id
stringlengths 9
9
| categories
list | date
stringlengths 10
10
| title
stringlengths 3
232
| abstract
stringlengths 4
42.4k
| keyword
stringlengths 6
360
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ny0279769
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2016/10/27
|
Megyn Kelly’s Pivotal Moment in a Post-Ailes Era at Fox News
|
Early last year, in an article in The New York Times Magazine , I defined what I called a “Megyn moment,” in a profile of the Fox News host Megyn Kelly: “When you, a Fox guest — maybe a regular guest or even an official contributor — are pursuing a line of argument that seems perfectly congruent with the Fox worldview, only to have Kelly seize on some part of it and call it out as nonsense, maybe even turn it back on you.” When I wrote that article, the Megyn moment was notable because it was so unusual. Normally, if guests hewed close to Fox News’s prime-time perspective (President Obama, woefully incompetent or frighteningly efficient; Democrats, bad, especially Hillary Clinton; Republicans good, mostly all of them), they were pretty much safe from challenge. In letting Ms. Kelly break from that orthodoxy here and there, the Fox News chief Roger Ailes seemed to be experimenting with ways to expand his channel’s audience, which was older, whiter and in danger of atrophying despite its longtime perch atop the cable news ratings. Ms. Kelly’s youth and divergent approach had the potential to draw in new viewers. The question at the time was, how far would he be willing to let these Megyn moments go? And what did that mean for Fox? That question arose again after Ms. Kelly had another one of her moments on Tuesday night, with a longtime Fox guest and contributor, Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker. But this time the question has taken on a more existential quality. The network’s longtime chairman, Mr. Ailes, was ousted over sexual harassment accusations last summer; a potential new challenger is threatening to emerge from the right in Trump TV, however uncertain it might seem; and Ms. Kelly and Fox’s other big star, Bill O’Reilly, are nearing the end of their contracts. Fox News’s very future is on the line. Ms. Kelly’s moment on Tuesday night initially fit the classic pattern. It began with Mr. Gingrich citing signs of positive news for Donald J. Trump from early voting counts, which he said augured a surprise victory for Mr. Trump. Ms. Kelly, clearly mindful of four years ago, when so many Fox News hosts doubted polls showing an Obama re-election, challenged him. “He’s been behind in virtually every one of the last 40 polls that we’ve seen over the past month, that’s the reality,” she said of Mr. Trump. But what really set Mr. Gingrich off was when Ms. Kelly said the sexual assault accusations against Mr. Trump were clearly taking a toll, raising questions about whether the candidate was “a sexual predator.” Mr. Gingrich asked why Bill Clinton’s accusers weren’t getting covered, and Ms. Kelly replied by saying that on her show they were. The exchange became edgier, and more personal. Mr. Gingrich told her she was “fascinated with sex,” and she told him she was “fascinated by the protection of women.” She signed off by telling him, “You can take your anger issues and spend some time working on them,” and he more or less said back atcha. (Mr. Trump provided his assessment of the exchange on Wednesday, saying “Congratulations, Newt, on last night. That was an amazing interview.”) Although the pattern was typical, the rancor was not. And it represented a bigger split at Fox News. By all accounts, in the absence of Mr. Ailes, Ms. Kelly has been freer to pursue her show on her own terms, which are certainly not in line with those of either Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump and therefore not in line with many in the Fox News core audience (let alone those of her old boss Mr. Ailes, who informally advised Mr. Trump before the debates). The same has held true for the Fox contributors who have not embraced Mr. Trump’s candidacy — like Dana Perino, the Republican co-host of “The Five,” and the Weekly Standard writer Stephen F. Hayes. They have been given ample time and freedom to call it as they see it in ways that were not as obviously apparent earlier this year. In that vein, the Fox News host Chris Wallace emerged as an exceptional debate moderator in the third presidential debate, holding firm with both candidates and asking tough questions of each. But there’s a flip side. In this “Free(er) to Be You and Me” environment at Fox, pro-Trump network personalities have become even pro-Trumpier, none more than Sean Hannity, the host whose show follows Ms. Kelly’s. An informal adviser to Mr. Trump, his rhetoric has grown as incendiary as that of his candidate. On the same day as Ms. Kelly’s confrontation with Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Hannity announced on his radio show that if Trump won, he would personally pay to fly President Obama to Canada or, for that matter, Kenya or Indonesia . It was a nod to the fake, old “birther” conspiracy that even Mr. Trump has eschewed after promoting it for years. So there, on Tuesday, were two distinct futures of Fox. Rupert Murdoch, whose family controls Fox News’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, has so far mostly kept it in its Ailesian mode, which, after all, has made Fox News a major profit driver for its corporate parent and kept it atop the cable news ratings. And Mr. Murdoch’s son Lachlan recently said it would be “foolish of us” to depart from “a winning strategy.” But CNN is nipping at Fox News’s heels, managing to beat it in the news demographic that advertisers care most about — people between the ages of 25 and 54 — over the last four weeks , the first such sustained victory in 15 years. Still, nothing forces decisions in television news like the hard deadlines of talent contracts. Ms. Kelly’s comes up later next year, followed by that of Mr. O’Reilly. Every rival network has expressed interest in picking her up, and Tuesday night’s Megyn moment can only help her in that regard. The Murdochs have made it clear they would like Ms. Kelly to stay, which they showed with the $6 million advance their book imprint HarperCollins paid for her coming memoir, “Settle for More.” On Wednesday night, The Wall Street Journal — a Fox News corporate sibling — quoted Rupert Murdoch as saying he viewed Ms. Kelly as important to the network and was hoping to have her contract locked down “very soon.” But, he added, the network has a “deep bench” of personalities, any of whom would “give their right arm for her spot.” But if the Murdochs persuade Ms. Kelly to stay, will there be room for her, Mr. Hannity and Mr. O’Reilly? Both Mr. O’Reilly and Mr. Hannity have openly feuded with her, though Mr. Hannity’s fights have been more bitter and more recent. If Ms. Kelly stays, will they? Who knows if Mr. Trump will pursue some sort of television news-style venture (he says he has no interest). But if he does, he could conceivably hire Mr. O’Reilly and Mr. Hannity, who has a contract provision that would allow him to follow Mr. Ailes out the door (though the window is tight and it would presumably have to happen in relatively short order). A Trump venture raises the prospect of a more moderate — if still plenty conservative-friendly — Fox News combating not just CNN and MSNBC but also a challenger from the right. Television news would never be the same.
|
Fox News Channel;Megyn Kelly;Newt Gingrich;2016 Presidential Election;Donald Trump;TV;Roger E Ailes
|
ny0048074
|
[
"business"
] |
2014/11/07
|
Voters Defeat Measure to Prevent Santa Monica, Calif., From Altering Airport
|
The Santa Monica City Council in California will retain the right to make decisions about the city’s airport now that voters have defeated a proposal backed by national aviation interests. At issue was a dispute over the noise and pollution generated by the small but busy airport. Though there is no scheduled passenger service, 95,000 flights operate in or out of the airport every year — 15 percent of those are private or business jets. The 227-acre airport is bordered on three sides by residences, and noise from the jets has troubled the neighbors since the mid-1960s. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and the National Business Aviation Association were supporting a measure to require the airport to operate without significant changes, unless approved by voters. The proposal would have effectively prevented the city from acting to diminish traffic or to close the airport, which it has owned since 1926. The Santa Monica City Council has been studying various alternative uses for the airport. Even though 59 percent of voters ratified the council’s ability to make decisions about the airport, the issue is far from settled. The Federal Aviation Administration says that Santa Monica must continue to operate the airport.
|
Airlines,airplanes;Santa Monica CA;Airport;City council
|
ny0118244
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2012/10/15
|
Woman Must Relinquish Kafka Papers, Judge Says
|
JERUSALEM — An Israeli judge has ruled that a huge trove of documents written by Franz Kafka and his friend Max Brod that have been hidden from view for decades must be turned over to Israel ’s national library, which plans to publish them online. The ruling, made public on Sunday, came after a lengthy legal battle that divided literary scholars around the world and pitted the government of Israel against the reclusive daughter of Mr. Brod’s former secretary, who had possession of the papers and sold some of them for millions of dollars. “This case, complicated by passions, was argued in court for quite a long time across seas, lands and times,” Judge Talia Kopelman Pardo wrote in a 59-page decision. “Not every day, and certainly not as a matter of course, does it happen that a judge dives into the depths of history and it is revealed before him fragment by fragment, shard by shard.” The archive includes tens of thousands of pages, most of them written by Mr. Brod, a prolific journalist and novelist who carried a suitcase of Kafka’s work with him when he fled to Tel Aviv from Prague in 1939. Nurit Pagi, who is finishing her doctoral dissertation on Mr. Brod at the University of Haifa, said the material included letters, diaries, sketches and notations by Kafka — “1,001 things that are in this archive that was closed to research for 40 years.” “This is a huge archive of massive breadth that has an economic significance, but first and foremost historical and literary significance,” Ms. Pagi said on Israel Radio. “And I hope it marks a change, a beginning, in adopting this whole culture which belongs to the heritage of the Jewish people and finally the state of Israel will fully adopt it and maybe even implement it.” When Mr. Brod, who had been the administrator of Kafka’s estate, died in 1968, he bequeathed to his secretary, Esther Hoffe, his and Kafka’s papers. Ms. Hoffe stashed them in her Tel Aviv apartment, where a scholar was last permitted to examine them in the 1980s; in 1988, she sold Kafka’s manuscript for “The Trial” for $2 million. When she died in 2007, the materials passed to her daughters. One of them, Eva Hoffe, said in a 2008 interview that she was destitute and saw Mr. Brod’s archive as her only asset; she said she wanted to write a book about Mr. Brod. The German Literary Archive had supported her legal position, demanding the right to purchase the papers. But Judge Kopelman Pardo rejected Ms. Hoffe’s claim that the papers were a gift from Mr. Brod to her mother, instead viewing them as a trust she was to administer. The judge noted that Mr. Brod’s 1948 will instructed that his archive go to a “public Jewish library or archive in Palestine ,” and that he later specified Hebrew University, where Israel’s national library is housed. Some scholars have argued that the papers belong in Jerusalem, alongside those of other major Jewish thinkers like Einstein and Martin Buber, saying that Kafka — like Mr. Brod — was deeply connected to Zionism and Judaism. Others contended that Kafka was deeply ambivalent about his Jewish identity, and that Germany’s claim on the papers was just as strong. Ms. Hoffe plans to appeal the decision, her lawyer said.
|
Archives and Records;Decisions and Verdicts;Kafka Franz;Israel;Books and Literature;Brod Max
|
ny0292715
|
[
"sports",
"olympics"
] |
2016/06/18
|
Russia’s Track and Field Team Barred From Rio Olympics
|
Russia’s track and field team is barred from competing in the Olympic Games this summer because of a far-reaching doping conspiracy, an extraordinary punishment without precedent in Olympics history. The International Association of Athletics Federations, the governing body for track and field, announced the decision Friday, ruling in a unanimous vote that Russia had not done enough to restore global confidence in the integrity of its athletes. Russia won 18 medals in track and field — including eight golds — at the last Summer Olympics. But when the Rio Games begin on Aug. 5, no track and field athletes will compete under the Russian flag. Not even East Germany, which conducted a notorious doping scheme throughout the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, faced such a penalty. “Politics was not playing a part in that room today,” Sebastian Coe, the head of the track and field organization, said about the vote Friday. “It was unambiguous.” The case against Russia has advanced over the last seven months. Reports by the World Anti-Doping Agency and by news organizations have detailed a state-run doping scheme that punctured the integrity of the Olympics, seemingly upending many of the results from the 2008 Beijing Games, the 2012 London Games and the 2014 Sochi Games. Video Russian President Vladimir V. Putin said on Friday at an economic forum that the actions of a few athletes should not affect those from an entire federation. Credit Credit Dmitry Lovetsky/Associated Press The allegations were wide-ranging and detailed: Athletes were given a three-drug cocktail of banned substances and liquor; authorities helped athletes evade drug tests by surreptitiously swapping out tainted urine; thousands of incriminating samples were destroyed; drug testers were threatened by members of Russia’s Federal Security Service. But perhaps the most influential force in the track organization’s decision was the outcry from athletes outside of Russia. A groundswell of Olympians across sports agitated for penalties after WADA had been slow to respond . “Athletes have been losing sleep,” said Lauryn Williams, a track and field and bobsled athlete from the United States. “You can’t have faith in anybody who is Russian.” The Russian ministry of sport said in a statement Friday that it was disappointed in the ruling. “We now appeal to the members of the International Olympic Committee to not only consider the impact that our athletes’ exclusion will have on their dreams and the people of Russia, but also that the Olympics themselves will be diminished by their absence,” the ministry said. The I.O.C., the ultimate authority over the Games, was scheduled to discuss the decision on Tuesday. If Olympics officials amended the ruling against Russia, it would be an unusual move, as they have historically deferred to the governing bodies of specific sports. Russian Sports Minister's Letter to the I.A.A.F. Russia’s sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, sent a letter to the I.A.A.F. on Wednesday making a final appeal concerning the ban. Russian track and field athletes have been suspended from international competition since last fall, after publication of a WADA report accusing the nation of an elaborate government-run doping program . Although Russia denied those accusations, the country’s track and field authorities did not contest the suspension when given an opportunity in November. Since then, however, Russian officials have striven to persuade global decision-makers that they could be trusted in coming Olympic competitions, volunteering to go beyond standard eligibility requirements and to send only athletes who have not been disciplined for drug use. Global track officials said Friday that individuals who could “clearly and convincingly show they are not tainted by the Russian system” — because they have been outside the country and subject to rigorous testing — could individually petition to compete for a neutral team. Such a policy could prove controversial. The sophistication of Russia’s operation, whistle-blowers have said, has made some athletes on steroids appear clean because incriminating urine samples have been swapped out or because athletes imbibed drugs with liquor to minimize the period during which the drugs can be detected. “Two or five or 100 negative tests do not mean an athlete is clean,” Rune Andersen, chairman of the I.A.A.F. task force that is monitoring Russia, said Friday. Video A former Russian Olympic ice skater, Svetlana Zhurova, and Moscow residents criticized the barring of Russia’s track and field team from the Rio Games. Credit Credit Paul Sancya/Associated Press He said that the loophole for individuals had been created at the recommendation of lawyers who were mindful of possible court challenges; Russian athletes will have the opportunity to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland. “We do not believe that every Russian athlete cheated,” said Stephanie Hightower, the president of USA Track & Field, who took part in Friday’s vote. “It is unfortunate and regrettable that some may pay a penalty for the serious transgressions of their federation.” On Friday, hours before the vote, Russia’s sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, made a final appeal, releasing an open letter to the I.A.A.F. that had been sent privately on Wednesday. “Russia fully supports fighting doping,” Mr. Mutko wrote, citing independent drug testing of Russian athletes that had been conducted by authorities from Britain in recent months and a new law that would make it a criminal offense “for an athlete’s coach and entourage to support doping.” Those overtures were not enough. Mr. Andersen said Friday that Mr. Mutko had privately acknowledged that Russia had inherited a doping culture from the Soviet Union. Perhaps further contributing to officials’ skepticism, WADA released information days before Friday’s vote that called into question the credibility of Russia’s reforms. The agency said that the testing authorities from Britain had been threatened by members of Russia’s Federal Security Service and that many athletes — a significant number of them track and field competitors — had evaded drug tests with the help of sports officials as recently as this month. Russian Doctor Explains How He Helped Beat Doping Tests at the Sochi Olympics A step-by-step look at how Russian agents used an elaborate scheme to swap out tainted urine samples for clean ones taken months earlier. Whistle-blowers have provided further details on the clandestine doping scheme the report described. Fearing for their safety, at least three of them have fled to the United States. In Los Angeles, Grigory Rodchenkov, Russia’s former antidoping lab director, told The New York Times that he had worked for years at the direction of the Russian government to ensure the country’s dominance in international competition. He said he had provided a three-drug cocktail of steroids and liquor to sports officials, who in turn provided those drugs to the country’s top athletes. According to Dr. Rodchenkov, Russian athletes took that cocktail to prepare for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. They stopped taking the drugs one or two weeks before they were scheduled to be tested, he said, to avoid being caught. “If you’re fighting doping, Russia should be withdrawn from the Olympics,” Dr. Rodchenkov said in Los Angeles last month. “Doping is everywhere. Many people in Russia don’t want to tell the truth. Lies and fear are absolute.” Russian authorities have vehemently disputed Dr. Rodchenkov’s account, calling it the “slander of a turncoat.” In a phone interview Friday, Dmitri Svishchev, head of the State Duma’s committee on sports, culture and youth affairs of Russia, called the decision “an injustice,” adding, “Russia has never denied that it has problems with doping, just as any other country.” In general, nations have been barred from the Olympics because of geopolitical considerations, not doping. After both world wars, losing nations were kept out of the next Games. South Africa was barred from 1964 to 1988 because of its policies of apartheid. Yugoslavia was prevented from entering team events in 1992 because of United Nations penalties over the war in the Balkans. It is unclear whether the I.O.C. can or will overturn the I.A.A.F.’s ban when it meets on Tuesday. The I.O.C.’s president, Thomas Bach, has emphasized in recent weeks “the difficult decision between collective responsibility and individual justice,” suggesting sympathy for Russian athletes with clean histories who are seeking to make it to Rio. Still, Mr. Bach has also emphasized a “zero-tolerance” policy and said that if other Russian sports organizations were proved to be ridden with state-sponsored cheating, they, too, could be kept from the Olympics. Katie Uhlaender, a skeleton racer from the United States, said it was difficult to react to Friday’s decision because the I.O.C. had yet to respond. “If there are Russian athletes that can prove beyond reasonable doubt that they’re clean, let them compete,” she said. “But I literally started crying at the details of the Sochi scandal,” she said, referring to Dr. Rodchenkov’s account of having substituted out Russian athletes’ incriminating urine. “What does it even mean to ban Russia?” she said. “Is sending them to their room or putting them in a timeout going to solve the problem?”
|
Russia;2016 Summer Olympics;Track and field;Doping;International Assn of Athletics Federations;International Olympic Committee;Olympics
|
ny0014332
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2013/11/13
|
Live Nation Nears a Deal for Managers of Music Acts
|
Live Nation Entertainment, the giant concert company that includes Ticketmaster, is in advanced negotiations to buy the management companies behind U2 and Madonna, according to several people with direct knowledge of the talks. If the deal is consummated, it will further strengthen Live Nation’s already deep ties with U2 and Madonna, two of the highest-earning and most durable pop acts of the last 30 years. As part of the deal, Live Nation would pay more than $30 million for both Principle Management, the company of U2’s longtime manager, Paul McGuinness, as well as Maverick, run by Guy Oseary, Madonna’s manager, according to these people, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were not authorized to discuss the deal publicly. In what would be one of the most surprising shifts in years among the forces behind pop megastars, Mr. Oseary, 41, would take over the day-to-day management of U2. Mr. McGuinness, 62, who has managed U2 almost since its inception — and in doing so became one of the most highly esteemed executives in the music business — would become Principle’s chairman, with a role that was not fully clear. A spokeswoman for Live Nation declined to comment, and Mr. Oseary could not be reached Tuesday afternoon. In a statement, Mr. McGuinness said: “It could be seen as slightly poor etiquette for a manager to consider retiring before his artist has split, quit or died, but U2 have never subscribed to the rock ’n’ roll code of conduct. As I approach the musically relevant age of 64 I have resolved to take a less hands-on role as the band embark on the next cycle of their extraordinary career. “I am delighted that Live Nation, who with Arthur Fogel have been our long term touring partners, have joined us in creating this powerful new force in artist management. I have long regarded Guy Oseary as the best manager of his generation, and there is no one else I would have considered to take over the day-to-day running of our business.” According to Pollstar, a concert industry trade magazine, the top 10 highest-grossing tours include four by U2 and one by Madonna. U2’s last tour, called 360, had more than $700 million in ticket sales and was seen by nearly seven million people around the world. Live Nation, which besides its concert promotion and ticketing business manages the careers of some 200 acts through its Artist Nation division, has had close ties with both U2 and Madonna for years. In 2007, it struck a $120 million deal with Madonna that covered touring and recorded music rights for a decade, and it later sold the recording rights to Universal. In 2008, it made a deal with U2 to handle the band’s touring and merchandising exclusively for 12 years. Along with other arrangements Live Nation made around that time with Jay Z, Shakira and Nickelback, those deals came to symbolize a major change in the music business, as artists looked to concerts, merchandise and myriad other outlets to make up for lost record sales.
