carrots. Or potatoes. “He talked constantly,” said Clover Vail, an artist. “He was very excited about carrots,” said Sara Mason, a merchandise assistant at Barnes & Noble. “He made it look really fun,” said Julie Worden, who dances with the Mark Morris Dance Company. “The voice — you couldn’t help but notice it,” said Gordon Crandall, a mathematician who teaches at La Guardia Community College. His was a particular kind of street theater in a city that delights in in-your-face characters who are, and are not, what they seem. For he was the sidewalk pitchman with the Upper East Side apartment. The sidewalk pitchman who was a regular at expensive East Side restaurants, where no one believed his answer to the “So what do you do?” question: “I sell potato peelers on the street.” Mr. Ades (pronounced AH-dess) died on Sunday at 75, said his daughter, Ruth Ades Laurent of Manhattan. She said he never talked about how many peelers he sold in a year, or how many carrots he had sliced up during demonstrations. She said he stashed his inventory in what had been the maid’s room of the apartment. There were those at the Greenmarket who had heard the spiel, and heard the whispers. “Supposedly his wife is mega-mega-rich — we’ve done fashion shoots in that building,” said Rose-Marie Swift, a makeup artist, as she shopped at the Greenmarket on Monday. The facts? He was a widower. The apartment had been his wife’s — his fourth wife’s. And besides Ms. Laurent, he is survived by two sons, Sam, of Sydney, Australia, and David, of Byron Bay, Australia; two brothers, Dennis, of Toronto, and Andre, of Sydney; a sister, Vida, of Toronto; and three granddaughters. He had been selling things during his fourth marriage, and his third, his second and his first. David Hughes, the operations manager at the Greenmarket, said that Mr. Ades had been a fixture on the edges of the market for years. (He stayed on the fringes because he never obtained a permit to do business there, and if he staked out a spot too close to the vendors, someone would complain and security guards would be alerted.) First he sold children’s books, Mr. Hughes said. “Then he moved into potato peelers,” he said. “He told me books were too heavy to carry around.” The Greenmarket was not his only open-air stage; he had places near Radio City Music Hall and in Brooklyn that he liked, Ms. Laurent said. She said that he had learned the tricks of salesmanship as a teenager in Manchester, England. “He’d sold all kinds of things from when he was 15 and saw the old-time English grafters, I guess here you’d call them pitchmen,” Ms. Laurent said. He sold linens, textiles, jewelry and toys, and broadened his inventory when he went to Australia in the 1970s. “We had a huge truck that we sold off the back of,” recalled Ms. Laurent, who worked with him, selling clock radios, cassette players and electrical appliances along with other household goods. He followed Ms. Laurent to the United States. “One of his marriages, I guess his third marriage, had broken up,” she said. Making the rounds of state fairs, she said, “he discovered the peeler — someone was selling the peeler and he saw it as a fantastic item for the street. “He loved the street more than anything.” It helped that he had a voice like a radio announcer’s. “His voice really carried,” Mr. Hughes said. “Joe would say to me, ‘You have to not be afraid to talk to yourself out loud.’ He said that once he started talking out loud, somebody would stop, and once he had one, he’d have a crowd, and once he had a crowd, he’d sell peelers.” Like an actor, he had a sense of pacing and timing. Ms. Laurent said that the peeler would slice “practically anything” but that he limited his repertory to carrots and potatoes when selling on the street. Ms. Laurent said she sometimes went to look for him at the end of the day, but he would have packed up and left after selling out. She could tell where he had been. “He cleaned up really well,” she said, “but still there were these little shreds of carrots that said, ‘I was here.’ ”
|
Union Square Greenmarket;Local Food;Greenmarket (NYC);Deaths (Obituaries);Manhattan (NYC)
|
ny0065692
|
[
"sports",
"hockey"
] |
2014/06/07
|
Penguins Hire G.M. and Fire Coach
|
The Pittsburgh Penguins have fired Coach Dan Bylsma and hired Jim Rutherford as their new general manager. Bylsma won a franchise-record 252 games behind the bench but failed to produce another championship after capturing one with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in 2009. The Penguins lost to the Rangers this year in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Rutherford replaces Ray Shero, who was fired three weeks ago.
|
Ice hockey;Appointments and Executive Changes;Pittsburgh Penguins;Dan Bylsma
|
ny0144541
|
[
"business"
] |
2008/10/26
|
You May Soon Know if You’re Hogging the Discussion
|
PEOPLE who want to improve their communication skills may one day have an unusual helper: software programs that analyze the tone, turn-taking behavior and other qualities of a conversation. The programs would then tell the speakers whether they tend to interrupt others, for example, or whether they dominate meetings with monologues, or appear inattentive when others are talking. The inventor of this technology is Alex Pentland of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who has developed cellphone-like gadgets to listen to people as they chat, and computer programs that sift through these conversational cadences, studying communication signals that lie beneath the words. If commercialized, such tools could help users better handle many subtleties of face-to-face and group interactions — or at least stop hogging the show at committee meetings. With the help of his students, Dr. Pentland, a professor of media arts and sciences at M.I.T., has been equipping people in banks, universities and other places with customized smartphones or thin badges packed with sensors that they wear for days or even months. As these people talk with one another, the sensors collect data on the timing, energy and variability of their speech. Dr. Pentland, known as Sandy, calls his gleaning and processing of conversational and other data “reality mining — using data mining algorithms to parse the real life, analog world of social interactions.” The tools he has developed might help people change their communication tactics, including those that lead to unproductive workplace dynamics, said David Lazer, an associate professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Mr. Lazer praised “the richness of the data” captured by the process — the “minute-by-minute, fine-grained data on whether you are talking, whom you prefer to talk with, what your tone is, and if you interrupt, for instance.” That kind of tool is rare, Mr. Lazer said. “Our existing research tools for gathering this kind of data aren’t very good,” he said — for example, questionnaires in which people self-report on conversations. Reality mining may be more accurate, and has the potential to show “all sorts of interactive patterns that may not be obvious to individuals in an organization,” he said. Many of Dr. Pentland’s research studies with smartphones and badges with embedded sensors are discussed in his new book, “Honest Signals,” recently published by MIT Press. The badges use tools including infrared sensors to tell when people are facing one another, accelerometers to record gestures, and microphones and audio signal-processing to capture the tone of voice. With the array of sensors, the badges can detect what Dr. Pentland calls “honest signals, unconscious face-to-face signaling behavior” that suggest, for example, when people are active, energetic followers of what other people are saying, and when they are not. He argues that these underlying signals are often as important in communication as words and logic. For example, the badges register when listeners respond with regular nods or short acknowledgments like, “Right.” Such responses, he argues, are a kind of mirroring behavior that may help build empathy between speaker and listener. He also examines patterns of turn-taking in conversations, as well as gestures and other, often unconscious signals. Future smartphones that take advantage of his technology may act as friendly personal assistants, automatically putting through calls from friends and family, but sending all others straight through to voice mail. “The phone can be like a butler who really gets to know you,” he said, by deciding to ring brightly for an urgent call when its owner has forgotten to turn on the ringer. In the research, many steps are taken to make sure the identities of participants remain anonymous, said Anmol Madan, a graduate student of Dr. Pentland. For instance, when microphone audio data is collected, the microphone picks up tone and the length of speaking time but does not record any of the actual words spoken. So far, Mr. Madan has found that the data gathered by mobile phones is far more accurate than accounts of the same information reported by participants. “Humans have a lot of bias when they recall their behavior,” he said. Tanzeem Choudhury, a former student and collaborator of Dr. Pentland and now an assistant professor of computer science at Dartmouth, continues to do reality mining with smartphones. “We spend a lot of time talking about how to improve communication skills,” she said. “This work lets us pin down what makes conversations effective by analyzing people’s actual conversation in their social networks.”
|
Software;Conversation;Computers and the Internet
|
ny0118984
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2012/07/05
|
Palestinians May Exhume Arafat After Report of Poisoning
|
JERUSALEM — A potentially explosive re-examination of the circumstances behind the death of Yasir Arafat , the symbol of the Palestinian national struggle, has galvanized Palestinian suspicions that he was poisoned and led the Palestinian Authority to agree in principle on Wednesday to an exhumation of his remains, possibly within days. Mr. Arafat’s widow, Suha, called for the exhumation a day earlier in an interview with Al Jazeera , the Arabic television channel based in Qatar, after it reported that Mr. Arafat might have been poisoned with polonium , a radioactive element associated with K.G.B.-style assassination intrigues. Saeb Erekat, a close aide to the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, said by telephone that once the religious authorities and Mr. Arafat’s relatives had given the go-ahead, an exhumation could take place “in the coming days.” Then, Mr. Erekat said, the Palestinians would seek an international inquiry into Mr. Arafat’s death similar to the investigation by the United Nations-backed tribunal into the assassination of Rafik Hariri, a former Lebanese prime minister. Mr. Erekat said a thorough investigation of all aspects of Mr. Arafat’s death in November 2004 was called for because “it was not so long ago.” “Our memories are still alive,” he said. The death of Mr. Arafat, at the age of 75, remains enveloped in mystery and contention. The report in Al Jazeera caused an uproar in the Palestinian territories, rekindling unresolved questions about the death and theories that he had been killed by agents of Israel or by Palestinian rivals. Mr. Arafat became ill in October 2004 and was flown by helicopter out of the Muqata, his headquarters in Ramallah, in the West Bank, where he had been confined under an Israeli Army siege and virtual house arrest for more than two years. He was transferred to a French military hospital, where he died about two weeks later of unannounced causes. Though the hospital records were never made public, fueling speculation and rumors about the cause of death, they were obtained by The New York Times in 2005. The records showed that he had died of a stroke that resulted from a bleeding disorder caused by an underlying infection. The infection was never identified. The hospital found no traces of poisons. Two Palestinian investigative committees have so far failed to produce any conclusive findings. At a fractious convention of Mr. Abbas’s Fatah Party in 2009, the first such gathering in 20 years, one point of consensus was the notion that Israel was responsible for the death of Mr. Arafat, the founder of Fatah. Delegates blamed Israel for having kept the leader under siege, and Fatah officials said they would continue to investigate the circumstances of his death, and the suspicions that Israel had poisoned him. Israel has always denied any involvement in Mr. Arafat’s death. “Ultimately all the documents surrounding Arafat’s death are in Palestinian hands,” a senior Israeli official said Wednesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly about the issue. “Instead of spreading conspiracy theories, the Palestinians could just make the documents public.” Al Jazeera English wanted to investigate the cause of Mr. Arafat’s death about 18 months ago, but the project was delayed because of the turmoil that broke out in the Arab world, according to Walid al-Omary, Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Ramallah. But over the past nine months the news channel carried out what it called an in-depth investigation with the help of Mr. Arafat’s widow. Mrs. Arafat gave the broadcaster a copy of Mr. Arafat’s medical records as well as personal effects, including clothing he had worn close to his death, his toothbrush and his trademark black-and-white checkered kaffiyeh. Al Jazeera said it took the items to the best laboratories in Europe for forensic testing. At the University of Lausanne’s Institute of Radiation Physics in Switzerland, doctors found what they said were unusually high levels of polonium 210 in certain items. Polonium became widely known after Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former K.G.B. agent who became a critic of the Russian government, died in London in 2006 after he drank tea contaminated with the substance. “I can confirm to you that we measured an unexplained, elevated amount of unsupported polonium 210 in the belongings of Mr. Arafat that contained stains of biological fluids,” Dr. Francois Bochud, the director of the institute, told Al Jazeera. Scientists at the institute said that further testing of Mr. Arafat’s remains would be necessary before determining whether he had been poisoned. Mr. Arafat’s body was returned to Ramallah and was buried in a chaotic funeral in the courtyard of the Muqata. His remains now lie in a stately mausoleum, guarded by troops and visited by dignitaries and members of the public who go there to lay wreaths. The legacy left by Mr. Arafat is as confounding as he was in life. Revered by many as the revolutionary founding father of Palestinian nationalism, he was also reviled, particularly by many Israelis, who considered him a terrorist. He was among three recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his role in accepting the Oslo accords, a blueprint for peace with Israel, but nearly 20 years later his promises of a Palestinian state remain unfulfilled. Corruption was also rampant under his leadership. “We have moved from at least having the impression under Yasir Arafat that our national aspirations could be fulfilled to survival mode,” said Zakaria al-Qaq, a political scientist at Al Quds University in East Jerusalem. Nowadays, Mr. Qaq said, Palestinians are concerned about whether or not their salaries will come in, referring to a worsening financial crisis that has caused the Palestinian Authority to delay payment of June salaries to its employees.
|
Arafat Yasir;Poisoning and Poisons;Deaths (Fatalities);Al Jazeera;Palestinian Authority
|
ny0061328
|
[
"sports",
"hockey"
] |
2014/01/04
|
Penguins Beat Rangers for 10th Time in 12 Meetings
|
Sidney Crosby scored his 23rd goal of the season and added two assists as the Pittsburgh Penguins ripped the Rangers, 5-2, on Friday night for their 11th straight home win. Marc-Andre Fleury made 33 saves for Pittsburgh, and Jussi Jokinen ended a scoring drought with two goals. Chris Kunitz also scored twice for the Penguins, who won for the 10th time in their last 12 meetings with the Rangers. Pittsburgh Coach Dan Bylsma earned his 231st career victory, leaving him one shy of Eddie Johnson’s franchise record for coaching wins. Henrik Lundqvist made 23 saves for the Rangers. Mats Zuccarello and Ryan McDonagh scored third-period goals, but the Rangers continued to have problems with the Metropolitan Division-leading Penguins. “It was just too easy for them to create big chances,” Lundqvist said. Fleury improved to 29-3 in his last 32 games at Consol Energy Center. He is bolstering his bid for a spot on the Canadian Olympic team, which will be announced next week. Crosby’s place is already assured. Four years after lifting Canada to a gold medal in Vancouver, he remains at the top of his game. He pushed his point total to an N.H.L.-best 62 by setting up Kunitz twice and bumping Pittsburgh’s lead to 4-0 late in the second with a pretty backhand in front as Lundqvist fanned at the puck. There is a good chance Crosby will be joined in Sochi, Russia, by Kunitz, who has developed chemistry with one of the game’s greatest players. Both of Kunitz’s goals were assisted by Crosby. Crosby’s 22nd goal of the season put the Penguins in front late in the first period, and his 23rd goal, with 6 minutes 37 seconds remaining, blunted a late Rangers rally. The Rangers simply could not keep up. “Any time you give a team like this that’s so structured the lead that we gave up, it makes it real hard,” Rangers Coach Alain Vigneault said. BLACKHAWKS 5, DEVILS 3 Patrick Sharp scored three goals, and Chicago avoided a rare second straight loss with a victory over the host Devils. Sharp, Patrick Kane and Marian Hossa scored in a span of 4:04 early in the third period to give the Blackhawks a 4-1 lead. Sharp added his 25th of the season and capped his hat trick with less than two minutes to play after the Devils had pulled to 4-3. Duncan Keith had three assists, and Brent Seabrook, his fellow defenseman, had two in the four-goal third period against Martin Brodeur. Antti Raanta made 24 saves for Chicago. Defenseman Marek Zidlicky scored twice and Andy Greene once for the Devils, who lost in regulation for only the second time in nine games (5-2-2). Both defeats have come against the Blackhawks, the defending Stanley Cup champions, who lost in overtime to the Islanders on Thursday. “We played well for the first 40, then we hit the pause button,” Devils forward Ryan Carter said. “Against a team like that, you cannot do that. They can score at any time, and they pretty much did.” CLASSIC DRAWS HIGH RATING The Winter Classic matched the highest television rating for a regular-season N.H.L. game in 39 years. The Toronto Maple Leafs’ 3-2 shootout win over the Detroit Red Wings on NBC on Wednesday earned a 2.5 rating, up 19 percent from 2012. That tied the rating for the 2009 New Year’s Day game between Detroit and the Chicago Blackhawks at Wrigley Field, the network said.
|
Ice hockey;Rangers;Pittsburgh Penguins;Sidney Crosby
|
ny0122824
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2012/09/21
|
Youth Fatally Stabbed Outside His High School in Manhattan
|
A 19-year-old student died after being stabbed outside his high school in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon, the police said. The victim, Theodore Beckles of the Bronx, was a student at Independence High School, on 56th Street between Ninth and 10th Avenues, according to Marge Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the Education Department. Mr. Beckles was arguing with a group of students from the High School for Environmental Studies, which is housed in the same complex as Independence, on the sidewalk outside the building when he was attacked around 2:40 p.m., Ms. Feinberg said. The police said he was stabbed in the abdomen. Officials did not explain the nature of the argument. Mr. Beckles was pronounced dead on arrival at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, the police said. No arrests had been made in the case.
|
Independence High School;Manhattan (NYC);Murders and Attempted Murders;Beckles Theodore
|
ny0292218
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2016/01/25
|
Brook Lopez’s 31 Points Help Nets End Thunder’s Winning Streak
|
Brook Lopez scored a season-high 31 points and collected 10 rebounds on Sunday night, and the Nets ended the Oklahoma City Thunder’s seven-game winning streak with a 116-106 home win. Kevin Durant had 32 points, 10 rebounds and 7 assists, but Oklahoma City never led in the game, which started four hours later than originally scheduled because of a blizzard that dumped more than two feet of snow on New York on Saturday. Russell Westbrook finished with 27 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists as the Thunder lost for just the fifth time in 27 games. Taking advantage of a Thunder team missing its starting center, Steven Adams, Lopez shot 11 for 19 from the field in bouncing back from one of his worst performances of the season. He was limited to 8 points Friday in a loss to Utah. Lopez, whom the Nets nearly dealt to the Thunder last season before Oklahoma City acquired Enes Kanter, averaged 28.5 points in their two meetings this season. Bojan Bogdanovic added 18 points off the bench and Thaddeus Young had 14 points and 14 rebounds for the Nets, who broke a five-game losing streak. The Nets shot 57 percent in the first quarter, matched their best half of the season in taking a 60-52 lead at halftime, and extended it to 13 in the third quarter. The Thunder pulled to 5 points behind midway through the third quarter, but the Nets quickly restored their double-digit lead. ROCKETS 115, MAVERICKS 104 James Harden had 23 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists, Trevor Ariza scored a season-high 29 points, and Houston rallied for a win at home over Dallas. Ariza made a season-high six 3-pointers after making five on Friday after three games in which he made just four. Chandler Parsons had a season-high 31 points for the Mavericks, who dropped their second straight game. Harden collected his second triple-double of the season and the eighth of his career when he dished to Clint Capela for an alley-oop with 1 minute 26 seconds remaining, putting the Rockets up by 115-102. RAPTORS 112, CLIPPERS 94 Kyle Lowry scored 21 points and Jonas Valanciunas had 20 as Toronto beat visiting Los Angeles for its season-high eighth straight win. DeMar DeRozan and Terrence Ross each added 18 points for the Raptors. Ross shot 5 for 7 on 3-pointers and scored at least 10 points off the bench for the fourth straight game. Chris Paul had 23 points and 11 assists for the Clippers, and DeAndre Jordan had 15 points and 13 rebounds. J. J. Redick scored 17 points for Los Angeles. CELTICS 112, 76ERS 92 Jae Crowder and Isaiah Thomas scored 20 points each, and Boston cruised to a victory at Philadelphia. Avery Bradley had 19 points and Marcus Smart added 16 off the bench for the Celtics, who have won five of seven. Robert Covington scored 25 points to lead Philadelphia. The game was originally scheduled for Saturday but was postponed because of the blizzard.
|
Basketball;Brooklyn Nets;Oklahoma City Thunder
|
ny0268271
|
[
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] |
2016/03/25
|
Oregon Makes Pac-12 Look Good by Dismantling Duke
|
ANAHEIM, Calif. — At the dawn of the men’s college basketball season, the Pacific-12 was considered in many circles to be the sport’s premier conference. And despite legions of doubters east of its time zone, the league entered the N.C.A.A. tournament with seven invitees and a No. 2 ranking in the respected rating percentage index, or R.P.I. One by one, though, Pac-12 teams have fallen, leaving Oregon as the conference’s last remaining representative in the tournament. By thrashing Duke, 82-68, in a West Regional semifinal on Thursday night, Oregon stands one victory from ending a dry spell of more than 75 years since a visit to the Final Four. The Ducks won the inaugural N.C.A.A. tournament in 1939. Now the No. 1-seeded Ducks are halfway to hoisting their second national championship flag. Their next opponent: second-seeded Oklahoma on Saturday in the regional final. “They were the better team — that was pretty obvious tonight,” Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “They were an old, extremely well-coached team. Great athletes playing together, and they knocked us back. They were always in control of the game.” There was a home-court feel for Oregon at Honda Center — the Ducks have six players from Southern California. 2016 Men’s N.C.A.A. Tournament Bracket Kansas, North Carolina, Virginia and Oregon are the top seeds in the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament. Jordan Bell, one of the Californians, contributed 13 points and 3 blocked shots, and Dillon Brooks led the team with 22 points and added 6 assists. “He’s a terrific player,” Krzyzewski said of Brooks. “He makes their team go. He doesn’t have a position. He plays all positions, and he plays them so strong.” Just as impactful was Oregon’s defense against Grayson Allen, who had amassed 54 points in two previous tournament games. Allen scored 3 points in the first half and finished with 15. Duke’s Brandon Ingram, a freshman, had some highlight baskets and led the team with 24 points, but his performance was not enough. For the most part, the Blue Devils were engulfed by Oregon’s athleticism and sharpshooting. Early on, Duke’s zone defense flummoxed the Ducks, while Oregon’s periodic three-quarter-court press impeded the Blue Devils. Oregon adjusted first and began scoring on spectacular dunks or lightly contested layups. The Blue Devils eventually warmed up, stringing together 7 straight points to nose ahead, 27-26, and the game, expected to be free-flowing, had found its crowd-pleasing groove. That was the last time the Blue Devils had the lead. They hit a rut and entered halftime trailing by 36-31. It could have been worse. Duke fell into an early bind when center Marshall Plumlee committed a charge, his second foul of the game, just over five minutes into the first half. Underscoring the Devils’ lack of depth, Plumlee sat out for only four minutes, and he stayed out of foul trouble the rest of the way. But Plumlee had a minimal effect on the game as Duke was outrebounded, 42-32. Oregon withstood the one-two punch from Allen and Ingram at the start of the second half and broadened its lead to double digits, topping out at 16 points with 4 minutes 45 seconds left. Allen scrambled for his 15 points, 7 fewer than his average. H was 4 of 13 from the field. The outcome kept Duke, the defending champion, from gaining its first back-to-back appearances in the round of 8 in this century. This year’s team hardly seemed a contender. The Blue Devils had a No. 4 seed, their second lowest in nearly two decades, after closing on a 3-4 slide. When an injury short-circuited the standout forward Amile Jefferson’s season after nine games, they shriveled to essentially a six-man rotation, three of them freshmen. With Ingram entering the N.B.A. draft, the reloading begins anew. Oregon has a different goal. “Duke’s a great program, but we wanted to come out and show that we’re confident in ourselves,” Ducks guard Casey Benson said. “To get a win against a program like that is special for our team. It’s another steppingstone to where we want to get to.”
|
College basketball;NCAA Men's Basketball,March Madness;Duke;University of Oregon
|
ny0195902
|
[
"business",
"global"
] |
2009/10/27
|
Dollar Hits 14-Month Low Against the Euro
|
The dollar hit a fresh 14-month low against the euro on Monday as a regional Chinese central bank researcher argued for diversification of the country’s reserves away from the greenback, while a strong economic report from South Korea ignited an equities rally and dulled the buck’s safe-haven luster. The euro touched a 14-month high of $1.5061 in overnight trading before falling to $1.5023 early Monday in New York. Late on Friday in New York, the euro was at $1.5002. Meanwhile, the dollar dipped to 91.89 Japanese yen from 92.10 yen, and the British pound rose to $1.6327, from $1.6311. South Korea’s central bank said on Monday that the Asian country’s economy grew 2.9 percent in the third quarter, up from 2.6 percent growth the previous three months. That is the fastest pace of growth for Asia’s fourth-largest economy since the beginning of 2002 and underscored the region’s recovery. Last week, China said its economic output rose 8.9 percent in the third quarter. Japan’s economic activity increased at an annual pace of 2.3 percent in the second quarter. The news on South Korea’s recovery sent markets higher and the dollar lower. The dollar dropped to 1,172.60 South Korean won early Monday, from 1,188.30 won late Friday. Investors have tended in the last year to buy the dollar as a safe haven when economic reports or corporate earnings are worse than markets had expected. Earnings that are surprisingly strong are driving the buck lower as investors are prompted to seek out higher returns than they can get from the low-yielding dollar. That low yield comes from the rock-bottom United States interest rate near zero that the Federal Reserve is maintaining to prompt lending and economic growth. Politicians and bank officials from big exporters, including China, that hold huge amounts of United States Treasuries as reserves have expressed unease with this situation as the value of their dollar holdings falters. On Monday, a regional People’s Bank of China researcher said in a report in a newspaper published by the Chinese central bank that the country should increase the amount of currencies other than the dollar in its reserves. The bank sometimes publishes the opinions of officials or researchers as a way of gauging public reaction to different policy approaches. Simply publishing such a report doesn’t mean that policy will happen, but several prominent officials this year have voiced concerns about the dollar, which has been dropping steadily since spring, and talked up alternatives to the dollar as the world’s supreme reserve currency. China’s reserves are the biggest in the world. The country is the biggest buyer of United States government debt and is believed to keep almost half of its reserves in United States Treasuries and in notes issued by government-affiliated agencies. But in a note to investors Monday morning, currency analysts from Brown Brothers Harriman said China had shown little sign of diversifying out of dollar reserves. In other early New York trading, the dollar edged up to 1.0576 Canadian dollars, from 1.0523 late Friday, but slipped to 1.0065 Swiss francs, from 1.0087 francs.
|
Euro (Currency);US Dollar (Currency);Currency;China
|
ny0140405
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2008/02/06
|
Child Welfare Chief Praised as He Leaves New Jersey Post
|
NEWARK — When Kevin M. Ryan took over the child welfare system he had critiqued so persistently as New Jersey’s child advocate, he was seen as the white-hat reformer who just might be able to turn around a flawed system that faced a federal takeover. The “big question” at the time, said Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, was: “Will he be allowed the time to do the job?” As Mr. Ryan steps down at the end of the month after two years — primarily because of the financial difficulties of putting his six children through college on a commissioner’s salary, according to colleagues he has confided in — many in the field are crediting him with laying a strong foundation for systemwide change of the agency, and wishing aloud that he could stay longer. In an interview Tuesday here at Covenant House, the agency serving homeless children where Mr. Ryan, 41, began his career as a lawyer, he said, “I have a real sadness that I will not be part of the reform team that crosses the bridge, from phase one to phase two, from where we are today, to the promise of an enduring reform.” The department’s latest achievement is a significant reduction in caseloads, so that no caseworker is responsible for more than 30 families, Mr. Ryan said. In 2003, when the mummified remains of 7-year-old Faheem Williams were found in a Newark basement after child welfare workers closed his case, and the Jackson brothers were found starving in Collingswood, caseloads of 70, 80 or even 90 were common. The cases led to a class-action lawsuit against the state, and a court-ordered overhaul of the department. First as head of the Department of Human Services, then as the first commissioner of the revamped Department of Children and Families, Mr. Ryan has overseen a drop in the number of children waiting to be adopted to 1,300 from 2,300. The department logged a net gain of 815 new foster and adoptive families in 2007, the highest in the state’s history. The agency also reduced the number of children with serious behavioral problems sent out of state for services. As of January, 230 were placed outside New Jersey, down from 327 in March 2006, resulting in an annual savings of $13 million. Turnover of caseworkers has decreased to 10.3 percent a year, down from 15.5 percent in May 2005, Mr. Ryan said. “I think that’s a reflection of the fact that people, by and large, have experienced in tangible ways now the possibility of reform,” he said. “Working conditions have improved.” One persistent challenge, Mr. Ryan said, was the adoption of a new computer system, NJSPIRIT, designed to computerize case records. It ran behind schedule and over budget, and required almost daily meetings. The union local representing more than 3,000 workers at the department’s Division of Youth and Family Services sent a memo to the agency in November, describing problems with the system, including its slowness. “Entire complaints and orders are routinely lost because there is no automatic backup when power is interrupted in building or server goes down,” the memo said. Hetty Rosenstein, the union president, added in an interview: “It’s really far from being in good shape. There are hundreds of bugs in it.” Despite these problems, Ms. Rosenstein praised Mr. Ryan’s work over all. “At a very critical moment he brought a combination of enormous knowledge of child welfare and a tremendous commitment to children and families, and a great respect for the frontline worker,” she said. “He brought credibility back to the child protective services system, after decades.” Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, chairman of the Human Services Committee, who had criticized the pace of the computer system’s introduction, agreed. “I think Kevin deserves great credit for eventually getting it done,” he said. “I think his legacy will be one of progress. I think that the issues he confronted, he confronted head-on, as opposed to previous human services commissioners, and I think he lays a foundation for a great deal of success.” In March, Mr. Ryan plans to begin work at Amelior and MCJ Foundations, which serve poor children in Newark and Africa. Mr. Ryan said he hoped his successor would be named this month. Candidates for the position include Molly Armstrong, the department’s director of policy and planning, and Arburta E. Jones, director of the central operations, according to a department official who had been briefed on the selection process but would only speak on condition of anonymity because the process is confidential. Mr. Wexler, of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, said Mr. Ryan’s departure would not be such a loss if it happened after five years in office, though he said that two years was a more typical tenure. “He stopped the free fall of the New Jersey child welfare agency,” he said. “They had two years of very strong, very capable leadership in that job, and most child welfare agencies never see that.”
|
Ryan Kevin M;Department of Children and Families (NJ);Children and Youth
|
ny0201899
|
[
"world",
"africa"
] |
2009/09/13
|
Somalia Shell Attack Kills 15, Including Disabled Veterans
|
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Mortar shells slammed into Somalia’s capital, killing three civilians and at least 12 men at a home for disabled veterans, an official said Saturday. Nearly a dozen other former soldiers were wounded in the attack. Islamic insurgents fired mortar shells Friday night toward Mogadishu’s port, but the explosives landed in residential areas, including a home for former army officers paralyzed or missing limbs from the country’s 1977 war with Ethiopia, according to a government spokesman, Sheik Abdirisaq Qeylow. Sheik Qeylow gave the toll of those killed and wounded. Mohamed Abdi, 50, said he had moved to the home for veterans after a bullet left him paralyzed in 1977. He said he was sitting in a wheelchair in the home on Friday night about 30 feet away from his friends when a mortar exploded and smoke and dust covered them all. “I saw my friends on the ground, with blood scattered everywhere like slaughtered goats,” he said. Somalia has been ravaged by violence and anarchy since warlords overthrew Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on one another. A moderate Islamist was elected president in January with hopes that he could unite the country’s feuding factions, but the violence has continued unabated. The government, which is supported by African Union peacekeepers, holds only a few blocks of Mogadishu. A powerful Islamic insurgent group called Al Shabab , which has foreign fighters in its ranks, operates openly in the capital and seeks to overthrow the weak government and impose a strict form of Islam in Somalia. Mogadishu experiences violence nearly every day, with both sides of the conflict accused of indiscriminate shelling. The residence for the war veterans is near the port, which is one of the areas here in the capital controlled by the government and the African Union peacekeepers. “It is horrific and inhumane to shell civilian areas,” said the Somali human rights activist Ali Sheik Fadhaa. Many experts fear the country’s lawlessness could provide a haven for Al Qaeda, offering a place for terrorists to train and gather strength — much like Afghanistan did in the 1990s. The United States accuses Al Shabab of having ties to Al Qaeda’s terrorist network, which Al Shabab denies. Somalia’s lawlessness also has allowed piracy to flourish off its coast, making the vital Gulf of Aden one of the most dangerous waterways in the world.
|
Mogadishu (Somalia);Civil War and Guerrilla Warfare;Terrorism;Al-Shabab
|
ny0223212
|
[
"us"
] |
2010/11/19
|
Anglophiles in America Gear Up for a Royal Wedding
|
MARIETTA, Ga. — In this Atlanta suburb 4,200 miles from London, Tina Barnes is already planning a wedding-watching party. Never mind that the bride and bridegroom have not announced a date. Ms. Barnes runs the Corner Shop , a little Union-Jack-patterned outlet that sells classically British items, from marmalade to mincemeat. “People who wouldn’t normally stop in are coming by and asking, ‘What do you think about the wedding?’ ” she said. No one has to say which wedding. And what she, and other retailers across the country, think is that it will be good for the bottom line. That became clear this week as Anglophiles and the companies that cater to them scrambled to stock their cabinets with every manner of kitsch — china, novelty rings, tea towels — bearing the smiling faces of Prince William of Britain and his fiancée, Kate Middleton. Not since the 1981 wedding of the prince’s parents, Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, has the matrimonial side of America’s “special relationship” shone quite so brightly. Or so quickly. Even before the young couple could name the church (Ms. Middleton was reported to have toured Westminster Abbey), American morning shows were sending correspondents to Buckingham Palace. In New York, a British charity group, the St. George’s Society , is making plans for a wedding-themed gala next spring aboard the aptly named Princess yacht. And a summer camp called Princess Prep that whisks young American girls away to British royal sites has received a flurry of phone calls and e-mails. “We’re definitely adding Kate to our list of princesses for this summer; we have to,” said Jerramy Fine, 33, the camp’s founder and a Colorado native. To many Americans, a foreign wedding is even less relevant than the latest Lindsay Lohan bail hearing. But to others, the fairy-tale walk down the aisle “is the stuff our children’s children’s children will read in their history books,” said Kerry Bamberger, the owner of British Wholesale Imports , a Los Angeles company scooping up and reselling Prince William coffee mugs and refrigerator magnets. In New York, so many replicas of the couple’s 18-karat sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring have been requested that one jeweler, the Natural Sapphire Company , says its Web site crashed under the traffic. The company’s versions go for $1,000 to $2,000. The television channel BBC America is unveiling a slate of royalty-focused shows, including “Memories of a Queen” and “William and Harry,” and TLC is rerunning its special “William & Kate: A Royal Love Story.” In Marietta, a customer in the Corner Shop on Thursday, Kari Puetz, 33, a chef whose family is English and Scottish-Irish, suggested that in a country without any royalty, Americans had claimed the British monarchy as their own. Marisa Mace, the events manager for the St. George’s Society, found her own equivalent: “They’re young, they’re famous — they’re the same as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but with royal titles.”
|
Prince William of Wales;Middleton Kate;Weddings and Engagements;Royal Family;Great Britain;Georgia
|
ny0050638
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2014/10/10
|
2 Children Among 4 Found Dead in Home in Upstate New York
|
GUILDERLAND, N.Y. — The four bodies were found Wednesday inside a small home, a pitched-roof bungalow with a red door, along a heavily trafficked residential and commercial street just west of Albany. Two were children, ages 10 and 7; the other victims were a 37-year-old man and a 39-year-old woman. It was an unsettling scene for the police officers who first arrived, responding to a phone call, apparently from a relative of the victims, requesting emergency assistance. “When police arrived, they realized it was a homicide scene, and an investigation began,” Carol Lawlor, the Guilderland police chief, said at a news conference on Thursday. David Soares, the district attorney in Albany County, said, “Needless to say this is not an occasion that any one of us looks forward to.” But the authorities were exceedingly guarded with other details about their investigation; Mr. Soares would not comment on the method or timing of the killings, any potential motive, or even if the victims had been related. He explained that such information was being withheld to determine the credibility of people offering information about the deaths. The names of the victims were also being withheld, pending the notification of family members. Dozens of law enforcement agents and officers were working the case, he said, with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Soares said the killings were “not the kind of acts that occur in wonderful communities like Guilderland.” The four people killed were of Chinese descent and had apparently lived at the home for about two years, Mr. Soares said. He said investigators were seeking information about the victims from relatives and the local Chinese-American community, which was proving difficult. “The language barriers certainly present their challenges,” Mr. Soares said, adding that authorities had reached out to Cantonese and Mandarin translators for assistance. He declined to say whether the victims had been specifically targeted, but he did seek to assure the public. “At this point we don’t believe that neighbors have much to fear,” he said. On Thursday morning, the home where the bodies were found — along a busy stretch of Western Avenue, lined with business and other homes — was taped off, as a mobile police command center idled on the street. Officials with Guilderland School District sent a letter to parents on Thursday that confirmed that the two children — a fifth grader and a second grader — had been killed and offered counseling to students and staff members. “It’s always shocking to the system when there are children involved,” Mr. Soares said. “But, on the other hand, it also motivates, I think, every person in the room right now to make sure we do everything we can to find out who did this.”