|
Live Nation Entertainment;U2;Madonna;Music
|
ny0029082
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2013/01/25
|
Larry Selman, a Shepherd of Greenwich Village, Dies at 70
|
Larry Selman weighed three pounds when he was born on April 2, 1942, and was not expected to survive the day. He rallied, though, grew to become a friendly, husky boy and attended public school until he was about 16, when a teacher explained to him that he would probably never earn a high school diploma because, by all measures, Larry was — in the parlance of the 1950s — mentally retarded. Mr. Selman dropped out of school soon afterward. He lived in Brooklyn with his parents, Phillip and Minnie, while working as a laborer for the parks department. After the death of his mother in 1968, following close upon the death of his father, Mr. Selman moved into a small apartment in Greenwich Village with the help of an uncle, Murray Schaul. He spent the rest of his life there, most of it in obscurity, though in his final years he enjoyed a gentle fame among filmgoers familiar with the 2002 documentary about him, “The Collector of Bedford Street.” Mr. Selman, who had been treated for severe diabetes in recent years, died on Sunday, apparently of a heart attack, friends said. He was 70. He had an eventful and in some ways remarkable life, filled with the daily struggles of a man whose I.Q. was said to be 62 but who was determined to live independently. He managed to achieve his goal, in a sense, by taking responsibility for other people: those more vulnerable than himself. Mr. Selman’s life would have remained invisible except for his outsize talent for connection. It earned him friends in the Village, including Alice Elliott , the director of “The Collector of Bedford Street,” which was nominated for an Academy Award. The film chronicled a period of crisis in Mr. Selman’s life, in the late 1990s, when Mr. Schaul was ailing and Mr. Selman felt himself at the precipice of homelessness. Mr. Schaul, 81, had visited him daily and helped him financially. Faced with the loss of his uncle, Mr. Selman was considering suicide, he told friends. In desperation, and out of loneliness, he began giving homeless men the key to his Bedford Street apartment. Some fellow tenants took him to court, seeking his eviction. Image Larry Selman. Credit Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times The “collector” in the title refers to Mr. Selman’s prodigious work as a neighborhood fund-raiser. From 1970 until his death he collected more than $300,000 by some estimates — from people he approached in the Village, one at a time, requesting donations of $1 and $2 each. He collected money for St. Vincent’s Hospital, the families of Sept. 11 victims, Muscular Dystrophy research, AIDS research, Kiwanis International projects and animal rescue groups, among others. “Collector” also suggests how Mr. Selman’s daily conversations with neighbors and passers-by, and his dogged way of reminding them of the needs of others, brought people together and shepherded them toward civic-mindedness. “Larry, in effect, made our community,” Ms. Elliott said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “He was our glue.” About 100 neighbors established a $30,000 trust fund for Mr. Selman, administered by the UJA-Federation of New York. It supplemented his income from Social Security disability funds, and later replaced some of the money he had been receiving from Mr. Schaul, who died in 2005. The neighbors also helped him settle his eviction problem. (He agreed not to let homeless people use his apartment anymore.) In 2003 the trust fund helped pay for Mr. Selman’s trip to the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles as Ms. Elliott’s guest. (Her film did not win the short-documentary award; it went to “Twin Towers,” a film about the 9/11 attacks.) Mr. Selman began being invited to film festivals, charitable events and conventions two or three times a year. He was a seminar panelist at a nurses’ convention in Columbus, Ohio. In 2007 he traveled to Qatar as a guest of the royal family to attend the official opening of a national center for children with disabilities. His friend Sally Dill was his frequent traveling companion. She said his last years had in some ways been the best of his life. He loved meeting people, she said, and he loved the feeling that he was doing something to help others. “He loved to travel, being in new places, and he loved being the center of attention,” Ms. Dill added. “In the end, he did a lot of that.”
|
Larry Selman;The Collector of Bedford Street;Greenwich Village Manhattan;Obituary
|
ny0118614
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2012/10/22
|
Eating Well Magazine’s New Lease on Life
|
SHELBURNE, Vt. — Employees at Eating Well magazine sometimes don’t quite believe their good fortune. Since the Meredith Corporation bought the magazine last year for $29 million, it moved out of the drafty warehouse offices it shared with curtain-climbing raccoons and a squirrel skilled at stealing bread loaves, and into a new $500,000 space with views of the Adirondacks and room to grow an edible garden. And the staff can now consult with Meredith editors at magazines like Every Day With Rachael Ray and Family Circle to brainstorm about test kitchens and effective covers. But as in any new relationship, especially when it involves partners who have been burned, Eating Well’s 40 employees are wary. Hachette bought Eating Well in the late 1990s and abruptly shut it down. It took a decade for the magazine’s small but loyal staff to build it up again and place its trust in a new corporate owner. “Everyone was a little nervous at first we would get sucked up by this big company,” said Stacy Fraser, the test kitchen manager who worked at the magazine under both owners and on a recent afternoon worked around stacks of freshly picked apples and gourds lining the test kitchen counter. “People are feeling more secure that Meredith is in for the long run.” But Eating Well is still trying to forge its own path in a world without Gourmet, the long-running magazine that published its last issue in November 2009. It didn’t follow the approach many food magazines took through the recession and celebrate high-calorie foods, like rich pasta dishes or ribs, aiming to take the edge off readers’ job losses and dwindling retirement accounts. The magazine isn’t coveted by foodies as is Lucky Peach, from McSweeney’s and the chef David Chang, and isn’t afraid to offer the kind of tips that some might scorn, like using store-bought pizza dough or making Jell-O desserts. “We’re not going to outdo Gourmet,” said Lisa Gosselin, the editorial director. She played down her own cooking talents as she presided over a flavorful lunch of oven-baked fried chicken, a crunchy and flavorful massaged kale salad, fresh bean and tomato salad with honey vinaigrette and Cheddar cornmeal biscuits with chives. Readers don’t seem to want Eating Well to veer from its format of recipes and articles about flavorful healthy meals for readers with limited time and tight budgets. Ms. Gosselin said readers sent angry letters when the magazine profiled the healthy eating habits of celebrities like the model and designer Lauren Bush and Elisabeth Hasselbeck of “The View.” It welcomes celebrity chefs when they talk about food. “The difference between us and the Food Network is we’re more about food and less about entertainment,” she said. As advertising has dwindled in the past year at many food magazines, Eating Well’s advertising pages declined by 7.4 percent in the past year, in line with many other food magazines, but it has gained circulation under Meredith, jumping to 549,300 from 369,231 in the last year. Meredith executives credit the growth to their ability to market the magazine to 100 million subscribers to their magazines, books and other products. Newsstand sales, helped by the company’s previous relationships with sellers, jumped 46 percent in the past year to 73,311, from 49,909. (Meredith also doesn’t appear to be giving away the magazine to raise circulation. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the average subscription price per copy in 2011 declined to $2.01 from $2.14 the year before.) By comparison, Cooking Light, which is owned by Time Inc., had a decline in advertising pages of 17 percent, and its circulation modestly rose to 1.814 million, from 1.783 million. Food Network, the blockbuster magazine owned by Hearst, had an ad page increase of 14.8 percent and a small circulation bump, as well. Tom Harty, president of Meredith’s National Media Group, said the company wanted Eating Well to thrive, and he pointed to its new offices here in Shelburne as proof of its commitment. “We are extremely pleased with its growth and performance over the past year,” Mr. Harty said. Eating Well also makes money by repackaging its healthy recipes and nutritional content to outside organizations. It supplies recipes to Food Network’s Web site , repackages some of its content into newsletters for health care companies and publishes a free magazine called Eat Healthy Your Way to be placed in checkout lines at commissaries on military bases around the world. The licensing and custom publishing business now make up about one-quarter of Eating Well’s total revenue, and that part of the business, according to the company, is growing more than 30 percent a year. To help guide coverage, the magazine follows topics searched by its nearly four million unique site visitors each month. Ms. Gosselin said that search data showing readers were interested in Jell-O prompted its September article. “It’s very data-driven,” said Ms. Gosselin about the magazine’s content. “Some of our articles are in there because we know there’s an interest in, say, chocolate pumpkin pie.” Through the magazine’s transition, it has remained tied to Vermont’s thriving local food scene, which Ms. Gosselin says is as essential to Vermont as fashion is to New York. Its new offices sit across from Shelburne Vineyards and Fiddlehead Brewery. The pages of the magazine feature products from local farmers, like apples from nearby Shelburne Orchards. As the orchard’s owner, Nick Cowles, rolled out a crust for a three-foot-wide apple pie on a recent afternoon, he talked about how much he appreciated the magazine even though it didn’t highlight two of his favorite ingredients: butter and whiskey. “They have recipes in there that don’t have butter. I’m a big believer in butter,” Mr. Cowles said. “But I think it’s a great magazine.” Eating Well began in 1988, when James Lawrence, publisher of a small magazine called Harrowsmith Country Life, and his colleagues were becoming more health-conscious as they approached their 40s. The first issue, published in nearby Charlotte, appeared in September 1990. Mr. Lawrence, who calls himself a “serial entrepreneur,” left shortly afterward to start a book publishing company. In these early years, Eating Well appeared to thrive. In a plan Mr. Lawrence provided to prospective investors, he said that paid circulation grew to more than 400,000 within the first year and eventually grew to 700,000 subscribers. But by the time it was sold to Hachette, it was troubled by internal squabbles about whether to cater to older or younger readers. Hachette closed it in 1999. Many of Eating Well’s staff members remained in the area, and Mr. Lawrence restarted the magazine in 2002. Once again, Mr. Lawrence left shortly afterward to work on books about marine biology. He says the magazine should have a better chance of surviving now. “Food and health is one of the great topics of our age,” he said. “It’s driven by people’s desire to eat more healthy.” That thinking also persuaded Thomas P. Witschi to join the magazine in late 2005 and see if he could build its national presence. Mr. Witschi, who describes himself as “not a good cook,” insisted that the magazine remain in Vermont because of the high concentration of food writers there. He shopped for private equity investors to help build up the magazine and is frank about how much the magazine’s success depended on timing. “We started this turnaround in 2006. Had we started this 12 months later, I don’t think we would have made it,” said Mr. Witschi, who now is president of Meredith’s lifestyle group. Mr. Witschi seems more confident that Eating Well has a better chance of success now than it did in the 1990s because of the nation’s continuing problem with obesity and desires for healthier and tasty food. “We need to talk to the Walmart customer. We need to talk to the McDonald’s customer,” he said. “We’re not shy about it. Why not?”
|
Cooking and Cookbooks;Diet and Nutrition;Eating Well;Magazines;Food;Meredith Corporation
|
ny0275821
|
[
"science"
] |
2016/02/09
|
Experience Science: Count Birds From Your Backyard
|
Bird-watchers worldwide will flock to parks and backyards this Presidents’ Day weekend to record the winter whereabouts of millions of birds. Their efforts are part of the Great Backyard Bird Count , an annual avian census that asks amateur and expert ornithologists to contribute bird sightings to a massive online database. The citizen science project is run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the National Audubon Society and Bird Studies of Canada. It is currently in its 19th year and will last from Feb. 12 until Feb. 15. Last year more than 140,000 people from more than 100 countries classified nearly half of the world’s bird types during the four-day event. Included in the 5,090 different species identified in 2015 were two new bird species, the millpo tapaculo and Santa Marta screech-owl, which had never before been described in a scientific journal. Common among the count included the thousands of northern cardinals, blue jays and American goldfinches that frequent birdfeeders and serenade gardens year-round in the United States. More rare were sightings of the great hornbill in India, the Pincoya storm-petrel in Chile and the golden-cheeked warbler in Honduras, according to Marshall Iliff, an ornithologist from Cornell. Interested bird-watchers can join this weekend’s count by using their smartphones or a paper and pen to jot down every bird they see in an area for at least 15 minutes. They can then upload their findings to the project’s website. Details such as color and behavior are useful to ornithological sleuths in determining which bird breeds are present. Data from the count contribute to other citizen science projects, such as eBird , and help scientists learn more about how avian populations cope with climate change and harsh weather conditions. The event also includes a photo contest that features fancy plumage from across the globe.
|
Birdwatching;Birds;Crowdsourcing;Audubon Society; National;Cornell Lab of Ornithology;Bird Studies Canada
|
ny0136193
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2008/04/13
|
Barry Gottehrer, 73, Lindsay Aide, Dies
|
Barry H. Gottehrer, a journalist whose award-winning newspaper series “City in Crisis” helped elect John V. Lindsay mayor of New York in 1965 and who then joined the administration to help defuse the subsequent crises the city faced, died Friday night near his home in Wilmington, N.C. He was 73. The cause was pancreatic cancer, his son, Kevin, said. An author and a former sportswriter and editor at Newsweek and other magazines, Mr. Gottehrer was recruited by Dick Schaap to lead a team of reporters at The New York Herald Tribune in a far-reaching and ultimately damning examination of an ailing New York in the mid-1960s. They documented a time of swelling budget deficits, rising crime, deepening racial turmoil and growing demands for decentralized government and greater community control. The series, published in 1965, began, “New York is the greatest city in the world — and everything is wrong with it.” It was later published as a book. Mr. Lindsay, then a liberal Republican congressman from Manhattan, appropriated the series as his urban manifesto and was elected mayor that year on a progressive platform. When, as the columnist Murray Kempton wrote, everyone else connected to city government seemed tired, Mr. Gottehrer, barely 30, was hired as a mayoral assistant, joining Jay L. Kriegel, Sid Davidoff and other brash beginners whom Mr. Lindsay was attracting to his administration. Mr. Gottehrer soon organized the Urban Action Task Forces, neighborhood-based groups created to anticipate local grievances and to quell unrest. Though his methods were sometimes called excessive — he was accused of coddling black militants and consorting with organized crime figures — his balm-throwing helped keep New York cool during the proverbial long, hot summers of the late 1960s, when other American cities burned. In a memoir, “The Mayor’s Man” (Doubleday, 1975), Mr. Gottehrer described himself as “a white in a world of black and brown, a moderate in a world of revolutionaries, trying to bring change where changed seemed needed most, trying to buy time until the change would come.” His job from 1966 to 1971 was primarily to keep City Hall aware of potentially explosive situations and to insinuate himself into them before they might blow up. In the process, he enlisted the Gallo mob to calm racial tensions in a largely Italian-American neighborhood in Brooklyn; he worked in tough neighborhoods with street-level intermediaries, some of whom were gunned down by rivals; he dealt with Abbie Hoffman to avoid confrontations with Yippie anarchists; and he inserted himself into antiwar rallies and counterdemonstrations, sometimes drawing accusations of interfering with police efforts to control the protesters. In a profile of Mr. Gottehrer in The New York Times Magazine in 1968, Nicholas Pileggi described him as the mayor’s “consciously inconspicuous” assistant whose mandate was “orchestrating municipal chaos — dealing in the process with well-meaning clergymen, jealous community leaders, poverty-fund rivals, police precinct captains, sniping political contenders, merchant groups, machete-carrying militants, aggressive peace demonstrators, law-and-order radicals and incipient rioters — into a cacophonous truce.” Mr. Pileggi added: “The angry groups who storm his office with mimeographed sheets of demands are always disarmed by the short, unpretentious young man in a sports shirt and slouch who greets them. Straight black hair combed back, deep, sad, dark eyes, a strong nose angled down, the whole contour of his face projects such uncontentious melancholy that many of his battles — and potentially Mayor Lindsay’s — are de-escalated with a wan smile and a handshake.” Born Jan. 25, 1935, in the Bronx to Arthur and Hilda Gottehrer, Barry Hugh Gottehrer graduated from the Horace Mann School, Brown University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His first marriage ended in divorce. His second wife, Patricia Anne Gottehrer, survives him, as does their son, Kevin. He is also survived by two daughters from his first marriage, Andrea Kling and Gregg Salem, and two grandchildren. Under Mr. Lindsay, Mr. Gottehrer also created the forerunner of the office to promote television and film production in New York and instituted a summer jobs program for youngsters. He left the administration, he said, believing that its priorities had changed and he had become expendable, concluding that “the best kind of power, your power for constructive change, is very limited.” Afterward, he joined Madison Square Garden as a senior executive, then worked as a government affairs tactician for the insurance industry in Massachusetts. Later, he worked as a consultant and lived in Washington and North Carolina. But it was his tumultuous tenure at City Hall that he saw as his defining period. “Remember those good old days in New York City,” Mr. Gottehrer wrote in 1987, not without irony, to others who had worked for Mr. Lindsay, “when we all were young, beautiful, invincible and we all really cared.”
|
New York City;Lindsay John V;Deaths (Obituaries);Gottehrer Barry H;New York Herald Tribune;Newspapers
|
ny0245474
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2011/04/21
|
ProCro? GoCaGa? No Telling Which Area Names May Stick
|
Everyone knows that some of the best people-watching in New York City can be had in Hell’s Hundred Acres. Those on the hunt for a middle-class complex would be well advised to check out the Gas House District. Hankering for bagels and a schmear? Get thee to Bloomingdale, stat. All are names, gone and widely forgotten, of the areas currently known as SoHo, Stuyvesant Town and the Upper West Side. Their rechristening was driven by marketing and the age-old arriviste penchant for reinvention: like colonists, neighborhood newcomers staked their claim by renaming wherever they happened to land. But now a state assemblyman, Hakeem Jeffries, is writing legislation that would punish real estate agents for inventing neighborhood names and for falsely stretching their boundaries. It would also require that name changes get city approval. Under Mr. Jeffries’s vision, NoLIta may never have been allowed to break away from Little Italy. Alphabet City might not have been subsumed by the East Village. SoBro could have been dead on arrival (some might argue it already was). Mr. Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, might have a difficult time persuading other legislators to sign on, but he says such renaming is not innocuous because it artificially inflates housing prices. “Neighborhoods have a history, culture and character that should not be tossed overboard whenever a Realtor decides it would be easier to market under another name,” he said. Mr. Jeffries’s outrage was set off by reports that real estate agents were using the name ProCro to peddle properties on the border of the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Prospect Heights and Crown Heights, an area within his district. He also said the name “sounded silly.” But in the history of the city’s changing neighborhood names, it has never been easy to predict when a new name would stick. The abbreviation floodgates appear to have been opened by SoHo, a name that gained traction in the mid-1960s as artists began to live illegally in factory spaces south of Houston Street. It also had the allure of having a twin, nomenclaturally speaking, in London’s Soho, a centuries-old area whose name appears to have roots in a hunting call. Next came TriBeCa, tentatively trotted out in the early 1970s. “It’s called TriBeCa, though nobody’s wild about the name,” The New York Times said in 1976. By then, abbreviation fever had struck: The article also noted that some residents preferred to call the area LoCal or SoSo, for South of SoHo. And then it was off to the races, with neighborhoods like NoHo, NoLIta and finally Dumbo (actually an acronym, for Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass) coming about and — with the exception of NoLIta — being enshrined on city maps. Joel Minster, senior vice president of Kappa Map Group, which publishes Hagstrom maps, said the inclusion process involved consulting local residents and the city. Developers and marketers fanned the flames, creating what has become a likely graveyard of names, using whatever ramp, tunnel, viaduct and manhole cover that happened to be nearby: NoBat, NoCal, BoHo, CanDo, ViVa (West Harlem between two viaducts), and, in Brooklyn, BoCoCa (where Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens converge) and GoCaGa (Gowanus meets Carroll Gardens). The blogosphere giddily took the rebranding to new heights. In 2005, the blog Curbed held a contest for neighborhood names; the winner was Rambo: Right After the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, between Tillary and York Streets, in Brooklyn. But other names stuck, somewhat. Lockhart Steele, the founder of Curbed, said he and his friends bandy about the names of FiDi, for the Financial District, and SoBro, a repackaging of the South Bronx. “Those neighborhood names are catching on, albeit perhaps slowly and awkwardly, because they actually fulfill a need,” he said. Jonathan Butler, who created the Brooklyn blog Brownstoner, said the area that set Mr. Jeffries off, “ProCro,” may deserve its own name because it shares elements of both Prospect Heights and Crown Heights. “Crown Heights is huge,” he said, “and in this case, the subneighborhood designation is quite helpful.” For all the fuss, a cursory search of Craigslist ads revealed no trace of listings for “ProCro.” Many lauded Mr. Jeffries’s bid to punish real estate agents for suggesting that properties are in more tantalizing areas, but the halting of name creation gave some pause. “Neighborhood names and the coining thereof is a quintessentially New York activity that should be encouraged, not discouraged,” Mr. Steele said. “Telling people not to is like telling New Yorkers they can’t have hot dogs in the street.”
|
Names Geographical;Housing and Real Estate;Jeffries Hakeem;New York City
|
ny0142644
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2008/11/01
|
Straight From the Mayor’s Head
|
For more than 30 years, the call has not come from a secretary or an aide, but from the man himself. “Alberto,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg invariably says, “I’ll be there in three minutes.” Like the mayor, his hairstylist, Alberto Rottura, is an early riser. “I never need more than four and a half hours of sleep a night,” Mr. Rottura said in an interview. So when a black sport utility vehicle carrying Mr. Bloomberg pulls up outside his hair salon on Madison Avenue — sometimes at 7 a.m., but usually a bit later, around 7:30, he said — Mr. Rottura is ready with a pair of Solingen scissors in his hands. His salon occupies a narrow, modest space above a lingerie shop in one of the city’s wealthiest ZIP codes. Mayor Bloomberg lives a block away, and another of Mr. Rottura’s clients, Betsy Gotbaum , the public advocate, lives on the other side of Central Park. Tom Wolfe , the writer, has his hair cut there, and former Gov. Eliot Spitzer used to, but then he got tangled in an escort scandal, resigned and never came back, Mr. Rottura said. “He has little hair,” Mr. Rottura said of Mr. Spitzer. “And whatever hair he had, we did the best we could.” Mr. Rottura is 66, a short man with an aquiline nose, a receding hairline and a gray mustache that stretches the length of his upper lip. He has been cutting hair for a living since he was a teenager in the village of Acquaro, in southern Italy. His father made wine and olive oil, but Mr. Rottura found his calling in the barbershop across the street from his home. He arrived in New York alone in 1960, a nine-day voyage across the Atlantic, and lived at first in Jamaica, Queens. He spoke no English, but said he had no trouble finding a hairdressing job. He stayed in the city for a year or so, left to work in London, Paris and throughout Italy, before finally returning and opening his own hair salon — first on 58th Street and Sutton Place, now at 78th and Madison. He hasn’t left since. Mr. Rottura speaks descriptively, and with sympathy, about his prominent clients’ hair struggles. Ms. Gotbaum, who makes many visits to his chair, needs to have her hair cut, blow-dried, colored and combed frequently. “She has lousy hair,” Mr. Rottura said, “very fine.” Mr. Bloomberg is at the salon about every other week, and since he became mayor, he always arrives long before it opens for business at 9 a.m. Coming early also allows Mr. Bloomberg to avoid getting an earful from other clients who happen to be here, like the woman who, shortly after he became mayor, grabbed him for 20 minutes and wouldn’t stop talking. He and Mr. Rottura have known each other since the 1970s, when Mr. Rottura worked on Sutton Place and Mr. Bloomberg was working at Salomon Brothers, the Wall Street investment bank, now a subsidiary of Citigroup. “A lot of the men we do here are usually the husband, boyfriend or lover of one of the women who are our clients,” said Mr. Rottura, who also lives on the Upper East Side. He said that in Mr. Bloomberg’s case, it was his former wife, Susan Brown, who introduced him to the salon. “I gave his children their first haircut,” Mr. Rottura said. The mayor’s haircut has no particular style, Mr. Rottura explained. “He’s here so often, there’s very little hair to cut,” he said. “He just likes to look neat.” The mayor pays $35 for a haircut; women’s haircuts start at $100. The salon also has a manicure-and-pedicure service that is popular with men and women alike, but Mr. Rottura said that Mr. Bloomberg has never requested it. A hairdresser’s chair, like a psychiatrist’s divan, is often a place where secrets are revealed, and Mr. Rottura said that he had heard a lot in his 50 years as a hairdresser. But he has also learned “what to ask, when to ask and how much to ask,” he said. “I’m always very careful with what I ask the mayor,” Mr. Rottura said. “But I don’t have a problem telling him a dirty joke.”