|
Murders;Guilderland
|
ny0278119
|
[
"business",
"dealbook"
] |
2016/11/21
|
Small Banks Cheer Trump. So, After a Pause, Do Big Ones.
|
Washington lobbyists, financial and policy analysts and Wall Street insiders are all trying to figure out what the Trump administration will mean for the banking industry. But Rusty Cloutier never doubted that Mr. Trump would be good for the small bank he runs in Lafayette, La. Mr. Cloutier sees in the new administration a chance not just for regulatory relief, but for a reordering of priorities away from the wealthy interests of the big cities and toward the rural and blue-collar communities where he operates. “My customers are very hard-working people,” said Mr. Cloutier, the president of MidSouth Bank. “They work in the oil fields and they hear they are racist, and they just got tired of it being slammed in their face.” He added, “Tell your editors that they need to run a headline that says ‘Main Street Won.’” And yet, in the weeks since Mr. Trump’s surprise election, Wall Street has been winning, too. The stocks of Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase have been soaring to their highest levels in years — a rally of such force that it has caught many bank executives and analysts by surprise. The surge, for example, has more than restored all the value in Wells Fargo’s share price that was eroded after the scandal over the rampant creation of unauthorized bank accounts erupted in September. For now, banks both large and small are benefiting from expectations that the president-elect will roll back regulations on just about every aspect of the industry, including the fees banks can charge, whom they can lend to and how much capital they have to hold. Banks would also benefit from the higher interest rates that are expected if a Trump administration’s fiscal stimulus program revives inflation. Higher rates would increase the value of some of the banks’ holdings and would widen banks’ margins on loans. But like nearly all of Mr. Trump’s policy positions, his plan for banking regulation has not been explained in any great detail. Mr. Trump’s feelings on banks, perhaps more so than other industries, are difficult to sort out. On one hand, he has called for dismantling the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul that is credited with reining in risk taking but blamed for crimping profits. On the other, he has railed against Wall Street elites for keeping down small-town America. How, then, will Mr. Trump justify policies that bolster bank profits, while also delivering on his promises of economic populism? Community bankers see themselves in the sweet spot. They say Mr. Trump can limit regulations — particularly on banks with less than $10 billion in assets — while still being tough on the Wall Street banks that were the driver of the financial crisis and so much anger among the general public. Freeing up community banks from the qualified mortgage rule and rigorous anti-money laundering guidelines, for example, would allow them to spend less time and resources complying with regulation and more on making loans and lifting the fortunes of the rural America Mr. Trump championed in his campaign. Several community bankers said they also wanted the Trump administration to rein in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by installing a five-person bipartisan oversight board, rather than a single director. Among community bankers, support for Mr. Trump has been pervasive and consistent. Roughly 84 percent of community bankers supported Mr. Trump, according to a poll that the industry’s trade group conducted after the political conventions this summer. Image Scott McComb, chief executive of Heartland Bank in Ohio. Credit Nathan C. Ward for The New York Times “I didn’t have any Trump signs in my yard,” said Tim Zimmerman, president of Standard Bank, which operates in communities outside Pittsburgh. “But I want the bank to do well and to be able to help people in the community. And I can’t do that if things go the way they are going.” In reality, the nation’s roughly 5,800 community banks represent a relatively small part of America’s banking activity. About half of the nation’s deposits are held by just a handful of mega-banks, where there was deep support for Hillary Clinton. Many on Wall Street helped bankroll Mrs. Clinton’s campaign in the hope that she would protect the forces that drive their global profits, like free trade. Many executives at large banks feared that Mr. Trump was a loose cannon who could destabilize the economy. The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd C. Blankfein, went so far as to publicly voice support for Mrs. Clinton. He made a cameo in a pro-Trump ad — along with Janet L. Yellen, the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, and the investor George Soros — that painted the Democrats as puppets of the global financial elite. Critics called the ad anti-Semitic because it focused on Jewish figures. But as the stock market soared, the big banks began talking about the upside of a Trump presidency. Two days after the election, Mr. Blankfein said at the DealBook conference sponsored by The New York Times that he believed Mr. Trump’s policies would be “market supportive.” Unprepared for a Trump victory, executives inside the big banks began drawing up lists of regulations or rules that the new administration and the Republican-controlled Congress might change for their benefit. They are not arguing for the repeal of Dodd-Frank, which large banks have spent hundreds of millions of dollars complying with. Nor do they want a less powerful consumer protection agency, which some credit with helping big banks by cracking down on players on the industry’s margins, like payday lenders. At the top of their wish list: rolling back the so-called Durbin Amendment, which limits the fees banks can charge on debit cards, and tweaking the Volcker Rule so that large banks can engage in more types of trading activity to help their clients. As banking lobbyists seek inroads with the new administration over regulation, Democrats are trying to pressure the industry to denounce other actions by Mr. Trump, including his selection of Stephen K. Bannon as his chief strategist. The former executive chairman of the Breitbart News Network, Mr. Bannon has been criticized for inflaming racist and xenophobic views. In a letter last week, Representative Maxine Waters of California, the ranking member of House Financial Services Committee, and other Democrats said the banking industry had a “moral obligation to speak out against this appointment as contrary to the values of this country and to the values of your industry.” The banking groups are declining to weigh in. Some say their input is not relevant because Mr. Bannon is not likely to have a direct role in regulating the financial industry. “Personally, I don’t think he is a racist,” Scott McComb, chief executive of Heartland Bank, which operates across Central Ohio, said of the president-elect. “I think it is propaganda that is made to make him look bad.” Mr. McComb said while Mr. Trump said things during the campaign “that are not becoming of a president,” he expected that Mr. Trump would act with more decorum in the White House. “He conducted himself like a New York City developer,” during the campaign, Mr. McComb said. “That is how a New York City developer acts.” Mr. Cloutier, the Louisiana banker, said even if Mr. Trump appointed someone like Steven Mnuchin, the former Goldman executive, to a top economic post, the president-elect would not forget his promises to working-class America — and by extension small banks. “He’s not going to be taking care of the sugar daddies who look down on the hardworking people of America,” Mr. Cloutier said. “But if he don’t deliver on that, he won’t be around four years from now.”
|
Banking and Finance;2016 Presidential Election;Donald Trump;Regulation and Deregulation;Dodd Frank;Consumer protection;Stocks,Bonds
|
ny0175541
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2007/10/12
|
Red Sox Face Familiar Foe, and It’s Not the Yankees
|
BOSTON, Oct. 10 (AP) — Julio Lugo has a Manny Ramírez baseball card hanging near his locker, only there is something out of place: Ramírez is wearing a Cleveland Indians uniform. Ramírez, who bats cleanup for Boston, played his first six and a half years for the Indians before signing with the Red Sox in 2000. He is not the only one who wore a Cleveland uniform before putting on a Boston hat. There is a lot of crossover going into their American League Championship Series matchup starting tonight at Fenway Park. Boston center fielder Coco Crisp made his major league debut for the Indians and played his first two and a half seasons with them. Julián Tavárez spent parts of four seasons in Cleveland. Álex Cora spent half a season there. Red Sox Manager Terry Francona and his pitching coach, John Farrell, were teammates on the Indians in 1988 and went on to work in the front office. “Believe me when I say this: I don’t want them to beat us; I think that’s stating the obvious,” Francona said. “But there are some people over there that I am really close to.” Although the teams do not have the long rivalry of the Red Sox and the Yankees, they are familiar with each other. Trot Nixon played his entire career in the Red Sox organization before signing with Cleveland last off-season. “This is where he started his career,” Red Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis said this week, referring to Nixon. “I’d bet in his mind, it’s pretty cool: A year removed, and he gets to come back to Fenway and play the Red Sox.” Nixon, who batted .357 in the 2004 World Series, when Boston ended its 86-year title drought, received an ovation when he returned to Fenway with the Indians this season. His wife, Kathryn, received an award for the couple’s charitable work and threw out the first pitch. Francona would not mind if Nixon gets another big hand — before his at-bat, not after it. “If he’s taking too many more, it means he’s on base way too much,” he said. Crisp came to the Red Sox in 2006 after they let Johnny Damon leave for free agency, but his first season in Boston was slowed by a broken finger. “We really never got to see what we’re seeing this year,” Francona said of Crisp, who batted .268 with a career-high 28 stolen bases this season. Francona said he had good memories of his time in Cleveland. After being fired after four years as the Phillies’ manager, Francona was hired in 2001 as special assistant to Indians General Manager John Hart. There, he worked closely with the assistant G.M., Mark Shapiro, who took over when Hart left. When the Indians eliminated the Yankees, Francona sent a text message to Shapiro. “I only had a one-year window to look at it, but there are some pretty awesome people over there,” Francona said. “I don’t think it’s a fluke they’ve gotten where they are.”
|
Boston Red Sox;Cleveland Indians;Baseball
|
ny0083046
|
[
"technology",
"personaltech"
] |
2015/10/17
|
Keeping a Hard Drive From Getting Too Full
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Q. My Windows XP computer, which is running perfectly, has space for 29 gigabytes of new data out of a capacity of 146 gigabytes. How much more of the 29 gigabytes can I safely use without running into problems? A. Windows will warn you when your drive is getting too full, but you should try to keep at least 15 percent of your drive space free so that the Disk Defragmenter program that comes with the system has enough room to work. So to preserve that 15 percent from your total 146 gigabytes of hard drive space, you should leave about 21.9 gigabytes free if you want to optimize your disk without Windows complaining about space. Running the Disk Defragmenter to rearrange where the files are stored within the hard drive so the system can find them more quickly can help speed up the computer, but running the Disk Cleanup tool helps you dump data you do not need (like Internet temporary files and items in the Recycle Bin) and reclaim some of that hard drive space. Most computer systems run more efficiently when the hard drive has plenty of room to use the free space for things like virtual memory and defragmenting, so the more free space you can conserve, the less you will have to worry about it. As Microsoft notes in many places around its website, it no longer provides support for Windows XP, including updates to its own security software. If you have not installed one already, a third-party security suite that still supports Windows XP (like Kaspersky Anti-Virus or AVG ) can help protect your old system in a world full of new online threats. Keeping Your Ears on the Road Q. Is it legal to wear headphones while biking? A. State and local laws vary, so check the regulations in your area. The League of American Bicyclists has a list of state-by-state laws, but visit your state’s website for its most current regulations concerning road safety and bicycle operation. Some states, like Florida , ban the wearing of earphones or a headset while operating a bicycle (presumably for listening to audio), but allow a headset that provides sound in only one ear, like those for use with a cellular telephone. In New York, you can use one earbud in general, but you must keep your other ear free for listening. New York City abides by the one-earbud rule, but it advises keeping both ears free from distraction while navigating city streets and bike lanes. Whatever the law happens to be, common sense should factor in as well because distractions can be dangerous. Blasting music through a pair of headphones while zooming through busy city streets is a potentially more hazardous situation than biking on a remote trail in a rural area while using a Bluetooth earpiece to get GPS directions or to accept an important phone call before stopping to finish the chat.
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Microsoft;Headsets;Regulation and Deregulation
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ny0258803
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2011/01/08
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Taliban Suicide Bomber Kills Police Official and 16 Others
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KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber killed a senior border police commander, two other police officers and 14 civilians in an attack on Friday in a crowded bathhouse in the southern city of Spinbaldak, Afghan officials said. “A suicide bomber entered a local bathhouse and exploded his vest around 11:30 this morning,” said Abdul Ghani, the district governor of Spinbaldak. “The target was a border police commander, Hajji Ramzan Aka. He was killed in the attack.” Afghan officials said that Mr. Aka was the commander of the border police’s quick-reaction force. News reports put the number of wounded at around 20. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, said the group claimed responsibility for the attack but asserted that all the casualties were Afghan police officers. The Taliban routinely deny killing civilians. The Taliban have assassinated dozens of Afghan government and police officials in Kandahar and neighboring Helmand Provinces in the past two years, seeking to undermine government control and terrorize residents. The bathhouse was in a crowded bazaar in the border town in Kandahar Province, the cradle of the Taliban insurgency. Also on Friday, three coalition service members were reported killed by roadside bombs in two attacks. One died in southern Afghanistan , the international military force said. The war’s heaviest fighting has been in the south, particularly in Helmand and Kandahar Provinces. The other two soldiers were killed in the eastern part of the country, a region that has had increasing levels of violence in the past year. In keeping with standard practice, the military did not specify the nationalities of the dead, deferring to their countries of origin.
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Afghanistan;Taliban;Afghanistan War (2001- );Terrorism;Kandahar (Afghanistan);Assassinations and Attempted Assassinations
|
ny0253789
|
[
"technology"
] |
2011/10/22
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Verizon Profit Doubles; Customers Attracted by High-End Products
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Verizon Communications , the nation’s second-largest telephone company, said on Friday that its profit doubled during the last quarter, bolstered by customers attracted by its portfolio of iPhone and Android devices. But like AT&T, which reported its third-quarter results on Thursday , Verizon added fewer new contract customers than analysts expected. This in part reflects an overall slowdown in the wireless industry, and a heated-up rivalry between Verizon and AT&T, analysts said. It also resulted, though, from the later-than-expected announcement of the iPhone 4S, which kept many consumers from upgrading or buying new devices. “Everyone was frozen, waiting for the iPhone,” said Philip Cusick, an analyst with J. P. Morgan who covers the telecommunications industry. Even so, Verizon added 1.3 million customers, bolstering its total subscriber base to 107.7 million. Of those new customers, 882,000 were contract customers. With these results, Verizon outpaced AT&T, which reported that it signed up 319,000 wireless customers during the same quarter. Verizon said it sold two million iPhones during the quarter. It declined to give the number of iPhone 4S’s it sold; that device became available after the quarter ended. Executives did say they sold out of their supply of iPhone 4S’s on the first day the phones were available for sale, Oct. 14. The phones have been on back order since then. In its earnings report, AT&T revealed that it had activated 2.7 million iPhones during the quarter, and sold 1 million iPhone 4S’s after the quarter ended. Verizon revealed that 20 percent of its iPhone customers jumped over from rival carriers and 80 percent were current customers upgrading their handsets. Analysts said Verizon’s robust catalog of Android smartphones, tablets and mobile hot spots, particularly those compatible with the company’s next-generation wireless network, known as LTE, helped sharpen the company’s edge over AT&T. Of the 5.6 million smartphones that Verizon sold this quarter, 1.4 million were LTE devices. “They haven’t needed the iPhone for years while AT&T had it, and this is no different,” said Rick Franklin, an analyst at Edward Jones, a financial services firm. Those new additions, combined with profit margins on those customers and a low rate of defections among its current customer base, ushered the company into a “stunningly profitable quarter,” Mr. Franklin said. In addition, the sale of those devices, which require expensive data plans to use them, helped nudge the amount of money the company makes per subscriber up 2.4 percent, to $54.89, over the same period a year earlier. During the third quarter, which ended on Sept. 30, Verizon’s profit rose to $1.38 billion, or 49 cents a share, up from $659 million, or 23 cents a share, in the third quarter of last year. Adjusted earnings for the quarter, excluding certain items, were 56 cents a share, compared with 55 cents a share in the previous quarter. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected that the company would report 55 cents a share for adjusted earnings. Revenue rose 5.4 percent, to $27.9 billion, during the quarter, compared with $26.5 billion during the same period a year earlier, the company said. After the announcement of the results, shares rose modestly, closing up 32 cents at $37.42. The landline portion of Verizon’s business, which includes its business and FiOS offerings, did not fare as well, dipping 1.3 percent, to $10.15 billion. The company attributed that decline to the damage caused by Hurricane Irene as well as to the two-week employee strike during August. The financial fallout from both events cost the company $250 million, executives said. In a call to investors and analysts on Friday morning, Francis J. Shammo, the chief financial officer at Verizon, said that the company was looking forward to a robust fourth quarter. “We will compete extremely heavily,” he said. “And when we compete head to head, we generally win.”
|
Verizon Communications Inc;Company Reports;iPhone;Android (Operating System);Consumer Behavior
|
ny0125709
|
[
"science"
] |
2012/08/07
|
How Do Lightning and Rain Coexist?
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Q. Since thunder and lightning are electrical events, why are they so often accompanied by heavy rain? A. The electrical activity that manifests itself as lightning is generated by the airborne water. The thunder is sound waves resulting from the extreme heat of the lightning. As the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration explains , the three ingredients necessary for a thunderstorm are moisture; rising, unstable air; and a lifting mechanism, like hills or mountains or just the collision of masses of warm, wet air and cold, dry air. When water vapor condenses into a cloud and rises into colder upper regions of the sky, some of it turns into ice crystals, usually with a positive charge, and some becomes water droplets, usually with a negative charge. When the charges are strong enough, the electricity is discharged as a bolt of lightning. While some lightning often precedes rain, the main event occurs as a downdraft starts and rain or other precipitation falls. Eventually, the downdraft overcomes the updraft and the storm dissipates, along with the lightning. Lightning benefits the earth, keeping its electrical charge in balance and generating protective ozone, the National Severe Storms Laboratory explains . (It also points out that there is no such thing as lightning without thunder, often called heat lightning; the thunder is simply too far away to be heard.) C. CLAIBORNE RAY
|
Lightning;Rain;Weather;Science and Technology
|
ny0006200
|
[
"us"
] |
2013/05/05
|
N.R.A. Officials Issue Rallying Cry for Midterm Elections
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HOUSTON — In speech after speech at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention here this weekend, its top leaders and political allies blasted President Obama and other gun control advocates, warned against “all-out, historic attacks” on the constitutional right to possess firearms, and issued a rallying cry to members to become a political force in next year’s midterm elections and the 2016 presidential race. “We are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation fight for everything we care about,” Wayne R. LaPierre, the association’s executive vice president and principal spokesman, told a cheering throng of members at the convention center here on Saturday. “We have a chance to secure our freedom for a generation, or to lose it forever.” “We must remain vigilant, ever resolute, and steadfastly growing and preparing for the even more critical battles that loom before us,” he said. Praising the N.R.A.’s membership for helping defeat a bipartisan Senate proposal to expand background checks for gun buyers last month, Mr. LaPierre said that the Senate fight had helped swell the association’s membership to a record five million people. Image The N.R.A. convention was not all speeches. Vianne Euresti and Jack Dougherty of Tactical Rifles inspected an M-4 rifle. Credit Eric Kayne for The New York Times Not surprisingly, perhaps, the convention theme was “Stand and Fight,” and much of the fight was directed toward Mr. Obama, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and those Mr. LaPierre described as their supporters in the “media elite” who were “conspiring right now, regrouping, planning, organizing” to exploit “the next horrific crime.” The Senate bill “wouldn’t have prevented Newtown, couldn’t have prevented Tucson or Aurora and won’t prevent the next tragedy,” he said. Later on, he added the Boston Marathon bombings to bolster his position.“How many Bostonians wished they had a gun two weeks ago?” Mr. LaPierre said. “How many other Americans now ponder that life-or-death question?” Mr. LaPierre and James W. Porter II, who was expected to be named president by the board of directors on Monday, succeeding David Keene, both urged N.R.A. members to become active in the 2014 midterm elections — which Mr. Porter described as more important than last year’s presidential election — and then the 2016 presidential race. Image Kitty and Philip Cox, left, of Memphis, and Linda and John Kimble, of Denver, practiced handgun retention techniques. Credit Eric Kayne for The New York Times “We do that and Obama can be stopped,” Mr. Porter said. The lineup of speakers at Friday’s Leadership Forum looked like the early field for the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, featuring Senator Ted Cruz and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate, as well as video appearances by Representative Paul Ryan and Gov. Scott Walker, both of Wisconsin. Ms. Palin, wearing a black T-shirt that said “Women Hunt,” criticized gun control proposals that “won’t even work for their stated intended purposes.” Mr. Cruz warned that any infringement on the Bill of Rights would undermine the entire Constitution. And just about every speaker poked fun at the N.R.A.’s favorite cast of enemies: Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, and Mr. Bloomberg, whom Mr. LaPierre described as the “national nanny.” Critics of the N.R.A. lined up outside the convention center. “Somehow they managed to make the N.R.A. the victims of the Newtown shootings,” said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center , which advocates for stricter gun control. “I think the average American would be shocked by their language.” Across from the sprawling convention hall, a small group of gun control advocates spent Friday and Saturday reading the names of about 4,000 Americans killed by gun violence since the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Among the protesters was Patricia Maisch, a survivor of the mass shooting in Tucson where former Representative Gabrielle Giffords was wounded. “I’m here to not let the issue go away,” she said. “I don’t think people are going to let that happen this time.” Video A sampling of the speakers — including Sarah Palin and Senator Ted Cruz — at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Houston. Credit Credit Johnny Hanson/Houston Chronicle, via Associated Press Yet beneath the politically charged surface of the convention, it was clear that many of the tens of thousands of N.R.A. members had come for things other than speeches. There were seminars on competitive shooting, firearms law and hunting, including “Advanced Sausage Processing, BBQ and Smoke Cooking Techniques,” taught by Brad Lockwood , an expert and TV host. Outside the “Defensive Shooting Skills Development” course, David Shoffner, 66, a car dealer from Redding, Calif., said he had owned guns since he was a boy, but had never taken a defensive shooting class. “I’m worried about society going downhill,” he said, asserting that drug-related crime had picked up even in his largely agricultural region of Northern California. Amiable and engaging, Mr. Shoffner described himself as a “conservative guy” descended from a rancher who fled Missouri after shooting a man who cheated at poker. He professed to hating bloodshed and said he would not hunt because he did not like killing animals. But he admired the N.R.A.’s efforts to “keep the Second Amendment alive” and, like many other conventioneers, expressed bafflement with the mind-set that “you can stop evil” with gun control. National Rifle Association Holds Annual Meetings 7 Photos View Slide Show › Image Eric Kayne for The New York Times Even as the speeches ground on in a huge meeting hall, thousands of members were downstairs, where acre-upon-acre of kiosks displayed the latest in hunting and camping equipment, and weaponry, from futuristic black-matte rifles to six-shooters to knives that would have made Jim Bowie envious. Conventioneers could admire a vintage Volkswagen bus outfitted with a kind of mini-Gatling gun (not for sale). And Jim Revis took photographs of his daughter, Lais, 19, as she posed with a pink-and-white military-style rifle. She said she planned to start attending gun safety classes because she wanted a gun for both hunting and self-defense. “The main thing I get out of this is to get together with people who think the way I do,” said Mr. Revis, who lives in the Houston area. John Shia, an engineer from Houston who is also a yoga, martial arts and gun enthusiast, said he had come to love target shooting after emigrating from Japan 20 years ago. “Shooting is a fine motor skill, like sewing,” he said. “Like yoga.” Mr. Shia, 47, a longtime N.R.A. member, said he had come to the exhibition hall to check out laser-targeting systems. “The speeches are a waste of time,” Mr. Shia said. “The gun control debate, you can argue it either way. It just depends on what data set you use.” He paused, recognizing that he was not voicing a typical N.R.A. viewpoint. “We can be a diverse group,” he said. “But I guess I’m not the average member.”
|
Gun Control;Legislation;NRA;Wayne LaPierre
|
ny0097923
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2015/06/28
|
Casa Adela in East Village Is the Home of the Magical Rotisserie Chicken
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It was a sunny weekday lunchtime on Avenue C, and as always, there was a lot of activity on the sidewalk outside Casa Adela. Three smiling men in faded T-shirts and loose jeans sat on plastic chairs next door, chatting in front of neatly graffitied shutters. Maritza Lopez, 54, stood in the shade with three of her grandchildren in navy blue school T-shirts, each clutching a white plastic bag with “Thank You” printed in red. Inside were foam containers full of rice and black beans, half a rotisserie chicken and avocado salad. “The rice and black beans are my favorite,” said Amyiah Rivera, 8 , her hair in two high, long braids over her shoulder. “My grandmother makes it, and she cooks the best. My cousin, he likes the chicken. He’s always saying, ‘Can I have the chicken, can I have the chicken?’ ” The grandmother who makes the rice and beans — a great-grandmother, actually — was visible through Casa Adela’s window, with its gold script proclaiming “Authentic Puerto Rican Cuisine Since 1976.” She is Adela Ferguson, 79, and she was checking the timer on a 1950s-era rotisserie oven, with eight whole chickens, golden and peppery spices flecking the crisping skin as they rotated slowly — seven more minutes until perfection. Ms. Ferguson, her curly hair covered by a delicate hairnet, nodded and smiled shyly at the line forming at the cash register. A couple of uniformed police officers ordered chicken and fries. Three waitresses — mostly Ms. Ferguson’s neighborhood friends, all with their hair tucked into nets — attended to four of the restaurant’s dozen tables. They wrote orders on paper pads and spooned creamy potato salad into small white bowls or to-go containers. On the wall, a large television was switched on to a lunchtime news program in Spanish. Ms. Ferguson has been cooking since she opened a luncheonette one block down on Avenue C in the 1970s. That is where she concocted a knockout seasoning and the perfect timing for roasting a chicken, though it’s pointless to ask for the recipe. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” said Luis Rivera, 56, a manager of the restaurant for the past 20 years. He is also Ms. Ferguson’s son. “She makes people feel like they are eating from Grandma’s hand,” he said. “Many people, their grandmothers are back home,” he said, meaning in Puerto Rico. “So they come here.” Neighborhood celebrities, like the actor Luis Guzmán , are among those heart-warmed customers; framed pictures on the walls and on the restaurant’s Facebook page show Ms. Ferguson smiling and posing with Mr. Guzman, as well as with other Puerto Rican stars like Jimmy Smits and Rosario Dawson. Rumor has it that Benicio Del Toro has stopped by. Enrique Balleste, 33, a young man with impressively tattooed forearms, rode up on a CitiBike, locked it onto a crowded horseshoe rack and headed inside. Mr. Balleste ordered mofongo (the Puerto Rican classic made of mashed plantains and garlic) and pernil asado — the roast pork he has craved since moving to Brooklyn from San Juan six months ago. “I needed my fix,” said Mr. Balleste, a web developer who had borrowed his boss’s CitiBike to ride from Chinatown to pick up lunch for everyone in the office. “They’ve never had Puerto Rican food before, and I can’t stop talking about it, so they said hurry up and go already.”
|
Restaurant;East Village Manhattan;Casa Adela
|
ny0240671
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2010/12/23
|
A Driver Explosion Leaves China No Closer to Finding a Fast Lane
|
BEIJING — Here is the plan unwrapped last week by Beijing’s city fathers to tackle the city’s suffocating traffic: 280,000 new parking spaces; 1,000 share-a-bike stations; 348 miles of new subway track; 125 miles of new downtown streets; 23 miles of tunnels; 9 new transportation hubs; 3 congestion zones; and 1 cure-all, “the use of modern technology.” Never let it be said that China , proud consumer of more than half the planet’s cement, thinks small. Except, perhaps, this time. For in the latest match between Beijing’s build-baby-build bureaucrats and its Gordian knot of traffic, more than a few folks are betting on the knot. “We have built many flyovers and expressways,” said Zhao Jie, a transportation expert at the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design. “We have spent quite a lot of money on subways and bus lines, and Beijing probably has the lowest bus fares in the world. But the stimuli to car ownership are even more powerful.” Duan Haizhu, a 26-year-old taxi driver, put it more elegantly during a recent crosstown crawl in his orange-and-brown Hyundai. “The speed of building roads is nowhere near the speed of people buying cars,” he said. “And people won’t stop buying cars.” Indeed, they won’t even slow down. As of December, Beijing counted 4.7 million registered vehicles, with 2,000 new ones joining the clog each day. That is more than 700,000 new vehicles this year, which was up from 550,000 new vehicles last year, 376,000 in the preceding year and 252,000 the year before that. When the number reaches 6.5 million, traffic researchers calculate, the Beijing streets will be fully saturated. Some would say they already are: in June, a survey by I.B.M. of 20 global metropolises rated Beijing traffic as tied for the world’s worst , along with Mexico City. From one point of view, this can be seen as another milestone in China’s storied economic rise. This year, nearly a third of all Chinese households fit the definition of middle class, with annual incomes of $5,000 to $15,000, and the share will rise to more than 45 percent by 2020, according to Euromonitor International, a business-intelligence firm. Most of them want cars. The government has been obliging. In 2009, in part to combat the global economic collapse, the national government halved the sales tax on the small-engine cars that most first-time buyers choose, and it spent billions on subsidies for rural car purchases and upgrades to new vehicles. Through November, car purchases were up 34 percent over 2009, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said. And 2009 sales were 46 percent greater than those in 2008. “Fifteen years ago, hardly anyone could afford a car. Today, everyone can,” said Wang Li Mei, secretary general of the China Road Transport Association. “History just evolved in its own way. Each day we’re getting more cars, and each week we’re building more roads.” To be fair, perhaps few cities could have handled Beijing’s driver-population explosion better. Twenty years ago, Beijing was a city of bicycles and shabby, charming alleys, a single limited-access highway tracing a lazy rectangle around the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. Today, five freeways girdle the city, eight more spoke from the suburbs to downtown, and the subway soon will stretch to 10 times its 1990 length. The government has also tried to choke off center-city traffic, banning cars from downtown based on the last numbers on their license plates. Ostensibly, that made a dent in the weekday glut. And briefly, it may have. But in July, city officials said rush-hour traffic speed had dropped nearly 4 percent in one year, to an average of 15 miles per hour, and was headed for 9 miles an hour by 2015. That is, roughly, bicycle speed. Part of the problem is poor planning. Curiously, a city of more than six million drivers has virtually no stop signs, turning intersections into playing fields for games of vehicular chicken. Freeway entrance ramps appear just before exit ramps, guaranteeing multilane disarray as cars seeking to get off try to punch through lines of cars seeking to get on. Beijing drivers do not help. The city’s driving style is best likened to a post-holiday sale in which dozens of shoppers mill about a single bin, elbowing for advantage — in this case, entry to a single lane of traffic that is probably blocked by a taxi anyway. Mr. Duan, the taxi driver, recalls a jam last February that left him and his passengers stalled for nearly three hours. “It was a combination of rain and everyone going on vacation before Spring Festival,” he said. In September, another vacation exodus — this time for Autumn Festival — gridlocked the entire city, leading to 140 traffic backups in the evening rush hour. According to a senior journalist at one official media outlet, that episode prompted President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to weigh in, asking Beijing city and Communist Party leaders what was to be done. The journalist, who asked not to be named for fear of repercussions, said Beijing leaders had suggested ways to halt population growth in Beijing and cap the number of new automobiles. Mr. Hu was said to have rejected some of the more restrictive proposals as too draconian for a progressive national capital. The city opted instead to throw more traffic officers onto the streets. Thus, the latest draft proposal, a clear compromise of better public transportation — longer subways and bike racks — and the parking lots, tunnels and surface roads that Beijing’s auto-centric society craves. And it hints at more restrictive measures, including limiting new car purchases to buyers who can prove Beijing residence, or even capping the number of cars that can be registered here annually. The final proposal is set to be released on Thursday. But car-crazy Beijingers are not waiting for the bad news. Last week, a local paper reported that one Beijing auto shopper, in heated competition for a particular car, smashed its windshield and declared: “This car is damaged. Let’s see who wants it now.” After he paid a penalty of $300, the car was his. Elsewhere, competing buyers bid up the price of an Audi sport utility vehicle by about $10,500 before the winner drove away with his prize. All in all, reports the authoritative Web site auto.so hu, Beijingers bought 95,100 vehicles in November — a record and a third more than in the previous month. Last week alone, they bought 30,000. Instead of cutting back their driving, Beijingers are bulking up — girding for the prospect that next year, they won’t be able to buy a car at all.
|
Roads and Traffic;Beijing (China);China;Automobiles;Politics and Government
|
ny0124782
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2012/08/27
|
Computer Malfunction Strands 140 Aboard Trains to Kennedy Airport
|
About 140 rail passengers heading to or from Kennedy International Airport were stranded for hours on Saturday evening and had to walk beside the tracks to the nearest station, after a computer malfunction caused the AirTrain system to shut down. The trains run on an elevated platform high over the Van Wyck Expressway in Queens. The service problems began at 5:33 p.m., and service was finally restored at 10:18 p.m., according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey , which owns the service. In all, three two-car trains were stranded. “It was a terrible experience,” said a passenger named Danielle, 30, who had flown in from Pittsburgh and was stranded for more than two hours as she tried to get home to Lynbrook, N.Y. “They didn’t give us any information about what was happening. Then the air conditioning shut down.” She declined to use her last name because she is a city employee and not authorized to talk to the news media, she said. Passengers on two trains had to walk nearly a mile. Officers from the authority’s emergency response unit led the way with flashlights, and others stood at posts along the way to ask if anyone needed help. Steven Robert Smith, who was visiting from London, said the train’s public address system told passengers only that they would be moving shortly, and later, that agents were on the way. But none arrived, he said. Tensions mounted, and soon, the temperature in the train did the same. Mr. Smith said he pushed an emergency intercom button to get information, “but even after repeatedly pressing, nobody would speak to us. It was now getting warm, and near an hour and a half of waiting.” Steve Coleman, a Port Authority spokesman, said that personnel from Bombardier Inc. , which built and operates the AirTrain service under a contract with the Port Authority, handles such calls, not Port Authority employees. The complaints about a slow response and inadequate communication echo similar criticisms directed at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority after the blizzard of December 2010, when riders on an A train were stuck for hours because the authority “forgot about” them, as the president of New York City Transit, Thomas F. Prendergast, admitted in a City Council hearing last year. Mr. Coleman said “as soon as we became aware that there were stranded passengers, we dispatched Port Authority Police to evacuate them from the trains.” The computer malfunction was eventually traced to a loose wire in the main computer, Mr. Coleman said. The AirTrain carries 50,000 riders each day, he said. Mr. Coleman said that Bombardier did not tell the authority that trains were stranded until an hour and 45 minutes after the problem started, “which goes against the protocol.” The authority then sent its police officers to evacuate the trains and dispatched 19 buses to replace the train service, Mr. Coleman said. Joseph Osterman, director of operations and maintenance for Bombardier, said he spoke with the Port Authority a half-hour after the shutdown, but did not know what time he told the authority that trains were stranded. He also said the company was still looking into what messages were communicated to passengers.
|
Bombardier Inc;Port Authority of New York and New Jersey;Kennedy International Airport (NYC);Coleman Steve;Transit Systems;Delays (Transportation)
|
ny0217075
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2010/04/15
|
New York City Urged to Track Foster Care Results
|
At 21, a young person in foster care in New York is officially out of the child welfare system. Bill de Blasio , the city’s public advocate, said Wednesday that the government’s involvement should not stop there. In legislation introduced before the City Council, Mr. de Blasio said the city should collect data on former foster children to understand what happens to them once they are out of the city’s care. “Too often, young adults who grow up in the city’s foster care system slip through the cracks,” Mr. de Blasio said. “Until we can evaluate what happens to the hundreds of young people who leave foster care each year, we will not know if we are putting them on the path to success or creating a generation of disconnected youth stuck in poverty.” About 800 young people age out of the foster care system in New York each year. They are allowed to leave at age 18, but many stay until they are 21; a small number are granted exceptions so they can stay longer. Many former foster children have difficulty on their own, struggling to support themselves and often ending up homeless. Mr. de Blasio’s bill would require the city’s Administration for Children’s Services to submit quarterly reports on young people who have moved out of formal foster care and to make the reports available to the public. The information required of the agency would include high school graduation rates; the ages of the young people when they left foster care; the number who had children while they were in care; the number who had birth certificates, driver’s licenses and other documents that would help them thrive in adulthood; and the number who received housing assistance after aging out. Mr. de Blasio’s bill also called on Children’s Services to gather data from other city agencies. The Human Resources Administration would report how many former foster children received food stamps, Medicaid and welfare within six months of leaving the system. The Department of Homeless Services would determine how many had become homeless, and the Department of Corrections and the Police Department would provide data on arrests. A spokesman for Mr. de Blasio said he did not know how much the bill would cost the city. Sharman Stein, a spokeswoman for Children’s Services, said the agency would review the proposed bill. “A.C.S. and our foster care agency providers are committed to working with young people in care to prepare them for independent living when they leave foster care,” Ms. Stein said in a statement. “We also work to ensure all young people leave care connected to a loving adult — either an adoptive or foster parent, or another adult who will be a resource for them beyond their 21st birthday.”
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Foster Care;New York City;de Blasio Bill;Administration for Children's Services
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ny0215155
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2010/04/03
|
North Korean Leader Kim Jong-il Is Expected to Seek Aid in China
|
SEOUL, South Korea — The ailing North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, may soon visit China, the North’s last remaining patron, to seek help as his government faces its greatest crisis since the catastrophic famine in the mid-1990s, according to South Korean officials and news reports. Reports of Mr. Kim’s “imminent trip” to China, in what would be his fifth visit to Beijing since he took power in 1994, have been circulating here for months. In an unusual prediction, the office of President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea said this week that there was “a high level of possibility” that Mr. Kim would visit China. The likelihood of Mr. Kim’s trip increased after a recent exchange of high-level delegations between the North and China, during which Mr. Kim was formally invited to Beijing. The predictions also stem from the fact that analysts say Mr. Kim is facing both external and internal pressures that are forcing him to reach out to the one remaining, if reluctant, source of aid: China. “His biggest goal on a trip to China will be securing help to overcome the North’s economic crisis,” said Choi Myeong-hae, a visiting professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul. As payback for such aid, North Korea might be expected to return to the six-nation talks, a forum that China presides over and that is aimed at persuading the North to give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for economic and diplomatic rewards. Experts on North Korea say that Mr. Kim, a reclusive yet shrewd survivalist, might try to obtain Chinese investment or aid, which could weaken the impact of United Nations sanctions, while continuing to hold on to his nuclear program, which is his last bargaining chip and a source of national pride he can hold up before his people, who are said to be facing growing food shortages. Mr. Kim, 68, is also thought to be in declining health, after a stroke in 2008. He is now undergoing dialysis every two weeks, according to Nam Sung-wook, director of the Institute for National Security and Strategy, a research organization affiliated with South Korea’s main spy agency. Mr. Kim, who inherited power after the death of his father, Kim Il-sung, in 1994, is hurrying to groom his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, 27, as his heir, officials in south Korea say. To justify another dynastic succession, he is proposing to build a “strong and prosperous nation” by 2012. But recent seizures of cargo out of North Korea demonstrate that the United Nations embargo, tightened after the North’s nuclear test in May 2009, is squeezing the North’s ability to export weapons, a major source of hard currency. Food aid from South Korea has dried up under President Lee, a conservative who wants to see North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons program. The government’s disastrous currency revaluation in November, meant to fight inflation and curb free markets, has also deepened food shortages. Mr. Kim, who has kept his people in isolation and fearful of prison gulags, has outlived previous predictions of the collapse of his government, even after an estimated two million North Koreans died of famine in the mid-1990s. But the North Korea of today is not the North Korea of the 1990s. South Korean DVDs and outside news are smuggled in from China. The currency revaluation elicited highly unusual outbursts of public anger. North Korea “is facing several domestic problems that in isolation would each be manageable but together could threaten regime survival,” Daniel Pinkston, an International Crisis Group researcher, said in a recent report . But he also cautioned that for now, the state security apparatus and the barriers to collective action made a “revolution from below” impossible. Meanwhile, the government seems to be gambling that it can tighten political control by cracking down on private markets, a conduit of capitalist influence, while trying to improve food supplies and the economy with Chinese help. “Markets will be removed in the future, by reducing their numbers step by step, while continuously expanding the planned supply through state-run commercial networks,” Ri Ki-song, a professor at the North’s state-run Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, that was broadcast on APTN on Thursday. B. R. Myers, a North Korea expert at Dongseo University in South Korea, said at a forum in Seoul this week that the North’s currency reform and crackdown on the markets might not be as unpopular as reported. It is likely that they did not affect most North Koreans, he said, except those relatively few who had amassed a private fortune through black markets. Mr. Kim’s plea for aid will be strengthened by the implicit threat of his country’s economic collapse, which would be a nightmare for China’s leaders, who can easily envision millions of starving refugees flooding over the border. “Buttressing up the Kim Jong-il regime for stability in the North is as important as denuclearizing it,” said Mr. Choi, the analyst. Chinese state media reported on Thursday that China and North Korea planned to start building two hydroelectric dams this year on the Yalu River, which serves as their border. The dams will cost about $161 million and generate 308 million kilowatt hours of electricity for North Korea and the northeastern Chinese province of Jilin. China is also considering investments to build bridges and renovate roads and railways in North Korea to tap its rich natural resources and use its ports, according to South Korean news reports and analysts. For its part, South Korea wants China and the United States to focus more on dismantling the North’s nuclear weapons. A nuclear North Korea increases investors’ risks in South Korea, leaves the South more dependent on the benevolence of the United States’ nuclear umbrella and makes a unified Korea a more distant dream, officials here say. At the same time, if the North does not get any help from China or South Korea, “it might launch a desperate provocation against the South,” Kim Young-soo, a North Korea expert at Sogang University in Seoul, said at a recent seminar. Fears of such a situation increased last week, when a South Korean Navy ship sank in a mysterious explosion in waters disputed by North Korea, possibly after being hit by a North Korean torpedo or mine, the defense minister, Kim Tae-young, told South Korea’s National Assembly on Friday.
|
North Korea;Economic Conditions and Trends
|
ny0295725
|
[
"sports",
"tennis"
] |
2016/12/19
|
Roger Federer on Family Time and Following the Tour
|
Summer is coming, the Australian summer, and Roger Federer is preparing to return to competitive tennis in January at the Hopman Cup in Perth after a six-month injury break, the first such extended break of his career. Federer, the 17-time Grand Slam singles champion who is now 35, spoke with The New York Times on Friday from his training base in Dubai about the coming season and about his family, which now includes two sets of twins: 7-year-old daughters Charlene Riva and Myla Rose, and 2-year-old sons Lenny and Leo. Here are some excerpts from the interview, which has been edited and condensed. On his progress after ending his 2016 season in July because of left knee problems: The last five, six months have been interesting in the sense that I did have days where I hoped that progress would be faster and then had another day where I would wake up, and I felt there was progress. So I went through my ups and downs, but I mean if I had to compare it, it was 90 percent up and 10 percent down. When I was down, it didn’t last long. On how he spent his break away from tennis: For me, honestly, it was really most important just to spend maximum time with my wife, Mirka, and my kids because this time, when they are young like this, it never comes back to me. I agree that I could have gone into looking into completely different things in my life, what other interests I have, but I feel like that can wait and that should come after. Most important to me is the family, and that’s why for me that was the No. 1 thing, that I was going to try to spend maximum time with them and really just do some cool things and not miss this. Because the girls had our full attention when the boys weren’t around, and the boys always have had the girls. It’s always busy, so it was nice to have that extra time for the boys and still have a good chunk of time with the girls. On how hard it was to watch tennis from afar: I must say I was surprised how easy it was for me all the way up until Shanghai [in October], and then when I started to feel better, when I was able to play points again, I started to miss the tournaments like Shanghai, Basel and the World Tour Finals. All the sudden, I felt like in some crazy way I could be playing with these guys again. Obviously, I should not, because I would get injured again, maybe, but that’s when I started to miss it. Before that, I felt I was so far off even being in the draw that I actually didn’t miss it. The Rio Olympics — I’ve never been to Rio, so I don’t really know what I missed. The U.S. Open, I wasn’t ready. I wouldn’t have been able to play best-of-five sets. There was no point dwelling over it, and so it was really only at the end of the season. I did enjoy watching Andy [Murray] and Novak [Djokovic] and the race for world No. 1. I thought it was really exciting, and I checked in on some of the matches in the World Tour Finals. I saw the end of the finals. I saw the end of Murray against [Milos] Raonic [in the semifinals] as well, and I thought it was really exciting. And I think it was great for tennis that we had a finish like that this year. I was following the tour more closely than I ever thought I would. I thought I would switch off and not be into it, but I was surprised how many times I caught myself checking live scores. On what he is looking forward to in returning to the game: Playing for big crowds against the best players in important matches is something I’m looking forward to. Also just the process, and I think seeing how I’m going to cope with the six-month layoff, basically. I don’t want to say the year didn’t exist. It was maybe the most memorable year of my life. I feel like I’m going to remember every day of what I went through this year because it was kind of so difficult. In a way, I’m really positive about how I’m feeling right now, and practice is going well, but then again expectations are low because I don’t have the matches yet, and it’s going to be best-of-five from the get-go at the Australian Open. I’m happy I’ve got the Hopman Cup, and I’ve got my three matches there to ease my way in. I think the most exciting period for me is going to be the Australian Open. I don’t know what to expect from myself. The crowds won’t know what to expect, and my opponent has no clue what to expect. So I think that three-way thing is going to be quite exciting. How to handle that? And as I go along with it, how much can I play? Or how little can I play? But when I do play, I want to be at my best and for that I need to train hard, but also be very clever and smart. So we’ll see. On his schedule in 2017: For the moment, it looks like the Hopman Cup, Australian Open, Dubai, Indian Wells and Miami. For the moment, the clay-court season, I’ve got no clue. Grass, it would be Stuttgart, Halle, Wimbledon and that kind of stuff, but let’s see what happens in the first two to five events, and then I’ll have more answers. I wish I could tell you I’m going to play 52 tournaments in a row, but let’s not go crazy here. On whether he will play the Laver Cup , the new Ryder Cup-style team event in September that was the brainchild of Federer and his agent, Tony Godsick: For me, this is something I’m seriously looking forward to. I hope I can qualify on my own terms and not have to hope for captain’s pick from Bjorn [Borg] and call Bjorn up every day and be like, “Buddy, remember me? Don’t forget me.” Thank God I have a bit of time. I know how much Tony has worked, and I know also how much Rafa [Nadal] is looking forward to it, and how supportive he has been. In a way, I can’t wait, but at the same time I know I’ve got my work cut out at the beginning of the year to make sure I can pace myself nicely through the season. But it’s definitely going to be a really big goal for me to have a successful Laver Cup for everybody involved. On whether the break has been good for his back problems: I would think so, but then again, uncertainty lies ahead to some extent, to see how the back will react with matches. It might be a big shock to the body. That’s why I’m pushing it as hard as I possibly can in practice, even though I’m starting to pace myself for the rest of the year because the hard work is done. I think also my feet needed a rest. I always felt like I had burning on my feet and I felt like that’s disappeared a little bit, and I’ve already felt the benefits of that a little bit in Wimbledon. After the tough match I had with Marin Cilic, I actually felt quite fresh in the feet for the Milos Raonic match. I remember I had often a lot of foot pain, like in ’05 when I lost to Marat Safin at the Australian Open, I could barely walk after the match. On the threat posed by the younger players like Raonic, Alexander Zverev, Dominic Thiem and Nick Kyrgios: I think next year we’ll know again better who is going to be that next player, and I think it’s going to be an exciting year as well with the youngsters and with us coming back, Rafa and me, and Andy and Novak fighting for what they are fighting for. I think Raonic is on the doorstep. Can Stan [Wawrinka] win another Slam this next year? There are some great story lines. I’ve always been a big fan of young players coming up, and there seems to be some talent there now, which I like to see. On Kyrgios, who was suspended late this season for lack of effort in a match in Shanghai: What I know is he’s an exciting player to watch. He’s a great shotmaker, got a massive serve, and with those capabilities come great potential for great results. The question is, the mind, the body, how much is he willing to work at it? And he seems to check in and out of that sometimes, but ever since he came to Zurich to train with me sort of a month before he beat Rafa at Wimbledon, I’ve thought he was a great, great player. And he still is going to stay that for years to come. The question is, how much does he want it? I think it’s all going to boil down to that, and that’s going to determine how much success he’s going to have. On how important it is to him that the next generation stays classy on and off the court: I think it would be good to have because our game sort of creates that, like golf. We have usually classy players, classy attitudes. But at the same time, I don’t believe everybody has to be exactly like that. I like different attitudes, different characters, different talk, different behavior. Obviously, if you step outside the box, it’s like a kid, you tell them, “No, you’re not allowed to do that.” And that’s why you have rules, but you can stretch the rules. I’m cool with that. Nick I’m sure knows what the boundaries are more now because of what happened. On Tom Brady still excelling in the N.F.L. at 39 or Jaromir Jagr still playing in the N.H.L. at 44 or Serena Williams still capable of dominating at 35: I love seeing and hearing that these guys are still doing it. And Gianluigi Buffon with Juventus and the Italian national team. It just excites me when you tell me these names, because I’ve followed them for 20 years. I’ve always wanted to be a great athlete or great player for a long time, and I was able to achieve that. But seeing that guys were doing it before me and are still doing it now, it’s good to know I’m not the only one. I think that’s great for me. Sure, it’s inspiration. It’s help. It’s motivation.
|
Tennis;Roger Federer
|
ny0065793
|
[
"business"
] |
2014/06/30
|
G.M. to Set Payouts in Crashes Caused by Flawed Switches
|
WASHINGTON — A prominent compensation expert hired by General Motors is scheduled to announce a plan here on Monday to distribute money to victims of accidents caused by the automaker’s defective ignition switch. But the payouts — which could cost G.M. billions of dollars — may not fully put the worst safety crisis in the company’s 106-year history behind it. While many victims and their families will be compensated, federal prosecutors and congressional investigators say that G.M. remains in their cross hairs for possible criminal behavior related to the handling of the defective vehicles. Efforts by G.M. to move beyond the ignition issue, both through the compensation plan developed by the expert, Kenneth R. Feinberg, and a recently unveiled internal investigation by the former United States attorney Anton R. Valukas, have done nothing to slow down or redirect the criminal investigations, according to federal investigators, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case. Although the 325-page report by Mr. Valukas absolved G.M.’s senior management and board of directors of any wrongdoing, some investigators said they put little stock in the conclusions and questioned whether the effort was truly as “unvarnished” as promised. The report, they said, provided a helpful guide to crucial names and dates in the recall controversy but otherwise had no effect on the course of their investigations. “When you get to the part about the senior management, it sort of drops off,” said Representative Diana DeGette of Colorado, the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations. “Firing or allowing a few people to retire is certainly not enough to answer for what went wrong,” Representative Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in an email response to questions. Mr. Valukas, who did not respond to requests for comment, is chairman of Jenner & Block, a law firm that has represented G.M. in numerous matters. Image A settlement plan to be unveiled by the compensation expert Kenneth R. Feinberg could cost G.M. billions of dollars. Credit Jessica Hill/Associated Press The United States attorney’s office in Manhattan is overseeing the criminal investigation with the F.B.I., and several state attorneys general and the Securities and Exchange Commission have opened their own inquiries. The investigators are examining a number of issues, including the role of senior management and whether G.M. committed fraud during its bankruptcy proceedings five years ago by not disclosing a defect that could lead to extensive future liabilities. Prosecutors are also looking into whether the company did not comply with laws requiring timely disclosure of vehicle defects, people briefed on the matter said, and misled federal regulators about the extent of the problems. To draw the criminal inquiry to New York, the people said, the United States attorney’s office argued that it was better equipped to handle the case than prosecutors in Michigan, even though the problems unfolded in Detroit. The New York prosecutors found a convenient, if unconventional, path for the investigation. In discussions with the Justice Department in Washington, which mediates turf wars among United States attorneys’ offices, the New York prosecutors noted that G.M. had filed for bankruptcy in Manhattan, the people briefed on the matter said. The bankruptcy approach continues to be a focus of the investigation, the people said. “We have openly acknowledged that the Southern District of New York is looking into activities at General Motors,” a G.M. spokesman, Greg Martin, said in an email statement, adding, “As we have said before, we are fully cooperating and will continue to do so.” G.M. has linked the faulty switch — which can, if jostled or bumped, suddenly shut down power in a moving car — to 13 deaths and 54 accidents. The automaker has recalled 2.6 million older Chevrolet Cobalts and other small cars with a defective ignition switch, part of the more than 20 million recalls it has made this year. Testifying in early April on Capitol Hill about the company’s decade-long delay in recalling cars known to have the defective part, the chief executive, Mary T. Barra, repeatedly invoked Mr. Valukas’s investigation as likely to answer questions that she could not respond to at the time. When his report was released in early June, it amounted to a harsh dressing down of G.M.’s corporate culture, which Mr. Valukas concluded led to years of fruitless study and inaction over the safety problem. The conclusions led to the dismissal of 15 G.M. employees, including at least three lawyers in the general counsel’s office and a corporate vice president. Image In a hearing this month, the chief executive Mary T. Barra told a House panel that the automaker would not cap the overall amount it planned to spend on victims. Credit Gabriella Demczuk/The New York Times The company has refused to provide names of the dismissed employees. But some of those portrayed in the report as having intimate involvement in internal discussions about the flawed switch are still working at G.M. “We still have questions about others’ knowledge of the problems and why they were spared,” Mr. Upton said. As with the Valukas investigation, the Feinberg compensation plan is intended to be a critical part of G.M.’s strategy to move beyond the ignition crisis. Mr. Feinberg is to unveil his formulas for calculating the amounts that will go to victims and the criteria for qualifying for payments at a news conference on Monday morning. Among other things, his plan will indicate how far G.M. is willing to acknowledge victims beyond the 13 deaths it has publicly linked to the defect. But as with Mr. Valukas’s work, the risk remains that some will not be satisfied. If the dollar amounts are too low or the criteria for qualifying too rigid, G.M. is certain to be headed for long and costly court battles that could take years to resolve. Mr. Feinberg has overseen funds set up to compensate victims in numerous catastrophes, including the shootings at Virginia Tech and an Aurora, Colo., movie theater, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Boston Marathon bombings. In this case, since the party making the payments also caused the problem, some people feel the payments should be higher. “Some of the other funds he’s administered were set up by the nonculpable parties,” said Mandeep Sihota, a principal in the valuation and forensic services group at Citrin Cooperman, who dealt with Mr. Feinberg on the 9/11 fund. “In this situation he’s got a situation where G.M. is culpable. So he’s got to quantify that intangible. I would think it would increase their responsibility in terms of the payouts.” In a hearing this month, Ms. Barra told a House panel that the automaker would not cap the overall amount it planned to spend on victims and would pay anyone with a legitimate claim under the Feinberg formula. But in accepting the payments, victims and their families would forgo their right to sue. “It may seem really generous to have G.M. say, ‘We’re going to do this fund,’ ” Ms. DeGette said. “In reality, it’s the best financial decision G.M. could make.”
|
GM;Car Crash;Automobile safety;Reparations;Justice Department;Ken Feinberg;Mary Barra
|
ny0043271
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2014/05/08
|
Dissident Journalist Held Ahead of Tiananmen Anniversary
|
An outspoken Chinese journalist who was jailed after the armed crackdown of 1989 has been detained in Beijing on charges of obtaining and leaking a confidential Communist Party document, a state-run news agency reported on Thursday. The report said the journalist, Gao Yu , had admitted to the crime and was “willing to accept legal punishment.” The announcement of the charges against Ms. Gao has come while the Chinese government seeks to stifle dissent ahead of the 25th anniversary of the suppression of the pro-democracy protests that filled Tiananmen Square in 1989. Ms. Gao has long been forbidden to write for domestic Chinese media, but she has continued to write for overseas websites and publications, including a Chinese-language website of the German news service Deutsche Welle. Her columns there have featured acerbic criticisms of the Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping. Ms. Gao disappeared from her home in Beijing late in April. The Beijing police confirmed that she was detained on April 24 and has been under investigation for leaking a secret document from the party’s central leadership, Xinhua, China’s main state news agency, reported on Thursday. “In August 2013, a certain overseas website published in full a secret central document, and subsequently many websites republished it,” said Xinhua, citing the police investigators. “After an investigation, the suspect Gao Yu has confessed the facts of the crime of illegally obtaining the secret central document and providing it to the website.” The police said that Ms. Gao obtained a copy of the document last June and copied it into her computer before sending it abroad. The report did not describe its contents. The report said the police investigation was continuing, and suggested that Ms. Gao may face tougher punishment yet, but did not specify what would happen to her. Xinhua said that Ms. Gao had “expressed profound contrition” and “sincerely and wholeheartedly understood her errors and crimes, and was willing to accept legal punishment.” The announcement of Ms. Gao’s detention has come during a tense time in China, where the government is particularly wary of dissent and protest before the 25th anniversary of the armed clampdown on protests in 1989. After Ms. Gao was taken into custody, the authorities in Beijing also detained several intellectuals and a prominent rights lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang, who had attended a memorial meeting for 1989. Outside experts believe many hundreds of residents were killed in the armed crackdown. In 1993, Ms. Gao was arrested on similar charges of leaking state secrets and was sentenced in 1994 to six years in prison. On Thursday, a news program of China’s main television broadcaster, CCTV, showed police searching Ms. Gao’s home and Ms. Gao, her face slightly obscured by a block on the screen, admitting to the charges. For years, Ms. Gao, who is about 70, has been active among intellectuals and former officials in Beijing critical of the Communist Party’s rigid controls on political life. Human rights advocates voiced dismay at the charges against her. “It’s unclear what document led to her detention,” said Maya Wang, a researcher in Hong Kong for Human Rights Watch. “But the case highlights the dangerously vague Chinese state secrets law, in which the designation of state secrets is broad and ill-defined, and can’t be legally challenged in courts.”
|
Communist Party of China;Gao Yu;China;Classified Information;Human Rights;Xinhua;Tiananmen Square
|
ny0184525
|
[
"sports",
"othersports"
] |
2009/03/02
|
Kyle Busch Wins Shelby 427 at Hometown Track
|
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Kyle Busch notched the biggest victory of his young career by driving from the back of the field Sunday to win the Shelby 427 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, his hometown track. Although there are far more hallowed tracks on the Nascar Sprint Cup circuit, this one-and-a-half-mile oval in the desert was where Busch most wanted to win. He came prepared at the start of the weekend, beating his big brother Kurt for the pole to put brothers on the front row for the first time since 2000. But an engine change meant he had to drop to the back of the field at the start of the race, and Busch had to power his way through the field. He took the lead with 57 laps to go, then lost it during a late round of pit stops. Busch was third on a restart with 22 laps to go, then chased down Jeff Burton and the leader Clint Bowyer to move out front again. “Say good night, Gracie,” Busch’s spotter, Jeff Dickerson, radioed. Busch had to hold off the competition over two restarts for his first victory of the season. It was his first win at Las Vegas in six career Cup series starts. He celebrated with thick burnouts through the grass, then apparently blew his engine again. Enveloped in thick white plumes of smoke, he emerged from the clouds to make his trademark bow to the crowd. He then was handed the checkered flag, and he kneeled to kiss the finish line. “I tell you what, this is pretty cool,” Busch said. “I didn’t know exactly what it would mean, but coming to the checkered flag, there were knots in my stomach. It’s bigger than winning the Daytona 500. I said it wasn’t going to be, but it is.” Bowyer finished second and Burton was third, bouncing back from a horrible run last week at California. David Reutimann, one of the five Toyota drivers who had to change a motor this weekend, finished fourth and was followed by Bobby Labonte and Jeff Gordon. Matt Kenseth, trying to become the first driver in Nascar history to win the first three races of the season, had engine failure six laps into the race and finished last.
|
Busch Kyle;National Assn of Stock Car Auto Racing;Automobile Racing
|
ny0053795
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2014/07/19
|
Downing of Jet Exposes Defects of Flight Precautions Over Ukraine
|
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — As this Southeast Asian nation mourns the loss of scores of passengers aboard another lost Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200, the precautions instituted by the aviation authorities and flight planners to protect commercial aviation along the Russian-Ukrainian border have been shown to be catastrophically insufficient. The downing of the passenger plane over eastern Ukraine on Thursday occurred shortly after the authorities in Russia and Ukraine, reacting to dangers presented by the conflict around the city of Donetsk, Ukraine, closed air space up to 32,000 feet along the passenger jet’s planned route. Ukraine made the changes on Monday, the same day a Ukrainian AN-26 military cargo plane was destroyed by a missile while flying at 21,000 feet. Russia followed with similar restrictions effective at midnight on Wednesday, hours before Flight 17 took off from Amsterdam. The decision by government officials to restrict the airspace, rather than close it completely, raised unanswered questions. The attack on the cargo plane, American and Ukrainian officials said, indicated that a more powerful missile than those previously fired in the conflict had been used. These missiles, including SA-11s, SA-17s and SA-20s, can readily strike aircraft at standard cruising altitudes for commercial passenger jets, changing the nature of the menace to civilian aviation. But the new restrictions underestimated the risks to a startling degree, aviation officials said, leaving Flight 17 exposed at 33,000 feet to missiles known to fly to more than twice that height. Officials in the United States said on Friday that the jet, with 298 people aboard, was most likely downed by an SA-11 , which carries a large high-explosive warhead at roughly three times the speed of sound. Variants of the missile can hit targets at altitudes exceeding 70,000 feet, according to IHS Jane’s, a defense consultancy. Malaysia Airlines flight dispatchers, who draft flight plans, and the jetliner’s crew, which followed the plan provided to them from Kuala Lumpur, observed the restrictions imposed by Russia and Ukraine, according to European aviation authorities and the airline. One European aviation official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the missile strike, said that the airspace restrictions set by Russia and Ukraine were inadequate, but that the airline dispatchers still had the option of plotting routes around the conflict area. “The general feeling is that if the airspace is closed to 32,000 feet, the last thing I am going to do is fly at 33,000,” he said. “We wouldn’t have gone anywhere near it once we knew they were shooting things out of the sky.” At a news conference here, Liow Tiong Lai, Malaysia’s transport minister, said the aircraft had been following a safe route that Malaysia Airlines had used for years and that, through Thursday, was still used by several Asian and European airlines. “During that period of time, there are also many other aircraft using the same route,” he said. Maps of the Crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 A Malaysia Airlines flight with nearly 300 people aboard crashed in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border on July 17. Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia pointed out earlier in the day that the International Civil Aviation Organization had kept the flight corridor open, the International Air Transport Association had not restricted travel in Ukrainian airspace, and European air traffic control officials had continued to direct flights through the area. Malaysia Airlines came up with a flight plan within air traffic control parameters, but air traffic control agencies said they did not play an extensive role in evaluating it. Sergei V. Izvolsky, the spokesman for the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency, said in a telephone interview that it was not up to Russia to give recommendations to foreign air carriers regarding the flight routes for their planes. “They make up their flight plans and coordinate them with their information services,” Mr. Izvolsky said. Another aviation industry official said that restricting the airspace, rather than closing it, implied that the route was safe even when it was not. “Airlines depend on governments and air traffic control authorities to advise which airspace is available for flight, and they plan within those limits,” Tony Tyler, the director general of the International Air Transport Association in Geneva, said in a statement. Nico Voorbach, president of the European Cockpit Association, a regional pilot’s union, said: “We have to be able to rely on the information we have from security agencies, governments and national civil aviation authorities. They are normally in a better position to judge if it’s safe.” What Happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 An updated summary of what is known and not known about the crash. Malaysia Airlines issued a statement on Friday saying it had filed a flight plan to cross the area at 35,000 feet, only to be told by Ukrainian air traffic controllers that the plane should maintain an altitude of 33,000 feet. Either elevation was above the restriction, but within range of an SA-11. A European aviation official confirmed the change to the flight plan. “That was in accordance with normal air traffic control procedures,” said Brian Flynn, the head of network management and external relations at Eurocontrol, the Brussels-based agency that coordinates air traffic in the region. “It would not have been considered unusual.” Based on the radar data, Flight 17 was steady at 33,000 feet at the time of the attack and was on track to stay at that level, Mr. Flynn said. He said that airspace restrictions had been introduced by Ukraine on July 1, initially restricting flights below 26,000 feet, and had not had much effect on the volume of air traffic over the area, indicating that many carriers considered the route safe. Before June 30, around 400 daily flights passed through the area at all altitudes, he said. After the first set of restrictions, traffic dropped by a few dozen flights per day. When the restriction was extended to 32,000 feet on July 14, the daily traffic decreased only by about 50 flights from a month earlier, a reduction of around 12 percent. A majority of air traffic crossing the area where Flight 17 was struck consists of international overflights that are already at cruising altitude and would not be required to adjust their normal routes to accommodate the new restrictions. One aviation official said that complacency among dispatchers may have been an issue in the decision to continue the route. “They plot that same route every single day,” he said. Malaysian officials said an airline could not be expected to have the intelligence information and other resources to make independent determinations to avoid an area where air traffic controllers were still sending planes. But some carriers had already done just that. China Airlines, the flagship carrier of Taiwan, said that it had avoided flying over all of Ukraine since April 4. Korean Airlines and Asiana Airlines also confirmed that they had not flown planes through Ukrainian airspace since March 3.
|
Malaysia Airlines 17;Airlines,airplanes;Plane Crashes and Missing Planes;Ukraine;Russia;Malaysia Airlines;Air traffic control;Malaysia
|
ny0266963
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2016/03/31
|
Shifting From Wisconsin, Hillary Clinton Tells New Yorkers That She’s One of Them
|
With Bernie Sanders making headway in Wisconsin before next week’s vote there, Hillary Clinton turned her energies on Wednesday to winning a more pivotal contest: the New York primary on April 19, where a Sanders victory would be a humiliating outcome for her. In a forceful opening bid to win New York, which she represented in the United States Senate for eight years, Mrs. Clinton presented herself as the quintessential hometown candidate at a jubilant rally in Harlem, recalling her efforts to help emergency medical workers after the Sept. 11 attacks and create opportunities for struggling businesses upstate. Her advisers also unveiled a television commercial that criticizes Donald J. Trump, the leading Republican candidate, in hopes that targeting him will galvanize New York Democrats far more than attacking Mr. Sanders, who is popular among many liberals in the state. But Mrs. Clinton did draw some contrasts with Mr. Sanders during her rally at the Apollo Theater. Describing her work in Harlem to combat a childhood asthma crisis when she was senator, Mrs. Clinton said she was focused on working with doctors and community leaders to get concrete results — an implicit jab at Mr. Sanders, whose ambitious ideas like free public colleges would probably go nowhere if Republicans continue to run Congress. “It wasn’t about making a point, it was about making a difference,” Mrs. Clinton said about her work in Harlem and on other issues. “Some folks may have the luxury to hold out for the perfect, but a lot of Americans are hurting right now and they can’t wait for that. They need the good, and they need it today.” Mr. Sanders, who plans to hold a rally in the Bronx on Thursday afternoon, crisscrossed Wisconsin on Wednesday and kept up his criticism of Mrs. Clinton over her past support for free trade deals; her six-figure speeches to Goldman Sachs and other banks; and her vote, as a senator, authorizing the American-led invasion of Iraq. He began the day in Kenosha, speaking to a crowd of 2,750 at Carthage College, where he listed several automobile and manufacturing companies that had closed plants in Wisconsin and opened them in Mexico and elsewhere as a result of trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement. “We are talking, over a period of years, of the loss of tens of thousands of good-paying jobs here in Wisconsin, millions of jobs throughout this country,” Mr. Sanders said. “On all of these trade policies, Nafta, permanent normal trade relations with China, I not only voted against them, I help lead the opposition against them. On the other hand, over the years, Secretary Clinton has supported virtually all of these disastrous trade agreements.” 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. A Marquette Law School poll of likely voters in the Wisconsin Democratic primary, published Wednesday, found that Mr. Sanders had a small edge over Mrs. Clinton; he has been gaining on her in Marquette polls in recent months. The senator is well behind Mrs. Clinton in their race to accumulate the 2,383 delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination, and is counting on victories in Wisconsin and especially New York to pick up delegates and deal setbacks to Mrs. Clinton. It would be a blow for her to lose the New York primary, given her history and ties in the state; while it might not significantly affect her delegate lead, it would inevitably lead questions about the strength of her candidacy and her appeal among liberals. Mr. Sanders is making an aggressive stand in Wisconsin. His senior adviser, Tad Devine, said the campaign was running two 60-second ads, including his Simon and Garfunkel-backed “ America ” ad that has been seen 3.5 million times on YouTube, as well as five 30-second ads on trade policies, fracking regulations, Social Security, farming issues and Wall Street reforms. Mr. Devine said the ads share a broad message: “Bernie Sanders is independent of special interests because he doesn’t rely on their money.” The Clinton campaign is also running commercials in Wisconsin, including one assailing the state’s Republican governor, Scott Walker, for cutting education budgets. While not conceding Wisconsin to Mr. Sanders, Clinton advisers said that they thought he had some advantages in the state, given its history of progressive politics and the likelihood that the primary would attract many college students and independents — two key parts of the Sanders base. Advisers said that Mrs. Clinton would return to Wisconsin before the primary and campaign in Eau Claire and Milwaukee; Mr. Sanders plans to campaign there again on Friday and Sunday. Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, said that the Wisconsin outcome was likely to be close and, therefore, not yield substantially more delegates to one candidate. Democratic primaries and caucuses award delegates proportionally based on each candidate’s share of the vote. Sanders advisers have expressed optimism that a big victory in Wisconsin will provide political momentum for Mr. Sanders in New York, where he hopes to debate Mrs. Clinton before the primary, and in Pennsylvania, which he is also visiting on Thursday and holds its primary on April 26. At the Harlem rally, both Mrs. Clinton and Senator Chuck Schumer, who introduced her, repeatedly invoked her history as a New Yorker — she moved to the state to run for the Senate in 2000 — to distinguish her from Mr. Sanders, even though he was born and raised in Brooklyn. Mr. Schumer, in a nod to Mr. Sanders’s thick Brooklyn accent, said of Mrs. Clinton, “She may not always ‘tawk’ like we Brooklynites talk, but when she speaks out, she changes minds, she changes hearts, she moves to action, and she changes outcomes.” Mrs. Clinton said that she was as ambitious as any New Yorker, but charged that Mr. Sanders’s policy plans would never be realized because Congress would oppose them or because “the numbers don’t add up.” “My opponent says we’re just not thinking big enough,” she said. “Well, this is New York. No one dreams bigger than we do, but this is a city that likes to get things done, and that is what we want from our president too.” Mrs. Clinton had tougher words for Mr. Trump, saying he “plays coy with white supremacists” — Mr. Trump was slow to disavow the support of David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader — and “says demeaning and degrading things about women.” She also used the same language from the new campaign commercial, which says New Yorkers of all races and backgrounds pull together to tackle major problems and implicitly derides Mr. Trump for offering solutions like building a wall on the Mexican border. “Our diversity is a strength, not a weakness,” she said. “Together, we can face down the worst.”
|
Hillary Clinton;New York;Bernard Sanders,Bernie Sanders;2016 Presidential Election;Primaries;Democrats;NYC
|
ny0165623
|
[
"business"
] |
2006/09/28
|
Amgen Prices Colon Cancer Drug 20% Below ImClone Rival
|
In a sign that drug companies may be reaching the limits of how high they can price cancer drugs, Amgen won approval yesterday for its colorectal cancer drug Vectibix and set the price 20 percent below that of ImClone Systems’ Erbitux, a very similar product. The move by Amgen appeared to be both a competitive strategy and an acknowledgment of recent public concerns about the costs of some of the newest cancer drugs, which run tens of thousands of dollars a year. “Given the nature of scrutiny now on oncology therapeutics,” Jim Daly, the senior vice president for North American commercial operations, said in an interview, “we thought the best policy was a meaningful discount on Erbitux.” Still, Vectibix will cost $4,000 for an infusion every two weeks, or more than $100,000 for a year’s treatment, though most of the patients for whom the drug is approved are expected to survive only a few months. Dr. Leonard B. Saltz, a colon cancer specialist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, said: “I don’t think this solves the problem in any way, shape or form in terms of the ridiculous price of chemotherapy drugs. It is a baby step in the right direction.” Amgen also announced a limit on patients’ out-of-pocket expenditures on co-payments. If those exceed 5 percent of a patient’s adjusted gross income, he or she could get the drug free from then on. Vectibix, or panitumumab, is the first drug from Amgen that attacks tumors directly. The company sells billions of dollars a year worth of drugs that treat the side effects of chemotherapy. Amgen gained full rights to Vectibix with its $2.2 billion acquisition of Abgenix this year. The Food and Drug Administration approved Vectibix as essentially a last-resort treatment for late-stage colorectal cancer, after other drugs have failed. In a clinical trial, Vectibix delayed the worsening of cancer by about five weeks compared with supportive care to ease pain and suffering. But it did not increase overall survival, according to the F.D.A. Both Vectibix and Erbitux, which is marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and ImClone, render inactive a growth-stimulating protein on tumor cells called the epidermal growth-factor receptor. The main advantage of Vectibix, doctors say, is that it causes fewer dangerous allergic reactions than Erbitux. Erbitux, though, is approved for a broader range of uses. Eric Schmidt, an analyst with Cowen & Company, estimated that Vectibix could eventually achieve annual sales in a range of $500 million to $2 billion. He said the price of Erbitux might now have to come down to match that of Vectibix. He also said that Amgen’s pricing was as expected. “Amgen doesn’t want to be a charity,” he said, “And if others are getting away with it and they can price at a modest discount instead of a substantial discount, why not?”