|
Hair;Beauty Salons;Bloomberg Michael R;Politics and Government
|
ny0232028
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2010/08/04
|
Assassination Sets Off Wave of Killings in Pakistani City
|
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A wave of violence after the assassination of a senior politician on Monday has left at least 47 people dead in Pakistan ’s largest city, the southern port of Karachi. The violence erupted after the politician, Raza Haider, a provincial lawmaker and the leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, was shot to death along with his bodyguard. Within hours, mobs spread out across Karachi, setting fire to public and private property, including dozens of vehicles. Business centers were forced to shut down. Normal life has since come to a virtual standstill, and schools and government offices remained closed on Tuesday. President Asif Ali Zardari ordered an immediate inquiry into the assassination, according to the presidential spokesman, Farhatullah Babar. Karachi, a sprawling city of more than 16 million people, has a long history of sectarian and ethnic violence, as well as violent political clashes over the economic spoils and ties to criminal syndicates that come with political control of the city. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement, or M.Q.M., controls the city government with the support of Urdu speakers who migrated to Pakistan after partition in 1947. The party has been criticized for its strong-arm tactics in the past. Most of those killed since Monday have been ethnic Pashtuns, who have migrated to Karachi in increasing numbers from the north, where the army has opened a series of campaigns against the Pakistani Taliban in recent years. The Taliban are mostly Pashtun, and the influx to Karachi has led to charges by the M.Q.M. and its supporters of a creeping “Talibanization” of the city. In recent months, the M.Q.M. has clashed violently with the Awami National Party, a political party that draws its strength from the Pashtuns in the city and elsewhere. The M.Q.M. says 150 of its workers have been killed in the past three weeks. Local news media have reported that at least 300 people have been the victims of political killings in Karachi this year. Pakistani analysts say the struggle between the parties may be one for spoils. “The current violence could have to do with a battle that is political but could also have to do with the various vested interests that have a stake in the criminalized system that runs Karachi — in terms of say, land, water and revenue generation and apportionment,” said Omar R. Quraishi, editor of the editorial pages of The Express Tribune, an English-language newspaper in Karachi. Nasreen Jalil, a senior leader of the M.Q.M. and a former deputy mayor of the city, blamed leadership of the Awami National Party in Karachi for supporting the Taliban and other militants working with drug traffickers and land-grabbing gangs operating in the city. “We have pointed out several times that Taliban are present in Karachi,” Ms. Jalil said in an interview. “They are residing in Pashtun localities, most of which are illegally occupied by land mafia,” she said. “Many Pashtuns are involved in drug trade, selling arms and ammunitions. Whenever there is an anti-encroachment drive, killings increase in the city in retaliation.” Leaders of the Awami National Party deny the allegations. Ms. Jalil also blamed some elements of President Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party for supporting criminal gangs in the city. Rehman Malik, the country’s interior minister, on Tuesday blamed Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, a banned militant group, which is involved in a series of terrorist attacks against Shiites and other minorities, for the assassination that set off the violence. Responding to the interior minister’s claims, Ms. Jalil said that Islamic militants had joined hands with the local A.N.P. leadership. “It is syndicate,” she said. “A council of criminal elements.”
|
Haider Raza;Pakistan;Karachi (Pakistan);Politics and Government;Assassinations and Attempted Assassinations;Muttahida Qaumi Movement
|
ny0030309
|
[
"business"
] |
2013/06/17
|
Niels Diffrient, Industrial Designer Who Blended Form and Function, Dies at 84
|
Niels Diffrient, an industrial designer who combined elegance and efficiency in everyday objects, including telephones, cameras, airplane interiors and, late in his life, office chairs that adjusted themselves to whoever sat in them, died on June 8 at his home in Ridgefield, Conn. He was 84. The cause was cancer, said his wife, the tapestry artist Helena Hernmarck . Mr. Diffrient, who spent his early years on a farm in Mississippi during the Depression, stood out for his natural drawing ability. “He had two books, the Sears Roebuck catalog and the Bible,” Ms. Hernmarck said of his early childhood. “The Bible didn’t interest him, but the Sears Roebuck catalog — that immediately interested him.” Mr. Diffrient spent hours drawing his own versions of items from the catalog. Two decades later, after Mr. Diffrient had attended art school, he applied his interest in consumer products as an assistant to the architect and designer Eero Saarinen, who hired him to help design chairs for Knoll. After traveling to Italy on a Fulbright fellowship in the 1950s — he helped design an award-winning sewing machine while he was there — he quickly established himself in the expanding new field of ergonomics. Mr. Diffrient called it “human factors engineering.” The goal was to blend function and form in a world that was increasingly dependent on mass-produced machines. His immersion in the field began in earnest in 1955, when he started a quarter-century career with the design firm of Henry Dreyfuss. Mr. Dreyfuss had been influenced by the military’s interest during World War II in improving how a range of objects, not just uniforms but also the cockpits of tanks and fighter jets, met human needs. Mr. Diffrient helped design the streamlined and illuminated Princess phone, seats for John Deere tractors and the Polaroid SX-70 camera, which in addition to producing pictures instantly could be collapsed into a jacket pocket. He also helped design the interiors of American Airlines jets, including the seats. Image Niels Diffrient with a Freedom Chair. Credit Sally Andersen Bruce “The difference between us as designers and engineers is that engineers are fundamentally without an aesthetic motive,” he said in 2010 as part of a panel at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. “They work out something that functions mechanically or electrically and it’s functional, but they don’t add that extra something that’s poetic, cultural, visually satisfying.” Beginning in the 1970s, Mr. Diffrient collaborated on a series of manuals that provided data-driven guidelines for designing furniture and spaces for all people, including children, older adults and those with disabilities. The first volume, “Humanscale 1/2/3,” was published in 1974. He left the Dreyfuss firm in 1981 and, his wife said, struggled for more than a decade to find a new niche. In the late 1990s, when he was past 70, he found it in the office chair. His creation, which he called the Freedom Chair , became a competitor of Herman Miller’s popular Aeron chair . “The problem with many ergonomically designed office chairs is they have all these knobs and levers — to adjust the seat height, recline of the backrest, height of the armrests, the headrest and so on,” he told The New York Times Magazine in 2003. “But most people never use them. The things that this chair does to address that problem are: When you recline, you don’t have to adjust the chair — it adapts to your body weight. When you decide that the armrests are not where you want them to be, you grab one or both arms and move them up or down. They’re coordinated, so if you pull one up, the other follows.” The Freedom Chair, whose lowest-end model currently sells for about $700, has won numerous design awards and helped make Mr. Diffrient something of a brand name late in his life. “He always said he was happy to end on a high note,” his wife said. Mr. Diffrient was born on Sept. 6, 1928, in Star, Miss. His family later moved to Detroit, where he graduated from Cass Technical High School and received a bachelor’s degree from Wayne State University. He attended Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., as a graduate student. In addition to his wife, whom he married in 1976, his survivors include three children from a previous marriage, Scott Diffrient, Julie Miller and Emily Diffrient; a brother, Roy; and a sister, Betty Herring. Asked the source of inspiration for his distinctive skill in blending the technical and the aesthetic, Mr. Diffrient told The Times he ultimately had one goal. “Why would you design something,” he asked, “if it didn’t improve the human condition?”
|
Niels Diffrient;Design;Chair;Obituary
|
ny0226613
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2010/10/08
|
The Knicks Return From Europe With a Foundation to Build On
|
PARIS — It was 6:45 a.m. Thursday when the line began forming inside the luxury hotel on Rue de Castiglione. The Knicks were just another party of bleary-eyed travelers, waiting to reconcile room charges and begin the long journey home. Coach Mike D’Antoni was fifth in line, just ahead of Glen Grunwald, the senior vice president, who was a few bodies ahead of shooting guard Kelenna Azubuike. Everyone’s expression carried the same basic mix of fatigue and satisfaction. For seven days in Europe, the Knicks alternately trained and explored and began piecing together the foundation of a team. They held team dinners in Milan and Paris, fumbling their way through the menu. They visited the Duomo and the Louvre and smiled brightly for a team photo in front of the Eiffel Tower. They celebrated Danilo Gallinari’s homecoming in Milan and cheered for Ronny Turiaf’s return to Paris. “I think they’ve seen some stuff and done something they might not ever do in their whole life,” D’Antoni said. “So it’s got to be enriching, to a certain degree.” On the court, the Knicks looked as rough and uneven as Milan’s cobblestone streets. They beat an inferior Italian club (Armani Jeans Milano) and lost to an inferior N.B.A. opponent (the Minnesota Timberwolves). They were as ragged as a team with 10 new players should expect to look after only two weeks together. Clearly, the basketball will take longer than the camaraderie. The first order upon returning home was rest. The Knicks are taking two days off before returning to their Westchester training center on Saturday. They have six more exhibition games to tune up their play, starting Wednesday, when the Boston Celtics visit Madison Square Garden. There is clearly much work to do before they open the regular season on Oct. 27 in Toronto. “I think we’ve done a great job,” Amar’e Stoudemire said. “Offensively, we still have to get better. But defensively, we’re doing a phenomenal job of really, really being active, causing some turnovers, blocking some shots, communicating. It’s a great sign for us.” Stoudemire quickly showed his value with a 32-point outburst in Milan, but he needs consistent help. Gallinari was as erratic against Minnesota (3 for 13 from the field) as he was efficient against Milano (7 for 14). Wilson Chandler was productive (29 points in two games) but faded in and out of the offense. And Raymond Felton, Stoudemire’s all-important new pick-and-roll partner, is still acclimating to D’Antoni’s supercharged offense. In two games, Felton had 12 assists and 8 turnovers, while shooting 3 for 11 from the field. “Right now, Raymond’s just going a bit too fast — that’s the biggest thing,” D’Antoni said. “We’ll slow him down, he’ll get a rhythm. He’s driving too deep, too fast. I have the maximum faith that he’ll get it done. It’s not a problem.” Stoudemire, who is one of the few Knicks to have played in D’Antoni’s system before, said patience was needed. “There’s a lot of tempo to this style of play,” he said, “and when you’re surrounded by such great talent, you kind of have to figure out how to get guys in the right spot. And it takes time.” The Knicks’ youth was often apparent. D’Antoni raved about Timofey Mozgov’s skills, then watched him foul out in only 15 minutes in Paris. Anthony Randolph, the intriguing third-year forward, showed off his athleticism with big dunks and blocks — and his impulsiveness with a bunch of ill-considered jump shots. Toney Douglas and Landry Fields quietly impressed throughout training camp and seem certain to play major roles. D’Antoni, who has often kept a tight rotation of seven or eight players, wants to play 10 or 11 this season, to allow the Knicks to play at a high pace for 48 minutes. It is still entirely unclear how all of these new pieces will best fit together. Chandler is establishing a hold on the starting job at shooting guard. But the center position is very much up for grabs, between Turiaf, Randolph and Mozgov. Impressions of the Knicks are already changing, albeit slowly. Their offseason overhaul has drawn high marks from Reggie Miller and Commissioner David Stern and a number of rival team executives. In the league’s annual poll of general managers, 14.3 percent named the Knicks as the most improved team, behind only the Miami Heat. Stoudemire ranked as the acquisition with the second-biggest impact, behind LeBron James. Expectations are higher now. The Knicks realize that the results might fall short while they experiment with lineups and strategy. “I think a lot of people in New York are maybe going to be upset,” Turiaf said after the loss to Minnesota, “but we have a bigger pictrue in mind. And it’s not about winning now. It’s about winning toward the end of the season.”
|
Basketball;New York Knicks;D'Antoni Mike;Gallinari Danilo;Felton Raymond
|
ny0050193
|
[
"sports",
"hockey"
] |
2014/10/11
|
Islanders Open With Victory
|
Brock Nelson had two goals and two assists, Johnny Boychuk added a goal and two assists in his debut, and the Islanders beat the host Carolina Hurricanes, 5-3, in their season opener. The key free-agent acquisition Mikhail Grabovski had a goal, Travis Hamonic also scored, and John Tavares had three assists in his return after injuring his knee at the Olympics.
|
Ice hockey;Islanders;Carolina Hurricanes;Mikhail Grabovski;Johnny Boychuk
|
ny0277649
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2016/11/16
|
‘We Have a Fake Election’: China Disrupts Local Campaigns
|
BEIJING — He presented himself as a candidate of the people, a folksy problem-solver who would rid garbage-strewn streets of dog waste and put an end to illegal parking. But in the eyes of the authorities, Zhang Shangen, 73, a candidate in local elections in Beijing on Tuesday, was a menace seeking to undermine the Communist Party. The Chinese government blocked Mr. Zhang’s campaign at every turn, sending police officers to intimidate him and his supporters. On the eve of a major rally last month, Mr. Zhang said, the authorities whisked him to a city more than 800 miles away. “The government manipulates everything,” he said in an interview at his home in Beijing on Tuesday. “They are scared people will wake up to reality.” Tuesday was Election Day in Beijing, with thousands of seats for party-run local congresses up for grabs. Outside community centers and police stations, officials urged people to “treasure democratic rights” and “cast your sacred and solemn ballot.” But before the elections, there were no debates, town hall-style forums, social media wars or other hallmarks of participatory democracy. Instead, the government responded with bluster and bullying, detaining activists and confiscating campaign materials. President Xi Jinping, who has vigorously blocked threats to the Communist Party’s dominance since coming to power in 2012, has taken a harsh stance against advocates for democracy and has sought to limit Western influences. For the small but spirited band of activists who had been working for years to shake the status quo, the election results were disheartening, to say the least. “There is no way I can be elected,” said Gao Changqi, 66, a retired architectural technician who ran in the elections in Beijing, adding that he had been trailed by the police. “The system won’t let it happen.” Image Official posters promoting local elections in Beijing. The poster in the center of the board on the right urged voters to “cast your sacred and solemn ballot.” Credit Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times Despite the Communist Party’s monopoly on power in China and its strenuous efforts to limit dissent, the government has permitted elections at the local level for decades, eager to show to the world that China, too, has democracy. Every five years, the government encourages citizens over the age of 18 without a criminal record — about 900 million people this year — to choose representatives for local People’s Congresses, the lowest level of the Chinese Legislature. The elections are staggered, and by the end of the year, about 2.5 million such representatives will be selected across China. But the elections are democratic in name only. The party picks its preferred candidates and leaves no room for an upset. Even after a candidate is elected, his or her powers are severely restricted, given the centralized nature of decision-making in China. The Legislature is widely considered to be a rubber stamp of Mr. Xi and the Communist Party. In recent years, activists and scholars have urged the government to allow more competition in local elections to give people a way to voice their frustrations. Hu Xingdou, an economics professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, said having a genuine legislative process in which all qualified citizens were allowed to run for office was crucial to maintaining stability in China. “Improving the People’s Congress system is a necessary step toward reform,” he said. “If this route is blocked, then it could prove hard to achieve social stability in the future.” The Communist Party, however, has been reluctant to change course. In 2011, as independent candidates embraced social media to outline policy proposals and rally supporters, the government intervened , threatening volunteers and refusing to add independents to ballots. The elections this year are the first of their kind under Mr. Xi, whose tenure has been marked by tighter control of civil society and a harsh treatment of dissidents. Over the past several weeks, the authorities have carried out a far-reaching campaign to rein in unsanctioned candidates across the country, placing some under house arrest and barring others from campaigning. In Shanghai, which holds elections on Wednesday, the police detained several activists who were distributing leaflets for an independent candidate, according to news reports. In Qianjiang City, in the central province of Hubei, activists said in interviews that they had been followed by the police and blocked from speaking with voters. Wu Lijuan, 50, a former bank employee who is now a human rights advocate, said the police had instructed residents to cut off communication with her and not vote for her. She praised the American political system and argued that Chinese elections should be more transparent. Image Security personnel blocked journalists from visiting Liu Huizhen, an independent candidate, in Beijing last week. The authorities sent several dozen men to tail Ms. Liu and prevent her from meeting with voters. Credit Ng Han Guan/Associated Press “We have a fake election,” she said. “In public, they say they allow you to have an election, but in reality, they don’t. You can’t mention the shortcomings of officials. You can’t speak ill of political leaders.” The Chinese news media have largely avoided discussing the elections, only publishing basic information about voting dates and preparations. In Beijing, where more than 70 people ran independent campaigns this year, a dozen candidates appeared at the offices of the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress on Tuesday to file complaints, even while they acknowledged that their protests would probably have little effect. Mr. Gao, the architectural technician, said activists would continue to promote democracy and the rule of law in China, despite resistance from the central government. He quoted Lu Xun, considered one of the greatest writers in modern Chinese history, whose works have been embraced by democracy advocates. “Lu Xun once said, ‘The Earth had no roads to begin with, but when many men pass one way, a road is made,’” Mr. Gao said. “As long as it is within a legal framework, we will keep trying to run for local People’s Congresses.” In an apartment complex not far from Tiananmen Square, Mr. Zhang, the retiree running in local elections, said his neighbors had come to see him and his wife, Guo Shumei, 70, who was also running, as pariahs for deciding to take on the establishment. They have called the party’s representatives out of touch and inaccessible, and they have accused the government of not doing enough to solve issues like overpopulation and pollution. The neighborhood that the couple was seeking to represent includes about 10,000 people packed into a few densely populated city blocks. On the streets outside, posters put up by the government called on residents to “elect good representatives who are for the people.” Ms. Guo said she planned to run again in 2021, assuming she was in good health, even if the authorities discouraged her. “If the police come again, I’ll tell them, ‘You ruined this year’s effort, but I’ll see you again in another five years.’” Mr. Zhang and Ms. Guo spent Election Day at home, refusing to vote as a sign of protest.
|
Election;Beijing;Communist Party of China;Human Rights;China;Xi Jinping;Police
|
ny0115487
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2012/11/13
|
Unions Offer Support for President Obama’s Tax Plan
|
Having helped President Obama win re-election, labor leaders will meet with him on Tuesday and intend to offer their robust support for what they view as his mandate: stand tough against cuts in Medicare , Medicaid and Social Security and keep pushing to raise taxes on the wealthy. Organized labor’s emphasis on broader policy, rather than union-specific legislation, is somewhat of a change from 2008, when leaders pushed for bills that would make it easier to organize workplaces. As the administration begins talks with Congressional Republicans to modify a range of tax increases and budget cuts scheduled to go into effect next year, the unions say they will rally their forces on a broader agenda, seeking to counter business and conservative groups that are pushing for cuts in social programs and tax breaks for corporations and wealthy individuals. “We expect to have the president’s back on the agenda that the voters just declared support for,” said Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, which spent $75 million in backing Mr. Obama and various Democrats this year. “The president has always said he needs a movement behind his mandate.” Mr. Obama has talked of going beyond the Beltway to stir up support for his plans, including increasing taxes on households with incomes of more than $250,000. Union leaders have made clear that they are happy to turn out the troops to — in a tactic from the Franklin D. Roosevelt era — “make him do it.” Union members held rallies in 100 communities last Thursday as a first step in promoting the president’s budget plan. Bill Samuel, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s legislative director, said, “We agree with the president that tax rates for the wealthiest 2 percent need to go up to provide revenues to invest in jobs, education, infrastructure and training.” When Mr. Obama was first elected, labor pushed for the stimulus bill and health care legislation, but also sought a host of more specific bills, such as the so-called card check bill, which are no longer on the top of their agenda. Card check would make it easier to unionize workers by allowing a union to win recognition by persuading a majority of a workplace’s employees to sign cards saying they favor unionization instead of having to go through an often-lengthy campaign and secret ballot election. Card check was blocked by Republicans in Congress, and with that party controlling the House of Representatives, it seems unlikely to return as an issue this year. “When you look at how close the election returns were, the president did benefit substantially from organized labor,” said Charles B. Craver, a labor law expert at George Washington University. “The question now is, will he do anything, can he do anything for labor? If he tries, the Republicans will block it.” After Mr. Obama’s first victory, the International Association of Firefighters pushed Congress to enact a bill that would grant firefighters and police officers the right to bargain collectively in all 50 states. But that effort fizzled. “We have to shift our strategy until we see the realistic opportunities of a 60-vote majority in the Senate or a change in the rules,” said Harold Schaitberger, the firefighters’ president. Union leaders say Mr. Obama needs to pursue strategies to reduce income inequality , and some support a bill to raise the minimum wage, currently $7.25 an hour, to $9.80 after two years. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the service employees also back immigration reform, sharing that goal with business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “We think getting 11 million workers out of the shadows and allowing them the same rights as other workers will be real important to improve their lives and incomes,” Ms. Henry said. Union officials would still love to somehow enact card check, but they are also brainstorming other less ambitious bills that promote unionization, which they say is crucial to expanding the middle class. Randel K. Johnson, senior vice president for labor issues of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said he does not see much chance of Congress passing bills aimed at easing unionization. And he said that union-backed measures to raise the minimum wage or make it easier to unionize would hurt Mr. Obama’s hopes of creating jobs. Mr. Johnson voiced fears that Mr. Obama would name more pro-union officials to the National Labor Relations Board and might push forward with some languishing proposals, including one that would give preference to companies in winning federal contracts if they pay higher wages and have not violated labor laws. Chamber officials also fear that organized labor will seek to block a trans-Pacific trade agreement the administration is working on. Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest union, which worked hard for Mr. Obama, said he was confident the administration would focus less on shaking up public high schools and elementary schools — a move that angered the teachers’ unions — and more on increasing access to early education and making college more affordable.
|
Organized Labor;Obama Barack;Taxation
|
ny0263122
|
[
"us"
] |
2011/12/11
|
Conflicting Indicators on Gulf of Maine Cod Stocks
|
GLOUCESTER, Mass. — Federal regulators are considering the unthinkable in New England: severely restricting — maybe even shutting down — cod fishing in the Gulf of Maine , from north of Cape Cod clear up to Canada. New data suggest that the status of the humble fish that has sustained the region for centuries is much worse than previously thought. Fishermen insist that there are plenty of cod and that the real problem is fuzzy science. They say the data are grossly inconsistent, pointing to a 2008 federal report that concluded that Gulf of Maine cod, though historically overfished, were well on the way to recovery. The news is causing high anxiety in Massachusetts, where a wooden “ Sacred Cod ” has hung in the State House for more than 200 years and the fishing industry, though struggling, still figures prominently in the state’s identity. “I can’t think of another fishery shutdown that would have the economic consequences of this,” said Steven Cadrin, a scientist at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, who helped with the assessment. From May 2010 to April 2011, commercial fishermen caught about nine million pounds of Gulf of Maine cod, according to the New England Fishery Management Council, earning more than $2 per pound on average. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration set a deadline in 2004 to rebuild the cod species by 2014, and the 2008 survey suggested that goal was within reach. But researchers now say the survey might have sharply overestimated the number of young cod; the new data suggest the spawning population is at only about 20 percent of the rebuilding target. The estimates are based on a mathematical model that uses data from a number of sources, including catch records and research trawlers that fish in the gulf several times a year. “It’s just mind-boggling,” said Maggie Raymond, executive director of Associated Fisheries of Maine, a trade group, and the owner of two fishing boats. “Some years you get better news, some years you get worse. But to have two such totally opposite conclusions is really hard to wrap your head around.” Some fishermen say they are seeing more cod in the Gulf of Maine than they have in years. Many in Gloucester have already reached their quota for the fishing year that started in May and are looking to buy the rights to catch more from others who have not yet reached their federal limit. Recreational fishermen, who land more than 30 percent of the total Gulf of Maine cod catch, are reporting similar observations. “I’m telling you, it’s out there,” said Russell Sherman, who started fishing for cod in 1971 and has just about reached his annual allocation of 25,000 pounds. “We’ve had no problems locating codfish.” But scientists take more into account than what fishermen see. “Fishermen will almost always tell you that, and it’s not that they’re lying,” said Mark Kurlansky , whose 1997 book, “Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World,” documented how Canada’s once-abundant Atlantic cod were fished almost to extinction. “Landing a lot of fish can mean the fish are very plentiful, or it can mean the fishermen are extremely efficient in scooping up every last one of them.” Independent scientists conducting a peer review of the data are expected to make recommendations in January to the New England Fishery Management Council , which sets regional fishing policy. The council will then decide what new cod restrictions should be imposed in the Gulf of Maine, the starkest of which would be a first-ever shutdown of the fishery. Any new restrictions would most likely start in May. Even though the data have not been finalized, NOAA has taken the unusual step of convening a team to meet with fishermen and discuss options. Eric Schwaab, assistant administrator for the NOAA Fisheries Service , said it was “too early to speculate” on the likelihood of closing the fishery. “We think we have a lot of tools yet in our toolbox before we would get to that kind of place,” he said. At a meeting with fishermen on Friday in Portsmouth, N.H., regulators said that even without closing the fishery, the catch might have to be reduced by as much as 90 percent. Under that scenario, they said, groundfish revenues would drop by 90 percent in New Hampshire, 54 percent in Maine and 21 percent in Massachusetts, with Gloucester seeing a 60 percent decline. A separate stock, Georges Bank cod, which is found south and east of Cape Cod, would probably not face new restrictions next year. But most of the small dayboat fishermen who focus on Gulf of Maine cod could not fish for it, partly because it requires longer trips to more distant fishing grounds and larger boats. One possibility is extending the deadline for rebuilding the fishery, although even then, “you would still have to cut back tremendously,” said Peter Shelley, senior counsel at the Conservation Law Foundation, an advocacy group in Boston. Other possibilities might be requiring different gear or closing sections of the Gulf of Maine, he said. Shutting down the fishery, or even sharply curtailing the allowable catch, “would be devastating,” said Joe Orlando, a fourth-generation Gloucester fisherman who landed 160,000 pounds of cod last year, about 80 percent of his total catch. “It would cut the legs right off of us.” Such restrictions would make it hard to fish for other species, Mr. Orlando and others said, because it is nearly impossible to trawl for any other groundfish — those that live near the sea bottom, like flounder and haddock — without bringing up cod. The new data are coming at a time of extraordinarily high tension between New England fishermen and federal regulators. The industry is still adjusting to a new management system, started last year, that divided fishermen into groups, called sectors, that share an allotted catch of each species. Though the allotments were intended to provide fishermen with steadier income, many have complained that they were set too low and that small boats, in particular, were being pushed out. “It feels like they’re yanking the rug out from under us just as we’re finally starting to get acclimated to this new system,” said Dennis Robillard, who lands about 113,000 pounds of cod a year and was offloading about 700 pounds of it the other day at Fisherman’s Wharf here. He and other fishermen said they expected that the public would blame them for the bleak new numbers, assuming that they had heedlessly overfished, when in fact they had been sticking to the limits regulators set in light of the rosy 2008 population estimate. “It’s not fishermen who’ve caused this problem,” said Ms. Raymond from the Maine trade group. “But that’s the interpretation the public gets, when what they should be understanding is that this is a very imprecise science.” Senator Scott P. Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, has been a vocal critic of NOAA over the last year and has even called for the firing of Jane Lubchenco, the agency’s leader. Mr. Brown said he had never seen an agency “that is so distrusted by the folks it’s supposed to regulate.” “This just adds fuel to the fire of that lack of trust,” Mr. Brown said. Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said his staff was already putting together a proposal for federal disaster assistance “to tide people over” should cod fishing be curtailed or shut down. But he added that the new data should be taken seriously. “We have to be very sober in our assessment of this thing,” he said. “The important thing is this fishery be saved and exist for centuries to come.”
|
Cod (Fish);New England States (US);Fishing Commercial;Gulf of Maine;National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration;Cape Cod (Mass);Gloucester (Mass)
|
ny0075122
|
[
"sports"
] |
2015/04/12
|
Distinctive Victory for Jockey
|
Leighton Aspell became the first jockey in 61 years to win back-to-back Grand Nationals on different horses by riding Many Clouds to victory in the world’s most grueling jumps race. Tony McCoy, Britain’s most successful jumps jockey, was denied a win in his final National before retirement, finishing fifth on the prerace favorite Shutthefrontdoor in the four-and-a-half-mile race over a course in Liverpool, England. ■ Divining Rod won the $250,000 Coolmore Lexington at Keeneland and earned 10 more points toward the Kentucky Derby. Divining Rod has 20 overall points in the Road to the Derby, with three weeks remaining before the event. The top 20 point earners win spots in the Derby.
|
Horse racing;Horse Jockeys and Trainers;Liverpool;Tony McCoy
|
ny0244498
|
[
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] |
2011/04/05
|
Butler’s Frustration Mounted Shot by Shot
|
HOUSTON — Butler arrived at the national championship stage because of its scrappy identity built on rebounding, defense and hard work. The Bulldogs were never that pretty. But they were never uglier than on Monday in the national championship game. The final score — Connecticut 53, Butler 41 — might have made for an exciting football game. But it was an unsightly evening of basketball. If Butler’s play here is remembered years from now, it will be for all the wrong reasons. The Bulldogs saw layups rim out. They missed runners. They bricked jumpers. They made nine 3-pointers — on 33 attempts. The Bulldogs shot 18.8 percent. “We just didn’t make shots,” Butler Coach Brad Stevens said. “They had a lot to do with it, too.” The question at Reliant Stadium for much of the second half was whether Butler would score again. The Bulldogs went scoreless for more than six minutes in the second half. The sophomore center Andrew Smith snapped the torturous stretch with a layup with 6 minutes 13 seconds left, drawing a cheer from a crowd of 70,376 that seemed lulled to sleep. The junior guard Shelvin Mack is the type of N.B.A.-ready player who stands as a rebuttal to those who consider Butler a team filled with lesser talent. But he epitomized his team’s struggles, making only 4 of 15 attempts. Mack hit his first field goal with 4:15 left in the first half and a second at the halftime buzzer. He led Butler with 13 points, but with the UConn freshmen Jeremy Lamb or Shabazz Napier guarding him, his success was sporadic. Mack’s difficulty with the 6-foot-5 Lamb’s length was apparent on his first shot of the game, which Lamb swatted away. And it only got worse. “I got the early block on him, and that got in his head whether he could get the shots off,” Lamb said. UConn Coach Jim Calhoun said Lamb “couldn’t guard a chair” when he arrived in Storrs. And Calhoun added that the chair might have scored as many as 10 points. But even a chair might have had more success than Butler did. Butler’s 22-19 halftime lead — the fewest combined points in a half of a championship game since 1946 — quickly dwindled. Then UConn took the lead, and the Bulldogs never had a chance. The numbers pained a stark picture of Butler’s poor night. Mack was the only Butler player to score in double figures. The senior forward Matt Howard made 1 of 13 shots. The Bulldogs made just 57.1 percent of their free throws. Butler has been described as a throwback. But on Monday night, the Bulldogs looked like relics of the game on its biggest stage.
|
Basketball;Butler University;Mack Shelvin;NCAA Basketball Tournament (Men);University of Connecticut;Basketball (College);NCAA Basketball Championships (Men)
|
ny0166097
|
[
"us"
] |
2006/08/11
|
Michigan Men Arrested on Terror Charges
|
Two Arab-American college students have been arrested and are accused of supporting terrorism through the sale of mobile phones. The men, Osama Sabhi Abulhassan, 20, and Ali Houssaiky, also 20, both of Dearborn, were stopped on Tuesday on a traffic violation in Ohio. The authorities said they found passenger lists and information on airport security checkpoints, $11,000 and 12 phones in their car. Mr. Abulhassan and Mr. Houssaiky admitted buying about 600 phones in recent months and selling them to someone in Dearborn, the heart of southeastern Michigan ’s large Arab community. A prosecutor, Susan Vessels, said the prepaid mobile phones they bought have been linked to use by terrorists. Defense lawyers said that the men planned to resell the phones to make money and that the airport and airplane information did not belong to them.
|
Terrorism;Michigan;Arab-Americans
|
ny0132525
|
[
"us"
] |
2012/12/06
|
Los Angeles and Long Beach Ports to Reopen After 8-Day Strike
|
LOS ANGELES — After an eight-day strike that crippled the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, clerical workers from a local office of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union on Tuesday night agreed to a new contract with the terminal operators at the ports. Union members will return to work Wednesday morning. As the strike dragged into its second week, both sides had come under increasing pressure from local officials to end the dispute, which had threatened to derail the Southern California economy during the holiday season. Officials from the Port of Long Beach estimated that $650 million in trade has been idled each day of the strike. A federal mediator arrived on Tuesday to help broker a deal. “I am pleased to announce that an agreement has been reached between labor and management that will bring to an end the eight-day strike that has cost our local economy billions of dollars,” Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angeles said in a statement released Tuesday night. “With the strike now ending, we must waste no time in getting the nation’s busiest port complex’s operations back up to speed.” Although only about 600 clerical workers had been participating in the strike, they managed to shut down 10 of the 14 shipping container terminals at the two ports because thousands of longshoremen from the union would not cross the picket lines. “This victory was accomplished because of support from the entire family of 10,000 members in the harbor community,” Robert McEllrath, the president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, said in a statement announcing the agreement. Neither the union nor the terminal operators offered details of the new contract agreement on Tuesday night. Steve Getzug, a spokesman for the Harbor Employers Association, which represents the terminal operators, said the union voted on the proposal from the employers on Tuesday shortly before the federal mediator arrived. He added that the deal included “some compromise on staffing issues that were important to the employers.” “And, importantly, a deal has been reached,” Mr. Getzug said. “The longshoremen expected to return 7 a.m., ready to get the cargo moving again.”
|
Los Angeles (Calif);Strikes;Long Beach (Calif);International Longshore and Warehouse Union;Organized Labor
|
ny0129289
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2012/06/21
|
In Game of 9 Home Runs, Yankees Come Up Short
|
Summer officially arrived in the Bronx on Wednesday, bringing with it sizzling temperatures and an afternoon fireworks display not previously listed on the Yankees ’ schedule. By the time the game between the Yankees and the Atlanta Braves was over, the two teams had combined to hit nine home runs, tying the record for most homers in a game at Yankee Stadium, past or present. The Yankees hit four of the homers, but they were all solo shots, and the more resourceful Braves went on to win, 10-5, on a sweaty but memorable day. Whether from the heat (the game-time temperature was 94 degrees), a light breeze out to right field or the tilt of the Earth’s axis on the summer solstice, balls were soaring out to center and skying over the wall in right. One went careening into the seats in left field, and another barely drifted over the wall in right center. So many balls left the yard, it was hard to keep track. “What was it, seven total?” Braves Manager Fredi Gonzalez said before being corrected. “Nine? Wow. That’s amazing.” A 10th ball actually went over the wall in the fifth, only to be nimbly caught and pulled back by Atlanta center fielder Michael Bourn, who thus robbed Jayson Nix of a chance to help set a home run record for Yankee home games at either of the two stadiums. The major league record for most homers in a game is 12. Braves right fielder Jason Heyward was the only player to hit two into the stands. His second, a two-run shot in the top of the eighth, effectively put the game out of reach for the Yankees, even on a no-holds-barred day like this one. Eight home runs had been hit in a single game at the new stadium on several occasions. And the Yankees and their opponents combined for nine homers in four instances at the old stadium, most recently on July 31, 2007 , when the Yankees and the Chicago White Sox traded blows. The Yankees hit eight of the nine that day, tying a team record for homers in any park. Hideki Matsui (twice), Bobby Abreu, Jorge Posada, Johnny Damon, Melky Cabrera, Robinson Cano and Shelly Duncan all trotted around the bases. The Yankees also hit eight on June 28, 1939 , at Shibe Park in Philadelphia, with Joe DiMaggio going deep twice in a 23-2 shellacking of the Athletics. (The Yankees hit five more homers to win the second game of the doubleheader, 10-0.) On Wednesday, the Braves’ Freddie Freeman started it off with a two-run shot in the first inning. Martin Prado, Heyward and David Ross followed for the Braves, while Derek Jeter, Eric Chavez, Alex Rodriguez and Robinson Cano all homered for the Yankees. Phil Hughes, the Yankees’ starting pitcher, and Tommy Hanson, his Atlanta counterpart, each gave up four homers. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it was the first game in Yankees history that two pitchers each gave up four home runs. Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said it was evident early on that the ball was carrying. But Hughes would not use that as an excuse, and the only ball that most players agreed was a weather-enhanced homer was the one Rodriguez hit that drifted out to right-center. “Balls were hit well,” said Hughes, who lost for the first time since May 17. “That’s really all I can say about it. I’m sure Hanson would like to have the one that Al hit back. But for the most part, they all seemed to be hit pretty well.” The one ball that was definitely not struck well, when the Yankees needed a base hit most, was the inning-ending double-play grounder that Rodriguez hit in the bottom of the seventh, with the Yankees trailing by 6-5 and with runners on first and third. Afterward, Rodriguez beat himself up for hitting a pitcher’s pitch, a sinker about three inches off the plate. “No sugarcoating it,” Rodriguez said. “That was just not an acceptable at-bat right there.” The Braves added three more runs in the next inning, and then a final run in the ninth. It was too much to overcome, and so the Yankees, whose 10-game winning streak ended on Tuesday, lost their second straight for the first time since defeats on May 28-29 at Anaheim, Calif. They also surrendered a season-high 10 runs. “I didn’t think we were going to win 100 in a row,” Girardi said. “I didn’t think that was possibly going to happen.” He probably also did not think that there would be nine home runs in nine innings, but there were. INSIDE PITCH The Yankees honored Braves’ third baseman Chipper Jones, who is retiring at the end of the season. Derek Jeter and Andruw Jones presented him with the third-base bag from Tuesday’s game. Andruw Jones was Chipper’s teammate in Atlanta. The Yankees lost for the first time this season in a game in which Alex Rodriguez had a run batted in. They had been 18-0 in those instances.
|
New York Yankees;Baseball;Atlanta Braves;Heyward Jason
|
ny0168424
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2006/06/20
|
Council Speaker Appoints a Deputy Chief of Staff
|
The City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, announced yesterday the appointment of Rodney S. Capel, formerly the executive director of the State Democratic Committee, as a deputy chief of staff, overseeing the Council's member services division and its state and federal legislative efforts. Mr. Capel, 34, will be paid $145,000. He replaces Kevin Wardally, who left to join the lobbying firm of Bill Lynch, a former deputy mayor.
|
Quinn Christine C;City Councils;New York City
|
ny0159406
|
[
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] |
2008/12/23
|
Rautins Ties 3-Point Record in Syracuse Victory
|
Andy Rautins tied a team record with nine 3-pointers and scored a career-high 29 points to lead No. 17 Syracuse to an 82-71 victory over visiting Coppin State on Monday night. It was the final nonconference game for the Orange (12-1), which begins Big East play at home next week against Seton Hall. Coppin State (1-8) lost its eighth straight road game and dropped to 0-22 against the Big East. Rautins, starting for the second straight game in place of the suspended guard Eric Devendorf, tied Gerry McNamara’s record, set against Brigham Young in the 2004 N.C.A.A. tournament. Rautins entered the game with 24 3-pointers. NOTRE DAME 81, SAVANNAH 49 Luke Harangody had 23 points and 13 rebounds in his worst shooting game of the season for the eighth-ranked Fighting Irish. Host Notre Dame (9-2) led, 37-21, at halftime despite shooting 34 percent, its second-worst shooting half this season. Harangody started the half 1 of 9 from the field, but was 8 of 9 from the free-throw line and made his final two shots to finish the half with 14 points and 11 rebounds. For the game, Harangody shot 5 of 14 from the field but was 13 of 14 from the free-throw line. OKLAHOMA 70, RICE 58 The freshman Willie Warren scored 31 points, Blake Griffin added 27 points and 11 rebounds and the No. 4 Sooners (12-0) won on the road to match their best start since the 1989-90 season. WAKE 93, E. CAROLINA 54 Al-Farouq Aminu had 21 points and 12 rebounds, and the No. 6 Demon Deacons pulled away after halftime. Chas McFarland had 14 points for visiting Wake Forest (11-0), which is off to its best start since winning the first 11 games of the 2003-4 season. The Demon Deacons led by 4 points at halftime before opening the second half with a 15-3 run. PURDUE 70, I.P.F.W. 55 JaJuan Johnson had career highs of 21 points and 9 rebounds to help the No. 10 Boilermakers win their fifth straight. Johnson also blocked three shots. E’Twaun Moore scored 19 points and Marcus Green had 12 points and 9 rebounds for host Purdue (10-2). OHIO ST. 83, U.N.C.-ASHEVILLE 59 The freshman B. J. Mullens scored 19 points to lead the No. 15 Buckeyes at home. The 7-foot Mullens had never played more than 20 minutes nor scored more than 11 points. But with Coach Thad Matta trying out various combinations against an undersized opponent, Mullens dominated for Ohio State (9-0). He was 8 of 11 from the field, including 6 dunks, and added 8 rebounds and 3 blocked shots. VILLANOVA 78, NAVY 68 Dante Cunningham had 24 points and 10 rebounds and Scottie Reynolds added 23 points for the No. 18 Wildcats at home. Corey Stokes had 11 points for Villanova (11-1), which played its first game in eight days. BAYLOR 74, HARTFORD 59 Curtis Jerrells had 17 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists for the 21st-ranked Bears (10-1) at home. Jerrells’s triple-double was the first for a Baylor player since Brian Skinner had one on Dec. 29, 1995. MICHIGAN 76, FLORIDA-G.C. 59 DeShawn Sims had 20 points and a career-high 18 rebounds to lead No. 24 Michigan to its fourth straight victory. Kelvin Grady added 14 points for the host Wolverines (9-2), who moved into the Associated Press top 25 on Monday for the first time since February 2006. J. MADISON 70, SETON HALL 64 Juwann James scored 14 points for host James Madison (7-4). Robert Mitchell scored 23 for Seton Hall (8-3). IN OTHER GAMES Chris Smith scored all 20 of his points in the second half of a 65-61 victory for Manhattan (7-3) over visiting Long Island University (4-6). ... Anthony Raffa scored 14 points and visiting Albany (8-4) won its third game in a row, 68-65 over St. Francis of Brooklyn (3-7). PRINCETON TO HONOR CARRIL Princeton will name the floor at its home arena, Jadwin Gymansium, after the former coach Pete Carril. Carril Court will be dedicated on Feb. 21 when Princeton plays Dartmouth. Carril coached at Princeton for 29 seasons, winning 13 Ivy League championships. He compiled a record of 514-263.