|
Amgen Inc;Drugs (Pharmaceuticals);Cancer;ImClone Systems Incorporated
|
ny0170644
|
[
"business"
] |
2007/02/01
|
Awarder of Space Prize to Add Others
|
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 31 — Reduce poverty, win millions. The X Prize Foundation, which awarded $10 million to the maker of a private space vehicle in 2004, said Wednesday that it was starting a broad fund-raising campaign to raise $50 million. The money will be used to reward other innovators. Over the next few years, the group plans to create contests that spur innovative thinking about poverty, energy consumption and health care, among other issues, said Tom Vander Ark, president of the foundation, which is based in Los Angeles. The group said it was holding a March 3 event at Google’s headquarters to kick off the new fund-raising effort. Mr. Vander Ark said the group planned to award $200 million or more in 10 to 15 new prize categories over the next five years. The X Prize “takes action by clearly defining the goal and providing the incentive for progress,” Mr. Vander Ark said in a statement. The group is starting a contest to reward development of a hyperefficient car, able to get at least 100 miles a gallon. The car must be in production and available for purchase. The prize is likely to be $25 million, Mr. Vander Ark said. It awarded a $10 million purse to a company led by the aircraft designer Burt Rutan and the Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen. They built a vehicle that went into suborbital space in 2004. Last October the foundation announced that it would award $10 million for technology that can map 100 human genomes in 10 days.
|
X Prize Foundation;Contests and Prizes;Inventions and Patents
|
ny0262663
|
[
"sports",
"hockey"
] |
2011/12/04
|
Rangers Beat Lightning to Extend Winning Streak to Five Games
|
Derek Stepan had a tiebreaking goal and added an assist, helping the Rangers extend their winning streak to five games with a 4-2 victory over the host Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night. Stepan, who took a shot off his left ankle in Thursday’s 5-3 win over Carolina, gave the Rangers a 3-2 lead on a low-slot rebound goal with 3 minutes 19 seconds left in the game. Brad Richards scored an empty-netter in the final minute. “As a team, we did a good job of handling momentum and winning battles and playing simple,” Stepan said. The Rangers also got goals from Ruslan Fedotenko and Artem Anisimov. Henrik Lundqvist stopped 24 shots. “I’m really happy how the guys handled themselves in between the second and third period,” Rangers Coach John Tortorella said. “I don’t think there was any panic within them, and they just stayed with it. We have it rolling our way here. I thought we earned it. I don’t think we went in the back door.” Mathieu Garon made 32 saves for the Lightning, who have lost five of seven. It was the first meeting between the teams this season. Tampa Bay swept all four games against the Rangers last season, with four different goalies — Mike Smith, Dan Ellis, Cedrick Desjardins and Dwayne Roloson — earning a victory. Lundqvist has started for the Rangers in their past 25 games, dating to Nov. 10, 2005, against the Lightning. Tampa Bay went ahead, 2-1, when Tom Pyatt scored from the low left circle with 2:18 left in the second. Anisimov made it 2-2 at 6:16 of the third after a Tampa Bay defensive zone turnover. The Lightning had been 7-0-0 when leading after two periods. The contest was penalty-free until the Lightning’s Pavel Kubina received an elbowing minor with 7:35 to go in the third. JETS 4, DEVILS 2 Evander Kane scored Winnipeg’s first goal and added an empty-netter with 32 seconds left to lead the Jets past the visiting Devils. Ondrej Pavelec stopped 23 shots for the Jets, who won their second straight. Adam Henrique and Patrik Elias scored, and Johan Hedberg made 16 saves for the Devils, who have lost four in a row. Kane scored his team-leading 13th goal of the season when a shot from defenseman Dustin Byfuglien deflected off his stick past Hedberg at 1:42 of the first period. The Devils answered four minutes later with a low shot from Henrique that beat Pavelec on the glove side. The Devils went ahead, 2-1, with less than three minutes left in the second when Elias scored his ninth goal of the season on a two-man advantage. The Jets tied it at 2-2 on a short-handed goal by Alexander Burmistrov just over a minute later. ISLANDERS 5, STARS 4 Matt Moulson had a career-high four goals as the Islanders won in Dallas. Moulson scored twice in a seven-goal second period to give the Islanders a 5-4 lead off a three-on-two break with 2:50 left. Moulson has a team-high 13 goals. John Tavares and P. A. Parenteau each had three assists and Dylan Reese added his first goal of the season for the Islanders, who are 3-0-1 in their last four games. Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro left after two periods with a groin injury; his replacement, Al Montoya, stopped all 13 shots he faced in the third period. BLACKHAWKS 5, BLUES 2 Marian Hossa scored twice and visiting Chicago ended St. Louis goalie Brian Elliott’s six-game winning streak. David Perron, returning after missing 97 games because of a concussion, and Chris Stewart scored for St. Louis. FLYERS 4, COYOTES 2 Claude Giroux had his 15th goal of the season and Philadelphia dominated host Phoenix early with four consecutive first-period goals. BRUINS 4, MAPLE LEAFS 1 Tuukka Rask stopped 21 shots and Nathan Horton and David Krejci each had a goal as host Boston defeated Toronto. CAPITALS 3, SENATORS 2 Brooks Laich scored 12 seconds into overtime to give host Washington its first victory under its new coach, Dale Hunter. CANADIENS 2, KINGS 1 Carey Price made 26 saves and visiting Montreal ended a four-game losing streak. PENGUINS 3, HURRICANES 2 Arron Asham and Pascal Dupuis scored 1:27 apart in the third, and visiting Pittsburgh made a late defensive stand to beat slumping Carolina. SABRES 3, PREDATORS 2 Luke Adam had a goal and an assist to lead Buffalo past host Nashville.
|
Hockey Ice;New York Rangers;Tampa Bay Lightning;Lundqvist Henrik
|
ny0107448
|
[
"technology"
] |
2012/04/15
|
Google Is Faulted for Impeding U.S. Inquiry on Data Collection
|
SAN FRANCISCO — When Google first revealed in 2010 that cars it was using to map streets were also sweeping up sensitive personal information from wireless home networks, it called the data collection a mistake. On Saturday, federal regulators charged that Google had “deliberately impeded and delayed” an investigation into the data collection and ordered a $25,000 fine on the search giant. The finding, by the Federal Communications Commission , and the exasperated tone of the report were in marked contrast to the resolution of a separate inquiry two years ago . That investigation, by the Federal Trade Commission, accepted Google’s explanation that it was “mortified by what happened” while collecting information for its Street View project, and its promise to impose internal controls. But since then, the F.C.C. said, Google repeatedly failed to respond to requests for e-mails and other information and refused to identify the employees involved. “Although a world leader in digital search capability, Google took the position that searching its employees’ e-mail ‘would be a time-consuming and burdensome task,’ ” the report said. The commission also noted that Google stymied its efforts to learn more about the data collection because its main architect, an engineer who was not identified, had invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. When the commission asked Google to identify those responsible for the program, Google “unilaterally determined that to do so would ‘serve no useful purpose,’ ” according to the F.C.C. report. The data collection, which took place over three years, was legal because the information was not encrypted, the F.C.C. ultimately determined. A Google spokeswoman said Saturday that “we worked in good faith to answer the F.C.C.’s questions throughout the inquiry, and we’re pleased that they have concluded that we complied with the law.” Google still has the data, which it said it has never looked at and has never used in its products or services. It said it intended to delete the information once regulators gave it permission. A spokeswoman did not immediately return an e-mail inquiry about whether the engineer on the project still worked for the company. While Google’s original intentions and actions with the project are still unclear, the commission’s report and fine are likely to energize an ongoing debate about Internet privacy. The more companies like Google and Facebook know about their users, the more attractive they are to advertisers, which drive the vast majority of their income. Google’s introduction last month of a new privacy policy — one that allows more comprehensive tracking of its users’ actions — provoked a firestorm of criticism. That was only the latest privacy imbroglio the company found itself in the middle of. Some politicians are becoming skeptical. Senator Al Franken , a Democrat of Minnesota who is in charge of a subcommittee on privacy, said in a recent speech that companies like Google and Facebook accumulated data on users because “it’s their whole business model.” “And you are not their client; you are their product,” he added. Earlier controversies generally focused on information that users willingly provided. With its Street View project, Google was taking data from people who did not even know that the company was literally outside the door, peering in. European and Canadian regulators who have examined the data Google collected in the project in their own countries found that it included complete e-mail messages, instant messages, chat sessions, conversations between lovers, and Web addresses revealing sexual orientation, information that could be linked to specific street addresses. When Google was repeatedly asked if it had searched for all responsive documents and provided complete and accurate answers to all the F.C.C.’s questions, it declined to respond, Michele Ellison, chief of the F.C.C.’s Enforcement Bureau, said in an interview. Google ultimately provided the information requested under threat of subpoena. The F.C.C. orders fines on companies for impeding investigations about once a year. The commission found that Google had violated provisions of the Communications Act of 1934. Of the $25,000 penalty, Ms. Ellison said, “It’s an appropriate fine based on evidence that the investigation was deliberately impeded and our precedent.” Google, which for the last year has been run by Larry Page , one of its founders, reported net income of $2.89 billion in the first quarter of 2012. Scrutiny of Google’s privacy policies is more intense in Europe , where the Street View issue first emerged, than it is in the United States . Last year, for example, France fined the company 100,000 euros , or about $140,000 at the time, for Street View privacy violations. What Google was gathering as its cars drove up and down many thousands of streets is technically called payload data, which simply means the content of Internet communications, including e-mail. On April 27, 2010, responding to rumors about its Street View project, Google said it “does not collect or store payload data.” Two weeks later it acknowledged that was “incorrect,” saying, “It’s now clear we have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data.” In October 2010, it acknowledged that the data was more than fragments. Google’s response to the inquiry puzzled some experts. “If it really was a mistake, you would expect the company to do everything possible to cooperate with the investigation,” said Danny Sullivan of the blog Search Engine Land. “On the upside, it’s reassuring that the F.C.C. itself believes Google had no plans to use the information.” The F.C.C. did not examine the actual data that Google collected, but its report quotes the investigation by the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertes, the French data privacy regulator, as finding, for example, e-mails between married individuals seeking to have an affair. First names, e-mail addresses and physical addresses could all be discerned. After reviewing all the information it could get from Google, the F.C.C. said it could not find a clear precedent to take enforcement action on the data collection. But then, it said, it still had “significant factual questions” about what really happened with the data and why it was collected in the first place.
|
Google;Privacy;FCC;Computers and the Internet;Fines;Regulation and Deregulation;US;Computer security
|
ny0166625
|
[
"business"
] |
2006/01/03
|
Independence Air to End Flights Thursday
|
Independence Air, a low-fare airline that filed for bankruptcy protection in November, announced yesterday that it would stop operating on Thursday, saying it was unable to find offers that would let it keep flying. The last flight by Independence, a unit of FLYi, will leave White Plains at 7:26 p.m. local time. The company will seek court approval to refund tickets for flights after then. Independence started low-fare service in June 2004 after ending agreements to make commuter flights for United Airlines and Delta Air Lines. Since then, the airline has been hurt by high fuel prices while competing with carriers that lowered their costs in bankruptcy, said Rick DeLisi, a company spokesman. FLYi, based in Dulles, Va., said when it filed for bankruptcy protection on Nov. 7 that it had enough money to operate for 60 days.
|
FLYI INC;AIRLINES AND AIRPLANES;BANKRUPTCIES
|
ny0219447
|
[
"sports",
"golf"
] |
2010/05/23
|
Ochoa’s Exit Leaves Room at Top of L.P.G.A.
|
GLADSTONE, N.J. — When Lorena Ochoa abdicated her throne last month and retired from the L.P.G.A. Tour at 28, she shifted the spotlight toward a gifted group of players. Although they may not be able to match Ochoa in marketing power, the new L.P.G.A. commissioner, Michael Whan, plans to operate on the notion that a free-for-all competition can enthrall. “I hope it takes a while” to find the next great champion, he said Friday, “because I’m really going to enjoy the battle.” As 64 players convened for the Sybase Match Play Championship, Whan called this next phase “a natural evolution of what happens in sports.” No. 2-ranked Ai Miyazato marveled at the crowd vying for the top 10 after Ochoa’s 158-week reign. The veteran Juli Inkster detected excitement in the ranks. The promising 2009 Duke graduate Amanda Blumenherst said, “There’s going to be some fresh blood.” And Val Skinner, a six-time tour winner and Golf Channel commentator, said: “No player’s going to jump out and say: ‘All right! The meat’s hanging on the hook!’ It’s more like: O.K., everybody’s at the starting line. O.K., who can drive their car the fastest?” Marketing experts can spot the obstacles in a country with “an insatiable appetite for sports celebrity,” said Erin O. Patton , a Southern Methodist University sports marketing professor and branding consultant. He has worked with Michael Jordan and LeBron James as well as Venus and Serena Williams. In a telephone interview, Patton said: “It certainly makes your marketing have to work a lot harder, and it certainly creates less opportunity. Obviously, eyeballs are fixated on icons, so without having an athlete — or a couple of athletes — that becomes the face of the sport, it certainly doesn’t help.” Stephen McDaniel, a professor of sports marketing and media at the University of Maryland, mentioned the troubled economy, the money “hemorrhaging” from sponsors, the exits of Annika Sorenstam and Ochoa in the last 36 months, and a frequent topic from his classroom: the persistent puzzle of establishing women’s sports in the United States. “So this guy really has a challenge on his hands,” he said. He was referring to Whan, whose 22-year marketing career has left him impervious to doubt. “I believe one of our greatest competitive advantages is the unbelievable range of personalities on the L.P.G.A. Tour,” he said. “I always tell people if you don’t believe me, that’s just because you haven’t been to an L.P.G.A. event in a while.” He added: “We’ve got range. We’ve got bench strength, as I like to say.” Miyazato, who won three of the first six tour events of 2010, charms reporters and autograph seekers. Wearing Life Savers-like earrings and flowers-and-stars nail polish, she flows easily from speaking English to Japanese and back to English. “She is really a treat,” Skinner said. Miyazato laughs readily; she did so even after her defeat in the second round of match play on Friday. A teenage sensation in Japan, Miyazato, now 24, has steadily found her way in the bigger pond. She seldom goes unrecognized in her homeland, and at 19 she fielded an outsize request. “Some guy asked me, he really, really wanted to get married with me,” she said. “I was like, ‘Thank you, but no, thank you.’ ” He handed her a letter. She took it home, read it and found it gentle, she said. Miyazato laughed and added, “I’m still a little young, I think.” In August 2008, before Jiyai Shin of South Korea won the British Open at 20, her father wanted her to compete on the Japan Tour the next year. She spoke of dedicating her career to her mother, who died in a 2003 car accident (while Shin was on the driving range) that left her two younger siblings hospitalized for months. Told that the British Open title qualified her for L.P.G.A. tournaments later in 2008, Shin said: “Really? I can play?” Now 22, she succeeded Ochoa for the No. 1 ranking and noted the effect on her father. “After I got to No. 1, his mind is so big different,” she said in her rapidly improving English. “Because before, I play 11 years, he all the time was pushing me. After No. 1, he changed. He more respect me and respect my life, too. So it’s really changed. He’s still pushing, but just a little bit. But he said he really wanted to enjoy my life.” Challengers for the top ranking include Suzann Pettersen of Norway at No. 3. Among the American hopefuls in the top 20 are Morgan Pressel and Angela Stanford. The 91st-ranked Blumenherst, a three-time N.C.A.A. player of the year, routed No. 7 Karrie Webb on Friday. And the player who draws the largest galleries, Michelle Wie, is ranked eighth. “Michelle Wie to me does have a massive bag of tricks,” Skinner said, comparing her to Mickey Wright, Beth Daniel and Ben Hogan in ball-striking terms. “Once it all jells and she really understands it in her own golf space, not what all of us think, but when she really integrates her ability with her future,” she could be hard to catch. Despite the marketing possibilities, Whan does not want to put pressure on Wie, who lost in the Round of 16 on Saturday. “The issue I find humorous, kind of as a father, is she’s 20 years old,” Whan, 44, said. “I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Michelle Wie’s best golf is in front of her.” But Wie knows that nothing is guaranteed. “It’s becoming harder and harder to win tournaments,” she said Friday. “You go out there, practice for a couple of weeks and think you’ve gotten so much better, and then everyone else has gotten better as well, too. So it’s definitely a struggle, definitely a grind to get up there.” With Ochoa gone, Skinner spoke of the opportunity for “those players who are formidable but maybe somewhere inside wondered if they could beat Lorena.” Patton, the S.M.U. professor, acknowledges that icons are important but said that women’s sports can often be “less reliant on the star power and more reliant on the experience and the competition.” Whan clearly agrees.
|
Ochoa Lorena;Ladies Professional Golf Assn;Golf;Retirement
|
ny0296893
|
[
"business"
] |
2016/12/22
|
Hedge Fund Math: Heads We Win, Tails You Lose
|
When do 1.5 and 16 add up to 72? That’s the riddle confronting investors in Pershing Square Holdings Ltd., the closed-end fund run by the prominent activist investor Bill Ackman. In a letter to investors this month, Mr. Ackman disclosed that through the end of November, the fund had declined 13.5 percent this year after accounting for fees. (Pershing Square Holdings shouldn’t be confused with Pershing Square L.P., Mr. Ackman’s hedge fund, although the two vehicles have the same investment strategy.) That’s obviously a big disappointment, considering the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was up 7.6 percent over the same period. But that’s not what some big investors were complaining about to me this week. In the same letter, Mr. Ackman reported that during the nearly four years since it began, Pershing Square Holdings had gained a total of 20.5 percent. That would be considered mediocre at best, considering the S.&P. 500 gained over 67 percent during the same period. And that’s a 20.5 percent gain before deducting fees. Pershing Square Holdings charges investors a 1.5 percent management fee and takes 16 percent of any gains. After those fees were deducted, investors gained just 5.7 percent. That means Pershing Square kept approximately 72 percent of the fund’s gains for itself, leaving investors with the measly remains. A spokesman for Mr. Ackman declined to comment. But the reality is that many hedge funds, not just Mr. Ackman’s, reap far higher percentages of their gains than that stated in their fee structure. That’s because when they experience substantial losses — as Pershing Square did last year and is on track to do this year (its year-to-date loss through Tuesday was 12.4 percent) — they don’t have to give anything back. And for many hedge funds the results are even worse. Most hedge funds charge the proverbial two-and-20 — 2 percent of assets under management and 20 percent of any gains above a certain threshold. By these measures, Pershing Square Holdings’ lower fee structure is a relative bargain. How could Pershing Square have kept 72 percent of the gains, given that its fee structure calls for a performance fee of just 16 percent? The answer can be found in relatively simple math. As a simple example, consider an investment of $1 million in a fund that generates a 10 percent return in years one and two and then loses 5 percent in years three and four. The investor would end up with about $1.09 million, a total gain of $90,000, or 9 percent, over the four years before fees. But now consider the return after deducting a 20 percent performance fee. In years one and two, the fund manager earns $20,000 and $20,400 for a total of $40,400. The fund’s manager earns nothing in years three and four. After deducting the fees, the investor would end up after the four years with just $1.05 million, a total return of 5 percent. But the $40,400 earned by the fund is nearly 45 percent of the investor’s total gains before fees — not 20 percent. (And that’s not even figuring in a 1.5 or 2 percent management fee.) If the losses are big enough, the hedge fund manager can capture 100 percent of the gross return, or investors can lose money even as fund managers line their pockets. Investors seem to be finally catching on to the fact that most hedge fund managers share generously in the good times, but are exposed to none of the losses in bad. Because of concerns over high fees and disappointing results, some endowments and pension funds, including those in Illinois, New Jersey and Rhode Island, have cut back substantially on their hedge fund allocations this year, following the lead of Calpers, the largest pension fund in the United States, which said in 2014 that it would exit hedge funds entirely. Through the third quarter of this year, investors had withdrawn about $51.5 billion from hedge funds, according to Hedge Fund Research. “I’ve been saying for some time that the two-and-20 model is dead,” said Christopher J. Ailman, chief investment officer for the California State Teachers Retirement System, which manages assets of close to $200 billion. “Take the Pershing Square example,” he said. “Investors are only capturing 28 percent of the gains, which is totally out of whack. If it were my money, I’d say it should be the other way around — the investors should be keeping 70 percent, or even more, like 75 to 80 percent. That’s what I’d consider fair.” Mr. Ailman said that he and the chief investment officers for several large pension funds were seeking an alternative fee structure that would preserve a performance incentive for managers but more equitably share the risk. “A few very big states are really thinking through this,” he said. One approach under consideration, he said, is to use a rolling multiyear period for measuring performance fees. In year one, for example, an investor would pay only a portion of the performance fee if there was a gain. If there were losses in subsequent years, the investor would claw back the withheld compensation. That would solve the Pershing Square Holdings problem. “Quite a few large investors are thinking along these lines,” Mr. Ailman told me. “Of course the devil is in the details.” Such an approach is anathema to most hedge funds, which rely on annual performance fees to compensate their highly paid — some would say overpaid — staffs. Even so, hedge funds are competing more fiercely over fees. In a nod to investor concerns, earlier this year Mr. Ackman offered investors an option to pay no performance fees on gains of less than 5 percent, but a steeper 30 percent on gains above that level. “Management fees pretty much used to be 2 percent,” Mr. Ailman said. “Now we’re seeing them as low as 70 basis points.” And performance fees, known as carried interest, have dropped in some cases from 20 percent “to the low teens and even as low as 10 percent. And these are large, well-known funds.” Hedge fund defenders have said it isn’t fair to pick just four years of performance, like the Pershing Square Holdings example, saying it is too short a track record. Thanks to Mr. Ackman’s early successes, his longtime investors have fared much better than the more recent ones, and cumulative fees are closer to the percentages in the stated fee structures. In his letter to investors, Mr. Ackman pointed to much better results for his older hedge fund, Pershing Square L.P. Since it started in 2004, it has produced annualized compounded returns after fees of 14.9 percent, more than double the S.&P. 500’s 7.6 percent. Still, he acknowledged, “while this is a good result, it is below our long-term goals and not much solace” for “investors who joined us in recent years.”
|
Hedge fund;William A Ackman;Pershing Square Holdings;Stocks,Bonds
|
ny0135246
|
[
"business",
"yourmoney"
] |
2008/04/19
|
Cheaper, Yes, but Only on the Price
|
IT’S hard to resist the siren song of the Internet, the belief that whatever you want can be found cheaper online. But I’m bitter about my experiences buying life insurance through an online agency. My husband and I could have obtained group coverage through a work policy, but the quote we got online was about 40 percent cheaper: altogether just $62.50 a month for two 20-year level-term policies worth $500,000 each. It seemed too good to pass up. We would have to take a short physical exam, give blood and urine samples and fill out a lengthy application. A nurse who was also a licensed life insurance examiner would come to our home. It seemed a small price to pay, given the bargain price. From now on I will instantly recognize the phrase “small price to pay” as a giant red flag. The physical went smoothly. In fact, the whole process was so painless I even bragged a little to friends about our terrific life insurance deal. That is red flag No. 2: never boast about a bargain before it’s hatched. A couple of weeks later we started getting strange messages from the insurance agency and Portamedic, the company that had sent the nurse to our home, urging us to complete our physicals in order to obtain our coverage. When I called Portamedic, to my dismay the customer service representative said they had never received our medical exams, nor our paperwork. She even sounded skeptical at my assertion that we had completed the whole package. After I pressed her, she agreed to look into it. Weeks went by. After numerous frustrating phone calls to the insurance agency, Insure.com, I learned that it only brokered the deal with prospective insurers; it didn’t hire the nurse or handle the medical reports. It was Portamedic’s job to collect and deliver our data to the life insurance companies. But Portamedic couldn’t even find the nurse who had done the exam, let alone our lab results and paperwork. Paperwork, come to think of it, that had a lot of vital personal information in it. I started to panic. Was there such a thing as medical identity theft? A black market for blood and urine samples? After deciding to write a column about my experiences, I called Portamedic for a comment and reached Burt Wolder, a senior vice president of Hooper Holmes, the parent company of Portamedic. Hooper Holmes is a century-old provider of services to the insurance industry, Mr. Wolder said, explaining that the tasks that once would have fallen to my hometown insurance agent — collecting and filing all this personal data — were now done mainly by freelancers. Portamedic has a network of 9,000 examiners nationwide, only 10 percent of whom are full-time employees, he said. Still, Mr. Wolder says, “information security is a No. 1 priority for everyone in this industry,” and Portamedic’s workers are given extensive training about privacy. “This never should have happened,” he said, and offered to track down our missing applications himself. Within a day he called to say he had recovered our medical exams and all the paperwork; they had been misfiled because of some missing forms. I COULD have filled out the forms and considered the matter resolved. But I decided to consult my local insurance agent, a nice guy named Doug Sluiter, who runs the Sluiter Agency in Margaretville, N.Y. When I asked how much his life insurance might cost, the monthly premiums were only a bit higher — about $75 for two term policies worth $500,000 each. I suggested to my husband that we should switch providers on principle — to support local businesses and register a small but feisty vote against unfeeling, paperwork-losing behemoths. But while he agreed with the principle, he refused to go along, mainly because we would have to undergo yet another exam, and it would cost $150 a year more, or $3,000 over the 20-year life of the policies. Pulling a card from my own pack, he pointed out that $3,000 invested over two decades would add a small but substantial chunk to our retirement savings. I wanted to argue that choosing a cheaper policy didn’t guarantee we would save that extra cash. But I had to agree: switching didn’t seem worth the time or the energy. Sometimes the behemoths win, and life goes on.
|
Insurance;Computers and the Internet;Prices (Fares Fees and Rates);Life Insurance
|
ny0044497
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2014/02/02
|
Gun Battle in Bangkok Escalates Election Protest
|
BANGKOK — At least six people were injured Saturday in a prolonged daylight gun battle between protesters seeking to block the distribution of ballots in Bangkok and would-be voters demanding that protesters cease their attempts to obstruct national elections on Sunday. After three months of a provocative campaign by protesters to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the clash on Saturday appeared to crystallize the power struggle that has been playing out on the streets of Bangkok. Ignoring pleas by the United States and the European Union to respect the democratic process — and stoking the anger of many Thais eager to vote — the protesters have blocked the distribution of ballots in parts of Bangkok and southern Thailand, a stronghold of the opposition. The shooting on Saturday raised fears about further violence as polls opened on Sunday. There were early indications that several hundred polling stations could not open because they lacked ballots or protesters had stopped voters from entering, The Associated Press reported. James Nachtwey, an American photojournalist who suffered a minor gunshot wound to his leg during Saturday’s clashes, said shooting was coming from both sides. Despite repeated claims by the protest leader, Suthep Thaugsuban, that his movement is fighting “without weapons,” photos and video images of the clashes showed protesters firing a variety of guns. “It was bullets flying in a very modern, contemporary part of the city,” Mr. Nachtwey said. Like the political violence of 2010 in the heart of cosmopolitan Bangkok, Mr. Nachtwey said, Saturday’s gunfight was “definitely incongruous.” Mr. Nachtwey said a bullet punctured his trousers but only grazed his shin. What began as a protest three months ago against a push by the governing Pheu Thai party to grant amnesty to its former leader has evolved into a full-blown effort by protesters and their wealthy backers to block elections that, by their own admission, they seem sure to lose. Although they represent a minority of the Thai population of 65 million people, the protesters number in the hundreds of thousands in Bangkok and say they are a vanguard of a social movement to reform Thailand’s democracy. To do so, however, they say they need to suspend democracy and place the country in the hands of an unelected “people’s council” while changes are made. The protesters oppose the dominance of the governing party and its de facto leader, Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire tycoon who is Ms. Yingluck’s brother. (The amnesty bill would have benefited Mr. Thaksin, clearing what he says were politically motivated corruption charges and allowing him to return home from self-imposed exile.) The blockage of voting and the protesters’ overall skepticism of electoral democracy in Thailand has stirred anger in northern Thailand and other parts of the country where the governing party is strong. Protest leaders and their allies in the Democrat Party, which is boycotting the election, say they are confident the election will be nullified because the voting will be incomplete, mainly because their own obstructions have prevented candidates from registering in more than two dozen districts. Even if it is not nullified, the process is expected to drag on for months to allow those districts to stage votes and to give voters who were prevented from casting ballots in recent advance voting an opportunity to do so. Abhisit Vejjajiva, the leader of the Democrat Party, said Saturday that he would not vote Sunday because the election was “unconstitutional” and would not “achieve the aim of an election under a democratic system.” Critics of Mr. Abhisit, a former prime minister who has been charged with murder for a 2010 crackdown on pro-Thaksin demonstrators, say the party is boycotting the election because it is seeking to gain power by extra-constitutional means and relying on support within the county’s military establishment and elites. Somchai Srisuthiyakorn, an election commissioner whom the governing party accuses of siding with the protest movement, said on Thai television Saturday that local election officials had quit their posts in southern Thailand, making it likely that a number of stations there would be closed. “Anything can happen,” Mr. Somchai said.
|
Thailand;Election;Yingluck Shinawatra;Bangkok
|
ny0112049
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2012/02/21
|
Deron Williams of Nets Turns Tables on Jeremy Lin
|
The scene of the crime looked the same, but it could not have felt more different. On Feb. 4, the night before Eli Manning led the Giants to a Super Bowl victory, the Knicks and the Nets battled at Madison Square Garden in what felt like the Mediocrity Bowl. New York was painted Giant blue, and only the N.B.A. die-hards cared what was happening on the Garden floor. The perpetually shorthanded Nets had gone 5-5 in their 10 previous games while the Knicks had fallen off — two wins in 13 games — after a decent start. With a victory, the Nets would have owned the New York metro area’s best N.B.A. record. The possibility was like something seen only in a funhouse mirror. Deron Williams started the game hot and staked the Nets to a 21-16 lead, when with 3 minutes 35 seconds remaining in the first quarter, Jeremy Lin hopped up from Mike D’Antoni’s bench and changed the Knicks’ season, although almost nobody saw it that way at the time. “What do I know about him?” Kris Humphries asked rhetorically after the game, unaware that he, the former husband of the reality television personality Kim Kardashian, was soon to be connected by a betting line to Lin, a gambling Web site listing the odds that Lin would go on a date with Kardashian at 5 to 1 . “That’s your story tonight,” Humphries said of Lin’s 25 points and 7 assists in the Knicks’ 99-92 victory, which was the start of a seven-game winning streak. Williams cited the team’s game plan — to focus on Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire and to let Lin shoot by going under on pick-and-rolls — as part of the reason for his breakout game. Two days later, after a loss to the Chicago Bulls, Nets players learned that Lin had again carried the Knicks, with 28 points and 8 assists as the team’s starting point guard. It is no secret that Williams, a top-flight point guard, is displeased by the Nets’ struggles. On Monday, he appeared especially motivated to even the score after the Nets became the first to fall to the Linsanity Knicks. “It started on me,” Williams said of that Feb. 4 loss to Lin and the Knicks. Forced to watch the final minutes of Monday night’s game from the bench after fouling out, Williams pumped his fist when Anthony Morrow made a game-sealing 3-pointer in the Nets’ 100-92 win. Perhaps it was also fitting that Lin fouled out. “We definitely had this one circled,” Williams said. “I think our whole team did. I know I personally did, because this was stuck in my mind. This all started on me.” He added: “I don’t really watch sports. I don’t really watch too many games, but I do see Twitter. People tweeting me, and every three lines was Jeremy Lin destroyed Deron Williams. So I definitely took offense to that from the first game.” Williams had 18 points in the first half, all on 3-pointers and free throws. He made his customary slick feeds to open teammates, but the Nets struggled at times to convert the passes into points. But in the third quarter, he took over the game, scoring 10 points in 47 seconds. The sequence started with a 4-point-play generated by a shot from the wing. Williams followed with a straightaway 3-pointer while falling down, then sank another in a moment true to playgrounds. With that basket, Williams tied the record for 3-pointers by a player against the Knicks, with eight. “Anytime you get going like that and you feel like you can’t miss, it’s a good feeling,” he said. A lively bounce in his step, Williams backpedaled like a boxer after the last 3-pointer before spinning in celebration as he neared the Nets’ bench. He drew a foul on the Nets’ next possession, making two free throws to put the Nets ahead, 77-59. Less than a minute later, Williams came off a curl screen on an inbounds play to make his first 2-point shot. It gave him 36 points. He finally took a seat. The image of Lin chasing Williams around baseline picks must have been an enjoyable one for Nets fans, who have seen the point guard dichotomy between the teams turned upside down. During the Knicks’ resurgence, the Nets had lost themselves in a downward spiral of defeats, injuries and hapless play. “Definitely the toughest year of my career,” Williams said. “One of the toughest years of my life, trying to deal with it. I’ve never lost on any level going back to middle school, so it’s definitely been a struggle. I’m learning to fight through things.” Until they find a small forward and a defense, the Nets will not be the area’s elite. But perhaps after this win, they can seek solace in the reality that one game really can change everything.
|
Williams Deron;Lin Jeremy;New York Knicks;New Jersey Nets;Basketball
|
ny0149996
|
[
"business"
] |
2008/09/23
|
Most Prominent Woman on Wall Street Is Out at Citi
|
Sallie L. Krawcheck, the most prominent woman on Wall Street, was pushed out at Citigroup on Monday after months of friction with its chief executive, Vikram S. Pandit . The departure of Ms. Krawcheck, announced on Monday, highlights just how few women can be found in the corner offices as Wall Street reshapes itself for a new era. Before her, the credit crisis had felled Erin Callan of Lehman Brothers and Zoe Cruz of Morgan Stanley. Ms. Krawcheck, 43, who led the global wealth management division, had disagreed with Mr. Pandit over the direction of Citigroup, its management structure and the settlement of claims over investor losses, according to several Citigroup officials who were not authorized to publicly comment on the departure. Approaching the conflict in a more delicate fashion than asking for her resignation, Mr. Pandit offered Ms. Krawcheck a senior advisory role — chairwoman of global wealth management — and she formally turned it down Monday, according to people briefed on the situation. Ms. Krawcheck did not have another job, according to these people. Ms. Krawcheck’s exit had been rumored almost as soon as Mr. Pandit took over last December, but discussions formally began about a month ago, according to a person briefed on the situation. Hired by Sanford I. Weill and tapped for a top post by his successor, Charles O. Prince III, Ms. Krawcheck did not fit easily within Mr. Pandit’s team. Among their disagreements outlined by several Citigroup executives, Mr. Pandit had pushed for a new management structure based on geographic regions that he believed would speed decision-making. Ms. Krawcheck countered that it would create confusion and more bureaucracy. Mr. Pandit hoped to bolster profit by selling more of Citigroup’s investment banking products through its Smith Barney brokers, the executives added. Ms. Krawcheck believed financial products from a wide range of firms was ultimately better for clients and would pay off down the road. The situation culminated this summer, the Citigroup executives said, as the bank prepared to settle claims that its brokers improperly sold auction-rate securities as an investment that was safe as cash. Ms. Krawcheck lobbied hard for a solution favorable to her brokers, many of whom were separately dealing with irate customers. Mr. Pandit was focused on limiting the company’s litigation risk. Mr. Pandit and Ms. Krawcheck declined to comment on her departure. In a statement he called her “an invaluable asset” to the company. Ms. Krawcheck’s departure will bring about yet another senior management shake-up at Citigroup, just as Mr. Pandit appeared to be making progress with his turnaround plan. The new reporting lines aim to more closely integrate Citigroup’s investment banking operations and alternative products group with its network of 13,000 Smith Barney brokers, a move that Ms. Krawcheck had resisted. Michael L. Corbat, who has led Citigroup’s corporate and commercial bank, will take over as head of global wealth management. Edward Kelly, the head of Citigroup’s alternative investment group, is expected to take on the additional role of head of global banking. Ms. Krawcheck’s departure leaves few mentors in the top ranks of women on Wall Street. Ms. Callan was forced out in mid-June as the chief financial officer of Lehman Brothers while Richard S. Fuld Jr. fought to hold onto his job as chief executive. (She has resurfaced in a lower-profile role at Credit Suisse.) Ms. Cruz was dismissed last November as co-president of Morgan Stanley as it posted billions in mortgage-related losses. While there are tens of thousands of layoffs on Wall Street, there is no data that indicates women are being let go in greater numbers than men. But legal and academic experts say sharp downturns are particularly pernicious: they ratchet up internal politics, reduce the pool of female candidates vying for top jobs, and eliminate potential female role models in leadership positions. “If you get rid of the few that there are, it becomes hard to understand how they will ever get what they said they wanted: more women in senior positions,” said Cinta Kemp, who left Merrill Lynch to start a fund of funds a year ago. Jonathan Knee, a senior managing director at Evercore Partners, said, “Whoever is comfortable with each other survives so that women, who have only been in the top ranks for a short time, are very vulnerable.” Linda Friedman, a partner at Stowell & Friedman, a Chicago law firm that handles discrimination lawsuits, says she has been getting more calls from Wall Street women who have taken a buyout, are thinking of taking one or are just girding for the future. Ms. Krawcheck will walk away with a package worth $11.7 million, including a large “retention equity” grant made earlier this year. She took home more than $33.9 million in salary, bonuses and cashed-in options after joining Citigroup in 2002. A respected Wall Street analyst, Ms. Krawcheck was brought in by Mr. Weill to restore credibility after Citigroup was tarred by conflicts over its investment research. She had been the head of Sanford C. Bernstein & Company and was called “The Last Honest Analyst” by Fortune magazine. Mr. Prince, his successor as chief executive, asked her to be his finance chief. Citigroup subsequently reported quarter after quarter of weak results. The company failed to keep its expenses in line, and despite promises of internal growth, the bank kept making acquisitions. Angry investors demanded the company split itself up, and Wall Street analysts said Ms. Krawcheck was in over her head. In January 2007, Mr. Prince dispatched Ms. Krawcheck to run the global wealth management division. Ms. Krawcheck insisted that she was pleased with the new job, but Wall Street insiders described the move as a demotion.