|
College Athletics;Basketball;NCAA Basketball Tournament
|
ny0061225
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2014/01/03
|
Giants’ Brandon Jacobs Announces Retirement
|
Brandon Jacobs, a fourth-round draft pick of the Giants nine years ago who became one of the franchise’s most charismatic running backs, announced his retirement on his Twitter account late Thursday. Jacobs’s career had been winding down in recent seasons, although he was re-signed as a free agent in 2013 by the Giants and rushed for 238 yards and 4 touchdowns. He is the team’s career leader in rushing touchdowns with 60 and ranks fourth in rushing yards with 5,087. He was an important part of the Giants’ two most recent Super Bowl teams, but his 2013 season was cut short last month by knee surgery. “I am proud to announce that I am hanging up my cleats,” Jacobs said on Twitter. “I’ve had an amazing run and I appreciate all of the support from the fans through the good and the bad.” He added, “I am healing well from my surgery and I look forward to running around with my kids for years to come!” BILL PENNINGTON
|
Football;Brandon Jacobs;Giants
|
ny0243704
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2011/03/15
|
Saudi Troops Enter Bahrain to Put Down Unrest
|
MANAMA, Bahrain — Saudi Arabia ’s military rolled into Bahrain on Monday, threatening to escalate a local political conflict into a regional showdown with Iran . Saudi Arabia has been watching uneasily as Bahrain’s Shiite majority has staged weeks of protests against a Sunni monarchy, fearing that if the protesters prevailed, Iran, Saudi Arabia’s bitter regional rival, could expand its influence and inspire unrest elsewhere. The Saudi decision to send in troops could further inflame the conflict and transform this teardrop of a nation in the Persian Gulf into the Middle East ’s next proxy battlefield between regional and global powers. By midday, about 2000 troops — 1,200 from Saudi Arabia and 800 from the United Arab Emirates — entered Bahrain as part of a force operating under the aegis of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a six-nation regional coalition of Sunni rulers that has grown increasingly anxious over the sustained challenge to Bahrain’s king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa . “This is the initial phase,” a Saudi official said. “Bahrain will get whatever assistance it needs. It’s open-ended.” The decision is the first time the council has used collective military action to help suppress a popular revolt — in this case a Shiite popular revolt. It was rejected by the opposition, and by Iran, as an “occupation.” According to Iranian news reports, Iran even went so far as to call the troop movement an invasion. Iran has long claimed that Bahrain is historically part of Iran. The troops entered Bahrain at an especially combustible moment in the standoff between protesters and the monarchy. In recent days protesters have begun to move from the encampment in Pearl Square, the symbolic center of the nation, to the actual seat of power and influence, the Royal Court and the financial district. As the troops moved in, protesters controlled the main highway and said they were determined not to leave. “We don’t know what is going to happen,” Jassim Hussein Ali, a member of the opposition Wefaq party and a former member of Parliament, said in a phone interview. “Bahrain is heading toward major problems, anarchy. This is an occupation, and this is not welcome.” Rasool Nafisi, an academic and Iran expert based in Virginia , said: “Now that the Saudis have gone in, they may spur a similar reaction from Iran, and Bahrain becomes a battleground between Saudi and Iran. This may prolong the conflict rather than put an end to it, and make it an international event rather than a local uprising.” An adviser to the United States government, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press, agreed. “Iran’s preference was not to get engaged because the flow of events was in their direction,” he said. “If the Saudi intervention changes the calculus, they will be more aggressive.” Though Bahrain said it had invited the force, the Saudi presence highlights the degree to which the kingdom has become concerned over Iran’s growing regional influence, and demonstrates that the Saudi monarchy has drawn the line at its back door. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, a close ally of Washington , has traditionally preferred to operate in the shadows through checkbook diplomacy. It has long provided an economic lifeline to Bahrain. But it now finds itself largely standing alone to face Iran since its most important ally in that fight, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt , has been ousted in a popular uprising. Iran’s ally, Hezbollah , recently toppled the Saudi-backed government of Lebanon — a symbol of its regional might and Saudi Arabia’s diminishing clout. But Bahrain is right at Saudi Arabia’s eastern border, where the kingdoms are connected by a causeway. The Gulf Cooperation Council was clearly alarmed at the prospect of a Shiite political victory in Bahrain, fearing that it would inspire restive Shiite populations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to protest as well. The majority of the population in Saudi Arabia’s eastern provinces, where the oil is found, is Shiite, and there have already been small protests there. “If the opposition in Bahrain wins, then Saudi loses,” said Mustafa el-Labbad, director of Al Sharq Center for Regional and Strategic Studies in Cairo . “In this regional context, the decision to move troops into Bahrain is not to help the monarchy of Bahrain, but to help Saudi Arabia itself .” The Bahrain government said that it had invited the force in to help restore and preserve public order. The United States — which has continued to back the monarchy — said Monday that the move was not an occupation. The United States has long been allied with Bahrain’s royal family and has based the Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain for many years. Though the United States eventually sided with the demonstrators in Egypt, in Bahrain it has instead supported the leadership while calling for restraint and democratic change. The Saudi official said the United States was informed Sunday that the Saudi troops would enter Bahrain on Monday. Saudi and council officials said the military forces would not engage with the demonstrators, but would protect infrastructure, government offices and industries, even though the protests had largely been peaceful. The mobilization would allow Bahrain to free up its own police and military forces to deal with the demonstrators, the officials said. The Gulf Cooperation Council “forces are not there to kill people,” said a Saudi official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press. “This is a G.C.C. decision; we do not violate international law.” But the officials also acknowledged that it was a message to Iran. “There is no doubt Iran is involved,” said the official, though no proof has been offered that Iran has had anything to do with the political unrest. Political analysts said that it was likely that the United States did not object to the deployment in part because it, too, saw a weakened monarchy as a net benefit to Iran at a time when the United States wants to move troops out of Iraq , where Iran has already established an influence. The military force is one part of a Gulf Cooperation Council effort to try to contain the crisis in Bahrain that broke out Feb. 14, when young people called for a Day of Rage, fashioned after events in Egypt and Tunisia . The police and then the army killed seven demonstrators, leading Washington to press Bahrain to remove its forces from the street. The royal family allowed thousands of demonstrators to camp at Pearl Square. It freed some political prisoners, allowed an exiled opposition leader to return and reshuffled the cabinet. And it called for a national dialogue. But the concessions — after the killings — seemed to embolden a movement that went from calling for a true constitutional monarchy to demanding the downfall of the monarchy. The monarchy has said it will consider instituting a fairly elected Parliament, but it insisted that the first step would be opening a national dialogue — a position the opposition has rejected, though it was unclear whether the protesters were speaking with one voice. The council moved troops in after deciding earlier to help prop up the king with a contribution of $10 billion over 10 years, and said that it might increase that figure. But if the goal was to intimidate Iran, or the protesters, that clearly was not the first response. Bahrain’s opposition groups issued a statement: “We consider the entry of any soldier or military machinery into the Kingdom of Bahrain’s air, sea or land territories a blatant occupation.”
|
Bahrain;Arab Spring;Saudi Arabia;null;Military;Hamad Bin Isa al- Khalifa
|
ny0226045
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2010/10/26
|
In Giants’ World Series History, More Pity Than Praise - Sports of The Times
|
For the Giants, the World Series has too often produced more sympathy than success. Their confrontation with the Texas Rangers, the descendants of the second Washington Senators franchise that abandoned the nation’s capital, after the 1971 season, invokes the Giants’ most revered names: Christy Mathewson and John McGraw, Mel Ott and Carl Hubbell, Willie Mays and Willie McCovey. But in more than a century of representing New York or San Francisco in 17 previous Series, the Giants won only five. None since the 1954 sweep of the Cleveland Indians, when Mays made his over-the-shoulder running catch of Vic Wertz’s soaring 460-foot drive to the Polo Grounds’ center-field pasture. And none, of course, since the Giants deserted to California with the Brooklyn Dodgers after the 1957 season. In the Series’ early years, it was different. McGraw’s teams were in 4 of the first 10 Series, 5 of the first 14 and 9 of the first 21, but won only three of them, in 1905, 1921 and 1922. No other Series performance has ever matched Mathewson’s elegance in 1905 when he spun his fadeaway pitch past Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics for three shutouts in six days : 3-0 in the opener, 9-0 in Game 3 on two days’ rest, 2-0 in the Game 5 finale on one day’s rest. Over 27 innings, he scattered 13 hits, struck out 18 and walked 1. Matty led the Giants to three more National League pennants, but the Giants lost each Series — to the Athletics in 1911, to the Boston Red Sox in 1912 when center fielder Fred Snodgrass dropped a routine fly in the 10th inning of the final game, and to the Athletics again in 1913. In 1917, the Giants lost to the Chicago White Sox, whose owner, Charles Comiskey, had assembled one of baseball’s best teams. Eight members of the White Sox, notably the slugger Shoeless Joe Jackson, were later suspended for life from baseball by the first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, for having dumped the 1919 Series to the Cincinnati Reds. McGraw soon had a new nucleus of four eventual Hall of Famers who would contribute to four consecutive pennants: second baseman Frankie Frisch, shortstop Dave Bancroft, first baseman George Kelly and outfielder Ross Youngs. In 1921, those Giants conquered a new opponent, the Yankees, their Polo Grounds tenant. Babe Ruth, in his second season with the Yankees, had smashed 59 homers and driven in 171 runs, but in the Series he was limited by an infected arm and a damaged knee. The Giants won the finale on the left-hander Art Nehf’s 1-0 four-hitter. The next year, the Giants swept the Yankees . The Babe batted .118 with only a double and a single in 17 at-bats. But in 1923, the first Series at Yankee Stadium, Ruth hit three home runs and the Yankees won in six games as a young Giants outfielder, Casey Stengel, hobbled to an inside-the-park homer after losing a shoe near second base. In 1924 the Giants lost to the original Washington Senators when 36-year-old Walter Johnson, winner of 417 games, pitched the last four innings of the Game 7 victory. Hank Gowdy, the Giants’ catcher, tripped over his mask and dropped a foul ball in the 12th inning, allowing Muddy Ruel to hit a double and score the winning run. When McGraw retired early in the 1932 season, the Giants named Bill Terry, the first baseman who hit .401 in 1930, as the player-manager. The next year, Ott, the right fielder who would slug 511 homers, and Hubbell, the left-hander who popularized the screwball, would dominate the 1933 triumph over the Senators in five games. In 1936 and 1937 the Giants lost to the Yankees of Lou Gehrig in his prime and Joe DiMaggio in his ascent. Gehrig drove in 152 and 159 runs those two seasons, and the young DiMaggio drove in 125 and 167. Bobby Thomson’s home run in the decisive third game of the 1951 pennant playoff with the Dodgers preceded another Series loss to the Yankees. The left-hander Dave Koslo won the opener, 5-1, and Eddie Stanky kicked the ball out of Phil Rizzuto’s glove in Game 3. DiMaggio hit his last homer, off Sal Maglie, into the upper left-field stands at the Polo Grounds in Game 4. Three years later, the Indians won an American League-record 111 games, but the Giants swept. In the opener, Mays’s catch preserved a tie in the eighth inning, setting up Dusty Rhodes’s three-run pinch-hit homer off Bob Lemon in the 10th. In Game 2 Rhodes had a pinch single and a later homer; in Game 3 he drove in two runs. For the Series, he batted .667 with two homers and seven runs batted in. In their fifth season in San Francisco, the Giants battled the Yankees into the ninth inning of Game 7 at Candlestick Park with the right-hander Ralph Terry protecting a 1-0 lead, Matty Alou on third and Mays on second after a double, and two out. McCovey slashed a line drive that second baseman Bobby Richardson snatched for the final out. The Giants did not win the pennant again until 1989, when an earthquake shook the Bay Area before Game 3 at Candlestick Park against the Oakland Athletics. After a 10-day delay the Giants were swept. In their 2002 Series they had a 3-2 edge on the Anaheim Angels but blew a 5-0 lead in Game 6 and all but disappeared in Game 7. Now the Giants are in the World Series against the Texas Rangers, the descendants of the second Washington Senators franchise. Success or more sympathy?
|
San Francisco Giants;Baseball;McGraw John;Mays Willie;McCovey Willie
|
ny0052558
|
[
"world",
"americas"
] |
2014/10/25
|
Dominican Republic: Inmates Riot at Model Prison and Try a Mass Escape
|
At least four inmates were killed and several wounded after an attempted mass escape at a prison in San Cristobal, officials said Friday. Guards opened fire after prisoners began to riot and then tried to escape, according to law enforcement and prison officials. At least 10 inmates escaped, prison officials said. The prison holds about 2,000 inmates who have been convicted of various crimes, primarily drug trafficking. It is one of the nation’s new model prisons that promote education and better living conditions. A riot earlier this year in another model prison left two people dead and several wounded.
|
Prison escape;Prison;Civil Unrest;Dominican Republic
|
ny0254281
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2011/07/10
|
Jeter, Relentlessly Consistent, Reaches 3,000 Hits With a Home Run
|
The pursuit of a sports milestone can seem like a march to the inevitable. Fans have known for years that barring a catastrophic injury, Derek Jeter would reach 3,000 career hits. The only question was how. Jeter, the Yankees ’ captain, answered it Saturday with a performance that ranks among the greatest of his decorated career. He slammed a home run in the third inning for his 3,000th hit, and capped a five-hit day with the go-ahead single in the eighth inning of a 5-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium . Even for Jeter, who dreamed he would be the Yankees shortstop and grew up to lead the team to five championships, the script seemed almost implausible. “If I would have tried to have written it and given it to someone, I wouldn’t have even bought it,” Jeter said. “It’s just one of those special days.” The 3,000th hit, off a full-count curveball from the left-hander David Price, was Jeter’s first over the wall at Yankee Stadium since last June. His five hits matched a career high he had reached only twice before in the regular season, in 2001 and 2005. Christian Lopez, 23, a fan from Highland Mills, N.Y., caught the ball in the left-field seats and returned it to Jeter, who became the first player with 3,000 hits for the Yankees. Jorge Posada, Jeter’s close friend and a teammate for 17 years, wrapped Jeter in a hug at home plate, with reliever Mariano Rivera joining the embrace. “You’re talking about from Babe Ruth to Yogi Berra and DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, all those guys, and none of them have 3,000,” Rivera said. “And then here comes Derek Jeter, for so many years.” Jeter became the 28th player to reach 3,000 hits, but only the second to do so with a home run, after Tampa Bay’s Wade Boggs in 1999. Only Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron and Robin Yount joined the club at a younger age than Jeter, who turned 37 on June 26. That puts Jeter ahead of the pace set by Pete Rose, the career hits leader, who retired at age 45 with 4,256. Jeter is signed for two more years, with a player option for 2014, but he said Thursday that Rose was not on his radar. “You have to play another five years and get 200 hits to get that extra thousand,” Jeter said. “You’re talking about a long, long time. You never say never, but it’s not something that’s on my mind.” Jeter’s recent performance offers few hints of Rose’s staying power. His .270 average would match last season’s figure for the lowest of his career, and he recently spent almost three weeks on the disabled list with a strained calf muscle. Jeter has hit a higher percentage of ground balls ( 65.3 percent through Friday) than any player in the majors. Naturally, some of the erosion in his skills can be traced to age, and, perhaps, to the extra wear and tear from roughly a season’s worth of games — 147 — across 30 postseason series. Jeter has also played all his defensive games at shortstop, the most demanding spot on the field besides catcher. Only one other player reached 3,000 hits while still a regular shortstop: Honus Wagner, in 1914. “Physically, you have a responsibility that can be difficult, and mentally as well, you have to be in every pitch, every game,” Jeter said. “So there’s probably a reason why there’s not too many guys that have played the position that have had that amount of hits. I take pride in it. This is my job. This is the only thing I’ve done.” Jeter was a high school shortstop in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1992, when the Yankees chose him sixth over all in the draft. He advanced to the majors within three years, and by 1996 he was there to stay. Jeter never wanted a day off, he said, for fear that George Steinbrenner, the impatient principal owner, would replace him. There has never been much danger of that, even after last season, when Jeter’s production dipped just as his contract expired. The Yankees gave him a deal worth at least $51 million over three years, but they did so grudgingly, publicly challenging him to explore free agency. Jeter has said he was angered; he had tried to make it clear he wanted only to play for the Yankees. Meanwhile, he worked to improve in the off-season and in spring training, eliminating his stride in hopes of having more time to react to each pitch. But Jeter abandoned the adjustment soon after the season started and reverted to his old mechanics — without his old results. The calf injury, however, gave Jeter time to regroup. While recovering at the team’s complex in Tampa, Fla., Jeter said, he focused on the basics: staying back in his stance and driving balls up the middle. “You can get a lot more work in when you don’t have to play games,” Jeter said. “So I sort of look at it as a blessing in disguise, I hope. I’ve felt good since I’ve been back.” However the rest of his career plays out, Jeter — whose 5-for-5 day raised his career average by a point, to .313 — will be known most for relentless consistency, for churning out hits at a rate few have matched. Jeter has 10 seasons with at least 190 hits. Only Rose and Cobb, who rank first and second on the career list, have more such seasons. “I take a lot of pride in going out there every single day and trying to be as consistent as possible,” Jeter said. “I think that’s probably the most difficult thing to do in our sport. Playing well gets you here. Consistency keeps you here. That’s the thing that I’ve always tried to focus on.” After a game in Cleveland last week, Jeter acknowledged that the scrutiny of his struggles had taken some fun from his chase. But he has seemed more at ease since returning to Yankee Stadium on Thursday, perhaps sensing that his pursuit was nearing an end. His family and friends have been here, including the former teammates Tino Martinez and Gerald Williams. The scout who signed Jeter, Dick Groch, has been at the ballpark, as have the former Yankees coach Don Zimmer, who works for the Rays, and the former Yankees manager Joe Torre. “He’s just a special kid,” Torre said. “I know I keep calling him a kid, but that’s what he is.” Jeter was only 20 when he rapped his first hit, a single off the Mariners’ Tim Belcher at the Seattle Kingdome on May 30, 1995. It was only appropriate that the 3,000th hit come in the Bronx, where Jeter broke Lou Gehrig’s franchise record with 2,722 hits in 2009. Passing Gehrig was a stirring moment, even if it had little resonance outside Yankee Stadium. With 3,000 hits, Jeter has passed a revered number in the game’s history, leaving an indelible mark in style.
|
Jeter Derek;Baseball;New York Yankees;Yankee Stadium (NYC);Records and Achievements
|
ny0242683
|
[
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] |
2011/03/26
|
V.C.U. Advances to the Round of 8
|
SAN ANTONIO — With a wild, 72-71 overtime victory against Florida State, Virginia Commonwealth continued its unlikely dash through an N.C.A.A. tournament that many thought the Rams did not deserve to attend. The Rams scored with 7.1 seconds left in overtime off an inbound pass from Joey Rodriguez, who fed Bradford Burgess for a lay-up. Florida State scrambled to get downcourt for a final shot, but the jumper — perhaps after the buzzer — was blocked by Rob Brandenburg, setting off an on-court celebration by the Rams. “You win like that, you’re going to celebrate like that,” Rodriguez said. “We’re not supposed to be here, you know. So we’re going to enjoy it.” V.C.U. surprised all the doubters by winning three times to reach the Round of 16 for the first time. Now 11th-seeded V.C.U. stands one win away from the Final Four. The Rams are the third Colonial Athletic Association team to reach the Round of 8, following Navy in 1986 and George Mason in 2006. V.C.U. will play top-seeded Kansas, which routed Richmond in the doubleheader’s first game, in the Southwest Regional final on Sunday. The winner gets a berth in the Final Four in Houston. V.C.U. held a 9-point lead, 62-53, with 7 minutes 37 seconds remaining, but slowly succumbed to the pressure applied by one of the nation’s stingiest defenses. The Rams shot 45.3 percent from the field. Florida State tied the score, 65-65, with about 45 seconds left on Singleton’s 3-pointer. V.C.U. called timeout with 20 seconds left and 11 seconds on the shot clock. Jamie Skeen drove to the basket, only to have his attempt blocked by Florida State’s Bernard James. It was one of the Seminoles’ 6 blocked shots. But Florida State was unable to get a shot off before the buzzer, and the game headed to overtime. That was when Singleton, who broke his foot Feb. 12 and missed all the games leading up to the tournament, drove the baseline and scored the go-ahead points with about 30 seconds left. V.C.U., after calling timeout with 7.9 seconds left, set up the inbounds play that won the game. Rodriguez said he counted to four, quickly, in his head, not wanting to risk a 5-second violation. With time running out, he faked a deep pass high, then dropped the ball low to Burgess, whose teammates called him “Big Shot Brad.” It was a play that Coach Shaka Smart said would work in the huddle, and he recommended that Rodriguez wait until the last second for Burgess to come open. Rodriguez had missed two free throws with 1:57 left in overtime, eventually leading to Singleton’s baseline drive. But V.C.U. had one more big play left. “On the out-of-bounds play we thought we had every possibility covered as the clock was running down,” Florida State Coach Leonard Hamilton said. “And one of their players broke free and obviously finished the basket. And there lies a 1-point loss.” V.C.U. carried a 36-31 lead into halftime, but it was a statistical oddity. The Rams had been outshot, 43-24, thanks to 14 offensive rebounds by the cold-shooting Seminoles. Florida State had 13 second-chance points — V.C.U. had none — yet trailed by as many as 9 points in the first 20 minutes. But V.CU .’s halftime edge evaporated in a hurry thanks to the heat of a 7-0 Florida State run to open the second half. V.C.U.’s Brandon Rozell spun the score back around when he made his first three baskets, all 3-pointers, in a span of less than two minutes. A 41-39 deficit turned into a 48-43 lead for V.C.U., which did not trail again until overtime. Most Florida State second-chance surges were met with a defiant response, usually a 3-pointer. Burgess had 26 points and was 6 of 7 from behind the 3-point line. Rozzell had 16 points, and it was his three consecutive 3-pointers in the second half that seemed to give V.C.U. the lead it needed. Derwin Kitchen had 23 points to lead Florida State, and Singleton finished with 16. Florida State outrebounded V.C.U. by 47-32, and snared 21 offensive rebounds. The Rams have been fueled by doubters and their unflinching belief that most basketball pundits think they never belonged in the tournament in the first place. Even most V.C.U. coaches and players thought they had squandered their chance for reaching the tournament when they lost five of eight games in February, then lost to Old Dominion in the Colonial Athletic Association tournament final. The team, wanting to avoid awkward disappointment, did not gather to watch the broadcast of the 68-team field being revealed on March 13. When V.C.U. was named, criticism was harsh and immediate. Smart collected it all, spinning it as motivation for his players. It may be the oldest trick in the coaching book, but it has worked wonders for the Rams. Placed in one of the so-called First Four games that most of the field did not have to handle, the Rams beat Southern California. Then they beat No. 6 Georgetown and No. 3 Purdue. In the span of a week, V.C.U. had gone from disrespected to feared. Now V.C.U. is one of the last eight teams remaining — and certainly the unlikeliest of all.