|
Krawcheck Sallie L;Suspensions Dismissals and Resignations;Citigroup Incorporated;Pandit Vikram S;Executives and Management;Women;Layoffs and Job Reductions;Banks and Banking
|
ny0203530
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2009/08/08
|
Senate Historian Reflects on 34 Years of Unusual Queries
|
WASHINGTON — Richard A. Baker says he has received some strange inquiries throughout his 34 years as Senate historian. Many people ask him questions about the Senate jail, which does not exist. And he spends a lot of time correcting rumors, like claims that tourists can still see pockmarks from the 1814 British attack on the Capitol. What they see is just corrosion, he says. Mr. Baker, 69, will retire as the first Senate historian at the end of August, and Donald A. Ritchie, the associate historian, will take over his role. Mr. Baker has largely been responsible for shaping the mission and day-to-day operations of the Senate Historical Office. Congress established the office in the wake of the Watergate investigation, and began to emphasize the importance of record keeping after President Richard M. Nixon’s efforts to destroy official documents. The historian has been responsible for educating schoolchildren and senators alike, often turning to 20 blue binders that hold nearly every kind of list imaginable, like tallies of senators who have been governors and records of senators who have written books while in office. “He was all ready to go above and beyond the call of duty in providing his assistance,” Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, said in a statement about the aid Mr. Baker provided while Mr. Byrd was working on a four-volume history of the Senate for more than a decade. “Although he was responsible to 99 other senators, he was always there, ready and eager to help.” Mr. Baker, who earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland, said senators often asked about the styles of previous leaders or sought information about procedural matters like filibusters . “I can’t think of any leader in the last 30 or 40 years that has not had a lot of curiosity about where the Senate got where it is today,” he said. Several current and former senators who benefited from Mr. Baker’s wisdom, including the majority and minority leaders, took part in a ceremony to honor the historian at Capitol Hill on Thursday. When the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, announced that the Senate gallery would stay open next week in honor of Mr. Baker, observers said tears welled in Mr. Baker’s eyes. For years, the historian has requested that the gallery be open during recess. That kind of love of government institutions developed half a century ago for Mr. Baker. Mr. Baker, a Massachusetts native, fell in love with Washington on a high school class trip. Nearly two decades later, he was heading up the Senate Historical Office. The historian and his staff, which now includes eight others, first began an inventory of the personal papers of the hundreds of senators who had served over the years. The Armed Services Committee, Mr. Baker said, had records back to the Spanish-American War sitting in a basement storeroom. Mr. Baker admits that there was a learning curve in those early days. A reporter for The New York Times called him, asking about the number of senators who had been convicted of crimes while in office, and over three decades later, he is still a little sore that he got the answer wrong. (He said one, then discovered another; at the time, there were three.) Mr. Baker has been called on for events about history, like the nation’s bicentennial celebrations, and for events that made history, like the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. He also contributed to the development of the Capitol Visitor Center , which opened in December. One of his favorite memories is from 2000, when the United Nations Security Council came to Washington, and he delivered a lecture on the history of the Senate in foreign policy. Another highlight was the discovery of the Senate’s original accounting book, found in an underground storage room in 2002. While Tom Daschle was majority leader, he invited Mr. Baker to deliver “historical minutes” at the weekly luncheons of the Democratic caucus. “He’s got an encyclopedic mind, and he has this rich enthusiasm for his work and for the Senate itself,” Mr. Daschle said of Mr. Baker. “It’s that rare blend: the talent, the experience and the enthusiasm.” When Mr. Baker leaves the Senate, he does not plan on resting. Rather, he will write a history of the Senate’s rules. “I’ll miss the culture of Capitol Hill,” he said. “It’s a very busy place. Over the course of any given day, I maybe talked to 20 or 30 people.” But retirement, Mr. Baker thinks, will not be too different. “Historians have a good life because you never really retire,” he said. “You just switch workplaces.”
|
Baker Richard A;History;Senate;Retirement
|
ny0043016
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2014/05/31
|
Administration Lays Out Ways Groups Can Support Program for Minority Men
|
The Obama administration announced recommendations on Friday on how public and private entities can participate in a White House initiative meant to support minority men and boys, including a move to focus on summer jobs and recruit adults who can serve as mentors. “Already we’re seeing, I think, a much greater sense of urgency this summer about putting these young people in opportunities where they can learn the basic skills that they’re going to need to get attached to the labor market,” President Obama said Friday. The former basketball star Magic Johnson and Joe Echevarria, who heads the accounting and consulting firm Deloitte, will help lead the program. “We’ve got a huge number of kids out there who have as much talent, and more talent, than I had, but nobody is investing in them,” Mr. Obama said, adding that over the next couple of weeks, more specific programs would be announced. The recommendations come three months after Mr. Obama announced the five-year initiative, called My Brother’s Keeper. Standing in front of a group of young minority men and executives from businesses and nonprofit organizations in February, the president recalled his own experiences as a black man growing up without a father at home and sometimes making “bad choices.” Philanthropic and corporate leaders have pledged to invest at least $200 million in the program over the next five years, the White House said, on top of the $150 million they have already invested, “to figure out which programs are the most successful.” Since the announcement, a White House task force has examined ways that the federal government, in conjunction with the private sector and philanthropic groups, could begin to address many of the issues facing minority men and boys. Some foundations are expected to announce specific recommendations in the coming weeks about which programs they will focus on. But the initiative also has its critics, including those who say its focus should include young minority women. On Wednesday, the African American Policy Forum, a social justice research group, published an open letter to the president supporting the program’s focus but also calling for a comparative initiative for women. “We have to be as concerned about the experiences of single, black women who raise their kids on sub-poverty wages as we are about the disproportionate number of black men who are incarcerated,” said the letter, which by Friday afternoon had been signed by more than 200 African-American men, including academics, writers and performers. In a statement, Valerie Jarrett, a White House senior adviser, cited the work of the White House Council on Women and Girls , adding that the recommendations in My Brother’s Keeper “will build on these efforts by creating more opportunity for girls and boys of all backgrounds because as the president strongly believes, we need to improve the odds for every child in America.” The recommendations focus on areas that include early childhood education, career and college preparation, postsecondary education and training programs, entering the work force and reducing violence. Many of the recommendations call on federal agencies, including the Education, Justice and Health and Human Services Departments, to work with nongovernmental groups, the private sector and faith-based groups to establish new programs or expand on current ones. The recommendations for early childhood education include eliminating suspensions and expulsions in preschool, expanding health and behavioral screenings for children, and promoting literacy. The report also calls for a national initiative that would use data to identify and address chronic absenteeism, and for an end to harsh school disciplinary practices. In January, the administration issued guidelines urging restraint when using arrest or expulsion to discipline students. The report also discusses creating programs to keep young men out of the juvenile justice system and to increase trust between communities of color and law enforcement.
|
Men and Boys;Barack Obama;Minorities;K-12 Education;My Brother's Keeper;US Politics;Philanthropy
|
ny0045247
|
[
"world",
"africa"
] |
2014/02/19
|
South Sudan’s Forces Clash With Rebels Near U.N. Base
|
NAIROBI, Kenya — A fierce battle erupted between government and rebel forces in an oil-rich part of South Sudan on Tuesday, in the most significant violation of the cease-fire that was supposed to help bring peace to the fractured young nation. As the fighting raged outside the United Nations compound in the city of Malakal, leaving at least 10 people dead, a smaller but no less ominous conflict broke out inside the facility among displaced people from different ethnic groups taking shelter there. The fighting among civilians in what was supposed to be the safety of the United Nations base was the latest sign of the deteriorating cohesion in an already frayed nation. The United Nations said in a statement that “intercommunal clashes flared up within the Protection of Civilians site,” where nearly 22,000 people have sought protection at the compound, including members of both the Dinka and Nuer ethnic groups. “The mission strongly condemns those who instigated the intercommunal violence,” the United Nations statement said, “and reserves the right to take appropriate action against these individuals.” The strife in South Sudan began as a political conflict between President Salva Kiir and his former vice president, Riek Machar. Mr. Kiir summarily dismissed Mr. Machar, as well as the rest of the cabinet, last July. The situation turned violent on Dec. 15 when fighting broke out in a military barracks in the South Sudanese capital of Juba. Mr. Kiir accused his former deputy of staging an attempted coup, a charge Mr. Machar denied. He fled the capital, and forces loyal to him took up arms against Mr. Kiir’s government. As the political crisis slipped toward civil war, government forces rounded up and killed members of Mr. Machar’s Nuer ethnic group in Juba, witnesses and human rights groups said. That was followed by reprisal attacks against the Dinka, the country’s largest ethnic group and Mr. Kiir’s community, especially in the city of Bor, the scene of some of the worst fighting. The conflict has displaced nearly 900,000 people, with many fleeing into neighboring countries. Humanitarian aid groups have warned that the risk of famine grows each day, as fields lie fallow ahead of the rainy season. There had been tensions in the camp at Malakal, in Upper Nile State, even in the early days of the conflict, when residents predicted that cramped conditions and shortages of food and water would lead to fighting between Dinka and Nuer. It was unclear what had set off Tuesday’s violence. According to the United Nations statement, peacekeepers had “to concentrate on protecting the perimeter of the camp from this external threat.” “Violence then re-erupted” in the civilian area. John Prendergast, a founder of the Enough Project, a nonprofit antigenocide group, who recently returned from South Sudan, said: “Fighting among the internally displaced along ethnic lines is a microcosm of how the conflict has degenerated in some places to an intercommunal one. The political disputes in Juba that caused this conflict are now echoing in the far corners of the country in the form of interethnic killings.” The two sides signed a cease-fire last month , which was supposed to keep the peace until a broader political deal could be reached. From the beginning, each side has accused the other of breaching the agreement. Mr. Machar’s hometown, Leer, was attacked, and more than 1,100 homes were destroyed by fire. Government forces were in control of Malakal when the fighting broke out there on Tuesday. “Malakal came under very heavy attack from the rebels of Riek Machar this morning,” said Col. Philip Aguer, spokesman for the South Sudanese military. A spokesman for the rebels said that troops loyal to Mr. Kiir had started the fighting, when government forces attacked their positions several miles outside town. “The attacking forces were repulsed, pursued and flushed out of their last stronghold north of Malakal town,” the spokesman, Brig. Gen. Lul Ruai Koang, said in a statement. He said rebel forces had been attacked by Ugandan warplanes, which Colonel Aguer denied. Ugandan forces have supported the South Sudanese government, and rebel negotiators say peace is not possible until the Ugandans leave South Sudan. “People just won’t go home because they can’t guarantee their own safety,” said Grace Cahill, a spokeswoman for Oxfam in South Sudan. Fighting when there is supposed to be a cease-fire “is a signal to people that they can’t trust their political process.” Negotiations in Addis Ababa will continue, despite the violence in Malakal, the government of South Sudan said Tuesday, but it urged international observers to monitor the cease-fire on the ground and track violations. “The monitoring mechanism is not in place, and the rebels continue to disregard whatever was agreed,” said Michael Makuei Lueth, South Sudan’s information minister.
|
Malakal South Sudan;Military;UN;Fatalities,casualties;Riek Machar;Salva Kiir Mayardit;South Sudan
|
ny0244556
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2011/04/02
|
Protesters Set Up Camp in Jordan’s Capital
|
AMMAN, Jordan — Hundreds of demonstrators calling for reform rallied late into the evening in the Jordanian capital on Friday, a week after riot police officers and government supporters violently broke up a rally and a protest camp, leaving one man dead and scores injured. This Friday’s demonstration, by contrast, went on for hours without intervention. The reformists stayed at their new location, the downtown Municipality Square, from after noon prayers until 10 p.m. The protesters hailed mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood and the March 24 Movement, a new organization that had originally planned to camp out from that date until their demands for reform were met, like those who took up temporary residency in Tahrir Square in Cairo. But the camp was destroyed a day after it was set up. The Muslim Brotherhood estimated the number of protesters on Friday at up to 2,000, though others said it was closer to 800. The main demands raised by the demonstrators were an end to corruption and constitutional reform that would curb the sweeping powers of King Abdullah II . Pro-democracy demonstrations have been taking place here regularly since January, when the Tunisian revolution set off a wave of regional upheaval. Responding to public pressure, the king replaced the cabinet and ordered his new prime minister, Marouf al-Bakhit, to begin electoral reforms and reach out to all elements of Jordanian society, including the Muslim Brotherhood. But progress has been slow, and the opposition groups have meanwhile stepped up their demands for more fundamental constitutional reform. The police were out in force on Friday, and convoys of cars driven by young men and decorated with Jordanian flags and portraits of King Abdullah paraded through streets that were blocked to other traffic. Hundreds of police officers separated a small group of pro-government demonstrators from the main protest, which ended peacefully this time. Zaki Saad, head of the political bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood, said that promises had been given by the authorities that demonstrators would not be attacked. “There is now an official decision not to send thugs to attack the demonstrators,” he said in an interview. That, he said, “proves that what happened last Friday was the result of an official decision.” He was referring to the violence of the previous week when government supporters attacked the protesters with sticks and rods. When the protesters fought back, the riot police were called in, and they broke up the fighting as well as the tent camp. The opposition groups say there have been attempts to polarize the society and to portray the protesters as antipatriotic. Commenting on the parades of cars on Friday, Mr. Saad said it was “a continuation of the campaign to provoke division among the people, between ‘loyalists’ and ‘reformists.’ ” Later, the Muslim Brotherhood shura council issued a statement saying, “We urge the king’s direct intervention through a major reform initiative to prevent sedition, defuse the crisis, ensure freedoms, introduce true political change and avert division.”
|
Jordan;Demonstrations Protests and Riots;Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- );Muslim Brotherhood;Abdullah II King of Jordan;Bakhit Marouf al-
|
ny0087476
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2015/07/23
|
Thomas Libous, New York State Senator, Is Convicted of Lying to F.B.I.
|
WHITE PLAINS — State Senator Thomas W. Libous, who became one of the most powerful lawmakers in Albany but had his life upended by cancer and a corruption case, was found guilty on Wednesday of lying to agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation who were examining his son’s hiring at a politically connected law firm. Mr. Libous, 62, who was the second-highest-ranking Republican senator and represented a district that includes Binghamton, forfeited his Senate seat as a result of his conviction. He will be sentenced on Oct. 30 and faces up to five years in prison. First elected to the Senate in 1988, Mr. Libous joins the roster of New York elected officials whose careers came to an abrupt and inglorious end after a criminal prosecution. The verdict was a victory for Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, who has brought a series of corruption cases against state lawmakers while criticizing the way business is done in Albany. “Public corruption is a scourge,” Mr. Bharara said in a statement, adding that “lies to law enforcement make the job of fighting corruption doubly difficult.” “Libous’s lies have been exposed, his crime has been proven, and Albany will be the better for it,” Mr. Bharara said. Mr. Libous displayed little reaction as the verdict was announced in Federal District Court here on Wednesday, about six hours after jurors began to deliberate. “Everybody treated us fine, and this is the system, and I’m disappointed, but we move on,” Mr. Libous said outside the courthouse. For the senator, the verdict added to a trying period. Mr. Libous has prostate cancer that he has said is terminal. In January, his son Matthew Libous was convicted of federal tax charges; he was later sentenced to six months in prison , though he was allowed to delay his surrender because of his father’s trial. The senator’s trial, which began last week, offered a glimpse of the close dealings between legislators and the lobbyists seeking to influence them. It also rekindled questions about the potential for legislators to use their offices to financially benefit themselves or their families. The same issue surfaced in the case of State Senator Dean G. Skelos, who was arrested in May on charges that he used his position to obtain income for his son, Adam. Mr. Skelos had been Senate majority leader but gave up that post after his arrest. According to testimony at his trial, Mr. Libous had a similar motivation. Federal prosecutors said that toward the end of 2005, Mr. Libous used his influence to arrange for his son Matthew to be hired by a Westchester County law firm, Santangelo, Randazzo & Mangone. Mr. Libous explained at the time that his son needed to make more money, according to testimony from Anthony Mangone, a now-disbarred lawyer who had been a partner at the law firm and who also worked as an aide to another Republican senator. Mr. Mangone said Senator Libous pledged to direct business to the firm — “enough work to build a new wing on our property,” Mr. Mangone testified. Mr. Mangone’s credibility was a major issue at the trial. He pleaded guilty to several federal charges in 2010 as part of an unrelated corruption case and was testifying as part of a cooperation agreement with the government. Prosecutors said Mr. Libous also arranged for an Albany lobbying firm, Ostroff, Hiffa & Associates, to pay the law firm to defray the cost of his son’s salary, which was $150,000. The arrangement, as the government described it, did not fall into place without hiccups. Notably, in one episode recounted at the trial, Matthew Libous was said to have gotten drunk at a holiday party for the law firm and propositioned the wife of a partner, jeopardizing the arrangement. Mr. Libous apologized on his son’s behalf, keeping the deal intact. In 2010, two agents from the F.B.I. showed up unannounced at the senator’s office at the State Capitol to ask questions about his son’s hiring. The case against Mr. Libous revolved around that brief conversation, and whether the senator had tried to conceal his role in the hiring. He was accused of one count of making false statements to the bureau. An F.B.I. agent, Robert Silveri, testified that Mr. Libous said, among other things, that he did not recall how his son came to work at the law firm, and that no deals had been made to get him a job there. Prosecutors said Mr. Libous lied to the agents that day, and the jury agreed.
|
Thomas Libous;New York;Corruption;Matthew Libous;State legislature
|
ny0236365
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2010/06/03
|
N.F.L. Committee Seeks Changes On Concussions
|
The chairmen of the N.F.L. ’s revamped head, neck and spine medical committee said their goal was to change the culture among players, who have a tendency to play down head injuries. Players want to stay on the field, keep their jobs and sign more lucrative contracts. Drs. Richard Ellenbogen and Hunt Batjer, the co-chairmen, broached the idea of giving players some sort of financial incentive for reporting concussions. They also suggested finding a way to ensure players would not lose their place in the lineup or the roster if they miss time with a concussion. They also discussed the possibility of having a transmitter in the helmet of every player — to record every major and minor blow to the head to get a gauge of the cumulative effect.
|
Concussions;Football;National Football League
|
ny0266707
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2016/03/21
|
Tensions Rise in David Cameron’s Government Over E.U. Vote
|
LONDON — With a referendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union fewer than 100 days away, Prime Minister David Cameron faced deepening fissures within his government on Sunday, underscoring the risk that his Conservative Party could be torn apart over the country’s relationship with the Continent. The heightened tensions were exposed late Friday by the resignation of a government minister, Iain Duncan Smith , a former Conservative Party leader who oversaw work and pensions policy in Mr. Cameron’s cabinet. Mr. Duncan Smith, who backs a British exit from the European Union, ostensibly resigned over proposed cuts to welfare payments for people with disabilities. But the government had already signaled that it was reconsidering the cuts because of opposition to them, and Mr. Duncan Smith’s decision to step down was widely seen as a more fundamental break with Mr. Cameron and his No. 2, George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, who are leading the campaign for Britain to stay in the European Union. Mr. Duncan Smith had been one of six senior cabinet ministers supporting a British exit from the bloc. “This really seems to be about the European referendum campaign,” the pensions minister, Ros Altmann, said in a statement late Saturday. “He seems to want to do maximum damage to the party leadership in order to further his campaign to try to get Britain to leave the E.U.” Ms. Altmann added that “as far as I could tell, he appeared to spend much of the last few months plotting over Europe and against the leadership of the party, and it seemed to me he had been planning to find a reason to resign for a long time.” Mr. Duncan Smith rejected that argument on Sunday, saying on the BBC that he felt he had become “semidetached” from the government and that the proposed welfare cuts were “deeply unfair” because they were “juxtaposed” with tax cuts for the wealthy. Though the government said overall spending on disability benefits would grow, the changes outlined Wednesday suggested an eventual savings of more than 4 billion pounds, or about $5.7 billion, in disability benefits offered to about 640,000 people. By the time Mr. Duncan Smith quit, the government had made clear that it was reconsidering the proposals. Britain’s Sunday newspapers featured accounts of the acrimonious fallout between Mr. Cameron and Mr. Duncan Smith. The Mail on Sunday reported that the prime minister had described the resignation as “dishonorable,” and used a four-letter word to describe his former cabinet colleague during a heated telephone call with him on Friday evening. At one level, Mr. Duncan Smith’s departure highlighted the enmities at the top of the Conservative Party, including resentment of Mr. Osborne, who is seen as a candidate to succeed Mr. Cameron. The prime minister has said he will not seek another term after this one expires in 2020. Mr. Osborne and Mr. Duncan Smith do not get along, and their relationship has been worsened by tensions going back years over welfare policy. But the root of the current problems dates to January 2013, when Mr. Cameron announced plans for a referendum , before the end of 2017, on British membership in the European Union. At the time, this looked to many like a smart tactic to prevent a split within his Conservative Party over the Europe issue. Now it looks increasingly as if Mr. Cameron won time, not unity. Under pressure from those who favor a British exit from the bloc, Mr. Cameron is allowing ministers to campaign against his policy of remaining in the European Union, effectively creating two camps within the government. Mr. Duncan Smith has been highly vocal in his criticism of Mr. Cameron’s stance on Europe, describing one official document about the European Union as a “dodgy dossier.” There was speculation that Mr. Duncan Smith might lose his cabinet job after the referendum, if Britons vote to remain, and his most notable defenders on Sunday included those who also favor leaving the bloc. The nature of his departure, along with his strongly worded resignation letter, seemed designed to inflict maximum damage on Mr. Osborne’s political reputation even if that undermined Mr. Cameron’s authority. On Sunday, Mr. Cameron said that the result of the Europe plebiscite was likely to be close, and that the outcome could depend on whether those who favor remaining, but do not feel very strongly about the issue, turn out to vote. “My fear is turnout,” Mr. Cameron said in an interview in The Independent on Sunday , which published its last issue on Sunday. “I think a lot of people might think: ‘Well, in the end, it’s the rational thing to stay, but I’ll let other people make that choice for me,’ ” Mr. Cameron said. “Don’t. This is very close, no doubt about it.”
|
Great Britain;EU;David Cameron;Referendum;Iain Duncan Smith;Conservative Party;Tax;Brexit
|
ny0044662
|
[
"business",
"energy-environment"
] |
2014/02/18
|
Duke Energy to Abandon Midwest Power Generation
|
Duke Energy said on Monday that it would get out of the wholesale power generation business in the Midwest because the financial results were too volatile. The company owns a stake in 11 power plants in Ohio and one each in Illinois and Pennsylvania. Duke said it would take an accounting charge of $1 billion to $2 billion on its first-quarter results for exiting the business. The write-down will be considered a special item and will not affect Duke’s adjusted earnings per share, the company said. Last week, Ohio regulators rejected Duke’s request for a $729 million rate increase.
|
Duke Energy;Midwestern United States;Electric power
|
ny0287990
|
[
"sports",
"olympics"
] |
2016/08/21
|
History of Corruption Charges Dogs Brazil’s Gold Medal Soccer Run
|
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil became the most decorated nation in Olympic soccer last week, winning its eighth medal Saturday and its first gold when the men’s team defeated Germany in a shootout. As the team celebrates, the man who oversaw its run through the competition faces criminal charges. With an outstanding warrant for his arrest, he has made himself scarce outside Brazil. That man, Marco Polo Del Nero, the president of Brazil’s soccer federation, was indicted by the United States Department of Justice on an array of corruption charges in 2015. Of the dozens of soccer officials charged in the case, Mr. Del Nero is the only one still in power. And in a country that extradites its citizens only for drug crimes, he has not just remained a free man, but also a prominent figure at the Rio Games. Brazil was implicated in an outsize way in the global soccer corruption case. Including Mr. Del Nero, six defendants are Brazilian, the most of any country. “The case has been bad for Brazil’s reputation,” Walter Feldman, Mr. Del Nero’s deputy, said in an interview here in April. Standing outside the nation’s soccer headquarters — a glassy building named after José Maria Marin, another indicted Brazilian official, who was apprehended in Switzerland and is now under house arrest at Trump Tower in Manhattan — Mr. Feldman said, “We’re used to a different system of justice, and we hope the American authorities end things soon.” They have not. Nearly 10 of Mr. Del Nero’s former colleagues from around the world are awaiting trial in Brooklyn, which is expected next year. International authorities remain on alert for Mr. Del Nero and others, in case they travel outside their home countries. Rounding the Bend in Rio 12 Photos View Slide Show › Image James Hill for The New York Times Here in Brazil, Mr. Del Nero is proceeding with business as usual, and this summer, that business has centered on the Olympics and Brazil’s high-profile pursuit of gold. Mr. Del Nero is not the first person facing criminal charges to endure in world sport, and he is not the only one in the spotlight of the Rio Games. The late João Havelange, another sports power broker, was honored at the Games last week. Mr. Havelange, a predecessor of Mr. Del Nero’s in Brazil who from 1974 to 1998 went on to lead FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, was later implicated in a scandal involving millions of dollars in kickbacks from a World Cup marketing firm. A longtime member of the International Olympic Committee, he denied the accusations but resigned from that post in 2011 before an ethics investigation concluded, pre-empting a possible suspension and putting an end to the inquiry. After Mr. Havelange died in Rio on Tuesday at 100, the Olympic committee lowered Brazilian flags to half-staff in his honor. An Olympic spokesman called questions about corruption on the day of Mr. Havelange’s death inappropriate. “Mr. Havelange was a very important person to Brazilian sport,” said Mario Andrada, a spokesman for the organizers of the Rio Games. “That doesn’t mean we are blind to history or facts.” Sepp Blatter , the former FIFA president whose own reign ended amid scandal last year, said in a phone interview last week that he hoped Brazil would win a gold medal for Mr. Havelange, who had been instrumental in bringing the Games to Rio. “They have bronze and they have silver, but they have never had gold,” said Mr. Blatter, who was following the Olympics from Switzerland. “Now they are in the final for Havelange.” Mr. Blatter said he had spoken by phone with Mr. Havelange 10 days before he died. Decisive Moments at the Rio Olympics, Frame By Frame See the Summer Games in a series of composite images. He had not, however, spoken with Mr. Del Nero — the man for whom Brazil was technically playing on Saturday — since the Brazilian fled Zurich on “one of these dramatic days of arrests last year,” Mr. Blatter said. Although the new leadership of FIFA is seeking to project an image of reform in the face of government scrutiny, Mr. Del Nero and Mr. Havelange are not shunned figures. Gianni Infantino, FIFA’s president, expressed gratitude to Mr. Havelange in a statement last week. Days before, Mr. Infantino met with Mr. Del Nero in Brazil; smiling, the men posed for several pictures together, in one of them holding up a Brazil jersey bearing Mr. Infantino’s name. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Infantino said he had not visited Rio “to evaluate the C.B.F.’s management model or its president,” using the abbreviation by which the Brazilian federation is known. He added, through the spokeswoman, “We did not talk about investigations or procedures within FIFA or any other entity.” FIFA’s ethics committee opened its own investigation into Mr. Del Nero after the United States filed charges against him, according to a FIFA spokesman, but no disciplinary action has been taken. “In the culture, you have morals, but the morals can change,” Mr. Blatter said, reflecting on how perceptions of people in power changed over time. He said he was pleased that the Olympic stadium here, where the track and field competitions have taken place, would again be named for Mr. Havelange after the Games. “There are heroes at one time that are no longer heroes now,” Mr. Blatter said, noting that he, himself, had schools and soccer fields across continents named after him. ”Let history decide if it’s good or not good,” he said. Mr. Blatter added, “Like in football, the game is not over until the referee blows the final whistle.”
|
Soccer;2016 Summer Olympics;FIFA;Marco Polo del Nero
|
ny0041543
|
[
"science"
] |
2014/05/02
|
Three-Drug Protocol Persists for Lethal Injections, Despite Ease of Using One
|
Terminally ill people who want to die can take drugs to end their lives peacefully. Ailing pets are put down humanely every day. Clearly, the technology exists to bring about a quick and painless death. Why, then, do executions by lethal injection sometimes become troubling spectacles? The death in Oklahoma on Tuesday of Clayton D. Lockett, amid struggling and apparent pain, was not the country’s first bungled execution. A number of factors have conspired to produce painful scenes in the death chamber, experts say: an ill-conceived drug formulation clung to by many states; the lack of medical expertise among people planning and carrying out executions; and, more recently, drug shortages that have pushed prison officials to improvise lethal cocktails and buy drugs from loosely regulated compounding pharmacies. According to prison officials in Oklahoma, an intravenous line inserted into Mr. Lockett’s groin did not work properly and interfered with the flow of drugs. But doctors say the drugs themselves, three used in a certain sequence, are a deeper part of the problem, because two of them cause suffering if they are administered improperly. And those two drugs are not necessary. Physicians have long known that large doses of single drugs — certain sedatives or anesthetics — can take a life painlessly, and with far less distress than the three-drug cocktail causes if the injection is botched. Since 2010, more death-penalty states — Oklahoma not among them — have moved to use single drugs for lethal injection. Even critics of the death penalty say most of those executions have gone more smoothly than ones involving multiple drugs. Barbiturates, including sodium thiopental and pentobarbital, infused into the bloodstream can quickly make a person go deeply unconscious, stop breathing and die. Dr. Mark J. Heath, an anesthesiologist at Columbia University and an expert on lethal injection, said that high doses of pentobarbital were routinely used to euthanize animals, from pet rabbits to beached whales. Barbiturates alone have been used in 71 executions, in Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Missouri, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas and Washington, said Jennifer Moreno, a lawyer with the Death Penalty Clinic at Berkeley Law School. Even though Dr. Heath opposes lethal injection, he said, “I have not seen a single complaint, not an unhappy warden or family or anybody, from the single-drug barbiturate approach.” But he said that switching to a single drug would not fix all the problems with lethal injection because intravenous lines would still be needed. Starting them can be difficult and requires medical skill. The three-drug combination used on Mr. Lockett was modeled on a plan first developed in Oklahoma in 1977 by Dr. Jay Chapman, then the state’s chief medical examiner. State lawmakers had asked him if there was a more humane way to execute people than methods like electrocution and the firing squad. Dr. Chapman proposed a large dose of a barbiturate, sodium thiopental, followed by two other drugs: one to cause paralysis and halt breathing, and the other, potassium chloride, to stop the heart. His recipe was adopted by nearly every death-penalty state. In later years, Dr. Chapman said that if he had it to do over again, he would probably recommend using just a barbiturate, and omit the paralyzing and heart-stopping drugs. But his protocol has lingered. The potential pitfall in the original formula is this: If the barbiturate is not fully effective, perhaps because the dose is too low or the needle misplaced, the inmate may still be able to feel pain. If the paralyzing agent is then injected, the person will feel suffocated — but will be unable to move or cry out, and may even look peaceful. The potassium chloride will then cause an intense burning sensation, muscle cramping and chest pain. “The second two drugs are completely unnecessary and only have a prospect of causing pain,” Dr. Heath said. The odds of the drugs’ being administered incorrectly may have been higher than Dr. Chapman anticipated because many lethal injections have been performed by people with little or no medical expertise. Though some doctors participate, many have distanced themselves, seeing execution as a betrayal of their oath to do no harm. The American Medical Association and other professional groups say doctors should not take part in executions, except to certify death after someone else has pronounced it. Arthur L. Caplan, director of medical ethics at the N.Y.U. Langone Medical Center, said medicine had been “pulling away” from capital punishment as it had become a “medical pariah issue.” What is left, he said, is a hodgepodge of prison execution workers whose “medical knowledge is iffy, and when you take away their traditional supply of drugs, they are out at sea in a tiny rowboat, not sure what to do.” Ms. Moreno said it was far from clear that medical professionals were present at all in the planning leading up to executions. She said that a handful of states — including California, Kentucky and Nebraska — had to determine the rules for execution procedures, including drug cocktails, in public, but the vast majority of states did not, often leaving decisions about which drugs to use up to prison wardens who have no medical training. In recent years, supplies of sodium thiopental and pentobarbital have dried up because their European makers refuse to sell them for lethal injections. Prison systems have responded by concocting new formulas, sometimes, as in Oklahoma, sticking to three-drug combinations. Deborah W. Denno, a death penalty expert and law professor at Fordham, said states were trying desperately to stick to their execution schedules, making “unfettered substitutions” of drugs, becoming more secretive about their protocols and running greater risks that their executions would violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. More than a dozen of the most recent executions using just one barbiturate, pentobarbital, had the drug made by compounding pharmacies, Ms. Moreno said. Prisons generally keep the identity of the pharmacies a secret, and it is not clear where the compounders get their raw materials. Two of those executions had problems, Ms. Moreno said: In one, the prisoner complained of a burning sensation, and in the other, the prisoner gasped heavily. Because compounding pharmacies have had severe problems with contaminated drugs in recent years , death penalty opponents and defense lawyers have begun to protest their use.
|
Capital punishment;Prison;Clayton Darrell Lockett;Sodium Thiopental;Sedative;Pharmaceuticals;Oklahoma
|
ny0039482
|
[
"sports"
] |
2014/04/10
|
Video: Cooks Do It All on Snowboard Expeditions
|
“Higher Unplugged” looks at the making of the film “Higher,” which follows the snowboarder Jeremy Jones and the Teton Gravity Research crew as they ascend and ride peaks in Alaska, Wyoming, California and Nepal. Jones is a professional snowboarder who has been named big mountain rider of the year 10 times by Snowboarder magazine. For nearly two decades, Jeremy Jones has traveled to Alaska in the spring to explore new zones. On these trips, in which snowboarders are often dropped into remote areas by a bush plane, space is at a premium. Consequently, Jones and Teton Gravity Research must carefully calculate the resources needed to support and film their expeditions. When selecting team members, they look for people who are as versatile as they are dependable. No one embodies this better than the crew’s camp cook. For expeditions to Alaska, the camp cook is tasked with more than making oatmeal. Essentially serving as the base camp manager, the cook assists with everything from melting snow for drinking water to belaying snowboarders during descents. As a result, these individuals tend to have “the most dialed mountain skill set around,” Jones said. And as much as cooking over a camp stove is rewarding, Jones reveals that “the real payout for the cook is to shred.” In Jones’s most recent film projects, the crew’s camp cooks were especially strong riders. While filming for “Further” in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Canyon Florey turned heads with his descents. Similarly, Lucas Merli surprised Jones and his colleagues on a trip last spring to the Eastern Alaska Range to film for “Higher.” In addition to impressing crew members with his cooking, Merli satiated their appetite with his riding.
|
Snowboarding;Jeremy Jones
|
ny0226883
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2010/10/24
|
Knicks Nearly Top N.B.A. in Issuing Twitter Posts
|
The Knicks will not shut up. Ronny Turiaf is rhapsodizing about snorkeling, anime and eggnog. Wilson Chandler is reciting new-age affirmations and Bible verses. Roger Mason is extolling Malcolm Gladwell. Landry Fields is extolling Mint Milanos. The conversation is rollicking, continuous and delivered in 140-character bursts. Once, Knicks players seemed almost afraid to speak their minds. Suddenly, they are one of the chattiest teams in the N.B.A. Eleven Knicks are on Twitter , a number matched only by the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Milwaukee Bucks. The Phoenix Suns and the Boston Celtics each have 10 players issuing messages. “It’s kind of cool to be on Twitter,” said Turiaf, the Knicks’ backup center and leading chatterbox. Among professional leagues, the N.B.A. is at the forefront of the social media boom. It has the most fans on Facebook (5.3 million), the most followers on Twitter (2.1 million) and the most viewed videos on YouTube (438 million). All 30 teams have a presence on Facebook and Twitter. Nearly 200 players — more than 40 percent of the league — have Twitter accounts. Between the two services, the N.B.A. has a combined 60 million followers. Finding the Knicks among the league leaders is, however, a stunning development. Until two years ago, the franchise had the strictest media policy in the league. Players generally could not speak to reporters without a public relations person present. Every interview with the head coach or the team president was monitored and transcribed. Staff members avoided reporters for fear of violating the rules. Paranoia reigned. The repressive culture began to ease in 2008, when Donnie Walsh insisted on abolishing the rules upon becoming team president. Players are now free to speak without supervision, and free to engage the world with a few taps at the keyboard. “I’m not going to try to limit somebody’s freedom of expression,” Walsh said. He has just one essential rule: be responsible. “I think you have to trust their discretion in what they say,” he said. “And I do trust them, until I can’t trust them.” Only one flagrant violation involved Twitter. In August 2009, Nate Robinson posted messages during a traffic stop, turning an otherwise minor infraction into an embarrassing news story. Robinson was traded in February, and the current Knicks have generally kept their Twitter activity to noncontroversial topics. “We’re all adults,” Mason said. “We know what to say and what not to say.” The N.B.A. also has just one rule: no use of social media during games, including halftime and the 45 minutes before tip-off. There have been few violations. Amar’e Stoudemire, then with Phoenix, was fined $7,500 last November because one of his employees posted to his account during a game. Stoudemire is now the Knicks’ star and, naturally, their top dog on Twitter, with over 154,000 followers, more than all of his teammates combined. Turiaf (more than 10,000 followers) is the most loquacious (3,466 posts). Mason, Chandler, Fields and Patrick Ewing Jr. are active. Danilo Gallinari, Anthony Randolph, Kelenna Azubuike, Bill Walker and Andy Rautins post infrequently. Eddy Curry has a private account. Among the Knicks’ top players, only Raymond Felton, Toney Douglas and Timofey Mozgov are not on Twitter. “Just not my thing,” Felton said. The running joke is that athletes use Twitter only to talk about their workouts and their lunch. (“Great workout!! Time to eat!”) But personalities can emerge in sentence fragments. Turiaf answers every nearly fan query, while exhausting his supply of exclamation points: “I’m super hyped right now. I can see how the clouds! My pops sent me email!” Fields flashes his quirky sense of humor: “Stop being an impostor, Oatmeal Cookie, you’re not Chocolate Chip.” Chandler expresses sentiments on family, loss and religion: “Loosing people eryday, enjoy ya life n i know its hard but try n do so wit no regrets!” It was on Twitter that Stoudemire announced his interest in exploring Judaism. Mason’s fans learned about his playing pickup basketball with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. (“Spider man was guarding me. Lol.”) Walsh purged two-thirds of the roster this summer, acquiring 10 new players. The new Knicks are as collegial as they are talkative. They attended Yankee games and Ranger games, the Jay-Z/Eminem concert and Fashion Week , often en masse, often while posting Twitter updates and photos. “I guess it’s just the personalities we have on this team,” said Fields, a rookie. “Off the court, we mesh real well. And it carries over in things like Twitter.” Last season, the Nets’ Chris Douglas-Roberts became a minor Twitter star with his rants on playing time, the Nets’ on-court misery and what he regarded as fickle fans in New Jersey. The Knicks mostly stick to safe subjects: food, movies, music, traffic complaints and Bible passages. They are more likely to discuss the Book of Revelations than offer revelations about the playbook. They have devoted more time to the Kings of Leon than the Kings of Sacramento. Players say the feedback is generally positive, but the freewheeling dialogue might seem less inviting after, say, a five-game losing streak. And though the Knicks seem to enjoy one another’s spontaneous exclamations, not everyone feels the need for continual updates. “I’m around them every day,” Douglas said, chuckling.