|
NCAA Basketball Tournament (Men);Florida State University;Virginia Commonwealth University;Burgess Bradford;College Athletics;Basketball
|
ny0130640
|
[
"sports",
"rugby"
] |
2012/06/25
|
All Blacks Sweep Series With 60-0 Rout of Ireland
|
WELLINGTON — The New Zealand rugby juggernaut shows no signs of slowing down. Typically teams that win the Rugby World Cup find it hard to keep that momentum going in the year or two that follows their coronations. But the 2011 champions stated before their three-test series against Ireland that they were determined to buck that trend, and they have done so after sealing a 3-0 series clean sweep with an emphatic 60-0 victory in Hamilton, New Zealand, on Saturday. Game 2 provided the only speed bump in a series that saw New Zealand score 15 tries and concede just two. In that second match in Christchurch, the fired-up Irish pressed a rattled, underperforming All Blacks team, and still New Zealand came away with a 22-19 victory, thanks to a Daniel Carter drop goal in the final minute. The deflated Irish players now know that second test was the golden opportunity to end a 107-year drought against the All Blacks and prove to the rest of the world that the world champions can be beaten — and they blew it. In Hamilton on Saturday, Ireland was out of the contest after a little more than 20 minutes had been played as the All Blacks racked up four of their eventual nine tries. Ireland never recovered as New Zealand, determined to right the wrongs of the previous week, went on to post its biggest winning margin against the Irish, surpassing the 59-6 score in Wellington in 1992. “You look at that score line and the way the test match went and that score line is a bit embarrassing,” said Ireland captain Brian O’Driscoll. “We knew that we had to start well and we didn’t, and that’s what the All Blacks do. When they get a 15- to 20-point lead, they just play their own game and you’re running after them for 80 minutes and that’s how it was.” What will have New Zealand’s rivals on alert is the apparent ease with which the transition and rebuilding toward the 2015 World Cup has begun. All the new players introduced to international rugby this year have made their mark during the series. In the first test, a 42-10 victory in Auckland, it was the winger Julian Savea and the scrum-half Aaron Smith who made the headlines. Even in the close victory in Christchurch, lock Brodie Retallick held his own against Ireland’s experienced campaigners. The victory Saturday saw Carter, Kieran Read and Ma’a Nonu watching from the stands. Captain Richie McCaw was playing in the less familiar role of No.8. Cory Jane and Richard Kahui, have missed the series with injuries, while Jerome Kaino, Brad Thorn and Mils Muliaina have all retired from test rugby. Instead, starring for the All Blacks were Smith, the 23-year-old flyhalf Aaron Cruden and, making his debut, Beauden Barrett, who all pulled the strings that allowed Sonny Bill Williams, at inside center, to showcase his growing repertoire of skills. In the forward pack, lock Luke Romano impressed on his debut. He carried the ball strongly, scrummed well and was effective in the line-out. Sam Cane, in his first start after coming off the bench last week, appeared to confirm his status as McCaw’s heir apparent at openside flanker with two tries and a team-high 16 tackles in an all-round quality performance. Since making his debut against Ireland in 2010, Cruden has battled Stephen Donald, Colin Slade and Piri Weepu for the role as Carter’s backup. After his performance in Hamilton in just his fourth start for the All Blacks, he is now firmly ensconced as Carter’s natural successor. His mature and assured performances for the Chiefs in Super Rugby this year were replicated Saturday in a brilliant 24 minutes in which he mesmerized the Irish defense. The men in green simply had no idea which angle he would run, whether he would take the ball into contact or set free his back line. In the end he did a bit of everything with his superb off-loading, creating two tries for Williams and another for Cane before he gathered up a loose ball that eventually resulted in a try to Ben Smith. When Cruden limped off with an Achilles injury in the 24th minute and was replaced by Barrett, New Zealand was 26-0 ahead. Equally impressive, if not quite as razzle-dazzle as Cruden, was Barrett, who showed maturity beyond his 21 years. He directed the team well and allowed the All Blacks to continue racking up tries. Admittedly Cruden, Barrett and Smith were given a dream ride, thanks to the efforts of the forward pack that utterly dominated at the breakdown, giving Smith quick ruck ball to work with. “Cruden played particularly well, and it was unfortunate he tweaked his Achilles,” said the New Zealand head coach, Steve Hansen. “Beauden came on and did his job. But you can’t do that unless the tight five do theirs. They came under a lot of pressure after last week, and they’ve stood up and been counted. “There’s not too many days you get 60-0. But we’ll keep our feet on the floor and stay humble and enjoy the moment for what it is — another really good moment for New Zealand rugby.” There will certainly be bigger challenges to come in 2012 with the inaugural Rugby Championship involving Australia, South Africa and Argentina due to kick off in August. Australia also enjoyed a 3-0 clean sweep in its series against Wales, but had to work much harder for it as it squeaked home 20-19 in Sydney. Failing to win a game in Australia will be a bitter pill for Wales, the Six Nations champions, to swallow. But for the Wallabies, the series victory earns them — and coach Robbie Deans — some respite following the humiliating defeat to Scotland earlier in the month. South Africa and Argentina had the only blemishes on the Southern Hemisphere scorecard. The Springboks battled to a 14-14 draw in their final match against England to claim a 2-0 series win, while the Pumas lost 49-10 to draw their two-match series with France.
|
Ireland;New Zealand;Rugby (Game);Australia
|
ny0173891
|
[
"business"
] |
2007/10/27
|
Countrywide Has Big Loss but Upbeat Forecast
|
Countrywide Financial , the nation’s largest mortgage lender and loan servicer, reported a $1.2 billion loss yesterday for the third quarter of 2007 but said that it expected to return to profitability by the end of the year as the housing crisis subsides and it capitalizes on disruptions in the home loan market. Although the loss was Countrywide’s first in 25 years, its upbeat outlook pushed the company’s shares up 32 percent yesterday, to $17.30. Nevertheless, the stock is down 60 percent this year. “Countrywide and our very capable management team have taken the steps we believe that are necessary to position Countrywide to continue our long-term track record of success,” Angelo R. Mozilo, the company’s founder and chief executive, said in a conference call with analysts. Citing the upheaval in the nation’s mortgage and residential real estate market, Countrywide officials said it incurred a pretax loss of $1.97 billion in the third quarter, in contrast to a $665 million profit in the second quarter of 2007. Loan financings fell to $96 billion in the quarter, down from $118 billion during the same period of 2006. The company said 90 percent of its loans were made through Countrywide Bank. Delinquencies among the company’s loans continued to rise significantly. For instance, in its portfolio of pay option adjustable-rate loans, which allow the borrower to pay no principal and only a small percentage of the interest owed, 3 percent were more than 90 days late in the quarter. During the same period last year, 0.3 percent were that far behind. Reflecting the declining value of mortgages made previously, the company adjusted the values of loans on its books, recording charges of almost $900 million against those in its inventory or still in its pipeline at the end of the quarter. The provision for credit losses on the loans it holds for investment totaled $934 million; most of it — $790 million — was recorded at Countrywide Bank. Countrywide wrote down $690 million more on the value of residual interests it holds in home equity lines and subprime loans it has made. Kenneth Bruce, an analyst at Merrill Lynch who had a sell rating on Countrywide shares, upgraded the stock to neutral yesterday because the loss was not as bad as had been expected. Last August, Mr. Bruce warned investors that Countrywide could face solvency hurdles as the market for commercial paper, its main source of financing for mortgages, seized up. Countrywide stressed yesterday that it had enough capital, liquidity and financing for its operations and growth plans. In addition to the $11.5 billion in bank lines secured last month, Countrywide said it had arranged a one-year, $10.4 billion commercial paper facility and $6.25 billion in repurchase agreements. At the beginning of the conference call, Mr. Mozilo praised Henry Cisneros, a Countrywide director whose resignation was disclosed Wednesday. Mr. Cisneros, a former United States housing and urban development secretary, said he had left the board to focus on CityView, a home builder financing company he runs. Mr. Mozilo said the nominating committee of Countrywide’s board was searching for an independent director to replace Mr. Cisneros.
|
Countrywide Financial Corp;Mortgages;Stocks and Bonds
|
ny0181335
|
[
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] |
2007/06/17
|
School Basics: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Real Estate
|
LIKE the number of bedrooms or proximity to parks, quality of schools is a factor that can make or break a decision on whether to plunk down a small fortune on a house. Not surprisingly, then, towns with blue-ribbon public school systems — like Greenwich, Fairfield and West Hartford — have consistently commanded some of the higher home prices in the state. But prices within a town can fluctuate, even by neighborhood, based on the strength of the local elementary school, according to a new study by seven professors and students at Trinity College. The study examined the relationship between grade-school test scores and home prices in West Hartford’s 11 elementary school districts, and found that as one climbed, so did the other, in specific and predictable increments. In fact, every 12-percentage-point difference in scores on the Connecticut Mastery Tests, the standardized exams that students in Grades 3 through 8 take every year, is worth $5,065 to those buying or selling a home, according to the study, called “School Choice in Suburbia: Public School Testing and Private Real Estate Markets.” “I’d suspected that the public school market and the private real estate market had been closely tied,” said Jack Dougherty, an associate professor of education studies at Trinity and one of the study’s authors. “Now, I have more evidence that, at least in the pre-eminent suburbs, that’s definitely the case.” The study looked at 8,736 home sales between 1996 and 2005, and a tricky alphabet soup of models and analyses to allow an apples-to-apples comparison, but it did not try to explain the trend. Mr. Dougherty said he would tackle that in a future study. The study’s research reveals what seems like contradictory information, since fewer than 35 percent of homeowners who were interviewed admitted to actively parsing test scores before signing deeds. Still, the Internet has allowed the grouping of test scores that were not even collected in a central state location until 1992, and gathering them in one easily accessible place means that just one person and word of mouth can be powerful influences. Indeed, more than half the respondents in the study said they rely on “social networks of family, friends, and co-workers for school quality information.” That information can reveal, for example, that in 2006, 99 percent of the fourth-graders at the Lloyd H. Bugbee School scored at or above proficiency in math, while 93 percent scored at that level in reading and 87 percent in writing, according to a state-run database, cmtreports.com . In comparison, students at the Whiting Lane School, whose district abuts Bugbee’s, scored perceptibly lower the same year, even if it is still considered a strong school. In 2006, 87 percent of fourth-graders at Whiting Lane scored at or above proficiency in math. In reading, 66 percent achieved that level, and in writing, it was 68 percent. By the logic of the study, then, these performance gaps should translate into tens of thousands of dollars in price differences. They do, as the Bugbee homes routinely fetch far higher prices than the Whiting Lane properties. On the surface, though, these two districts can seem like mirror images of each other. They are both lined with center-hall Colonials built in the 1920s, and are often separated by one street, like South Quaker Lane, which forms a border. For their part, West Hartford brokers are aware of the trend but can’t perpetuate it under the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968, which makes it illegal to use school data to steer would-be home buyers. But these days, when clients show up, they already have school preferences, said John Lepore, a sales associate with Prudential Connecticut Realty, who has been selling homes in West Hartford for two decades. “We don’t get too involved, because we can’t,” he said. “But buyers are much savvier now than they were 10 years ago.” Still, brokers do exercise considerable power on the other side of the equation, helping sellers set prices based on variables like school reputations, according to brokers and education advocacy groups. “The information is in the marketplace on one side of the transaction or the other,” said Alex Johnston, the executive director of the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, a two-year-old group whose mission is to close the academic achievement gap in Connecticut. Making it worse is that top-ranked school districts are often available only to those students who can afford to live there. “Geography,” Mr. Johnston said, “shouldn’t be the driver of access to a quality public education.”
|
Education and Schools;Connecticut;Housing;Prices (Fares Fees and Rates);Greenwich (Conn)
|
ny0143662
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2008/10/02
|
Poll Finds Obama Gaining Support and McCain Weakened in Bailout Crisis
|
With the first presidential debate completed and both candidates grappling with the turmoil on Wall Street and in Washington , Senator Barack Obama is showing signs of gaining significant support among voters with less than five weeks left until Election Day, while Senator John McCain ’s image has been damaged by his response to the financial crisis . A CBS News poll released Wednesday found that Mr. Obama’s favorability rating, at 48 percent, is the highest it has ever been in polls conducted by CBS and The New York Times . At the same time, the number of voters who hold an unfavorable view of Mr. McCain — 42 percent — is as high as it has been since CBS News and The Times began asking the question about Mr. McCain in 1999, the first time he ran for president. The CBS News poll showed that Mr. Obama had a nine-percentage-point lead over Mr. McCain — 49 percent to 40 percent. It is the first time Mr. Obama has held a statistically significant lead over Mr. McCain this year in polls conducted by CBS or joint polls by CBS and The Times. And a series of polls taken in highly contested states released by other organizations on Tuesday suggested that Mr. Obama was building leads in states including Florida , Pennsylvania and Virginia . The CBS News poll found that President Bush had tied the presidential record for a low approval rating — 22 percent, matching Harry S. Truman ’s Gallup approval rating in 1952, when the country was mired in the Korean War and struggling with a stagnant economy. That finding put a new premium on Mr. McCain’s effort to distance himself from Mr. Bush, and suggests that Mr. Bush will continue to be a prominent figure in the Obama campaign’s advertisements attacking Mr. McCain. The contest between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama is far from over. It is being fought against the continued uncertainty over the turmoil on Wall Street and in the bailout negotiations in Washington. There are three potential turning points ahead — a vice-presidential debate on Thursday night and two more debates between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama — and this election has regularly been shaken up by outside events that have tested both candidates and altered voters’ views. Still, the trends signaled by this new wave of polls — coming at what both sides view as a critical moment in the contest — suggest that the contours of this race are taking form, and in a way that is not encouraging for Mr. McCain’s prospects. The election cycle is entering a time when voters historically begin to make final judgments; this year, in fact, many of them are actually beginning early voting in states. What is more, the poll suggests voters have been guided by how Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama did in their debate last Friday, and also how they have responded to the crisis on Wall Street and the resulting deadlock in Washington about how to respond to it. In the CBS News poll, 54 percent of respondents said Mr. Obama had a plan for dealing with the economic crisis, compared with 48 percent who said Mr. McCain did. And 47 percent of respondents said they disapproved of the way Mr. McCain was handling the current economic crisis, compared with 33 percent who approved and 20 percent who said they had no opinion. For Mr. Obama, 32 percent of respondents said they disapproved of his response, compared with 43 percent of respondents who approved; the rest had no opinion. And two-thirds of respondents said the highest-profile action Mr. McCain has made in response to the crisis — announcing that he was suspending his campaign to return to Washington and help negotiators strike a deal — had made no difference in the outcome of the talks. The CBS News poll suggested one sharp contrast in the view of voters of Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain that might have been fed by the different ways the two men responded to the crisis. Forty-five percent said Mr. McCain acted too quickly when he made a decision, compared with 29 percent who said he did not act quickly enough. For Mr. Obama, 23 percent said he acted too quickly, compared with 41 percent who said he did not act quickly enough. The national poll findings by CBS News were echoed in polls released Tuesday by Time magazine and the Pew Research Center . Perhaps more problematic for Mr. McCain were polls, also taken after the debate and in the midst of the financial crisis, suggesting problems for him in critical states, including Florida and Ohio , which President Bush won in 2004 and which Mr. McCain had been confident of holding, and Pennsylvania, a state that Democrats won last time and that Mr. McCain has put on the top of the list of states he has been trying to win. Complete results for all the polls are at nytimes.com/politics . Polls by Quinnipiac University , taken Saturday through Monday, showed Mr. Obama ahead in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The Time/CNN battleground polls also showed Mr. Obama with a lead in Minnesota and Virginia, a state that has been on the top of the pickup lists for Mr. Obama. The CBS News national survey suggested a toxic atmosphere for incumbents in general, but particularly for Republicans. The approval rating for Congress is down to 15 percent, another historic low for the Times/CBS News poll. The CBS News poll found economic anxiety among Americans as high as it has ever been in the history of the poll. Nine in 10 Americans said the economy was in very bad or fairly bad shape, the highest measure on that score since The Times and CBS News began asking the question in September 1986. (The percentage who said that the economy was in very good shape was less than 1 percent.) And the number of Americans who thought the economy was getting worse, 76 percent, set another record: the gloomiest Americans have been since the question was first asked in April 1974. The CBS News poll, of 1,257 adults, including 1,113 registered voters, was conducted Saturday through Tuesday and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. The polling comes on the eve of the vice-presidential debate between Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska , a Republican, and Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. , Democrat of Delaware , and provides new evidence that Ms. Palin’s standing among voters has declined since Mr. McCain chose her as his running mate in August. The Pew poll found that 51 percent of respondents said she was not qualified to be president, compared with 37 percent who said she was. That is a reversal from early last month, when 52 percent of respondents said Ms. Palin was qualified to be president.
|
2008 Presidential Election;Barack Obama;John McCain;George W Bush;CBS News
|
ny0261181
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2011/06/21
|
Belarus: European Union Imposes New Sanctions
|
The European Union on Monday imposed additional sanctions on Belarus in response to the government’s crackdown on opposition groups and independent media. Officials condemned the imprisonment of about two dozen opposition figures for participating in an antigovernment protest last December. The sanctions apply to three major companies linked to the government, a prominent arms exporter, a judge and two prosecutors, a union spokeswoman said.
|
Politics and Government;Belarus;European Union
|
ny0067127
|
[
"us"
] |
2014/12/04
|
Ohio: Officer Who Killed Boy Had a Negative Firearms Review
|
The Cleveland police officer who fatally shot a 12-year-old boy last month left the police force in nearby Independence, Ohio, after an internal assessment two years ago found that he had suffered a “dangerous loss of composure” during firearms training. The officer, Tim Loehmann, is now under investigation after shooting Tamir Rice within two seconds after the patrol car in which he was riding pulled up next to the boy, who had what turned out to be a fake gun. The previous assessment, first reported by The Cleveland Plain Dealer , found that Officer Loehmann “could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and his handgun performance was dismal.” Cleveland police officials said they had not reviewed Officer Loehmann’s Independence personnel file during their hiring process, but had been told by that city’s human resources director that there were no disciplinary actions against him or other incidents that they needed to be aware of.
|
Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings;Tamir E. Rice;Cleveland;Guns;Timothy Loehmann
|
ny0235848
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2010/01/23
|
Bryant and Gasol Lead Lakers Past Knicks
|
Powerful forces, both athletic and political, filled Madison Square Garden on Friday night, making the Knicks bystanders in their own building. Former President Bill Clinton commanded the court at halftime, with a plea for disaster relief for Haiti. Once basketball activities resumed, Kobe Bryant and the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers owned the court, particularly when it mattered most. The Knicks battled the Lakers to a virtual draw through three quarters, but watched helplessly as Bryant and Pau Gasol took over in the final eight minutes to seize a 115-105 victory. It was generally a good showing for the Knicks, who were making a rare appearance on national television. The final impression, however, was of a team unable to make critical plays against a clearly superior opponent. “We didn’t match their intensity. That’s it,” said Danilo Gallinari, who scored 20 points while battling Ron Artest. “When we play aggressive and we play intense, we know what we can do, and everybody knows that we can beat everybody. We didn’t do it in the fourth quarter.” Gallinari’s frustration was evident, and emblematic of the Knicks’ mood after they let another opportunity slip away and fell to 17-25. The Lakers (33-10) proved resilient, fighting off the Knicks just 24 hours after a deflating loss in Cleveland. Bryant led the way with 27 points, although he struggled with his shot (8 for 24) and spent most of the game deferring to his teammates. Bryant was frustrated by his team’s lack of grit in the loss to the Cavaliers and seemed to carry a foul mood to the Garden. A year ago, Bryant dazzled Knicks fans with a Garden-record 61 points. He was in no mood for sentimental journeys, or a sequel, especially while playing with a fractured right index finger. “I don’t think the way that we’re playing, we’re ready for that type of situation,” Bryant said. So he set up Andrew Bynum early and looked to get Gasol and Lamar Odom involved. It paid off when Gasol, who drifted through the first three quarters, scored 10 of his 20 points in the fourth. Bryant also came on at the end, and he and Gasol combined to score 18 of the Lakers’ final 20 points. “Guys got to get going,” Bryant said. “Pau’s got to get going. Andrew’s got to get going. Other players got to find a rhythm.” A year ago, Bryant was showered with unbridled adulation at the Garden. This time, the crowd was audibly conflicted. Loud cheers for Bryant were met with boos. Chants of “M.V.P.” were drowned out by howls. Bryant broke an 85-85 tie with two free throws early in the fourth. The Lakers slowly built a lead from there. It did not reach double digits until Bryant hit a 3-pointer with 4 minutes 31 seconds left. Gasol followed with a 3-point play for a 107-95 lead. When the margin shrank to single digits down the stretch, Bryant silenced the rally, hitting a pair of free throws, then a 16-foot jumper. “He’s the best player in the world,” said David Lee, who had a season-high 31 points, and 17 rebounds. “I thought that really, when you look back at the game though, no one player for them killed us.” Bynum had 19 points, continually overpowering Lee and others in the paint. But Lee pointed to 3-point shots by the Lakers’ role players — including Jordan Farmar, Shannon Brown and Artest — as the deciding factor. Wilson Chandler scored a season-high 28 points for the Knicks. But their offense sputtered late, and they were missing a key spark plug after Nate Robinson hurt his right hamstring in the first half. “We played hard,” Lee said. “They just had more firepower.” The only man in the building with more cachet than Bryant was Clinton. On his way out, Clinton hugged the Lakers’ Derek Fisher — a fellow Arkansan — and chatted at length with Woody Allen. Otherwise, all eyes were on Bryant. After the loss to the Cavaliers, Bryant questioned his teammates’ fortitude, saying they had trouble with “physical, tough-minded, hard-nosed type of teams.” Referring to his own team, he said, “That’s not part of our DNA.” Chris Duhon and Jared Jeffries alternated for most of the night checking Bryant. He went 2 for 8 in the first half and appeared to aggravate his fractured right finger — which has a protective splint — on a breakaway layup in the third quarter. When Bryant flipped the ball up instead of dunking, the fans booed. “We just tried to take him out of his rhythm,” Duhon said of the defense against Bryant. “We made him passer the first half. And then obviously when the game is close, he feels he can turn it on to another switch.” REBOUNDS The Knicks will honor their 1969-70 championship team on Feb. 22, when the franchise holds its second annual Legends Night at halftime of the game against the Milwaukee Bucks. ...Nate Robinson sustained a strained right hamstring in the first half and did not return. Larry Hughes, who had not played in eight of the last nine games, took Robinson’s place in the rotation.
|
Basketball;Lakers;Knicks;Kobe Bryant;Pau Gasol;Danilo Gallinari;David Lee
|
ny0259414
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2011/01/13
|
Germany Sentences 2 Libyan Spies
|
Two Libyan citizens were sentenced in a Berlin court for spying on members of the Libyan opposition living in Europe from August 2007 until they were arrested in May 2010. A 43-year-old officer for the Libyan intelligence service, identified as Abdel A., was sentenced to two and a half years in prison while his accomplice, Adel Al., 47, was sentenced to a term of one year and 10 months. Abdel A. was convicted of overseeing a network of informal collaborators who systematically spied on Libyan opposition members living in Germany and Western Europe. Adel Al. worked as one of these informers reporting to Abdel A.