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New York Knicks;Social Networking (Internet);Twitter;Basketball;Facebook.com;National Basketball Assn
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ny0053856
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2014/07/26
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Indian Air Force Helicopter Crashes, Killing 7
|
NEW DELHI — An Indian Air Force helicopter exploded and crashed in northern India on Friday, possibly after hitting a high-voltage electrical cable, killing all seven people aboard, the authorities announced. J. P. Singh, chief administrator of Sitapur district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, said villagers saw the helicopter “burning, exploding with a loud noise and falling on the ground like a huge fireball.” He said that the aircraft was full of fuel, and that the explosion occurred in an area where there was a high-tension wire used for carrying electrical power. The accident took place over an open field on the outskirts of the village of Himmatpurwa. The Indian Air Force has been plagued by frequent crashes of fighter planes and helicopters and now has a shortage of aircraft.
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Plane Crashes and Missing Planes;Uttar Pradesh;India;Helicopter
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ny0166511
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2006/08/15
|
Freeport: Power Failure Causes Train Shutdown
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The Babylon line of the Long Island Rail Road was shut down for several hours last night because of a power failure that began around 6:30 p.m., a spokesman for the railroad said. A tarpaulin fell from a water tower in Freeport that was in the process of being painted and struck high-tension power lines, shutting down the trains in both directions from Pennsylvania station to Babylon. The loosening of the tarp was caused in part by a large brush fire in the area, the spokesman said.
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Railroads;Blackouts and Brownouts (Electrical);Long Island Rail Road Co;New York State
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ny0180514
|
[
"sports"
] |
2007/08/24
|
Nike Puts Women Back on the Pedestal
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Nike has never shied away from shouting into a figurative megaphone to sell its shoes and apparel or to tell us to Just Do It. Nike’s amplified voice has shouted for Michael Jordan but has fallen silent in the service of Michael Vick, who has agreed to plead guilty to dogfighting charges. In a campaign that will make its debut Saturday, 18 women step up to a 15-foot-long megaphone with a 3-foot-wide mouthpiece to deliver a unified message: We’re athletes, so ditch the female modifier. “Are boys bigger, stronger, faster? Yes,” says Gabrielle Reece, the beach volleyball player, in the commercial, which was shot in a high school gym in Los Angeles. “Is that all that has to do with being an athlete? No.” Gretchen Bleiler, the Olympic snowboarder, follows Reece by saying, “The halfpipe doesn’t care that I’m a girl.” Alvina Carroll, a streetballer, adds: “It’s not a girl thing. It’s not a boy thing. It’s a skills thing.” The group commercial will be accompanied on ESPN, MTV and other networks by individual ads starring four athletes (Bleiler, Carroll, Picabo Street and Mia Hamm) and one man (Bill Ressler, a high school girls’ basketball coach). Eleven more spots, which will include other athletes from the group, will appear in the coming weeks on television and on various Web sites. In her commercial, Street, a gold medalist in skiing at the 1998 Olympics, evokes Dove’s Real Beauty campaign, which celebrates the shapes of everyday women. • “I started building this body when I was 13,” she says. “I did it on purpose. Mass times velocity equals momentum. When I look in the mirror, I see an athlete. Mass is an advantage. And I’m proud of that athlete.” A billboard showing two pictures of Serena Williams from the waist up will also be unveiled Tuesday at West 34th Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. Between the images, a question is posed: “Are you looking at my titles?” The campaign is rolling out at the start of the W.N.B.A. playoffs and the United States Open, and in advance of the kickoff of the Women’s World Cup in China on Sept. 10. “It’s time to nudge the conversation,” Reece said in an interview. “Women’s professional sports have plateaued. I’ve seen it in beach volleyball; as a league, it’s been in the same place for a long time. At the grass roots, they’re taking physical education out of schools.” The ads were created by Wieden & Kennedy but are unscripted; the athletes were briefed on the broad themes but ad-libbed their parts. Diana Taurasi, a guard for the Phoenix Mercury, said by telephone: “They threw us topics about racism, sexism — all the things that are a backlash to women’s sports. We freelanced, and I guess it came out powerfully.” • Sarah Reinertsen, a triathlete who has worn a prosthetic left leg since she was 7, said the campaign resonated with her. “I’ve always been fighting to be seen as an athlete but also as a disabled woman,” she said in an interview. “For so long, I wasn’t included in sports, so I feel every person, regardless of gender or disability, has a right to be an athlete.” Some of the themes raised in the ads emerged in Nike’s interviews with 175 teenage female athletes in major markets around the country this year. “They think of themselves as competitors first and want to win as much as their male counterparts,” Nancy Monsarrat, Nike’s United States brand marketing director, said. “But as strong as they are, they had issues about sexism and inequities in the sports they play compared with the males.” A campaign aimed at teenage girls is a strategy that helps Nike maintain its hold on female consumers, and comes shortly after Under Armour began a marketing push aimed at the team girls niche. Nike says it has 19 percent of the combined United States and European footwear and apparel markets for women; John Horan, the publisher of the newsletter Sporting Goods Intelligence, said that Nike was far ahead of any of its competitors. Last year, in a whimsical vein, Nike cast Maria Sharapova in a TV ad in which everyone she passed on her way to the United States Open sang “I Feel Pretty.” But in April, after Don Imus’s remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team, which Nike sponsors, were viewed as racist, the company ran a full-age ad in The New York Times with 10 lines that began, “Thank you, ignorance,” and continued, “Thank you for unintentionally moving women’s sport forward.” The new campaign broadly continues the debate sparked by Imus’s poorly chosen words. “The Imus incident was key,” Taurasi said. “A lot of people still think that way about women athletes.” Notes Faith Hill will replace Pink as the singer of “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night,” which opens NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.” ... Ralph Kiner will join Fox during the third inning of tomorrow’s Dodgers-Mets game.
|
Women;Athletics and Sports;Advertising and Marketing;Nike Inc
|
ny0049571
|
[
"us"
] |
2014/10/04
|
For Journalists, a Stark Reminder of the Risk in Covering a Deadly Epidemic
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Before John Moore, a photographer for Getty Images, goes into a hospital in Liberia for patients suspected of having Ebola, or enters the house of a victim with a burial team, he suits up. He puts on anti-contamination coveralls, and two sets of gloves. He tapes the gap between the gloves and his sleeves in case he stretches his arms. He covers his face with a surgical mask and goggles. His boots are covered with disposable sleeves. It takes 10 minutes to put on the outfit, and longer to take off. Because he is sprayed with disinfectant, he must disrobe slowly and deliberately to avoid getting any liquid on himself. The spray seeps through the protective clothing, so he smells perpetually of bleach. “But that’s preferable to the alternative,” he said by telephone on Friday from Monrovia, Liberia, where he had recently returned for a second reporting assignment. The dangers for Mr. Moore and his peers were highlighted on Thursday, when NBC News announced that Ashoka Mukpo, 33, an American freelance journalist working as a cameraman for the network in Liberia, was diagnosed with Ebola — a disease that can cause its victims to hemorrhage to death, and for which there is no cure or reliable vaccine. How Many Ebola Patients Have Been Treated Outside of Africa? Questions and answers on the scale of the outbreak and the science of the Ebola virus. “Certainly another journalist coming down with this,” Mr. Moore said of Mr. Mukpo, “is very worrying for all of us.” Mr. Mukpo is scheduled to arrive Monday in Omaha, Neb., where he will be treated at the Nebraska Medical Center, according to a spokesman for the hospital. Another Ebola patient, Dr. Rick Sacra, a missionary from a North Carolina-based charity, was treated there and later released. Mr. Mukpo’s diagnosis is a stark reminder that the dozens of news organizations and freelance reporters covering the Ebola crisis must balance safety concerns as they document an outbreak that has infected at least 7,400 people, killing more than 3,400, in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone since March, according to the World Health Organization. Most of the news organizations are following a set of recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but some, like National Public Radio, are also cautioning their correspondents not to enter isolation units or attend funerals, and to avoid gatherings or demonstrations. NBC News said it was taking as many precautions as possible to protect both its staff and the general population after Mr. Mukpo fell ill. The network said that it was monitoring other members of its production team in Liberia and would fly them back to the United States on a private plane. The team, which included the medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman, was to be quarantined in the United States for 21 days, which is considered the incubation time for the virus. On NBC’s “Today Show” on Friday morning, Dr. Snyderman said that once Mr. Mukpo developed symptoms, they spent two hours together. He had joined the team three days earlier. “My suspicion is that he was infected before we came and met him, and was symptomatic once we met him,” she said. “We shared a workspace. We shared vehicles. We shared equipment. But everyone here is hyper-alert we have not been in close proximity. No one shakes hands. There’s no hugging, so I do believe that our team, while we are being hypervigilant, we are at very, very, very low risk of becoming ill.” A reporter for The Washington Post, Lenny Bernstein , in an article for the newspaper, wrote that he had felt worried when he accidentally touched a handrail on the way into a treatment center in Liberia. And despite all the precautions he had taken, he wrote, a friend had canceled an appointment to attend a football game upon his return home, for fear he might be incubating the virus. James Goldston, the president of ABC News, which also has a team in Liberia, said in a memo to the staff on Friday that it had hired a biohazard company to “fully decontaminate their equipment” once it arrived in the United States. Newer media outlets, like Vice News, which had worked with Mr. Mukpo, are also covering the Ebola epidemic. Vice , which published the first of a three-part series on Ebola on its website, said two of its journalists were covering the outbreak. They disposed of their clothing and nonessential gear and luggage before returning to the United States, Vice said. They also took their temperature twice a day in the field, wiped down cameras and lenses with chlorine wipes before returning, and used plastic covers on all equipment. The crew also avoided contact with people. Mr. Moore said that wearing an outfit resembling a spacesuit, or “personal protective equipment,” distances reporters even more from the people they are covering. “It’s deeply weird to try and connect with people who are in a very difficult moment in their lives,” Mr. Moore said.
|
Ebola;News media,journalism;Ashoka Mukpo;NBC News;Protective Clothing;Epidemic;Getty Images;Liberia
|
ny0032603
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2013/12/20
|
On Iran and Syria, Tests of Diplomacy Intertwine
|
WASHINGTON — Early next year, the Obama administration will embark on an extraordinary diplomatic doubleheader, trying to negotiate a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran while seeking yet again a political end to nearly three years of civil war in Syria. The United States has strictly segregated the Iranian nuclear talks from the diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed in Syria. But the two are more closely connected than the White House cares to admit — and not just because both sets of negotiations are likely to be conducted on the shores of Lake Geneva. Success or failure in each could heavily influence the other. Iran remains a destabilizing force in Syria, and its neighbors view its efforts to prop up President Bashar al-Assad as inextricably linked to its expansionist designs in the Middle East, which would be furthered significantly by having a nuclear weapon. Since Iran signed the interim nuclear deal in Geneva last month, Israel and Saudi Arabia have argued that any final deal needs to confront regional issues, notably Iran’s role in Syria. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, acknowledged as much when he toured Persian Gulf states recently to reassure them about Tehran’s intentions. “They recognize their nuclear negotiations cannot be hermetically sealed off from regional issues,” said Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Ultimately, a nuclear deal has to be underpinned by a regional consensus. You’ve got to get other people’s buy-in.” The trouble is, Iran has not been invited to next month’s conference on Syria because it refuses to affirm that Mr. Assad must cede power — a prerequisite of the West. Its absence is a major impediment, given that Iran is a lifeline for Mr. Assad, providing him with training and equipment through the paramilitary Quds Force and with fighters from the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah. Iran, experts say, is redoubling its support for Mr. Assad in the days before the Syria conference, which will be held in the Swiss city of Montreux, to maximize his chances of keeping power. Iran is recruiting militias in Lebanon and Iraq to fight the rebels in Syria. Iranian rockets have worsened an already gruesome winter for millions of Syrians. Mr. Assad’s survival is so important to Iran because he is the main patron of Hezbollah, and Iran relies on that group’s missiles and rockets, pointed at Israel from Lebanon, to act as a deterrent against Israeli threats to strike its nuclear facilities. “The result is a humanitarian abomination caused by the regime, abetted by Iran, complicated by recent diplomatic initiatives, and worsened by the onset of winter,” said Frederic C. Hof, who as a State Department official worked on plans for a political transition in Syria and is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “I would hope we are leaning hard on Tehran to get its client to stop the war crimes and crimes against humanity and to oblige the regime to give unrestricted access to U.N. humanitarian relief organizations now,” he said. Mr. Hof’s words reflect a fear shared by some that the United States will turn a blind eye to Iran’s malign activities outside the nuclear sphere to prevent its diplomacy from going off the rails. Mr. Zarif has already threatened that any new sanctions will kill the negotiations. Administration officials flatly deny that, noting that the United States has retained the right to impose sanctions on Iran for human rights abuses and for activities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and its Quds Force, which is active in Syria. To show its mettle to a skeptical Congress, the administration last week imposed sanctions on several Iranian companies and individuals for evading sanctions. The move angered Tehran, which briefly suspended technical talks on the nuclear deal. “We draw no linkage between nuclear talks and Syria,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser. “Our pursuit of an agreement on the nuclear issue does not in any way lessen our concerns about Iran’s activities in the region, including their support for Assad.” For the United States, though, the grinding chaos in Syria is a distraction from those talks, which are far and away President Obama’s top priority in the Middle East. Mr. Obama’s appetite for engaging in Syria was limited even before diplomacy with Iran heated up. The White House recently suspended nonlethal aid to the rebels because of a fear that the supplies were falling into the hands of militant Islamists. As for Iran, some analysts say its muscle-flexing in Syria is part of a broader internal struggle between moderates, led by President Hassan Rouhani, who are seeking a nuclear deal to ease sanctions, and hard-liners, led by the Revolutionary Guards, who are exploiting Mr. Rouhani’s diplomatic overture to press their own expansionist goals. Given how the Middle East is dividing along sectarian lines, between Shiites and Sunnis, some analysts warn that allowing Iranian-backed elements to triumph in Syria could fatally weaken any nuclear deal. “A deal on the Iranian nuclear program isn’t going to work if you cede the hard-liners the Levant,” said Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Despite all these connections, few argue that the administration should expand the next round of nuclear talks to include Syria. The issues on the table — like centrifuges and a heavy-water reactor — are already thorny enough. Skeptics argue that Israel’s insistence on a broader focus is intended mainly to scuttle the nuclear deal. Still, to make a deal durable will require persuading Israel and Saudi Arabia not only that Iran does not have a bomb, but also that the United States will not allow it to cast a Shiite crescent across the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, in particular, fears a tilt toward Iran. As if to prove that point, some argue that Iran and the United States are not as far apart on Syria as it appears. With Islamists on the rise and with moderate rebels on the sidelines, some prominent Americans — most recently Michael V. Hayden, a former C.I.A. director — are asking whether forcing out Mr. Assad is realistic or advisable. “Iran’s position on Syria is that the alternative to Assad is more dangerous to both U.S. and Iranian interests than the status quo,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “As the Syrian conflict has persisted, more and more important voices in Washington have come around to this conclusion.”
|
Iran;Syria;US Foreign Policy;Nuclear weapon;Sanctions
|
ny0057161
|
[
"us"
] |
2014/09/09
|
Climate Change Will Disrupt Half of North America’s Bird Species, Study Says
|
The Baltimore oriole will probably no longer live in Maryland, the common loon might leave Minnesota, and the trumpeter swan could be entirely gone. Those are some of the grim prospects outlined in a report released on Monday by the National Audubon Society , which found that climate change is likely to so alter the bird population of North America that about half of the approximately 650 species will be driven to smaller spaces or forced to find new places to live, feed and breed over the next 65 years. If they do not — and for several dozen it will be very difficult — they could become extinct. The four Audubon Society scientists who wrote the report projected in it that 21.4 percent of existing bird species studied will lose “more than half of the current climactic range by 2050 without the potential to make up losses by moving to other areas.” An additional 32 percent will be in the same predicament by 2080, they said. Among the most threatened species are the three-toed woodpecker, the northern hawk owl, the northern gannet, Baird’s sparrow, the rufous hummingbird and the trumpeter swan, the report said. They are among the 30 species that, by 2050, will no longer be able to live and breed in more than 90 percent of their current territory. “Common sense will tell you that with these kinds of findings, it’s hard to believe we won’t lose some species to extinction,” said David Yarnold, the president of the National Audubon Society. “How many? We honestly don’t know. We don’t know which ones are going to prove heroically resilient.” Can the birds just move? “Some can and some will,” Mr. Yarnold said. “But what happens to a yellow-billed magpie in California that depends on scrub oak habitat? What happens as that bird keeps moving higher and higher and farther north and runs out of oak trees? Trees don’t fly. Birds do.” Climate Change Threatens to Disrupt the Ranges of Birds More than half of the approximately 650 bird species in North America could be severely affected by climate change, scientists from the National Audubon Society predicted in a study released Monday. The report’s predictions are based on both United Nations estimates of the effects of climate change in 2050 and 2080, and on two voluminous surveys of birds: the Audubon Society’s own Christmas bird count , which thousands of volunteers have worked on for decades, and a more general annual survey of breeding birds. The latter was started by the federal government in 1914; amateur birders began the Christmas bird count a few years earlier. “The notion that we can have a future that looks like what our grandparents experienced, with the birds they had, is unlikely,” said Gary Langham, the study’s chief author, in an interview. The impact of climate change, he said, will not just harm birds already considered endangered — it is as likely to decimate birds that have robust populations now. “This whole other threat tends to undo successes we’ve had in the past,” Dr. Langham said. Terry Root, a Stanford University biologist who specializes in the impact of climate change on the geographic distribution of species, said she found the conclusions in the Audubon survey disturbing indeed. “If we are losing as many species as this is saying, what’s going to happen to all the insects they eat?” she said. “There are going to be winners if you move a species out of a region, and these winners might be mosquitoes and spiders.” Alternatively, Dr. Root said: “Maybe other avian species will grow in abundance and take up the space. We don’t know.” On Tuesday, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Smithsonian Institution are scheduled to release their annual state of the birds report, which is also expected to describe declines in bird populations and threats from changing ecosystems. Laury Parramore, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a statement on Monday that the Audubon Society’s work “provides a tool to help predict future bird distribution and ranges” that will help guide her agency’s conservation plans. Birds could feel the impact of a changing climate in different ways. Drought in Southern California is blamed for a sharp drop in breeding among California raptors, perhaps because a lack of water is killing the insects and small rodents they feed on. Puffins, whose reintroduction off the Maine coast had largely been a success story for the Audubon Society, have shown signs of declining both off the American coast and in countries like Iceland and England, perhaps because of climate-driven changes in the ocean food web. Image Maryland might no longer be a habitat for the Baltimore oriole, perched here near apple blossoms in Mendota Heights, Minn. Credit Universal Images Group, via Getty Images “Every species of plant and animal is very well-tuned to what it does for a living,” Dr. Langham said. “A bird in the desert can’t go to the boreal forest. Everything about every organism is finely tuned.” On the bright side, Dr. Langham said, his report shows that many species will continue in their current abundance and, mostly, their current locations: American robins, red-tailed hawks, western scrub jays, western meadowlarks, northern cardinals and northern mockingbirds. And at least one species, popular among poets and jilted lovers, is expected to flourish as warming takes its course, Dr. Langham said. “You want to know what climate change sounds like?” he asked. “It’s the sound of a mourning dove — their climate potential is going to increase.” Other species may or may not be able to adapt. For example, the brown pelican, a Gulf Coast resident, could move northward and inland, Dr. Langham said, adding, “But really with any bird that shows new climate space opening up, it is far from certain that any bird is going to capitalize on that potential.” Dr. Langham called for a revised conservation strategy that focuses not only on species in immediate trouble, but those likely to suffer as climate forces them out of their current homes. The Audubon report, he said, is “a framework to focus on which species are predicted to be sensitive and where they are likely to move, and importantly, where they are likely not to move.” Mr. Yarnold of the Audubon Society said that birds were resilient, but that climate change will test their limits. “We just don’t know whether they’ll be able to find the food sources and the habitat and cope with a new range of predators,” he said. “Maybe they’ll all be incredibly hardy and find ways to survive.” But, he added, “That doesn’t seem likely, given, one, the number of birds affected, and two, the pace at which these things are happening.”
|
Birds;North America;Climate Change;Global Warming;Audubon Society; National;Endangered Species
|
ny0255342
|
[
"business"
] |
2011/09/26
|
Economic Reports This Week
|
ECONOMIC REPORTS This week’s data will include new-home sales for August (Monday); the S.& P./Case-Shiller housing price index for July; consumer confidence for September (Tuesday); durable goods orders for August (Wednesday); final second-quarter gross domestic product; weekly jobless claims; pending home sales for August (Thursday); personal income and spending for August; the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index for September; the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index for September (Friday). CORPORATE EARNINGS Companies reporting results include Walgreen (Tuesday); Darden Restaurants (Wednesday). IN THE U.S. The United Automobile Workers will start negotiations with Ford Motor on a new contract; President Obama will participate in a town hall meeting on the economy in Mountain View, Calif. (Monday). Solyndra will seek permission in bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Del., to auction its assets and hire lawyers to represent it in inquiries into its government-backed loan guarantee (Tuesday). Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, will give a speech in Cleveland (Wednesday). IN EUROPE Prime Minister George Papandreou of Greece will meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in Berlin (Tuesday).
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United States Economy;Economic Conditions and Trends;Company Reports
|
ny0017239
|
[
"us"
] |
2013/10/12
|
A Theologian’s Influence, and Stained Past, Live On
|
Can a bad person be a good theologian? All of us fall short of our ideals, of course. But there is a common-sense expectation that religious professionals should try to behave as they counsel others to behave. They may not be perfect, but they should not be louts or jerks. By that standard, few have failed as egregiously as John Howard Yoder, America’s most influential pacifist theologian. In his teaching at Notre Dame and elsewhere, and in books like “The Politics of Jesus,” published in 1972, Mr. Yoder, a Mennonite Christian, helped thousands formulate their opposition to violence. Yet, as he admitted before his death in 1997, he groped many women or pressured them to have physical contact, although never sexual intercourse. Mr. Yoder’s scholarly pre-eminence keeps growing, and with it the ambivalence that Mennonites and other Christians feel toward him. In August, Ervin Stutzman, executive director of Mennonite Church USA , which has about 100,000 members, announced the formation of a “discernment group” to guide a process to “contribute to healing for victims” of Mr. Yoder’s abuse. In 1992, after eight women pressured the church to take action, Mr. Yoder’s ministerial credentials were suspended and he was ordered into church-supervised rehabilitation. It soon emerged that Mr. Yoder’s 1984 departure from what is now called Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary , in Elkhart, Ind., had also been precipitated by allegations against him. He left for Notre Dame, where administrators were not told what had happened at his last job. But Mr. Yoder emerged as a hero of repentance. His accusers never spoke publicly, and their anonymity made it easier for some to wish away their allegations. And in December 1997, after about 30 meetings for supervision and counseling, Mr. Yoder and his wife were welcomed back to worship at Prairie Street Mennonite Church in Elkhart. To cap a perfect narrative of redemption, he died at 70 at the end of that month. Without denying the wrongness of his acts, his supporters continued to celebrate Mr. Yoder and the Mennonite leaders who had rehabilitated him. “How John’s community responded to his inappropriate relations with women” was “a testimony to a community that has learned over time that the work of peace is slow, painful, and hard,” wrote Stanley Hauerwas , a retired Duke University professor and Yoder’s heir as the leading pacifist theologian, in his 2010 memoir . Mr. Yoder’s obituary in The New York Times did not mention his sexual misdeeds. None of his victims received monetary settlements. Mr. Yoder apologized, sort of, with a statement that “he was sorry that we had misunderstood his intentions, as he never meant to hurt us,” according to Carolyn Holderread Heggen, one of the eight complainants. Ted Koontz , a professor at Mr. Yoder’s old seminary and a member of the church’s discernment group, said the church needed to take stock of what was — or was not — done for Mr. Yoder’s victims. “There are a lot of different opinions about what was done and wasn’t done to hold him accountable,” Professor Koontz said. The committee will probably conclude its work, he added, in time for the Mennonite Church USA’s 2015 convention in Kansas City, Mo., where there may be a ceremony “of confession, repentance, reconciliation.” Of course, reconciliation was what the four-year process in the 1990s was supposed to achieve. It obviously failed. And Mr. Yoder remains inescapable for Mennonites, his work read and referenced often and everywhere. Image John Howard Yoder, a Mennonite who died in 1997, wrote “The Politics of Jesus.” “Physically he died, but his work and his theological writings live on,” said Linda Gehman Peachey, a freelance writer in Lancaster, Pa., who is also part of the six-member group. “For those who have known this other side — his behavior, particularly toward women — that is really painful.” Mr. Yoder’s memory also presents a theological quandary. Mennonites tend to consider behavior more important than belief. For them, to study a man’s writings while ignoring his life is especially un-Mennonite. Professor Koontz regularly tells his students reading Mr. Yoder that “his behavior is one thing we ought to take into account when we read his work.” Ms. Peachey noted that Mr. Yoder wrote a good deal about suffering as a Christian virtue, but “if you know this part of the story” — how he made women suffer — “you tend to read it with a different eye.” Mr. Yoder seemed very attentive to the notion that theology should align with behavior. It turns out that in unpublished papers, he formulated a bizarre justification of extramarital sexual contact. In his memoir, Professor Hauerwas alludes to what Tom Price, a reporter for the newspaper The Elkhart Truth, described in a five-part 1992 series as Mr. Yoder’s defense of “nongenital affective relationships.” Mr. Yoder said that touching a woman could be an act of “familial” love, in which a man helped to heal a traumatized “sister.” Mr. Price quoted from “What Is Adultery of the Heart?” a 1975 essay in which Mr. Yoder wrote that a “bodily” embrace “can celebrate and reinforce familial security,” rather than “provoking guilt-producing erotic reactions.” Ms. Heggen, called Tina in the newspaper articles, told Mr. Price that Mr. Yoder had a grandiose explanation for his advances, which he tried out on multiple women. “We are on the cutting edge,” Mr. Yoder would say, according to Ms. Heggen. “We are developing new models for the church. We are part of this grand, noble experiment. The Christian church will be indebted to us for years to come.” On Wednesday, Ms. Heggen, agreeing to be identified as a victim for the first time, recalled driving Mr. Yoder to the Albuquerque airport in 1982. He asked her to get out for “a proper goodbye,” Ms. Heggen said. “Then he pulled me into his belly and held me tight for a painfully long time. I realized I couldn’t escape his clutch.” In 1992, Ms. Heggen, who now lives in Oregon, published a book about sexual abuse . Traveling the world, lecturing about her book, she said she met “significantly” more than 50 women who said that Mr. Yoder had touched them or made advances. “Women inevitably come up after these events and tell you their story,” Ms. Heggen said. “The scenario was so familiar to me, and I would interrupt them and say, ‘Are you talking about John Howard Yoder?’ They would say, ‘How did you know?’ ” After his advance toward her, Mr. Yoder mailed Ms. Heggen an essay in which he advocated physical contact, including nudity, between unmarried people, so long as “there wasn’t lust.” Ms. Heggen had a theory of what Mr. Yoder might have been thinking. “ ‘I have created this great peace theology,’ ” she began, trying to put his thoughts into words. “ ‘And you and I are developing a new Christian theology of sexuality.’ ”
|
Mennonite;John Howard Yoder;Religion and Belief;Rape
|
ny0285395
|
[
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] |
2016/09/19
|
Louisville’s Lamar Jackson Strikes an Early Pose in the Heisman Chase
|
It is difficult to conceive of how Lamar Jackson will not win the Heisman Trophy — even if, in college football terms, that eventuality is eons away. Jackson, the Louisville quarterback, entered the 10th-ranked Cardinals’ game against second-ranked Florida State with seven passing touchdowns and another six on the ground in his two games this season, against Charlotte and Syracuse. Hurtling toward the end zone against the Orange last weekend, he leapt over cornerback Cordell Hudson as if Hudson were a rain puddle. LAMAR JACKSON JUMPS OVER DEFENDER FOR TOUCHDOWN. LOUISVILLE VS SYRACUSE 9/9/16 Credit Credit Video by zGavatron Expectation was building. Louisville Coach Bobby Petrino was worried before Saturday’s game that the hype would hurt Jackson, a sophomore who was recruited out of South Florida. “Obviously, you get nervous because he’s so young,” Petrino said, “and you got all these things going around — and more interviews than he should have to do.” Petrino added, “But he was able to focus.” The interview requests are unlikely to cease after this past Saturday. Jackson led the Cardinals (3-0, 2-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) to a 63-20 stomping of Florida State (2-1, 0-1) with another superb performance. Against a defense that had surrendered 14 points in its previous six quarters, Jackson threw one touchdown and one interception, amassing 216 yards on 20 throws, and rushed for 146 yards and four more touchdowns. His plays were something to behold and are likely to remain vivid in Heisman voters’ minds for many weeks. A pass to wide receiver James Quick in the first half was a beauty. His second touchdown of the game was a 14-yard sweep to the left off a fake handoff; Jackson used his 200-plus pounds to muscle his way over the goal line. “Lamar Jackson 5x better than what I was at V-Tech,” Michael Vick, who put on a few jaw-dropping performances while at Virginia Tech, said Saturday on Twitter . Comparisons between Jackson and Vick are now unavoidable. One important caveat here: When Vick was a redshirt freshman and finished third in the Heisman race, he played in the national title game. Of the past 15 Heisman winners, 11 played in the national championship game — and a 12th, Tim Tebow, had already played for a national champion. Perhaps because of the greater exposure that comes with a title run, Heisman winners generally come from teams that finish extremely strong. It is too soon to know whether the Cardinals will have such a season. For instance, on the week that came at the same point last season, Louisiana State’s Leonard Fournette spectacularly grabbed all the early Heisman buzz by gashing Auburn for 228 yards and three touchdowns on 19 carries. But it turned out Auburn was not very good, and come November, both L.S.U. and Fournette sputtered. He was not even invited to New York City for the Heisman ceremony. Also in that week last season, Alabama, ranked No. 2 at the time, was upset by Mississippi. But the Crimson Tide eventually climbed back into the title hunt and won their fourth championship in seven seasons. Alabama running back Derrick Henry won the Heisman. (Henry is now on the Tennessee Titans; for what it is worth, Fournette gained 147 yards and scored two touchdowns Saturday as No. 20 L.S.U. beat Mississippi State and improved to 2-1.) All of this is a long way of saying take Saturday’s performances with a grain of salt. The advice goes for No. 1 Alabama, which made up an early 24-3 deficit and survived a late scare to beat No. 19 Mississippi (1-2, 0-1 Southeastern Conference), 48-43, in Oxford, Miss., improving to 3-0, 1-0. It also goes for No. 4 Michigan (3-0), which will probably self-flagellate as much as it celebrates after a 45-28 home win over lowly Colorado (2-1); No. 7 Stanford (2-0, 1-0 Pacific-12), which handled Southern California (1-2, 0-1), 27-10; and No. 12 Michigan State (2-0), which went into South Bend, Ind., and beat No. 18 Notre Dame (1-2), 36-28, and hosts No. 9 Wisconsin (3-0) this week. It even goes for some who lost. No. 22 Oregon’s 35-32 loss at Nebraska (3-0) might have been unexpected in some quarters, but it is too early in the season to draw conclusions about the Ducks, who fell to 2-1. After all, what if the Cornhuskers go on to prove during the next two months that they are a great team? Even Florida State could recover, once the Seminoles rub Jackson’s footprints off their bodies. Louisville still must travel to No. 5 Clemson (3-0) in two weeks, and Clemson must travel to Florida State at the end of October. So the A.C.C.’s Atlantic Division remains up for grabs. In fact, of those three contenders, the one with the toughest overall road is Louisville. When the Cardinals announced a future home-and-home series in 2013 with a team that had gone 5-7 the prior season in a less competitive conference, they might not have realized that they were setting themselves up for the challenge of a late-season date visiting the No. 6 Houston Cougars (3-0), who stand a decent chance of being selected for the playoff from outside the Power 5 conferences. Yet peril is also opportunity. If Jackson goes to Houston on Nov. 17 and leads the Cardinals to victory, the Heisman talk will no longer be premature; indeed, ballots will be mailed out shortly afterward. September is fun, but November is for closers.