|
Germany;Libya;Espionage;Sentences (Criminal)
|
ny0254710
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2011/07/15
|
Campaign Marks 15th Season of ‘South Park’
|
VIEWERS who have wondered how Cheesy Poofs — the favorite snack of characters like Eric Cartman and Kyle Broflovski on the animated series “South Park” — might taste will get a chance to find out. As part of an extensive promotional campaign, Year of the Fan, to observe the 15th season of the show, Comedy Central, which has been presenting “South Park” since August 1997, is teaming up with the Frito-Lay division of PepsiCo to produce 1.5 million packages of Cheesy Poofs to be sold in Wal-Mart stores beginning next month. Anyone reluctant to pay $2.99 for a 2 3/8-ounce bag of Cheesy Poofs can get a free bag at an exhibit, called the Ultimate “South Park” Fan Experience, that Comedy Central is sponsoring in conjunction with Comic-Con International in San Diego July 21 to 24. The real version of the imaginary snack will be available at a replica of the school cafeteria from “South Park,” which will be near a replica of South Park Avenue, another major feature of the make-believe South Park, Colo. The exhibit, running 15,000 square feet, will also offer artwork, memorabilia, photo and tattoo booths, trivia contests and a station to create “South Park” avatars that can be uploaded to profile pages in social media like Facebook. Anne Garefino, who is an executive producer of “South Park” along with its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, likened the exhibit to the street fairs she attended as a child growing up in New Jersey. She said she hoped the attractions would offer “silly fun, playful things” as a way to thank viewers. “To be honest, Matt and Trey said, ‘We don’t want to be celebrated,’ ” Ms. Garefino said. Rather, she added, the concept became “let’s do it” but “let’s make it about the fans.” It is unusual, but not unprecedented, for fans of a television series to tour the set on which their favorite show is filmed. It is more difficult to do so when the series is animated and the set does not exist, much less the location the set represents. But bringing elements of “South Park” to life, in what is known as experiential marketing, is a way for Comedy Central to strengthen connections with viewers. That is increasingly important when competition among entertainment properties for hearts, minds and eyeballs is fiercer than ever. “Right now is ‘South Park’s’ moment in the sun,” said Michele Ganeless, president of Comedy Central in New York, part of the MTV Networks unit of Viacom. “Fifteen years of a success on television, let alone on cable, is an achievement.” “Making it about the fans” is a way to counter possible perceptions that the campaign is self-congratulatory, Ms. Ganeless said, and it is appropriate because “South Park” has “such a devoted fan base.” The budget for the campaign is being estimated at $3 million to $5 million. The equivalent media value of the air time and online inventory being devoted to the campaign — on other MTV Networks properties in addition to Comedy Central — is being estimated at $10 million. There will also be an hourlong documentary about “South Park” in the fall, on Comedy Central and “some of the other networks as well,” Ms. Ganeless said. As befits a campaign about a series with a passionate following among men ages 18 to 34, the campaign will have a considerable presence in new media, among them Facebook, at facebook.com/southpark ; Twitter, at twitter.com/SouthPark ; the “South Park” Web site, southparkstudios.com ; and the Comedy Central Web site, comedycentral.com . Bringing a fictional snack to life also makes sense given the dietary proclivities of that audience. “It’s fair to say the viewers of programs on Comedy Central overlap well with consumers of our products,” said Chris Kuechenmeister, a spokesman at Frito-Lay in Plano, Tex. “This is the first time we’ve moved into something like this,” he added. “It seemed like a nice thing to try.” This is, however, not the first time that cartoon brands have been turned into actual products for flesh-and-blood people. For instance, to promote “The Simpsons Movie” in 2007, products like Frosted KrustyO’s cereal and Buzz Cola were sold in 7-Eleven stores; some stores were even temporarily converted to Kwik-E-Marts, after the inconvenient convenience store in “The Simpsons.” Being able “to step into an animated world is awesome,” said Eric Murphy, president, chief executive and creative director at Pop2Life in New York, a marketing promotion agency that is building the exhibit for Comedy Central. “Giving ‘South Park’ fans a chance to physically be part of ‘South Park’ is priceless,” he added. Comedy Central is presenting the 15th season of “South Park” in two parts. The first part ran from April 27 to June 8 and the second is scheduled from Oct. 15 to Nov. 16. The series is renewed for a 17th season through 2013, Ms. Ganeless said. It is coincidental, Ms. Ganeless and Ms. Garefino said, that the campaign will be taking place as Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker bask in the success of their hit Broadway musical, “The Book of Mormon,” on which Ms. Garefino is a lead producer. “Year of the Fan has been in development for the last 24 months, before we knew when ‘The Book of Mormon’ would launch,” Ms. Ganeless said. When Ms. Garefino was asked whether the people behind “South Park” had considered a musical version, she replied: “After the third season, someone asked us to consider it. But we couldn’t think of a way to put the characters on Broadway because of their big, blinky eyes.” Ms. Garefino, who lives in Los Angeles, is in New York “casting for vacation swings,” or replacements, for “The Book of Mormon.” “It’s a big eye-opener for me,” Ms. Garefino said. “Cartman never takes a day off.”
|
Advertising and Marketing;Comedy Central;South Park (TV Program)
|
ny0086784
|
[
"business"
] |
2015/07/09
|
Plan to Curb U.S. Taxation of Overseas Profit Finds Bipartisan Support
|
WASHINGTON — Two senior senators — one Republican, one Democrat — proposed on Wednesday that the government significantly reduce the tax rate on United States corporate profits overseas, but with a mandatory transition tax on such profits to pay for an expansive highway and infrastructure program. The plan, by Senators Rob Portman , Republican of Ohio, and Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, is similar to earlier proposals from President Obama and former Representative Dave Camp, once the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. The current chairman, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, greeted the proposal warmly as well. “What’s exciting to me is we now have a bipartisan road map on how to do international tax reform to make the American worker more competitive,” Mr. Portman said. “This is not about the boardroom. This is about the shop floor.” But it faces stiff opposition from Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, who wants any changes to the international tax system to be part of a comprehensive tax overhaul that also helps domestic small businesses. Mr. McConnell said on Wednesday that he expected to bring up a highway bill after the Senate finished its current work on education. But with the last stopgap law to keep the federal highway trust fund afloat set to expire at the end of July, he said he was “skeptical” any deal would involve changes to the tax code, adding that he thought a comprehensive overhaul was best. “We obviously can’t do that in two weeks, and even some component, some subset of that that might be included in a larger, comprehensive bill is pretty hard to put together to meet the time constraints that we have on the highway bill,” Mr. McConnell said. “So it may be a good idea, but I don’t think it applies to the current situation.” The Portman-Schumer plan is more a framework than a legislative proposal. Some of the toughest details might not be worked out until the fall. But it does represent a convergence of thinking in both parties. The current system taxes overseas profits at 35 percent — minus taxes paid to the host country — once a business brings its income back to the United States. That has prompted American-based multinational companies to, in effect, leave trillions of dollars abroad, either in cash or as investments in foreign operations. Senators Portman and Schumer would largely end the taxation of those repatriated profits, instead imposing a light annual tax on overseas income, whether it comes home or not. That, they said, would end the incentive to leave profits abroad or reinvest them in overseas operations. Mr. Obama’s international tax plan would set that minimum overseas profit tax at 14 percent. The new proposal does not set a rate, but Mr. Portman said the administration’s was far too high. Image Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican, has joined with Mr. Schumer on the effort. Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times As a bridge to that system, the senators — like the president — propose a one-time tax on overseas profits that would be “deemed” repatriated, whether or not they come home. “Deemed repatriation” in exchange for a “territorial” system that primarily taxes corporate income generated in the United States is a deal that big business is willing to accept, Mr. Portman said. It is also one that could produce hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes for public works to improve the nation’s aging infrastructure. That is an idea that has gained currency in Washington as both the White House and Republicans drop talk of an increase in the federal gasoline tax. With Democrats raising pressure on Republican leaders to produce a long-term infrastructure and highway bill, advocates of the tax proposal say it will gain more steam. “As we get closer to the deadline, people are going to realize this is the only alternative,” Mr. Schumer said on Wednesday. The proposal also embraces what European nations have called a “patent box” — a lower business tax rate for income derived from intellectual property patents. Much of the move to cut corporate taxes reflects scrambling to replicate actions by foreign trading partners that have eased business tax rates and sought to lure investment. For Democrats, the attraction of the plan will be infrastructure funding and the closing of loopholes that have encouraged business investment abroad, while even encouraging some companies based in the United States to reincorporate in lower-tax countries. For Republicans, the plan promises lower tax rates and a simplified system. Republican leaders, however, are divided on how to proceed. Mr. McConnell would like to cobble together funding for a two-year highway bill that would push the tax reform debate into the next presidency, when he hopes that a Republican will occupy the White House. Mr. Obama has said any broad overhaul of the tax code should raise revenue for the government and must maintain higher tax rates on the rich. Mr. Ryan, however, says an overhaul of the business tax code cannot wait that long. Companies are already moving operations overseas where tax rates are lower. “Patent boxes” are the latest threat, especially now that countries establishing lower tax rates on intellectual property income are insisting that companies taking advantage of such rates move some of their research and development operations abroad. “Our tax code is costing us jobs, depressing wages and chasing companies out of the United States,” Mr. Ryan said in a statement welcoming the Portman-Schumer proposal. “Unfortunately, comprehensive reform is not possible under a president who wants to raise taxes on families and job creators. That does not mean, however, we cannot work to find common ground as a first step toward tax reform.” Mr. Ryan is pressing House Republican leaders to accept a stopgap highway bill that extends only to the end of the year. That would keep the pressure on to reach consensus on a tax plan now. Mr. Portman agreed. “The bottom line is, we have a huge problem” that cannot wait, he said. “Our seed corn for the future is being invested somewhere else.”
|
Corporate tax;Chuck Schumer;Rob Portman;Federal Taxes;US Politics;Highway Trust Fund;New York;Ohio
|
ny0080956
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2015/02/22
|
Bush Spouse Backs Jeb, but Is Wary of Family Business
|
CORAL GABLES, Fla. — For 20 years, Columba Bush anticipated the day she would have to answer one big question: Would she support her husband, Jeb Bush, if he decided to run for president? Last summer and fall, as she wrestled with whether to say yes, her sense of duty was mixed with dread. Born in Mexico, she had married into a famously political American family and had always been an outsider: a prayerful Roman Catholic, a sensitive loner and lover of the arts who still speaks in heavily accented English. As Florida’s first lady, she had arranged Mass in the governor’s mansion and endured weeks of bad press for a European shopping spree. She blamed politics for friction in her marriage and as a factor in her daughter’s drug addiction. A run for the White House would expose her to the spotlight as never before. “She knows the good and the bad of being around politics,” said Jim Towey, an official in the administration of President George W. Bush, Jeb’s brother, and a close friend to both Jeb and Columba. “It’s opened the door to extraordinary experiences for her. But she’s paid quite a price, as well.” Over Thanksgiving, during a family vacation in Mexico, friends say, Mrs. Bush gave her approval — though not before winning her husband’s promise to spend some time every week with her and their children and grandchildren. A few weeks later, over salads by the bubbling fountain in the courtyard of the Biltmore Hotel here, she signaled her acquiescence, if not enthusiasm, to a friend, Bart Hudson, describing her husband with her highest form of praise. “You know,” Mr. Hudson recalled her saying of Mr. Bush, “he is an artist, and he is very good.” Now, there is a new question confronting Mrs. Bush: What kind of candidate’s wife will she be? In a party looking to soften its image and expand its tent, the prospect of the nation’s first Latina first lady could be a powerful draw for Hispanic voters disenchanted with many Republicans’ hard-line stance on immigration. But Mrs. Bush, 61, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has never been an eager campaigner. “Jeb is a natural-born politician, but I’m not a political person,” she told The Miami Herald in January 1989, shortly before her father-in-law, George H. W. Bush, became president. “At home, we’re a common, ordinary couple.” That search for ordinariness has been in conflict with her husband’s yearning for something bigger and the expectations long placed on both of them. Mrs. Bush has struggled to make peace with her husband’s world, but she is the furthest thing from a classic political spouse. If the 2016 election comes down to a choice between Mr. Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton, she and Bill Clinton would present a startling contrast. Mrs. Bush cherishes quiet lunches by herself, eating simple Latin fare like jamón serrano at no-frills restaurants or painting in the studio of a friend, the artist Romero Britto, where her last work was of a little cat. When her husband was governor, she preferred spending hours touring women’s shelters and talking to abuse victims rather than highlighting her work against domestic violence to the news media. Her best friend is her sister, Lucila, who married a friend of Mr. Bush’s and lives just a few miles away. “I have never heard Columba discuss the mechanics of politics,” said Ana Navarro, a Republican strategist and a friend of the Bushes. “I think that’s one of the things Jeb loves about her. He doesn’t come home to a spouse who’s been obsessing over political blogs all day.” Columba Garnica Gallo — known to her friends as Colu, pronounced Coo-loo — was a restless 17-year-old who wanted to explore life beyond León, her bustling hometown, when she met Mr. Bush, an exchange student and academic underachiever from Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., in 1971. Little is known about her parents; Mrs. Bush rarely grants interviews and has mostly talked about her mother’s faith and perseverance. But her father, according to some reports, was a migrant worker. They divorced when Mrs. Bush was young, and her mother now lives in Miami. Her father abandoned the family when she was a teenager, according to Mr. Bush’s aides, and she did not have a relationship with him after that. By all accounts, meeting Columba made Jeb more diligent: When he returned to school, he earned better grades and went on to the University of Texas at Austin, graduating in less than three years. They married in 1974, on a weekend that was also the first time she met her father-in-law. She had met Barbara Bush several weeks earlier. For years afterward, she referred to her mother-in-law as Mrs. Bush. While Jeb began a business career, Columba had “problems” adjusting to her new life and was in need of “self-confidence,” George H. W. Bush wrote in a diary entry at the time. The couple and their two young children, George and Noelle (Jeb Jr. was born later), moved to Venezuela for a couple of years when Mr. Bush got a job there with a bank, and then settled in Miami, a city with a Latin American culture that delighted Mrs. Bush and presented Mr. Bush with fresh political turf where he could develop his own identity apart from his famous family. In 1988, the elder Mr. Bush ran for president, and his daughter-in-law got a painful introduction to national politics. Mrs. Bush, who became an American citizen so she could vote that November, later said she had found herself “trembling” after he referred in public to her children as “the little brown ones.” While she moved quickly to defend Mr. Bush, describing his reference as a term of endearment, the phrase hung over the children and their mother for years. “Columba is very sweet, very polite, very reserved, and politics isn’t known for any of that,” said former Gov. Bob Martinez of Florida, a Republican who made Mr. Bush his secretary of commerce in the late 1980s. Image Columba Bush alongside her husband, Jeb, as he was sworn in as Florida governor in 1999. Credit Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press Six years after his father was elected president, Mr. Bush made his first run for governor of Florida. When he was not campaigning, he was thinking about policy, and some weeks he spent more time with advisers, voters and the phone than with his wife. Friends say Mrs. Bush was stretched thin with three children, two of them teenagers, and the stress of occasional but high-profile public appearances with her husband. She felt out of sorts both at home — Mr. Bush usually made the family dinners, because she rarely cooks — and in the world of politics. As one friend said, she vastly preferred watching Mexican soap operas to attending fund-raising events. “She would come to some of the big political dinners and do some rallies, often speaking in Spanish, but her focus was on trying to give the kids a normal life,” said Al Cardenas, a leader in the Republican Party of Florida in the 1990s. Mr. Bush lost that election, and the period that followed was difficult. Mr. Bush, who was raised an Episcopalian, sought to heal through an intense period of Bible study, prayer and preparation to become a Roman Catholic, knowing the importance of his wife’s faith to her, as well as her desire to have the family share a religion. Mrs. Bush became more active in philanthropy, raising money for young people to attend cultural events like performances of Ballet Folklórico de México, a favorite troupe of hers. In 1998, Mr. Bush ran for governor again, and this time he won. Mrs. Bush had to trade multicultural Miami for traditionalist Tallahassee, a place where she never quite fit in. “If people in Tallahassee were looking for a Southern belle in that job of first lady,” Mr. Towey said, “they had the wrong woman.” Mrs. Bush devoted herself to advocacy on issues that were important to her: promoting the arts (she once helped bring paintings from the private collection of Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire, to the Smithsonian Institution), combating domestic violence and trying to prevent drug abuse. “She spent a lot of time asking about underserved communities, like the large Latino community and the Haitian community,” said Tiffany Carr, executive director of the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence . “It led us to hire many more Spanish speakers at shelters and for the statewide hotline, and make sure all our material was readable in Spanish.” But Mrs. Bush also found the public spotlight searing. Returning to the United States in 1999 from one of her regular trips to Europe, Mrs. Bush lied to customs officials about her overseas purchases: She said she had spent only $500, but receipts were found for $19,000 in clothes and jewelry. A spokesman for Mr. Bush said at the time that she had underreported the goods because she did not want Mr. Bush to know how much she had spent. (Mr. Bush is known among his friends as frugal with his own clothing, at least.) The episode only increased Mrs. Bush’s reluctance to deal with reporters, and her desire to withdraw from public scrutiny. “My husband always said that if the public knew her, they would love her,” said Peggy Sapp, who worked with Mrs. Bush on drug-abuse prevention and praised her as “a good listener” who worked hard “behind the scenes.” Asked why the public did not get to know Mrs. Bush, Mrs. Sapp said, “I think that whole thing with the airport just set it off.” Then came her daughter’s struggle with addiction. Toward the end of Mr. Bush’s first term as governor, Noelle, then 24, was charged with a felony for trying to fill a fraudulent prescription for Xanax. She ended up in a drug rehabilitation center, but served stints in jail after she was found with pills and later with crack cocaine in a shoe. Some relatives attended one court hearing, but her parents stayed away to avoid drawing more attention to their daughter. Soon after, Mrs. Bush was asked if Noelle’s difficulties were related to being part of a political family. “Absolutely,” The Washington Post quoted her as saying in 2003, though she quickly stopped herself. When Mr. Bush left office in early 2007, “Columba really did retreat back to her world in Miami, with the arts and her family,” said Mr. Towey, who is now president of Ave Maria University in southwestern Florida. Always out there was the question of whether Mr. Bush would run for president. But as the years have passed and their children have grown older, according to friends, Mrs. Bush’s anxieties about a White House run have eased slightly. They say she worries most about Noelle, who is now working as an office manager for a software company in Orlando. Associates of Mr. Bush said they expected Mrs. Bush to eventually take part in the campaign on issues that matter most to her, like domestic violence or Latin American culture. (She attended Mr. Bush’s foreign policy address in Chicago on Wednesday but did not speak herself.) Her views on immigration are similar to her husband’s, associates said — he favors a broad overhaul of immigration laws — but they would not be more specific about her opinions on border security and citizenship opportunities. Friends and associates asked about her political opinions say that more than anything, she believes her husband has a calling. Or, as Mrs. Bush put it in a Spanish-language interview in 1991 with the Miami magazine Selecta: “I am a firm believer in destiny. I feel that what is important is written, and you do what you do.”
|
Columba Bush;Jeb Bush;2016 Presidential Election;US Politics
|
ny0192906
|
[
"nyregion",
"thecity"
] |
2009/02/15
|
Filipino ‘Soul Food’ Comes to Queens
|
IT’S the rare neighborhood of mom-and-pop shops that actually welcomes a fast-food joint. But for months, the Filipino-American community centered in Woodside, Queens, has been eagerly awaiting the opening of a Filipino food-chain restaurant called Jollibee , and describing its dishes in breathless, almost reverent tones. “This is the taste of my childhood,” said Emma Ilagan, a 36-year-old customer service representative for Verizon Wireless who left the Philippines when she was 21. “Until now, you have to go to California for Chickenjoy,” she added, referring to the chain’s popular dish of fried chicken, gravy and rice. Or as Natasha Starkey, a conservatory student, said last month when she dropped off an application for a part-time job, “This is Filipino soul food.” Jollibee, the dominant fast-food chain in the Philippines, where it has more than 600 outlets, is opening the restaurant, its first on the East Coast, this weekend. Its fare is a mix of fast-food staples like burgers and Chickenjoy, along with more regional dishes. While Filipino-Americans on the West Coast can enjoy these dishes at two dozen Jollibee locations, those in New York have been able to only reminisce about such items. But in late December, an image of the chain’s cheery mascot, a smiling bumblebee sporting a toque, was mounted over the doorway of a former Mexican restaurant at 63rd Street and Roosevelt Avenue, in the shadow of the No. 7 elevated. The chain’s impending arrival has had Woodside excited for months. On Friday, some workers were labeling the menu boards with calorie counts while others were breading dozens of pieces of chicken in the sleek, new kitchen. “We’re expecting a line outside at 7 a.m.,” said Iyoh Villamayor, Jollibee’s vice president for operations. “I notified the local police precinct.” Even local business owners, who might be expected to view Jollibee’s arrival with trepidation, especially as the economy sags, said they were excited. “I think it’s a positive thing for Filipinos,” said Jacqueline Bacani, who manages a family-style Filipino restaurant called Ihawan a few blocks away. “It demonstrates an expansion of the Filipino community.” Emmanuel Castillo, who owns the Phil-Am grocery just across the street and serves Filipino shoppers who come to the neighborhood from throughout the region, was even more direct. “It will be good for business here,” Mr. Castillo said firmly.