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Heisman Trophy;College football;Atlantic Coast Conference;University of Louisville;Florida State University;Lamar Jackson
|
ny0182900
|
[
"business"
] |
2007/12/26
|
Rapidly, Buffett Secures a Deal for $4.5 Billion
|
Warren E. Buffett may be a choosy shopper, but when he sees a firm he likes, he moves fast. After just two weeks of negotiations, Mr. Buffett, who has been looking for acquisitions on which to spend his company’s billions of dollars, snagged an industrial conglomerate in a deal announced Tuesday. The Pritzker family of Chicago will sell to Mr. Buffett’s firm, Berkshire Hathaway, a 60 percent stake in Marmon Holdings for $4.5 billion. The deal would go a long way toward unwinding the business holdings of the Pritzkers, a process that started in 2001. For Mr. Buffett, the deal represents his largest acquisition outside the insurance industry and suggests that he is finally finding some deals he can get excited about. Berkshire will acquire the remaining 40 percent of Marmon over the next five or six years at a price that will be based on the future earnings of the company. In 2006, Marmon posted revenue of $7 billion and profit of $1 billion from operations like wire and cable, railroad tank cars and water treatment systems. Showing the speed at which Mr. Buffett likes to operate and the disdain he has for the trappings of deal-making, the acquisition was concluded in just two weeks. A banker from Goldman Sachs, which advised the Pritzker family, contacted Mr. Buffett in the second week of December at a rally for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in San Francisco. “The next morning, we delivered a phone book-size document describing Marmon, literally at his plane,” Thomas Pritzker, the chairman of Marmon, said in an telephone interview. “He read it on a plane going back to Omaha. He landed and called the Goldman guy and said: ‘Tell Tom we have a deal.’” Mr. Buffett, who could not be reached for comment, later met with two executives from Marmon for more information. Berkshire Hathaway owns such diverse businesses as Geico insurance, Benjamin Moore paints, Borsheim’s jewelry and the NetJets fractional jet ownership company. Frank Ptak is to remain chief executive of Marmon. “Our transaction was done just the way Jay would have liked it to be done — no consultants or studies,” Mr. Buffett said in a statement, referring to Jay A. Pritzker, a scion of the family who died in 1999. Mr. Buffett met Jay Pritzker in the 1950s and for many years served on the board of Grinnell College in Iowa with Marian Pritzker, who was married to Jay and is Thomas’s mother. The deal was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. For the Pritzker family, which founded and still controls the Hyatt hotel chain, the deal will help advance a plan to liquidate its holdings, which are estimated to be worth about $15 billion. Proceeds from the sales are to be distributed among 11 cousins. This year, the family sold a minority stake in Hyatt to Goldman Sachs and an investment firm affiliated with S. Robson Walton, chairman of Wal-Mart Stores. That transaction is expected to lead eventually to a public offering of Hyatt shares. The Pritzker plan has not advanced smoothly. In 2005, the family reached a $900 million settlement in a dispute between Liesel and Matthew Pritzker and their father, Robert Pritzker, whom they had accused of robbing their trust funds. Thomas Pritzker, 57, said that the family was no longer feuding and that the Hyatt and Marmon deals put it within about four years of completing its plan. “I think I have found an elegant solution to a series of responsibilities that I had to the family, to the companies, to the management,” he said. “This is a solution that works for all of those.” The family’s rise to prominence began in the late 1800s, with a penniless Ukrainian immigrant named Nicholas Pritzker who taught himself English by reading The Chicago Tribune. He became a successful lawyer, but it was his grandson Jay who began the family’s real estate business when he purchased the first Hyatt hotel in 1957. The family acquired Marmon in 1953. It also has investments in a number of other businesses, including the Royal Caribbean cruise line. For Berkshire, Marmon will make only a small dent in its $47 billion in cash. Mr. Buffett has lamented the paucity of good, well-priced firms. At Berkshire’s shareholder meeting in May, he said he would consider a deal as large as $60 billion. Excluding debt, the Marmon purchase will be Berkshire’s largest deal outside insurance.
|
Berkshire Hathaway Incorporated;Buffett Warren E;Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures;Executives and Management
|
ny0060512
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2014/08/24
|
Rams’ Bradford Appears to Reinjure Left Knee
|
Sam Bradford, the St. Louis Rams’ starting quarterback, appeared to reinjure his surgically repaired left knee in the first quarter of a 33-14 preseason victory over the host Cleveland Browns on Saturday night. He was among five St. Louis starters who were hurt. Bradford, who missed the Rams’ final nine games last season after having a torn left anterior cruciate ligament repaired, went down after being pressured and hit high by defensive lineman Armonty Bryant. As Bradford stayed on the ground for several minutes, Rams Coach Jeff Fisher went onto the field with trainers to check his condition. Bradford walked gingerly to the sideline and was examined by medical personnel behind the Rams’ bench before being escorted to the locker room for further examination. The Rams provided no immediate word on his condition. The Browns’ starting quarterback, Brian Hoyer, threw a touchdown pass, and his rookie backup, Johnny Manziel, had a 7-yard scoring run. Manziel was also sacked twice by the Rams rookie Michael Sam. JETS RELEASE SEVEN The Jets reduced their roster to 81 with seven cuts. The released players were tackle Bruce Campbell of Maryland; linebacker Steele Divitto of Boston College; offensive linemen Patrick Ford of Eastern Kentucky and Markus Zusevics of Iowa; kicker Andrew Furney of Washington State; punter Jacob Schum of Buffalo; and running back Michael Smith of Utah State. The Jets must get to 75 players by Tuesday. SAINTS 23, COLTS 17 Drew Brees threw two touchdown passes in the first quarter to lead visiting New Orleans to a preseason win over Indianapolis. After missing more than two weeks of practice and the Saints’ first two preseason games with a strained left side muscle, Brees showed no sign of rust. He went 9 of 15 for 128 yards, with no interceptions. VIKINGS 30, CHIEFS 12 Minnesota’s Matt Cassel threw for 152 yards and a touchdown in his return to Kansas City, and the Vikings rolled to a victory over the Chiefs. Image The Bills' 27-14 preseason loss to the Buccaneers on Saturday was their first game at Ralph Wilson Stadium since it was renovated. Credit Bill Wippert/Associated Press Cassel, benched and then released by Kansas City two years ago, found Cordarrelle Patterson for a 53-yard score on Minnesota’s first offensive series. TITANS 24, FALCONS 17 The rookie Bishop Sankey’s 3-yard touchdown run and 2-point conversion with 5 minutes 45 seconds remaining gave Tennessee its first lead, and the Titans rallied for a win over host Atlanta. Sean Renfree led the Falcons to the Titans’ 4-yard line but could not complete a fourth-and-2 pass to Julian Jones with 1:08 remaining. DOLPHINS 25, COWBOYS 20 Orleans Darkwa ran in from 1 yard with 1:45 left, and host Miami rallied from two scores down in the final minutes to beat Dallas. Gator Hoskins caught a 27-yard touchdown pass from Matt Moore earlier in the fourth for the Dolphins. BUCCANEERS 27, BILLS 14 Josh McCown directed two first-half touchdown drives, and defensive tackle Clinton McDonald returned a fumble for a score in visiting Tampa Bay’s win over slow-starting Buffalo. The first-round pick Mike Evans caught McCown’s 24-yard fade pass in the right corner in helping the Buccaneers build a 24-0 halftime lead. RAVENS 23, REDSKINS 17 Joe Flacco’s final throw was a touchdown pass to Steve Smith, providing a positive ending to an uneven performance by host Baltimore’s first-team offense. Robert Griffin III concluded a horrid outing with an interception, leaving the Redskins much to consider after their preseason defeat.
|
Football;Stadiums Arenas;Bills;Sam Bradford;Browns;Rams
|
ny0260671
|
[
"us"
] |
2011/06/28
|
Texas Is Pressed to Spare Mexican Citizen on Death Row
|
WASHINGTON — Texas is planning to execute Humberto Leal Garcia Jr. next week. His case is in many ways unexceptional: ghastly crime, substantial but problematic evidence, inept defense lawyer. In another sense, though, Mr. Leal’s case is different from those of the six men Texas has already put to death this year. He is a citizen of Mexico. After his arrest, he was denied his rights under the Vienna Convention to consult Mexican consular officials. Had his government been allowed to come to his aid, Mr. Leal’s lawyers say, he might still have been convicted. But they say that legal help from the Mexican government would almost certainly have kept him off death row. Former judges, law enforcement officials, military leaders and diplomats have lined up on Mr. Leal’s side. Most take no position on Mr. Leal’s guilt or on the death penalty. Their argument is more practical. “If we do not comply with our obligations under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and the U.N. Charter,” said John B. Bellinger III, who was the State Department’s top lawyer in the administration of President George W. Bush, “we put at risk Americans, including Texans, who travel and may be arrested overseas. It is surprising that Texas does not recognize the risks it may be creating for its own citizens.” True, Texas provided Mr. Leal with a lawyer. But the convention requires that arrested foreigners also be told of their right to speak with consular officials and to be put in contact with them “without delay.” Billy Hayes, whose ordeal in a Turkish prison was the subject of the movie “Midnight Express,” wrote a letter to Gov. Rick Perry this month urging him to grant a reprieve to Mr. Leal. In an interview last week, Mr. Hayes said he could not have imagined negotiating the Turkish legal system without the emotional support and logistical help that American diplomats provided. “It’s a different country,” he said, “different language, different law and different rules.” Mr. Leal, by contrast, did not learn of his rights until two years after his conviction, and even then not from American authorities but from a fellow inmate. In 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled for Mr. Leal and other Mexican inmates on death row in the United States, saying that American courts must grant “review and reconsideration” to claims that their cases had been hurt by the failure of the local authorities to allow them to contact consular officials. In 2005, Mr. Bush told state officials that they must comply with the international court’s decision. Mr. Bush’s memorandum puzzled officials in Texas, who said it seemed inconsistent with the Bush administration’s general hostility to international institutions and its support for the death penalty. Texas refused to go along, and in 2008 the Supreme Court said two things about that . One was that the United States was obligated to comply with the international tribunal’s judgment. The other was that the president alone could not by himself force states to go along; Congress had to act, too. Such legislation was submitted in the Senate this month. Its prospects are unclear, but it certainly won’t be enacted by July 7, when Mr. Leal is scheduled to die. Mr. Leal’s lawyers asked Judge Orlando L. Garcia of Federal District Court in San Antonio to stay the execution. Sandra L. Babcock, one of Mr. Leal’s lawyers, explained the legal theory behind the request. “He has a due process right,” she said of her client, “to remain alive while Congress has a meaningful opportunity to consider and pass this legislation.” Judge Garcia rejected the request on Wednesday. “The filing of a legislative proposal in the form of a bill is of no legal consequence,” he wrote. Mr. Leal has also asked the governor for a reprieve. Mr. Perry’s press secretary, Katherine Cesinger, suggested that he did not view the matter through the lens of reciprocal international obligations. “If you commit the most heinous of crimes in Texas,” she said, “you can expect to face the ultimate penalty under our laws, as in this case.” There is substantial evidence, including statements from Mr. Leal, that he was involved in the gruesome 1994 killing of Adria Sauceda, 16. Mr. Leal’s lawyers concede that “the argument that Mr. Leal was responsible for Ms. Sauceda’s death was at least plausible.” But they say prosecutors transformed what should have been at most a manslaughter charge into one for capital murder by saying Mr. Leal had kidnapped and raped Ms. Sauceda. “For this,” the lawyers wrote in their brief seeking a stay, “the state built its case on junk science, willful ignorance and profoundly problematic DNA evidence .” Mr. Leal’s court-appointed lawyer failed to investigate or challenge questionable evidence, and he did not present information about Mr. Leal’s background that might have supported a plea for leniency. Would a better lawyer retained by the Mexican government have made a difference? Maybe. Or maybe the right question is the one posed years ago by Donald F. Donovan, a New York lawyer who represented the Mexican government in The Hague. “If you were arrested in Damascus and they gave you a dime,” he asked, “would you want to call your court-appointed lawyer or the American Embassy?”
|
Capital Punishment;Texas;Leal Humberto G Leal Jr
|
ny0172402
|
[
"sports",
"hockey"
] |
2007/11/30
|
Rangers Win Game According to Plan
|
When Rangers center Brandon Dubinsky scored to put the final touch on the Rangers’ 4-2 victory against the Islanders , his exuberance included raucously slamming against the boards with his linemates, Martin Straka and Jaromir Jagr. Dubinsky, full of a 20-year-old’s enthusiasm, might treat his 30-something companions with a little more care, considering the value they showed together last night at Madison Square Garden. It was perhaps the first time a dominant scoring line came together for the Rangers this season. The line combined for two goals — Dubinsky’s in the final minutes of the third period and Jagr’s in the first — both on assists by Straka in his third game back after missing 15 with a broken finger. The three controlled the puck so well it threw a glimmer of hope into a Rangers team that has struggled to score this season. “Marty brings a lot to our line,” Dubinsky said. “He’s really good at the cross-ice passes and finding Jaromir on the ice. I think we’re most effective when Jags has the puck as much as he did tonight. I thought we played great as a line tonight. It was fun.” The fun included finally beating the Islanders after losing the first three meetings of the season, a streak that had grown increasingly frustrating to the Rangers. The Rangers (14-9-2) used the victory to grab a piece of the Atlantic Division lead with Philadelphia with 30 points. The Islanders (13-9-1) are 3 points back. This game looked so different from the last time these teams met in the Garden, a little more than a week ago, when the Islanders controlled play with their defensive style in a 2-1 victory. The Rangers’ power play had a lot to do with that. Coming into the night with the 25th-ranked power play in the N.H.L. and a dismal 1-for-19 streak over the last four games, the Rangers scored twice in the second period on power-play goals by Chris Drury and Scott Gomez. But the Rangers also rode the success of its top line, which seems to be in full-scale celebration of Straka’s return. Jagr and Straka played together on the top line the last two seasons, with Michael Nylander as their center. With Nylander lost to free agency, neither Drury nor Gomez seemed a good fit, so Dubinsky, a rookie, assumed the role. But Straka’s return has made the biggest difference, especially for Jagr. “There’s a marked difference in his energy on the ice, in his proactivity, if there is such a thing,” Rangers Coach Tom Renney said of Jagr. “The instinct, the play between the two of them, is special, and he seems excited about that.” Jagr has scored in the last two games and appears to be coming out of the slowest scoring start of his career — six goals in the Rangers’ 25 games. He is quick to credit Straka’s contributions. “He waits for me when I pass it to him for a give and go,” Jagr said. “I don’t have to rush anything because I know he can slow the game down and wait for me even when I am behind him. That’s the whole game. He’s confident enough to hold the puck, even when he has no play and I’m behind. Marty knows where I am, and he just waits for me. That’s the way we always play. It’s going to be even better.” Jagr’s goal started with Straka flipping the puck forward, where Dubinsky caught it at the Islanders’ blue line. He fought off defenseman Brendan Witt and got the puck to Jagr, whose wrist shot beat goaltender Rick DiPietro at 9 minutes 18 seconds of the first. The Islanders tied the score, 1-1, on a strange goal at 3:53 of the second. Forward Miroslav Satan dumped the puck into the zone on a power play and it took a weird bounce off a seam in the glass directly back into the Rangers’ crease, where goalie Henrik Lundqvist could not control it. Several players, including Satan, poked at it as it remained loose under Lundqvist before it slid into the goal. Satan was given credit for the goal, although it appeared to go in off the stick of Rangers defenseman Michal Rozsival. Drury’s and Gomez’s goals gave the Rangers a 3-1 lead in the second, but the Islanders’ Mike Comrie scored at 17:57 of the second to make the score 3-2, setting up Dubinsky’s emotional goal. SLAP SHOTS Islanders defenseman Radek Martinek said after the game that Rangers forward Ryan Hollweg threatened to tear the stitches out of his face and that during a first-period scuffle along the boards, Hollweg reached for his face. “He said he is going to take my stitches out,” Martinek said. “I think that was stupid.” Hollweg denied saying that and said he was simply rushing in to defend his teammate Colton Orr, who was fending off three Islanders during the melee. “There were three guys all over Orrsie, and he was going in there,” Hollweg said. “I might have face washed him, but I didn’t try to pull his stitches out.” Bad blood between Hollweg and the Islanders stretches back to last season, when Islanders forward Chris Simon drew a 25-game suspension for slamming his stick into Hollweg’s neck. ... Rangers forward Ryan Callahan returned to the lineup after missing 16 games with a knee injury. He arrived in time to take the roster spot of Sean Avery, who had arthroscopic surgery on his wrist earlier yesterday. The team said Avery’s surgery was successful and that he would be out indefinitely.
|
Hockey Ice;New York Rangers;Athletics and Sports;New York Islanders
|
ny0202028
|
[
"world"
] |
2009/09/22
|
In Fourth Round of Voting, 2 Candidates Tie in Race for Unesco Director General
|
PARIS — The United Nations agency on education, science and culture was split down the middle on Monday night over a new director general, with fierce lobbying for votes before a final round of voting Tuesday evening. The last two candidates are the Egyptian culture minister, Farouk Hosny, who has been accused of anti-Semitism and censorship, and Irina Bokova, 57, the Bulgarian ambassador to the agency, Unesco , who was briefly her country’s foreign minister. In the fourth round of voting of Unesco ’s 58-nation executive board, the two candidates were tied, 29-29. If the vote remains tied on Tuesday, the 193-member General Conference will choose a new director general next month, and Mr. Hosny is expected to win in the larger body, where Egypt is thought to have more influence. The original field of nine candidates has been slowly thinned , with Ms. Bokova, who comes from a family that was prominent in the old Communist government, becoming the alternative to Mr. Hosny, 71, who has been Egypt’s culture minister for 22 years. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has pressed hard for his candidate, who had hoped to win with 30 votes in the first round. But some of the countries that had pledged to Mr. Mubarak to vote for Mr. Hosny — like France, Italy and even Israel — have not felt obliged to keep that commitment in later rounds. Some American Jewish organizations and civil libertarians have fiercely opposed Mr. Hosny. In the Egyptian context he is considered liberal, but last year, in a parliamentary debate, defending himself against charges that he was soft on Israel, he said he would personally burn any Israeli book found in the Alexandria library , Egypt’s most important. Other charges have surfaced. Mr. Hosny has been accused of keeping restrictions on Egypt’s carefully edited press and censoring some films and books, while Unesco is supposed to defend press freedom. Elaph.com , an Arabic-language Web site, published Saturday what it said were private admissions by Mr. Hosny that when he was the Egyptian cultural attaché in Rome, he helped to organize the escape from Italy in 1985 of the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro. In that episode, a retired American Jewish tourist in a wheelchair was shot and pushed into the sea, horrifying much of the world. Ms. Bokova has been cautious in her remarks. Her father was the chief editor of a newspaper during Communist rule. A career diplomat, she joined the Foreign Ministry in 1976 and was foreign minister for a few months in 1996 and 1997. The vote has been marked by arm-twisting and offers of jobs, Unesco diplomats have said. The representatives of three countries — Madagascar, Nigeria and Pakistan — were thought to have been replaced because they did not want to vote for Mr. Hosny. When the former Austrian foreign minister and European commissioner for external relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, withdrew her candidacy on Sunday, she said: “Here there’s nothing but politics.” Someone from the Arab world or Eastern Europe has never run Unesco. The new director general replaces Koichiro Matsuura of Japan.
|
United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization;Hosny Farouk;Mubarak Hosni;Politics and Government;Freedom of the Press;Anti-Semitism
|
ny0088948
|
[
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] |
2015/09/11
|
Notre Dame President Stands Firm Amid Shifts in College Athletics
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SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Now is a good time to take a reflective walk with the president of the University of Notre Dame, through the woods behind his office in a golden-domed building, beside two lakes named after saints. A good time, and a serene setting, to ponder a sacred matter of profound moral implications: college athletics. With the advent of another football season, the accusations of student-athlete exploitation continue to unnerve higher education — the growing demand that student-athletes share in the revenue they generate; the calls for N.C.A.A. reform; the push for unionization; academic fraud, sexual assaults, seamy cover-ups. It’s that 1932 Marx Brothers movie about college football, “Horse Feathers,” only without the laughs. Nowhere are these questions of morality and justice more pressing than at this academic powerhouse with a football emphasis — or this football powerhouse with an academic emphasis. Notre Dame’s Catholic foundation informs everything here, down to the likeness of Jesus looming over home games, arms raised as if signaling a touchdown, or encouraging the faithful to do the wave. Its president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, 61, walking at the moment with head bowed in thought, may not be much of a football man; he is more Aquinas scholar than Rockne acolyte. But he can read the field. He sees the changes coming. He knows that some detest Notre Dame’s storied football program, down to the constant use of “storied.” He also knows that for all its emphasis on nourishing the soul and improving the mind, Notre Dame is sometimes dismissed as just another exploitative enterprise — an Ohio State in priestly garb — reaping considerable revenue from the toil of football players who see none of the money. Father Jenkins, a passionate defender of his alma mater, has considered the arguments. He agrees that the N.C.A.A. is struggling to find its role on a changed playing field. And, in what may come as a surprise, he suggests that student-athletes should be able to monetize their fame, with limits. But he adamantly opposes a model in which college sheds what is left of its amateur ways for a semiprofessional structure — one in which universities pay their athletes. “Our relationship to these young people is to educate them, to help them grow,” he says. “Not to be their agent for financial gain.” Image A Catholic foundation informs everything at Notre Dame, down to the likeness of Jesus looming over home games, arms raised as if signaling a touchdown. Credit Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images And if that somehow comes to pass, he says, Notre Dame will leave the profitable industrial complex that is elite college football, boosters be damned, and explore the creation of a conference with like-minded universities. That’s right: Notre Dame would take its 23.9-karat-gold-flecked football helmets and play elsewhere. “Perhaps institutions will make decisions about where they want to go — a semipro model or a different, more educational model — and I welcome that,” Father Jenkins says. “I wouldn’t consider that a bad outcome, and I think there would be schools that would do that.” Pundits scoffed when Jack Swarbrick, the university’s athletic director, voiced similar sentiments this year. No way would Notre Dame — practically French for college football — set aside its national ambitions and settle for Saturday matchups against, say, Carnegie Mellon. Think of it, they reasoned. Television and sports-apparel contracts would dry up, alumni generosity would decline, and the best athletes would go elsewhere. Notre Dame would no longer be ... Notre Dame. The scholar-president disagrees. Notre Dame will remain Notre Dame no matter what, he says, fully aware that he is on the record. Leader and Football Fan The manicured Notre Dame campus provides ample evidence of the university’s rich tradition and considerable self-regard. A Knute Rockne statue outside the stadium. Items that include Notre Dame perfume (“The Lady Irish fragrance embodies the grace, pride and elegance of the Notre Dame woman while capturing her vivacious spirit and confidence”) in the bookstore. A drink at the Morris Inn called the Father Hesburgh Manhattan. Image From left, Notre Dame’s athletic director, Jack Swarbrick; the Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner, John Swofford; and Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins. Credit Gerry Broome/Associated Press Embodying its more serious side is this slightly built graduate walking along a wooded path: John Jenkins of Omaha, class of ’76 and of ’78, with degrees in philosophy, as well as a doctorate from Oxford University. Ordained a Holy Cross priest here in 1983, he has filled several roles over the years, including professor, administrator and, for the last decade, president. His intellectual strong suit might be more Summa Theologica — in which St. Thomas Aquinas presented five arguments for the existence of God — than the zone-blitz defense. But Father Jenkins describes himself as a football fan, one who finds worth even in defeat (“Losses teach more than victories,” he says) — the kind of fan, then, who drives rabid boosters to distraction. Alums in Fighting Irish plumage will complain to him about the football team, as if, in addition to overseeing a university with 11,700 students and an endowment worth nearly $10 billion, he serves as offensive coordinator. “You sort of let it blow off a little bit,” he says, “and say, ‘There’s another game next week, next season. ...’ ” Father Jenkins is also more than conversant in the big business that is college athletics, including the many legal challenges to the N.C.A.A. model as a strictly amateur endeavor. An amateur endeavor for the athletes, that is: Notre Dame’s football coach, Brian Kelly, collects a seven-figure salary, while the university benefits from a national television contract, ticket sales, and an exceptionally valuable apparel deal with Under Armour . The president rejects the notion that Notre Dame is morally obliged to share its football revenue with those playing the game. “I don’t think there’s a compulsion or some demand of justice that we do it,” he says. His position — his North Star, he calls it — may be dismissed by some as trite, even convenient, but here it is: Notre Dame is an educational institution, and athletics, while diverting and instructive in its own right, is meant to serve the educational purpose. The $20 million spent by the university on about 320 athletic scholarships, he says, reflects a compact — one that many reading these words might well agree to, if they were athletically gifted teenagers. Simply put: Commit to play football — or basketball, or soccer, or lacrosse — at Notre Dame for roughly four years. This will mean long hours, demanding practices, too much travel, considerable pressure and extraordinary discipline. Image A Knute Rockne statue outside the stadium, part of the manicured Notre Dame campus. Credit Sally Ryan for The New York Times In exchange, you will receive tuition, books, food, living accommodations and the offer of a stellar education, as well as a powerful, appreciative network of alumni to help you in the great world beyond campus borders. If you are injured, or benched, or cut, your scholarship remains intact. (As for injuries with repercussions after graduation, Paul Browne, a university vice president, wrote in an email: “We’d look at any such case individually, knowing that Notre Dame prides itself in a lifelong engagement with many if not most of the alumni. I know that many alumni have used our doctors, trainers and facilities when rehabbing from injuries suffered as professional athletes, for example.”) Father Jenkins thinks this is a fair and just deal. “I’d say that education is more valuable than however much money we might give you,” he says. “So focus on that. We’re going to do everything we can to help you be successful in getting that education.” In other words, do not focus on matters unrelated to your education — how, for example, your image might appear in the university’s promotional materials. Reputation for Academics Notre Dame is regularly at the very top of the N.C.A.A.’s rankings of student-athlete graduation rates — well north of 90 percent. But various academic scandals have, depending on one’s view, either hurt or reinforced the university’s reputation for academics above all else. Two years ago, for example, its starting quarterback, Everett Golson, was suspended for cheating on a test; he returned last year, graduated, and is now playing for Florida State in his fifth year of eligibility. And just before the start of last season, four Notre Dame players, three of them likely starters, were dropped from the team during an inquiry into academic fraud . While some cite cases like these as evidence of the hypocrisy in the Notre Dame narrative, the university argues the opposite: Academics come first here, no matter how damaging it might be to the football season. Father Jenkins knows full well the analogy of universities as ivy-adorned plantations, with student-athletes as indentured servants, or slaves, and college administrators, presumably like himself, as exploitative masters. He knows, too, of the famous 2011 takedown in The Atlantic by the respected historian Taylor Branch, who forcefully argued against the prohibition of college athletes — all adults, he points out — from seeking compensation for their highly valued services. Branch dismissed the N.C.A.A. ideals of “amateurism” and “student-athlete” as “cynical hoaxes, legalistic confections propagated by the universities so they can exploit the skills and fame of young athletes.” “A little overheated,” Father Jenkins says, speaking in a hesitant way that suggests a constant pursuit of precision. “So the thesis is: We exploit these young people for financial gain. Let’s just think about that.” He says the football program, the only Notre Dame sport that consistently makes money, creates about $80 million in revenue a year — out of an annual operating budget of more than $1.4 billion. That football money is cycled back into athletics to support two dozen other sports, an arrangement that he says football players take pride in. Anything left goes to financial aid for students unrelated to the athletics program. “If the claim is, you’re using football players to help soccer players play soccer, help fencers fence, help swimmers swim — O.K., if that’s the claim,” he says. “But that doesn’t seem to be exploitation.” He adds: “We’re very clear about what our goals are, and we’re very clear about why we do it. If anybody doesn’t want to participate, that’s fine, but that’s what we’re about.” Still, Father Jenkins supports recent modest reforms that are designed to ward off financial hardships for student-athletes. As part of the “Power 5” collection of elite college football programs, Notre Dame has embraced the “full cost of attendance” concept , which provides students on full athletic scholarships with additional money for personal expenses and travel. Image Notre Dame playing Michigan in 2006. Father Jenkins describes himself as a football fan, one who finds worth even in defeat. (“Losses teach more than victories,” he says.) Credit Chris Chambers/Getty Images And while Father Jenkins opposes sharing revenue with the Notre Dame quarterback, say, based on the sale of jerseys bearing his uniform number — the university would just stop selling jerseys with numbers, he says — he would support the quarterback’s selling his autograph, or retaining an agent to help him monetize his fame, as long as Notre Dame did not become a partner in the endeavor. “That seems to be where we’re going,” the president says. Court Challenges to N.C.A.A. The walk continues, beside St. Mary’s Lake and St. Joseph’s Lake, along a path that follows the Stations of the Cross, past the Old College, built in 1843, which evokes the earliest days of the university. The Rev. Edward Sorin, its first president, founded the university on several hundred snow-covered acres; Father Jenkins, its 17th, seeks balance on shifting grounds. The talk turns to the recent court challenges to the N.C.A.A. structure. Last year, in the so-called O’Bannon case , a federal judge ruled that the N.C.A.A. was violating antitrust law by not paying athletes for commercial use of their names and likenesses. She also allowed for universities to create trust funds for athletes to use after their playing days, although those payments could be capped by the N.C.A.A. at $5,000. That case, now under appeal, makes Father Jenkins uneasy. “That really does, it seems to me, move a student from student to employee,” he says. “And that, as I say, does some violence to that educational relationship.” Then, last month, the National Labor Relations Board rejected a bid to recognize student-athletes at Northwestern University as employees of the institution, with the right to unionize and bargain collectively. An attack on the amateur model, Father Jenkins says. A close call. Finally, there is the pending lawsuit filed against the N.C.A.A. and the Power 5 conferences by the well-known sports lawyer Jeffrey Kessler, who argues that the value of student-athletes has been illegally capped by athletic scholarships. If he prevails: an open market. Or, as Father Jenkins puts it: “Armageddon.” “That’s when we leave,” he says. “We will not tolerate that. Then it really does become a semipro team.” Image The Fighting Irish during the season’s first home game, against Texas. Credit Jon Durr/Getty Images He believes that the drama and popularity of college athletics are rooted in the fact that the student-athletes are amateurs. “If they make mistakes, you know, it’s not like they’re professionals,” he says. But if a pay-to-play dynamic is applied to college sports, he suggests, something is lost. “If you go that semipro route, we’ll see,” he says. “But I’m just not sure that we’ll not end up just a second-tier, uninteresting pro league.” Father Jenkins says that he could see two separate collegiate athletic associations — one following the semiprofessional model, the other dedicated to preserving what he calls “the essential educational character of college athletics.” In belonging to the latter, he says, Notre Dame would be just fine, financially and otherwise. “If tomorrow you told me, you just can’t do what you want to do in athletics and you’re going to have to shut it down, and we would have club sports, something like that — I don’t think it would significantly impact the revenue,” Father Jenkins says. Some alumni and donors might revolt, he acknowledges. “But just in terms of a financial proposition, I don’t think it would impact the academy.” Hmmm. “You made the ‘Hmmm’ there,” he says, detecting the doubt prompted by recollections of, say, Alabama-Birmingham trying to shut down its football program, only to have outraged supporters swiftly revive it. Isn’t talk of such a move at Notre Dame more a theoretical exercise than a practical consideration? An existential matter only, to be debated by scholars over a couple of Father Hesburgh Manhattans? Father Jenkins’s tone faintly suggests: Try me. “Would someone who was going to give a gift to Notre Dame for a chair in philosophy or physics not give it if we did without football?” he asks. “I don’t think so.” Having said all this, the president says he embraces what athletics — what football — does for the Notre Dame community. “It brings people back to the university,” he says. “It gives them a visible bond. They feel, week to week, a connection to the university. And that does interest them in the academy, in education, in student life. “That is real.” The walk through the woods concludes, and the president of Notre Dame returns to his office under the golden dome. He has many things on his mind. A coming visit by Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the Supreme Court. A state-of-the-university speech that needs to be written. And the season’s first home football game, against Texas. A few days later, a national television audience and 80,795 fans in sold-out Notre Dame Stadium, including Father Jenkins, would watch Notre Dame’s quarterback throw for three touchdowns in leading the Fighting Irish to a 38-3 victory over the Longhorns. The name of the young man at quarterback is Malik Zaire, and he wears Notre Dame jersey No. 8 — available for sale in the bookstore.
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College football;College;John I Jenkins;College Sports;Scholarships;University of Notre Dame
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ny0184683
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[
"technology",
"internet"
] |
2009/03/27
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When Stars Twitter, a Ghost May Be Lurking
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The rapper 50 Cent is among the legion of stars who have recently embraced Twitter to reach fans who crave near-continuous access to their lives and thoughts. On March 1, he shared this insight with the more than 200,000 people who follow him: “My ambition leads me through a tunnel that never ends.” Those were 50 Cent’s words, but it was not exactly him tweeting. Rather, it was Chris Romero, known as Broadway, the director of the rapper’s Web empire, who typed in those words after reading them in an interview. “He doesn’t actually use Twitter,” Mr. Romero said of 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson III, “but the energy of it is all him.” In its short history, Twitter — a microblogging tool that uses 140 characters in bursts of text — has become an important marketing tool for celebrities, politicians and businesses, promising a level of intimacy never before approached online, as well as giving the public the ability to speak directly to people and institutions once comfortably on a pedestal. But someone has to do all that writing, even if each entry is barely a sentence long. In many cases, celebrities and their handlers have turned to outside writers — ghost Twitterers, if you will — who keep fans updated on the latest twists and turns, often in the star’s own voice. Because Twitter is seen as an intimate link between celebrities and their fans, many performers are not willing to divulge the help they use to put their thoughts into cyberspace. Britney Spears recently advertised for someone to help, among other things, create content for Twitter and Facebook . Kanye West recently told New York magazine that he has hired two people to update his blog. “It’s just like how a designer would work,” he said. It is not only celebrities who are forced to look to a team to produce real-time commentary on daily activities; politicians like Ron Paul have assigned staff members to create Twitter posts and Facebook personas. Candidate Barack Obama , as well as President Obama , has a social-networking team to keep his Twitter feed tweeting. The famous, of course, have turned to ghostwriters for autobiographies and other acts of self-aggrandizement. But the idea of having someone else write continual updates of one’s daily life seems slightly absurd. The basketball star Shaquille O’Neal , for example, is a prolific Twitterer on his account — The Real Shaq — where he shares personal news, jokes and occasional trash talking about opponents with nearly 430,000 followers. “If I am going to speak, it will come from me,” he said, adding that the technology allows him to bypass the media to speak directly to the fans. As for the temptation to rely on a team to supply his words, he said: “It’s 140 characters. It’s so few characters. If you need a ghostwriter for that, I feel sorry for you.” Athletes seem to be purists. Lance Armstrong , only hours after breaking his right collar bone, tweeted about it, using his left hand. Charlie Villanueva, a forward for the Milwaukee Bucks , tweeted at halftime from the locker room on March 15 about how “I gotta step up.” (His coach, Scott Skiles, was not pleased with his diversion, but the Bucks did win.) But for candidates like Mr. Paul, Twitter is an organizing tool rather than a glimpse behind the curtain. During the presidential campaign, said Jesse Benton, Mr. Paul’s campaign manager, “we assigned a staffer to each social network site. Each was used to generate the same message as a way to amplify the message and drive people back to our site.” He said that in rare cases, however, supporters would read more meaning in the online relationship than was intended. “On a bunch of social-networking sites, we would get some sincere written notes that would say ‘thank you for letting me be your friend,’ ” he recalled. Many online commentators are appalled at the practice of enlisting ghost Twitterers, but Joseph Nejman, a former consultant to Ms. Spears who helped conceive her Web strategy, said there was a more than a whiff of hypocrisy among critics. “It’s O.K. to tweet for a brand,” he said, remarking how common it is for companies to have Twitter accounts, “but not O.K. for a celebrity. But the truth is, they are a brand. What they are to the public is not always what they are behind the curtain. If the manager knows that better than the star, then they should do it.” In the last couple of months, the Britney Spears Twitter stream has become a model of transparency. Where the feed once seemed that it was all written personally by Ms. Spears — even the blatantly promotional items about a new album — lately it can read like a group blog, with some posts signed “Britney,” some signed by “Adam Leber, manager” and others by “Lauren.” That would be Lauren Kozak, social-media director of britneyspears.com . (Ms. Spears’s management team declined to be interviewed for this article.) An unabashed user of ghost Twitterers is Guy Kawasaki, chief executive of alltop.com , an aggregation site. Mr. Kawasaki, with more than 80,000 followers, is full of praise for the two employees who enliven his Twitter feed, often posting updates while he is on stage addressing a conference. “Basically, for 99.9 percent of people on Twitter, it is about updating friends and colleagues about how the cat rolled over,” he said. “For a tenth of a percent it is a marketing tool.” Annie Colbert, a 26-year-old freelance writer from Chicago who is one of Mr. Kawasaki’s ghost Twitterers, said she judged her performance based on how often her postings for Mr. Kawasaki are “retweeted,” that is, resent by other users of Twitter. Recently, she said, she had a coup when the actor Ashton Kutcher repeated her post about a YouTube video showing someone getting high from a “natural hallucinogen.” “Facebook is like ‘Cheers,’ where everyone knows your name,” she said. “Twitter is the hipster bar, where you booze and schmooze people.” She said she had been considering trying to get other ghost Twitter clients. “I don’t think I could ghost Twitter for 100 people,” she said. “More like 10 clients. I think I would have to get to know them.”
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null;Ghostwriter;Celebrity;Advertising Marketing;null
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ny0196617
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[
"business"
] |
2009/10/07
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Profit Jumped 18% at Yum Brands in Third Quarter
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Yum Brands, the restaurant chain operator, said Tuesday that its quarterly profit climbed 18 percent, helped in part by business in China. The company, which owns Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut, earned $334 million, or 69 cents a share, up from a profit of $282 million, or 58 cents a share, a year earlier. Yum, which operates nearly 3,300 restaurants in mainland China, said sales in the country rose 10 percent. Revenue for the period, which ended Sept. 5 and was the third quarter of Yum’s fiscal year, fell 2 percent, to $2.78 billion, from $2.84 billion a year earlier. The company raised its full-year profit forecast to $2.14 a share, from $2.10 a share. Yum, based in Louisville, released the results after the market closed. Its stock climbed 39 cents, to $35.25 a share, in after-hours trading.
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Fast Food Industry;Yum Brands Inc;Company Reports
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ny0184802
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[
"nyregion"
] |
2009/03/29
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Line by Line, Poets Capture the Immigrant Story, New Jersey Style
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WOODBRIDGE, N.J. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately... Wait. Wrong Xanadu. Still, if you were poetically inclined you could have done worse on Friday than to cruise past the still-dormant retail-entertainment project, all phantasmagoric shapes and colors, along the New Jersey Turnpike, toward the phosphorescent glow of the refinery world around Exit 13, past the Swan Motel and the anti-Xanadu of the East Jersey State Prison, with its own hulking displeasure dome glowering in the night. Eventually you would arrive at the Barron Arts Center, a Romanesque revival marvel built in 1876 and 1877 as a library of churchlike arches and gables, a clock tower and stained-glass windows. And if you came at the right time, you might have found Gretna Wilkinson, an energetic woman born in Guyana, declaiming like a soul on fire under the vaulted beams of the main room about saltfish and hot cungapump tea, Marvin Gaye and how Genesis caused Exodus: i had hoped to be intelligent about this believe time could help me strip this poem of metaphors then i would write about how, in a kinder world one mother buries another but saves the grip of her sons for her own casket i would write it raw. selfish. like that And so it went, Peter E. Murphy’s view of ships passing under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, José A. Rodriguez on his family of Hispanic laborers looking for work in Dimmitt, Tex., Timothy Liu’s erotic take on “Five Rice Queens,” Irina Mashinski’s sharp-eyed Russian émigré’s view of life in New Jersey and beyond. A cynic once said writing poetry is like ice fishing — you have to really want to do it to do it. But here we were Friday night in Woodbridge on the first day of the My New Life, My New Poem Festival of Contemporary Immigration Writing, reminded of how many people from such diverse backgrounds seem to want to do it. Most, but not all, of the readers had New Jersey ties. Some were children of immigrants. Still, as a snapshot of our assorted diasporas, here it was : Emanuel di Pasquale from Ragusa, Sicily; Sheema Kalbasi from Tehran; Paul Sohar, a Hungarian native who for years combined being a chemist at Merck with writing poetry; Rich Villar of Paterson, part Puerto Rican and part Cuban; Heather Raffo with excerpts from her one-woman play about Iraqi women, “Nine Parts of Desire.” THE festival came together largely because this stretch of Central New Jersey reminded L. E. McCullough, the township’s grants officer and the festival director, of Central Texas, where he had once lived. This is not a completely irrational thought if your frame of reference is the mix of cultures down there: Hispanic, Anglo, Cajun, Texas Czechs, African-American — and the you-name-it-it’s-there population mix in Central Jersey. And anyone who has been around for a while, like Mr. Sohar, 72, has watched the incessant ebb and flow of ethnic demography in the area. “Take New Brunswick,” he said. “It used to be solidly Hungarian. All around there were Hungarian clubs and five or six Hungarian restaurants. Now it’s all Mexican, Puerto Rican, Indians and everyone else. Some of these things change overnight, like all the Asians in the big new houses out here.” So some of the themes in the poetry were very much about the immigrant experience, like Mr. Rodriguez’s “Resident Alien Card.” This is what I know of that day: 5 years old and being walked through the immigrant process the photo first, two copies one for the eventual alien card and one that gets lost in a cardboard box without a label until today. And others were the world we share: sex, family, visiting a mother’s grave. Sometimes the differences among them seem more striking than the commonalities. But, no, most of the readers seemed to agree that what united them all was that outsider’s eye viewing our strange green oasis, which even in hard times still seems a place of heedless plenty — or at least the omnipresent dream of it. There was Mr. Murphy, from Wales. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry from Staten Island did not close the doors of the orphanage inside him On that boat he studied Casper the Friendly Ghost and ate a hot dog and Coke, the first supper of a life he hoped not to suffer. Or Ms. Mashinski: Traffic lights shine from bushes steppe wolves Passaic, Passaic! Your quiet but hissing name is like Mongol campfires squeezing the fortress I am the last one to defend. A Peruvian band, Viento Andino, played Andean music, the poets read and mingled. Other readings were set to be held on Saturday and Sunday. When it ended on Friday, the musicians packed up their instruments and the hall emptied out like the slow exodus from church. Nearby young men sat on the tailgate of a pickup, drinking beer. The streets were dark and quiet as the nice woman inside the GPS led you this way and that as you headed back, way up the Turnpike, toward Xanadu.
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Poetry and Poets;New Jersey;Festivals
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ny0116251
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2012/10/20
|
Anita Dunn, Both Insider and Outsider in Obama Camp
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WASHINGTON — In the rarefied world of political consultants who straddle the line between campaign adviser and corporate strategist, Anita Dunn has few peers. As a confidante of President Obama and a senior campaign adviser, Ms. Dunn has helped prepare him for the debates this month, plotted campaign strategy and acted as a surrogate of sorts in attacking Mitt Romney for a “backward-looking attitude” on issues like women’s rights and health care. She and her colleagues at SKDKnickerbocker , a communications firm, have built a growing list of blue-chip companies — food manufacturers, a military contractor, the New York Stock Exchange and the Canadian company developing the Keystone XL pipeline — willing to pay handsomely for help in winning over federal regulators or landing government contracts. Some clients and lobbyists who have teamed up with SKDK say they benefit from the firm’s ability to provide information about the Obama administration’s views. “It is difficult to penetrate this administration,” said Jason Mahler, a lobbyist for the computer technology company Oracle , which was part of a coalition that hired Ms. Dunn’s firm to push for reduced tax rates on offshore profits. “Anyone that has an insight into what they are thinking or their strategy or thoughts on issues we are working on is helpful, and they provided that.” SKDK executives said that Ms. Dunn, who declined to be interviewed, was scrupulous about separating her political work from her corporate agenda, and that she followed White House ethics rules barring her from appealing on behalf of clients. What the firm offers, said Hilary Rosen, an SKDK partner who is also a high-profile Obama ally, is help in navigating the political landscape in Washington. “It is not that people assume we can talk to the White House to influence them on policy,” Ms. Rosen said, “but that we understand progressive Democrats, including the administration — how they communicate their own message, think about their message — and therefore we understand how things will play.” Still, Ms. Dunn’s dual roles show the limits of Mr. Obama’s attempts to change the culture of Washington. Even as he pledged to curb the influence of special interests in the capital and has restricted the role of lobbyists in his administration, the president and his top aides continue to rely on political operatives like Ms. Dunn who also represent clients seeking to influence public policy. “He’s gone in the right direction,” said James Thurber , a professor at American University, referring to measures that opened more White House records to public scrutiny and that slowed the revolving door between government and lobbying firms. “But in the wide sweep of things, he didn’t really change Washington that much.” The rules, for example, do not apply to the army of consultants, advisers, communication strategists and others who represent clients with federal agendas. Unlike lobbyists, they are not required to disclose their activities, clients or issues, a freedom that has allowed them to become even more influential in recent years, ethics experts say. (Coincidentally, Ms. Dunn’s husband, Robert J. Bauer, who was White House counsel from late 2009 to 2011, helped shape and put in place some of the ethics measures.) Like Ms. Dunn, some other top Obama campaign advisers are both insiders and outsiders. Erik Smith , a senior media adviser for the Obama campaign, is the founder of a communications and issue advocacy firm whose current and former clients include Citigroup , Ford, Delta Air Lines and Genentech . Jim Margolis, another senior campaign adviser on media strategies, has an outside consulting firm that promotes his work “at the intersection of politics, advertising and advocacy.” And Broderick Johnson , a senior Obama aide, is a former lobbyist who has a consulting shop promising “a wealth of public and private relationships” that corporate clients can use “to secure useful intelligence.” He is taking a leave from the consulting shop while he is with the campaign. But it is Ms. Dunn, 54, a former White House communications director, who has the highest profile. Incisive and sharp-witted, Ms. Dunn acts as a sounding board for Mr. Obama and his campaign. “Who is a smart, aggressive woman who has been at the top of strategic battles for president, gubernatorial and Senate races? Anita Dunn would be near the top of the list,” said Joe Trippi, a longtime Democratic consultant. After starting her career in politics answering phones as an unpaid White House intern in the Carter administration, she ended up on Capitol Hill, working for Senator Bill Bradley before joining the firm now called SKDKnickerbocker in 1993. In the years since, she has served as a Democratic strategist and a communications specialist for Senator Tom Daschle , Representative Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats in Congress. She was an adviser to Mr. Obama’s upstart presidential bid in 2007, and has been a central player in defining his public image, taking a leave of absence from her firm in April 2009 to take over as Mr. Obama’s communications director. She left the White House in November 2009 to return to SKDK. She and her husband, who is now the top legal adviser to Mr. Obama’s campaign, form a Washington power couple who regularly attend White House social events. After leaving the administration, she continued to confer with leading officials, according to government records, including Valerie Jarrett , a senior adviser; Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner ; Jay Carney , the press secretary; Elizabeth Warren , who was a special adviser on consumer protection and is now a Senate candidate in Massachusetts ; and Christina D. Romer , who was the chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers . Ms. Dunn regularly attends closed-door political strategy briefings with top Obama aides; White House records show she has visited more than 100 times since leaving her communications job. She is now serving as a paid adviser to the Democratic National Committee . Both the White House and the campaign defended Ms. Dunn’s involvement. Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman, said the administration “in all instances” took steps to avoid any conflicts of interest. Adam Fetcher, a campaign spokesman, said it was “nonsense to think” that a communications consultant like Ms. Dunn should be precluded from doing campaign work because she had outside clients. Her consulting firm has thrived. SKDK focused for years on media campaigns for Democratic candidates, but soon after her return from the White House, it announced a “major expansion” emphasizing strategic communications and advocacy work for businesses. Nearly doubling in size to 60 employees, the firm hired a dozen Washington insiders tied to the Obama administration or the Democratic Party , including Ms. Rosen, a former lobbyist; Jill Zuckman, a senior Transportation Department official; and Doug Thornell, a former senior aide to House Democrats. And it took on corporate clients including General Electric , AT&T , Time Warner , Pratt & Whitney, Kaplan University and TransCanada , which is developing the Keystone XL pipeline. The firm has also helped run industry coalitions seeking to influence federal policy on particular issues, working with lobbyists and other media specialists that represented companies like Oracle, Google , Disney , Pepsi and Microsoft . Josh Isay, a managing partner at SKDK, attributed the firm’s success in communicating challenging policy issues to a team that has “decades of experience working in the highest levels of government, the news media, corporate America, labor and political campaigns.” Sometimes the firm has been at odds with the Obama administration, as when it worked with food manufacturers and media companies in an attempt to block guidelines intended to curb food commercials for unhealthy products like sugared cereals that are aimed at children. The administration ultimately dropped the proposed limits, after the coalition successfully pushed lawmakers to oppose the plan. Executives at SKDK said their work did not extend beyond devising ways to drive public opinion in a way that benefits the campaigns — by setting up Facebook pages and Web sites and lining up favorable news media coverage. While SKDK promotes Ms. Dunn’s prominent role as an Obama adviser on its Web site, it said it had never traded on its White House access to help clients. “Anita would not be welcome at the White House as often as she is if she was over there selling them on issues,” said Ms. Rosen, a frequent White House visitor herself. She and others at SKDK said the firm pointed out to clients that it did not lobby and noted the prohibitions on Ms. Dunn at the White House. A half-dozen clients and consultants working with the firm, who asked not to be named because the work for the corporate clients was supposed to be confidential, said information provided by SKDK that was not publicly available had been instrumental in planning strategy. Two consultants involved in the children’s advertising project said Ms. Dunn provided guidance on the likelihood that the administration and the Federal Trade Commission would back away from the proposal. In helping the New York Stock Exchange seek approval for a merger with a German exchange, SKDK’s associates told corporate partners that the Obama administration did not appear to have objections, participants said. And working on behalf of Pratt & Whitney, a military contractor, SKDK told other consultants that the administration appeared unwilling to move aggressively to kill a deal forcing the company to share a multibillion-dollar jet engine contract with General Electric, several participants said. Among its biggest assignments was representing a business coalition seeking to reduce tax rates on about $1 trillion in offshore earnings. Ms. Rosen told members of the corporate team that the Treasury Department was unwilling to go to bat for the idea, one participant recalled. SKDK and several senior Treasury officials say they never discussed the issue. But an official with knowledge of the issue said Ms. Rosen had spoken by phone with Jake Siewert, then a senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, asking whether there was any chance that the administration would allow such a plan to be included in a debt deal then under discussion. Mr. Siewert told Ms. Rosen that the idea had no administration support, acccording to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Ms. Rosen acknowledged that she probably spoke to officials at the Treasury press office to learn the administration’s public position on the tax plan. When The New York Times asked the Treasury Department last week about its contact with SKDK on the issue, that inquiry was forwarded to the firm within an hour.
|
2012 Presidential Election;Lobbying;Anita Dunn;Reform;US Politics;Barack Obama;SKDKnickerbocker
|
ny0196638
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2009/10/07
|
Obama Tells Lawmakers He Won’t Slash Troops in Afghanistan
|
WASHINGTON — President Obama told Congressional leaders on Tuesday that he would not substantially reduce American forces in Afghanistan or shift the mission to just hunting terrorists there, but he indicated that he remained undecided about the major troop buildup proposed by his commanding general. Meeting with leaders from both parties at the White House, Mr. Obama seemed to be searching for some sort of middle ground, saying he wanted to “dispense with the straw man argument that this is about either doubling down or leaving Afghanistan,” as White House officials later described his remarks. But as the war approached its eight-year anniversary on Wednesday, the session underscored the perilous crosscurrents awaiting Mr. Obama. While some Democrats said they would support whatever he decided, others challenged him about sending more troops. And Republicans pressed him to order the escalation without delay, leading to a pointed exchange between the president and Senator John McCain of Arizona , his Republican opponent from last year’s election. Mr. McCain told the president that “time is not on our side.” He added, “This should not be a leisurely process,” according to several people in the room. A few minutes later, Mr. Obama replied, “John, I can assure you this won’t be leisurely,” according to several attendees. “No one feels more urgency to get this right than I do.” Still, compared with the harsh debate over health care, the tone was civil and restrained during the 75-minute meeting in the State Dining Room as Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and about 30 members of Congress gathered around a large table with only glasses of water and notebooks in front of them. Mr. Obama summoned the lawmakers to assure them that he would keep their concerns in mind as he considered the request of his commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal , for as many as 40,000 more troops. The president plans to meet with his national security team on Wednesday to talk about Pakistan and on Friday to talk about Afghanistan. Aides plan to schedule one more meeting before he decides on General McChrystal’s proposal. Several administration officials and lawmakers who attended the session on Tuesday said Mr. Obama was intent on using it to dismiss any impression that he would consider pulling out of Afghanistan. “There is no option that would entail a dramatic reduction in troops,” said one administration official, who, like others quoted in this article, requested anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting. Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden made it clear that the option Mr. Biden had proposed was not a pure counterterrorism alternative, relying only on drones and Special Forces to track down leaders of Al Qaeda . Instead, Mr. Biden’s approach would increase the use of such surgical strikes while leaving the overall size of the American force in Afghanistan roughly at the 68,000 troops currently authorized. And in the final moments of the meeting, Mr. Obama sought to put to rest suspicions of friction with General McChrystal. “I’m the one who hired him,” Mr. Obama said, according to participants. “I put him there to give me a frank assessment.” A joint appearance afterward on the White House driveway by the two top Democratic Congressional leaders demonstrated Mr. Obama’s political challenge. “The one thing that I thought was interesting was that everyone, Democrats and Republicans, said whatever decision you make, we’ll support it basically,” said Senator Harry Reid , the majority leader. But Representative Nancy Pelosi , the House speaker, smiled and raised her eyebrows in apparent disagreement. “Whether we agreed with it or voted for it remains to be seen when we see what the president puts forth,” she said. “But I think there was a real display of universal respect for the manner in which he was approaching it.” At least three Democrats — Ms. Pelosi; Senator Carl Levin, the Armed Services Committee chairman; and Representative David R. Obey, the Appropriations Committee chairman — voiced reservations during the meeting about increasing troops, according to those in attendance. “There were a number of people who spoke out with a lot of caution about getting in deeper and what the endpoint is,” Mr. Levin said in an interview. Mr. Levin, who promoted accelerated training of Afghan forces, then met alone with Mr. Obama to expand on his views. Others shared their skepticism in interviews. “Clearly, there is hesitancy about the prospect of sending 40,000 more troops,” said Representative Nita M. Lowey , Democrat of New York. Senator John Kerry , chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said after the meeting that “it would be irresponsible” to send more troops until it became clear “what is possible in Afghanistan.” Some Democrats were more supportive of General McChrystal’s request, including Senator Dianne Feinstein , head of the intelligence committee, and Representative Ike Skelton, head of the Armed Services Committee. “I said the real war in Afghanistan did not start until March, when the president made the speech on strategy,” Mr. Skelton said in an interview, referring to the strategy Mr. Obama put in place shortly after taking office. “There was no strategy before that,” he said, and so the president ought to give General McChrystal what he needs to execute it. Republicans pressed even harder. After the meeting, Mr. McCain warned against any middle ground. “Half measures is what I worry about,” he said. Citing the Bush administration’s experience in Iraq , he added that half measures “lead to failure over time and an erosion of American public support.” Mr. Obama separately pointed to American successes against Al Qaeda in a series of recent missile strikes and Special Forces raids. During a visit to the National Counterterrorism Center just outside Washington on Tuesday, he said Al Qaeda had “lost operational capacity” but he vowed to continue pressing the battle to cripple the network around the world. White House officials said the president’s visit was not related to the Afghanistan review. But the public focus on efforts to eliminate Al Qaeda’s top hierarchy through surgical strikes could provide political cover for Mr. Obama should he reject the most expansive request for 40,000 more troops. Gen. David H. Petraeus , who oversees operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, told a military conference on Tuesday that the president’s strategy review was progressing toward a decision. “It is moving quite rapidly,” he told the Association of the United States Army . “There is a recognition of the need to move through this.” The general said the effort in Afghanistan required “a sustained, substantial commitment,” but he declined to say if that meant more troops.
|
Barack Obama;Afghanistan War;US Military;US Politics;House of Representatives;Senate
|
ny0099923
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2015/12/03
|
Warriors Reach 20-0 as Curry Scores 40
|
Stephen Curry scored 40 points in three quarters, and the visiting Golden State Warriors defeated the Charlotte Hornets, 116-99, on Wednesday night to extend the best start in N.B.A. history to 20-0. On a night when the Hornets honored Curry’s father, Dell, the franchise’s career scoring leader, it was his oldest son who stole the spotlight by hitting 14 of 18 shots from the floor, including 8 for 11 from 3-point range. Stephen Curry, who grew up in Charlotte and starred at nearby Davidson College, scored 28 points in the third quarter before sitting out the final quarter. SPURS 95, BUCKS 70 Tim Duncan recorded 16 points and 10 rebounds in 19 minutes, and San Antonio improved to 10-0 at home by cruising over Milwaukee. LAKERS 108, WIZARDS 104 Kobe Bryant had 12 of his season-high 31 points in the fourth quarter of his final game in Washington to help Los Angeles end a seven-game losing streak. ROCKETS 108, PELICANS 101 James Harden had 24 points and 10 rebounds, and host Houston overcame a double-digit deficit to subdue New Orleans. PISTONS 127, SUNS 122 Reggie Jackson had 34 points and 16 assists, and host Detroit came back from 16 down in the fourth quarter to top Phoenix in overtime. RAPTORS 96, HAWKS 86 Kyle Lowry scored 22 of his season-high 31 points in the fourth quarter, and Toronto rallied from 17 down to win at Atlanta. BULLS 99, NUGGETS 90 Pau Gasol had 26 points and 18 rebounds, and host Chicago sent Denver to its eighth straight loss. NETS OWNER INCREASING STAKE Mikhail D. Prokhorov has reached an agreement with Forest City Enterprises to gain full ownership of the Nets and Barclays Center, the team’s home arena, according to multiple news reports. The deal, which was first reported by Bloomberg, was said to be awaiting approval from the N.B.A. Prokhorov, who has been the majority owner of the Nets since 2010, has an 80 percent stake in the team and a 45 percent stake in the arena. Forest City Enterprises owns the remaining stakes, which would be transferred to Prokhorov in the deal. A spokesman for the Nets and Barclays Center declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Forest City Enterprises. ANDREW KEH
|
Basketball;76ers;Brett Brown;Golden State Warriors;Charlotte Hornets
|
ny0095024
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2015/01/17
|
Tigers Give David Price a Record Deal
|
David Price, the 2012 American League Cy Young Award winner, and the Tigers avoided arbitration when Price agreed to a $19.75 million contract, the largest one-year deal for a player who filed for arbitration. Detroit confirmed the deal Friday. ■ Randy Johnson’s Hall of Fame plaque will show him wearing a Diamondbacks cap. He also pitched for the Expos, the Mariners, the Astros, the Yankees and the Giants. (AP)
|
Baseball;David Price;Diamondbacks;Randy Johnson;Detroit Tigers
|
ny0234769
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2010/01/28
|
Judge Rejects Gutkowski’s Suit Against Steinbrenner Over YES Network
|
A federal judge in Manhattan rejected on Tuesday all claims made by a former president of Madison Square Garden that he gave George Steinbrenner , the Yankees’ principal owner, the idea for the YES Network. Bob Gutkowski, the executive who filed the suit in August , said that in meetings held over the course of several years, he suggested that Steinbrenner start his own television network and that Steinbrenner promised Gutkowski he would run the network or be part of it. Gutkowski said he did not receive the position or the financial interest in YES that Steinbrenner promised him, and he was seeking at least $23 million in damages. The judge, Richard J. Sullivan, focused on the vagueness of the oral agreement that Gutkowski said he had with Steinbrenner. Sullivan wrote that Gutkowski had “failed to plead adequately the compensation term of the putative agreement,” and that the “purported oral agreement” was unenforceable. He also ruled that Gutkowski “alleges no plausible facts” to support his claim that Steinbrenner never intended to deliver on his promises. Neal Brickman, the lawyer for Gutkowski, said, “What’s interesting about the opinion is that the claims were dismissed on several legal technicalities, not because Steinbrenner didn’t take Gutkowski’s work product and make millions of dollars off it.” He added: “So shame on Gutkowski for relying on Steinbrenner’s word that he would do the right thing and that it wasn’t in writing.” Brickman said he was analyzing whether to appeal the decision. In a statement issued by his spokesman, Howard J. Rubenstein, Steinbrenner, the only person named in the suit, said: “We said at the time that the suit was filed it was patently false and frivolous. We were proven correct.” The relationship between Gutkowski and Steinbrenner dates to the late 1980s, when Gutkowski, then the president of the MSG Network, signed a 12-year, $493.5 million deal to televise Yankees games. After Cablevision bought the Garden and ousted him, Gutkowski said he advised Steinbrenner that Cablevision felt it could “crush” Steinbrenner in renewal talks. YES started in 2002 with Leo Hindery Jr. as its president; Gutkowski said he was hired as a consultant in 2004, but his counsel was not sought and the deal was cut short. YES has become an extraordinarily successfully regional sports network, with the highly rated Yankees at its core, and is said to be worth at least $3 billion.
|
YES Network;New York Yankees;Steinbrenner George M 3d;Baseball
|
ny0120144
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2012/07/21
|
U.N. Refugee Agency Reports Worsening Situation in Syria
|
GENEVA — Thousands of Damascus residents are fleeing over the border into Lebanon to escape the latest upsurge in violence and the collapse of basic services back home, the United Nations refugee agency said Friday. Between 8,500 and 30,000 Syrians have crossed into Lebanon in the last 48 hours alone, a refugee agency spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming, told reporters in Geneva. “What’s different is that these people are coming from Damascus,” Ms. Fleming added in an interview. They joined an exodus of more than 112,000 Syrians who have already registered as refugees in neighboring Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan and many thousands more who have fled but not registered. United Nations relief agencies say three-quarters of them are women and children, often arriving in a desperate state with no more than the clothes they are wearing. Many in the latest influx to Lebanon arrived in cars jammed with possessions, Ms. Fleming said. The escalating battles between government and rebel forces in Damascus and other places have created enormous hardships for civilians who remain, some of them trapped by the fighting. Ms. Fleming said that shops are running out of supplies and closing, and that relief agency workers are hearing that state and private banks have run out of funds. The deterioration in means of support has raised concerns about Syrians driven from their homes but still in the country, a group now estimated at up to 1 million by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, the Syrian partner delivering relief provided by international agencies. Many of the displaced people had sought refuge in the capital and may now face renewed displacement, Ms. Fleming said. “Many Syrians in general are running low on resources and increasingly turning to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and other organizations for help,” she added. Among the most vulnerable are 8,000 refugees from other countries, mainly Iraq, who have fled homes in the Damascus suburb of Seida Zeinab in the face of the fighting and violent threats targeting them, Ms. Fleming said. At least 2,000 refugees, along with many Syrians, fled their homes to take shelter in parks and schools in the suburb of Jaramana, she said. Ms. Fleming said the refugee agency had been informed of a family of seven Iraqis killed in their home last week in Damascus. She also said that frightened Iraqi refugees had been calling the refugee agency to report threatening phone calls, some accusing them of siding with the government. Highlighting the sectarian tone of the violence reported in recent weeks, relief workers also say that some Iraqis have received calls accusing them of being Shiite Muslims. Sunnis are the majority in Syria and form the backbone of the uprising against the government. Iraqi authorities, responding to the crisis, have been seeking to evacuate their nationals, sending two aircraft to Syria on Thursday and 80 buses in recent days, according to relief agency workers, who said Iraq was preparing to send two more aircraft in the next few days. In Jordan, where the United Nations has already registered more than 30,000 Syrian refugees, the authorities are now building a camp capable of absorbing 115,000 people, Ms. Fleming said.
|
Syria;Refugees and Displaced Persons;United Nations;International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies;Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- );Lebanon
|
ny0089412
|
[
"technology"
] |
2015/09/10
|
Microsoft Challenges Warrant for Emails Stored in Ireland
|
Microsoft asked a federal appeals court on Wednesday to block the United States government from forcing the company to hand over a customer’s emails stored on a server in Ireland, warning that the precedent would create a “global free-for-all” that eviscerates personal privacy. The case is the first in which an American company has challenged a warrant seeking data held abroad. The appeal centers on a search warrant seeking the emails of an unidentified person in Dublin as part of a drug investigation. Nearly 100 organizations and individuals filed briefs in support of Microsoft’s position, including tech giants like Apple and media companies like McClatchy.
|
Microsoft;Email;Privacy;Ireland;Search and seizure;US
|
ny0146435
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2008/07/11
|
Jesse Jackson Barks, but Does He Still Have Bite?
|
It used to be called “the Jesse Jackson problem”: Democratic presidential candidates fearing they would lose black votes if they got on Mr. Jackson’s bad side, given the influence he accrued as a civil rights activist and his history-making races for the White House in 1984 and 1988. But if his recent critical comments about Senator Barack Obama prove anything, Democrats and political scientists said Thursday, it is that a Jesse problem these days can actually help a candidate like Mr. Obama — with white voters who have questions about whether Mr. Obama shares their values, and with black voters who see Mr. Jackson as a figure of the past. Even Mr. Jackson’s 43-year-old son, Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois, went beyond repudiation to excoriate him — a poignant reminder that a real generational shift in power and leadership is under way in African-American politics. Mr. Obama, 46, has already overshadowed former President Bill Clinton, once a deeply popular figure among black Americans; if anything, Mr. Obama seems likely to gain political dividends from Mr. Jackson’s vulgar criticism of him for, as Mr. Jackson put it, “talking down to black people” in speeches about the responsibilities of absent black fathers. “This moment only reinforces that we have to let the younger guys take the lead in politics, that they know the issues of today, that we live in a far different world than 20 years ago,” said Michael S. Dukakis, the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988, when Mr. Jackson won a series of nominating contests, including those in Georgia, Michigan and Virginia. Several Obama advisers said Thursday that Mr. Obama had not lost any sleep over Mr. Jackson’s remarks, a measure of the Obama camp’s confidence that excitement among many black Americans over his candidacy is approaching indestructibility. Indeed, the voting bloc that worries the Obama camp is white working-class voters. Many of them strongly supported Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton this year, while suspiciously eyeing Mr. Obama over matters like his association with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., his former pastor, whose controversial remarks about the United States and race relations threatened to muddy Mr. Obama’s image as a candidate who could transcend racial divides. The current strain of criticism against Mr. Obama, at least from the left, is that he is moving to the political center, exhibiting a taste for Clintonian triangulation. If Mr. Obama’s goal is to show independence from interest groups and ideological orthodoxies, Mr. Jackson, some say, may just have helped him. “If anything, it could possibly help Obama in distancing himself a bit from Jackson and help him with white voters,” said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University. The idea that black voters might sour on Mr. Obama, the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, simply because Mr. Jackson criticized him struck Mr. Abramowitz, among others, as laughable. He recalled being in a restaurant in Georgia that was giving away tickets to an Obama event recently; 50 people, most of them African-American, were still standing in line even though the tickets were all gone. Put another way, this episode serves as a reminder that the Jackson campaigns of 1984 and 1988 were quite a long time ago. Mr. Jackson no longer has the pull or punch he once did; indeed, even in 1988, his power was not great enough to pressure Mr. Dukakis to add him to the ticket. “Al Sharpton is not a threat to whatever power Jesse Jackson has, but a black president of the United States absolutely is,” said Bob Beckel, who was Walter Mondale’s campaign manager in the 1984 presidential campaign. “Even Jesse’s son is showing a little of George Bush’s independence from his old man — a son wanting to show he is more than just his father’s name.” Yet if Mr. Jackson is no longer the leader of black Democrats, it seems fair to ask if Mr. Obama, in fact, is. Some in the party say that while he has largely moved on from last year’s media narrative about whether he was “black enough” to win black votes, he has not yet, in their view, become a more respected spokesman and advocate for black issues than Mr. Jackson was and continues to seek to be. Indeed, Mr. Jackson indicated Thursday that he was not ready to leave the spotlight to Mr. Obama and exile himself from the political scene as punishment for what he called his “pejorative and personally embarrassing remarks.” “When I said that some of the messages aimed at the black church could be considered talking down to the blacks,” Mr. Jackson said, “my appeal really was the moral content of the message, in order to deal with personal and moral responsibility of black males but to deal with the collective moral responsibility of government and the public policy.” With Mr. Obama now seeking to lead the government that Mr. Jackson is criticizing, some might wonder how a President Obama would deal with a Jesse Jackson headache, if not the Jesse problem.
|
Jackson Jesse L;Obama Barack;Blacks;Presidential Election of 2008;Jackson Jesse Jr
|
ny0294074
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2016/06/01
|
North Korea Tells China of ‘Permanent’ Nuclear Policy
|
BEIJING — A senior North Korean official arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for talks between his country and China, whose ties are formally close but have eroded recently because of the North’s nuclear weapons program. North Korea’s state-run Central News Agency reported early Wednesday that the official, Ri Su-yong, told the Chinese that it was the “permanent” policy of the North to try to expand its nuclear arsenal while striving to rebuild its economy. Hours before Mr. Ri’s arrival, North Korea tried unsuccessfully to fire an intermediate-range Musudan ballistic missile, the fourth failed attempt in two months, according to the Yonhap news agency in South Korea. Mr. Ri, a former foreign minister who was recently promoted to the Politburo, came to discuss the recent congress in Pyongyang of the Workers’ Party, said a former senior Chinese official familiar with the visit as well as North Korea. The official declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter. The Workers’ Party congress , in early May, sought to cement the power of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, with whom Mr. Ri is considered close. Mr. Ri was North Korea’s ambassador to Switzerland at the time Mr. Kim attended a boarding school there, North Korea experts have said. Mr. Ri’s remarks were made during a meeting with Song Tao, who heads the International Liaison Department of the Communist Party in Beijing. The North Korean news agency said Mr. Ri had “stressed” that it was the Workers’ Party’s “principled” stance to stick loyally to Mr. Kim’s policy, known as byungjin , as a “permanent strategic line” and use it as a base to “defend peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the region.” Although the byungjin policy was hardly new, the meeting between Mr. Ri and Mr. Song was significant in that North Korea formally told China through a high-level governmental channel that it had no intention of giving up its nuclear weapons program. The news agency quoted Mr. Song as saying that the Chinese Communist Party and government supported North Korea’s pursuit of “a path to development that suits its reality.” It did not specify what Mr. Song had said about the North’s nuclear weapons program. Mr. Ri’s visit continued efforts by Mr. Kim to court China, the North’s main trading partner and benefactor, as the country feels the effects of United Nations sanctions . Still, China has been frustrated enough by the North’s continued testing of nuclear weapons and launching of missiles that it agreed to the international sanctions in March, and Beijing seemed unlikely to offer substantial support to the North during Mr. Ri’s visit. The visit left open the question of whether President Xi Jinping, who also serves as secretary general of the party, would agree to see him. But the former Chinese official said he thought it unlikely that Mr. Xi would meet with the North Korean visitor. Mr. Kim may have ordered Tuesday’s missile test to coincide with Mr. Ri’s visit, as a way of signaling to the Chinese that he would continue to cause trouble if Beijing did not help North Korea, according to Evans J. R. Revere, a former senior State Department official in charge of North Korea affairs. Such a tactic might not be advised given that China has shown increasing impatience with North Korea, Mr. Revere said. Even so, he added, “over the years, the North Koreans have shown themselves nothing if not skillful in manipulating the Chinese.” The attempted missile launching would almost certainly rule out an audience with Mr. Xi, said Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor of international relations at Renmin University. “China would seem without principle if he is allowed to meet with President Xi after they launched that missile,” Mr. Cheng said.
|
Ri Su-yong;North Korea;Nuclear weapon;China;International relations;Embargoes Sanctions
|
ny0222811
|
[
"us"
] |
2010/11/16
|
Illegal Immigrants Can Get Reduced Tuition, California Court Rules
|
LOS ANGELES — In a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday that illegal immigrants can be eligible for the same reduced tuition at public colleges and universities as legal residents of the state. The ruling is the latest in a series of high-profile battles about state immigration policies. In addition to Arizona’s strict new immigration law , which the United States Department of Justice has challenged in court, nine other states have laws similar to California’s, with lawsuits pending in Nebraska and Texas. Currently, students who attend at least three years of high school in California and graduate are eligible for in-state tuition at public schools, which can save them as much as $12,000 a year compared with students who come from other states. Illegal immigrants remain ineligible for state or federal financial aid. The California court ruled that the 2001 state law does not conflict with a federal prohibition on education benefits for illegal immigrants based on residency, in part because United States citizens from other states who attend high school in California may also benefit. “It cannot be the case that states may never give a benefit to unlawful aliens without giving the same benefit to all American citizens,” wrote Justice Ming W. Chin, one of the court’s more conservative justices, in the court’s opinion. Kris Kobach , the legal scholar who helped draft Arizona’s immigration law, argued the case on behalf of American citizens from other states who were not eligible for reduced tuition — his latest effort to enact tough illegal immigration policies in states across the country. He said his side would appeal the ruling to the United States Supreme Court. “I think the pendulum is definitely swinging in favor of enforcement of the law and discouraging illegal immigration,” Mr. Kobach said. “I am confident this is not the last word on the subject.” In California, Latinos now make up more than half of all students in public schools, according to the State Department of Education, and strong support from Latinos helped Democrats here fare better than they did in most other states in this year’s midterm elections. Supporters of immigration overhaul hope that legislation that would offer some illegal immigrant students access to federal financial aid and a path toward citizenship will be taken up again in the lame-duck session of Congress that convened Monday. “This law makes higher education affordable for so many students who have the added difficulty of not being eligible for federal financial aid,” said Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund . “If they are both ineligible for aid and then face higher tuition rates, it becomes virtually impossible for students to go on to higher education.” Kevin R. Johnson, dean of the law school at the University of California, Davis, said that the ruling might discourage future lawsuits in other states with similar laws, but that litigation about students who are illegal immigrants would continue. “This issue is not going to go away,” Professor Johnson said. “It’s going to require some Congressional action.”
|
Illegal Immigrants;California;Tuition;Colleges and Universities;Foreign Students (in US);Immigration and Emigration;Arizona Immigration Law (SB 1070);Kobach Kris W
|
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