|
Restaurants;Retail Stores and Trade;Philippines;Woodside (NYC)
|
ny0029994
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2013/06/11
|
Mookie Blaylock Surrenders to Authorities
|
After leaving a hospital, the former N.B.A. All-Star Mookie Blaylock surrendered to the authorities and is in jail, charged with vehicular homicide in a crash south of Atlanta. Blaylock is also charged with driving on a suspended license, making an improper lane change and crossing the median in the head-on crash that killed a 43-year-old woman in Jonesboro, Ga., on May 31. Blaylock blacked out just before the crash, his lawyer said. ■ Tom Thibodeau and Monty Williams will join the returning Jim Boeheim as assistants for the United States Olympic men’s basketball team, replacing Mike D’Antoni and Nate McMillan. (AP)
|
Basketball;Mookie Blaylock;Tom Thibodeau;Monty Williams;Jim Boeheim;Mike D'Antoni;Nate McMillan
|
ny0018706
|
[
"us"
] |
2013/07/28
|
How Ted Cruz Is Not Running for President
|
It’s been a year since that impossible thing happened. Ted Cruz, in his first run for public office, beat the fabulously wealthy David Dewhurst — himself the winner of four previous statewide elections — in a Republican primary runoff for the United States Senate. Now the junior senator from Texas has joined that small and select group of Americans touring early primary states and denying that they are interested in running for president of the United States. Mr. Cruz has a weird parallel to the current president. They are both lawyers. Their opponents are passionate and question their meager experience as officeholders and their eligibility for the nation’s top political job. President Obama has the so-called birthers to contend with; Mr. Cruz, who was born in Canada, is swatting at a low but persistent buzz about whether he’s got the right stuff, geographically, to be president. He says, for the record, that he has looked into the law and that he does, indeed, qualify for the office he says he is not currently seeking. Whatever he does next, it’s what Mr. Cruz has done so far that has even made that question possible. When Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison decided not to run for re-election, all of the smart kids said the seat belonged to Mr. Dewhurst if he wanted it. He’s a bit stiff, as Texas politicians go, but he looks senatorial. He had those four successful campaigns under his belt — one for land commissioner and three for lieutenant governor. He is personally wealthy and has proved to be perfectly willing to spend his own money on his campaigns. It was a midterm election of the sort that locks in the institutional political donors: Mr. Dewhurst was either going to be a United States senator or the lieutenant governor after the race ended, and it is not smart to pick a fight with the holder of either office. And the primary opposition did not appear threatening. Mr. Cruz, a former state solicitor general, had never run for office. He was unknown to voters and appeared to have neither the time nor the money to last in the race. Tom Leppert, a former Dallas mayor, had only a regional following. Craig James, a former football player, was another political newcomer. Slam-dunk, Dewhurst. Next question? The primaries got delayed, giving Mr. Cruz and the others time to work. Mr. Dewhurst ignored signs that Mr. Cruz had been working the grass roots but then spent a bunch of money attacking him — at the time hoping, in the strange rationality of campaign politics, to sink Mr. Leppert. That made Mr. Cruz well known enough to get into a runoff. And then Mr. Dewhurst found, to his surprise, that the dreaded “moderate” label had been attached to him and that Mr. Cruz had successfully run to his right. Mr. Cruz easily defeated his Democratic opponent, Paul Sadler, in November, took office in January and now, just six months later, is giving speeches in Iowa. He hasn’t had time to do much but generate headlines in Washington, but his climb has made him the current patron saint of long-shot candidates and the stuff of nightmares for seemingly safe incumbents. Like this: Attorney General Greg Abbott has every reason to be confident in his current pursuit of the governor’s office. He’s got money, his opponents don’t, the establishment is with him, he has won several statewide elections, yada, yada, yada. His chief opponent at the moment, Tom Pauken, has never held elected office and doesn’t have Mr. Abbott’s resources. Mr. Dewhurst himself is racing to the right in his 2014 re-election bid. He has three strong Republican opponents and a tough primary ahead. The Greg Abbotts of Texas politics have one piece of information Mr. Dewhurst did not have: when there are no strong Democrats running, there is no reason to concede the right to another Republican. Mr. Cruz has had a short tenure in office, but on the first anniversary of his primary runoff victory over Mr. Dewhurst, you can see his impact on the Republican Party of Texas: he has become a verb. Talk to Republican incumbents at the statewide level, in Congressional and legislative races and farther down the ballot, and you’ll hear it again and again, the new phrase in Texas Republican politics: “I don’t want to get Cruzed in my primary.”
|
David Dewhurst;Ted Cruz;Senate races;Gubernatorial races;Republicans;Texas
|
ny0230948
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2010/09/09
|
For Emanuel, Temptation In the Form of a Dream Job
|
WASHINGTON — When Rahm Emanuel was running for Congress on the North Side of Chicago, he would often make calls while he was out shaking hands near the city’s elevated trains, with their distinctive rumbling sending an unmistakable signal that he was standing in his district. Mr. Emanuel was born and raised in Chicago, but he has never been seen as one of the city’s towering figures. And that, his friends say, is one reason why being mayor of Chicago has long been among his biggest political ambitions. But is it better than being chief of staff to the first president from Chicago? To those who know Mr. Emanuel well, the answer is unquestionably yes, which is why they believe he is seriously weighing leaving the White House in the wake of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s abrupt announcement on Tuesday that he intends to step down next year. “Something like that doesn’t come around a lot,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, doing little to douse speculation about Mr. Emanuel. “It’s no surprise that’s a job he’s been interested in.” Yet the decision is complicated by the timing of leaving President Obama and the West Wing during one of the most trying periods for the administration. And there is an even bigger question for Mr. Emanuel to consider: Could he win? In a year in which political races across the country are causing angst for the White House, the vacancy in Chicago’s mayoral race could touch off a dominolike series of personnel changes at the White House. To keep the issue from becoming a distraction, Mr. Emanuel tried to set the tone on Wednesday by not directly mentioning it during his daily senior staff meetings. But less than two months before the midterm elections, as Democrats try to turn around their political fortunes with a batch of new economic proposals that Mr. Emanuel helped write, several aides said the prospect of a new leader in the corner office of the West Wing was hard for the rest of the staff to ignore. Mr. Emanuel told friends that he had not yet made a decision about whether to run, but that he would probably make up his mind in the next week or so. “He has a sense of responsibility to his family, the president and the enterprise,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, who has worked alongside Mr. Emanuel in Chicago for years. “It’s something that he would really like to do, but it’s not without complications.” Mr. Emanuel carries significant weight in Washington, surviving a bruising tenure in the Clinton administration and swiftly rising through the Democratic ranks during his six years in Congress. He gave up his hopes of ultimately becoming speaker of the House when he resigned his Congressional seat to be Mr. Obama’s chief of staff. While Mr. Emanuel has been one of the most active and influential White House chiefs of staff in modern presidential history, there were few signs that the campaign for a rare opening as Chicago mayor would be delayed as he deliberates. The field of possible candidates seemed to grow by the hour on Wednesday as the news settled in that Mr. Daley truly was stepping aside. For Mr. Emanuel, who gained his first political experiences as a shoe-leather operative in Chicago, the decision over whether to run for mayor is far more complicated after two years in the White House. In Chicago, a vast patchwork of neighborhoods, every mayoral candidate needs a natural constituency. Several Democratic officials in the city said they were uncertain where Mr. Emanuel’s base of support would come from, beyond his former Congressional district on the city’s Northwest Side. Many Jewish voters in Chicago, like elsewhere in the country, are furious at Mr. Emanuel over the Obama administration’s policies toward Israel. Several liberal groups inside the Democratic Party, from labor unions to other progressive organizations, blame Mr. Emanuel for playing a role in what they believe as failing to fully capitalize on the party’s majority by not pursuing more liberal policies. Here in Washington, even before Mr. Emanuel made a decision on whether he intended to leave the White House, a guessing game quickly began over who would succeed him. The potential replacements were divided into categories of temporary and permanent, depending on how quickly he would return to Chicago if he decided to run. Nomination papers must be filed by Nov. 22 for the Feb. 22 election. Early possibilities included: Thomas E. Donilon, the deputy national security adviser; Ronald A. Klain, the vice president’s chief of staff; and Phil Schiliro, the president’s top liaison to Capitol Hill. If Mr. Emanuel needed to leave quickly, the president could turn to a short-term replacement, including: Pete Rouse, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama who was known as the 101st senator for his long service to Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota; and Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president and a confidante of the Obamas. The departure of Mr. Emanuel, should it take place, would offer a moment for the president to infuse his ranks with fresh energy and ideas. But administration officials said they believed it was unlikely a candidate from outside the West Wing would be selected. The president has given his blessing for Mr. Emanuel to pursue a campaign if he decides to, aides said, but it was unlikely that Mr. Obama would become involved in the mayor’s race. And if Mr. Emanuel moves forward with a candidacy for City Hall in Chicago, he will do so without the endorsement from Mayor Daley. “It can be the people of the city of Chicago that will make that decision,” Mr. Daley told reporters, explaining his decision to stay out of the race. “The people of Chicago can make that recommendation.”
|
Emanuel Rahm;Chicago (Ill);United States Politics and Government;Obama Barack;Elections;Politics and Government;Mayors
|
ny0153606
|
[
"sports",
"othersports"
] |
2008/01/27
|
A Champion Vaulter Has Come a Long Way
|
BOSTON — When Jenn Stuczynski started pole-vaulting, she trained in two primitive Quonset huts in Churchville, N.Y., near Rochester. In her first meet, she cleared 8 feet 6 inches. Four years and four national championships later, she still trains there, but her bar has been raised. In June, she set an American outdoor record of 16 feet, a height bettered only by Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia. On Saturday night, in the Boston Indoor Games at the Reggie Lewis Center, Stuczynski took aim at Stacy Dragila’s American indoor record, 15-9 1/4, set in 2004. Stuczynski won the event Saturday at 15-1, but knocked over the bar three times at 15-9 3/4. “I’m not disappointed,” she said. “I actually look at it as a start because this was my first major meet of the year.” In a nation with so many excellent training facilities, Stuczynski’s is almost comic. The lights are dim despite a new $10 bulb. In the bitter upstate winter, a propane heater keeps the temperature warm near the landing pit, but nowhere else. The windows are boarded, but snow still blows in. A radio offers a little entertainment, but the tuner goes only down, not up. In an interview Friday, Stuczynski told of the travails. First, she must drive two hours from her home in Fredonia, N.Y. “When I’m there, I have to blow snow off the pole because it comes through the window,” she said. “I’ve learned how to dress warm. I don’t think we’ve had a workout without my feet being frozen, but I know how to deal with the cold. I dress in layers. I always wear socks to cover my arches. Then there’s spandex shorts, leg warmers, a heated top with a T-shirt over it. It’s not pretty, but it makes me tough.” When Stuczynski was 9, she started playing golf and was a quick success, but, she said, “I’d rather play than practice.” As a 6-footer in high school, she was a softball, basketball and track athlete and a cheerleader. At Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, she helped her basketball team reach an N.A.I.A. final. Rick Suhr, a basketball and track coach, saw the makings of a pole-vaulter. She was reluctant, but tried. Within a year, she won the national indoor championship, although she said she did not know it at first. “I got a qualifying height of 13-7 for the nationals and then I trained hard for two weeks,” she said. “When I got there, I didn’t know a lot of the girls. I didn’t know what was happening in the competition until an official said, ‘Where do you want the bar?’ I didn’t realize until then that I had won.” For 11 years, Dragila dominated the sport in the United States. Since 2006, Stuczynski has ruled while Dragila has battled Achilles’ problems. They will meet Friday in the 101st Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden, but Dragila, 36, does not appear sound enough yet to beat Stuczynski, who will turn 26 on Feb. 6. Unlike many other athletes who are sitting out the indoor season to prepare for the Olympics, Stuczynski is planning a full indoor schedule. “Indoors is fun,” she said. “There’s no wind and you don’t have to worry about the pole being caught. It’s one way to have fun in the pole vault.” As a potential Olympic medalist, she could train anywhere, but when she leaves Boston, she will go back to the Quonset huts. “I love it,” she said. “To train somewhere else would kind of ruin the purpose. That’s where I started and that’s where I’m going to stay.” NOTES The capacity crowd of 4,015 on Saturday saw Ethiopia’s Meseret Defar win the women’s two mile in 9 minutes 10.50 seconds, the fastest indoor time ever. Her fellow Ethiopian Tirunesh Dibaba won the women’s 3,000 meters in 8:33.37. The women’s winners included the Americans Lela Nelson in the long jump (21-4), Jenelle Deatherage in the mile (4:32.95), Miki Barber in the 60 meters (7.27 seconds), Ashley Kidd in the 200 (23.55 seconds) and Morgan Uceny in the 800 (2:05.75). Among the men’s winners were Craig Mottram of Australia in the 3,000 meters (7:34.50, the fastest in the United States), and the Americans Christian Cantwell in the shot-put (68-9 3/4), Khadevis Robinson in the 800 (1:50.92) Andrew Rock in the 500 (1:02.87), Dabryan Blanton in the 60 (6.65) and Antwon Hicks in the 60 hurdles (7.59).
|
Track and Field;Pole Vault;Stuczynski Jenn
|
ny0226450
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2010/10/30
|
In Boca Raton, Paladino Finds Neighborly Support
|
BOCA RATON, Fla. — One would think that after almost 25 years of owning a condominium here, Carl P. Paladino would be able to rely on a little support from his neighbors in his underdog quest to be New York’s next governor. But that would be wrong — at least if campaign contributions are any indication. According to the latest campaign filings, Mr. Paladino has collected $2,625 from 5 people with Boca Raton addresses. By contrast, Andrew M. Cuomo has hauled in $31,308.36 from 14 people. One of Mr. Paladino’s donors, Dolores Colarusso, who gave $100, is actually a friend and Buffalo native who lives in the same Boca Bayou condominium complex. Together with her husband, Joseph, she has known the Paladino family for years. The Colarussos said in an interview last month that Mr. Paladino had bought the unit primarily to give his parents a warm place to escape the harsh Buffalo winters. So when the elder Paladinos were in Florida, the Colarussos would accompany them to the eye doctor and the Hialeah Park race track. These days, the Colarussos take care of the apartment in the absence of Mr. Paladino’s wife and two siblings, who now own the unit. Indeed, Mr. Paladino has rarely visited the modest two-bedroom, two-bathroom condominium, which, based on the sale last year of a similar unit above theirs, has a market value of about $160,000. But his wife is a regular visitor, and she often comes with her sisters. The Colarussos think so highly of the Paladinos that they tried to encourage their neighbors, many of whom are still New York residents, to support him. “I try to talk to New Yorkers who come here to vote for Carl,” said Mr. Colarusso, who worked as a mailman in Buffalo. “The people who came from the bottom like Carl, worked their way up — those are the people, they know business, they know how to do things. He’ll straighten out the education system in New York.” Or so he said when a reporter visited the sprawling complex last month. But in a follow-up phone call this week to gauge how that effort was going, the Colarussos, a friendly and chatty couple, were uncharacteristically tight-lipped. “I have no further comment,” Mrs. Colarusso said. “Nothing. Bye.” DAVID W. CHEN A Female Force It is not easy for women to penetrate New York State’s political world. Women make up only 24 percent of the Legislature and just 17 percent of county lawmakers. Only one woman, Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, holds a statewide office — and she was appointed to her job. And the staffs that work for lawmakers or for those seeking elected office tend to be heavily male as well. Which makes one particular race this campaign season intriguing. In the campaign for State Senate in the 41st District, which includes Columbia County and parts of Dutchess County, the staffs of both candidates are overwhelmingly female. The Democrat, Didi Barrett, a first-time candidate for office who works as a consultant for nonprofit organizations, has 17 campaign workers — all but 2 are female. “I have a network of women in the political world,” said Ms. Barrett, who has been involved with national and statewide groups that back female candidates and candidates who support abortion rights. “I like working with women,” she said. But the makeup of her campaign team, she explained, “just kind of worked out that way.” Her Republican opponent, Stephen M. Saland, who has served in the Legislature for about 30 years, also said the majority of his campaign workers, all of whom are volunteers, were women. “There is very much a gender imbalance in my office,” he said, “and I would be on the minority side.” Mr. Saland also said that on his legislative staff of 10 people, all are women except one. “And that one exception,” Mr. Saland said, “is the lowest paid person on staff.” ELIZABETH A. HARRIS
|
Elections;Paladino Carl P;Boca Raton (Fla);Politics and Government;Barrett Didi;Saland Stephen M;New York State
|
ny0199825
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2009/07/14
|
Refugees From Region in Pakistan Trickling Home
|
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Hundreds of people who fled a military offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Valley began trickling back home on Monday after the Pakistani government announced the first stage of a three-part plan to return them. They represented a tiny fraction of the nearly two million refugees who have been displaced by the fighting in Swat, which started after the collapse of a February peace deal that handed the Taliban effective control of the district, and a military campaign to uproot the militants began. The refugees, tens of thousands of whom have spent months in government camps, are eager to return home, but many have expressed trepidation about their safety. Buses and trucks provided by the government began shuttling hundreds of families to Swat on Monday from three camps in the Mardan and Charsadda districts, south of the valley. Mohammad Shumon Alam, the spokesman in Pakistan for the aid agency Oxfam, said many families were sending one or two people as scouts to check the area and their homes before putting everyone, including children, into vehicles to return. “It’s not a big wave,” Mr. Alam said. “It’s limited. People want to go back, but they are extremely skeptical and concerned.” The government of North-West Frontier Province announced over the weekend that 23,040 displaced families would receive assistance returning to Swat in three phases. The provincial government plans to complete the process in two weeks. Ahmad Rajwana, the chief coordinator of refugee camps for the government of the North-West Frontier Province in the Swabi district, said 800 families were scheduled to return to Bari Kot in Swat on Tuesday as part of the first stage. “To be honest, people in the camps wanted to go back for a long time,” Mr. Rajwana said of the mood of the displaced people in the camps. “The government is not forcing them. The refugees have signed a declaration that they are not being forcibly returned.” Two weeks ago, about 4,000 refugees voluntarily left the Chota Lahore camp in Swabi, he said. Ishaq Khan, a resident of Saidu Sharif, a town in Swat, said that the military had divided the return by area, with those whose homes were closer to the camps returning first. Mr. Khan, a graphic designer, said he was scheduled to depart on Friday. “They said it was quiet, no shooting, no violence,” he said by telephone from Rawalpindi, where he has been living since early May, citing what others who had returned on Monday were finding. Early accounts of those who returned today were cautiously good, he said, but added that he was glad that he was scheduled to return later to be able hear the experience of others first. The camps have been shrouded in stifling summer heat, and some aid agency officials have warned that keeping them in camps longer than absolutely necessary would only breed resentment of the government. Elsewhere, at least nine people, including seven children, were killed when a blast ripped through a house in a farming village in the southern part of Punjab Province, police officials said. At least 60 people were injured in the explosion, which occurred in the house of a member of an outlawed militant group who had stored explosives, officials said. The blast destroyed half of a village near the town of Mian Channu in the Khanewal district, residents reached by telephone said. The police said that the house where the explosion occurred belonged to Riaz Kumboh, who, according to local residents and the police, had set up a private religious school and had hidden explosives. He belonged to a banned militant organization, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and had received militant training from Afghanistan, a resident said. Police officials said that Mr. Kumboh had hidden explosives in the house. What set off the blast remained unclear. “The blast was so loud that it was heard over a distance of six miles,” Ghulam Jilani, 36, a resident of Mian Channu, said by telephone. “Half of the village is destroyed. Most of the houses were made of mud and bricks.” Rescue teams from nearby towns headed to the village after the blast. Local television news networks broadcast images showing people rummaging through the rubble to pull out the injured. The blast raised concerns about the ease and ability of the militants to operate quietly and unnoticed in the rural areas of southern part of Punjab. Militant groups in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, have joined forces with the Taliban in the country’s west, and have been jointly conducting attacks in major cities, a trend that has worried Pakistani authorities. But Muhammad Aslam Bodla, an opposition politician and member of Parliament from Khanewal, said in a telephone interview that Mian Channu was a peaceful town not known for any extremist or militant activity. “The blast today is the first incident of its kind in Mian Channu,” he said.
|
Swat (Pakistan);Refugees;Pakistan;Punjab (Pakistan)
|
ny0156723
|
[
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] |
2008/06/08
|
Dining/Nightlife | Like Your Own Home, Only ‘Much Cooler’
|
DECIDING what makes a lounge a lounge and not a bar, a nightclub or a hip restaurant can be like trying to sort out what separates house music from disco: If you haven’t checked in a while, chances are you can’t. The proprietors of some New Jersey lounges, which typically combine food, cocktails, music and an atmosphere conducive to socializing, have no shortage of explanations, however. David Kokakis, co-owner of three-year-old Voro, a 4,000-square-foot, tiki-torch-lit, multilevel restaurant and lounge in South Orange, said: “A lounge is a place that makes it seem as though you’re in your own home, among friends, but much cooler.” Christopher Flynn, co-owner of 4,000-square-foot Verdigré in New Brunswick, a restaurant and lounge that opened in 2006, described a lounge as “a place people come to have a drink, share small plates like tapas, and dance.” As for the food, Darrell Kingston, general manager of Nine, a three-year-old, 2,500-square-foot, candlelit lounge in Hoboken, said, “the goal at a lounge is to eradicate the knife.” Though Nine has some restaurant-style dining outdoors in warm weather, most of the food is “accommodating to a lounge setting, where you just pick up your food and bite it, no knives. Our niche is true lounge,” he said. Music is important but “not as loud as in a club,” said Kristian Karcich, the owner of 5,800-square-foot Mattison Park, which opened in Asbury Park last year. “And there’s no dedicated dance floor.” People dance “wherever they feel like it,” he said. At Vivo Tapas Lounge in Newark, a 2,000-square-foot space that opened last June, Ariel Besada, co-owner with his father, Ramiro, scoured Spanish culinary schools for a chef before adding food to its drinks menu in January. But despite the crispy fried calamari and chorizo in white wine sauce, the greatest dazzle quotient belongs to the cocktails. Fresh fruits, purées and herbs go into specialty drinks such as mojitos, and martinis arrive in slender stemware perfectly chilled. At Verdigré, edibles such as prosciutto-wrapped asparagus match the elegance of, say, the not-too-sweet strawberry martini. Nine’s tapas offerings are more down to earth; in addition to finger foods such as coconut shrimp and edamame, it serves sliders — mini burgers on Cuban buns. The cocktails are more glamorous: the raspberry rose mojito, for instance, arrives in a highball glass lined with shredded mint. The lounges’ emphasis on chic, whether on the menu or behind the bar, is meant to counter the idea that Manhattan is the only option for a sophisticated night on the town. “This is a beautiful environment. I love the way it’s decorated. It feels intimate. And you can walk here — you don’t have to go to the city for a nice night out,” said Odette Lops of Newark who, with her husband, Rui Lops, recently settled into a cozy, curtained-off room at Vivo for tapas including beef empanadas and a cocktail made with fresh kiwi and vodka. At Verdigré, the absence of college students seems to be the point, at least for customers like Nonye Sullivan of Highland Park. “The age range is like 21 to 30. You don’t see the kids who’d normally go to the Shore,” said Ms. Sullivan, 24, who sipped red wine with her tapas of grilled pita bread and Mediterranean spreads at the bar on a recent Thursday night. “It’s a great environment for winding down after work,” said Danny Lozano, 29, of Plainfield, a Johnson & Johnson employee who was drinking tequila while sampling a mango-flecked ceviche with several co-workers at 9:30 p.m at Verdigré. Mr. Karcich describes the lounge scene as a place where “you come out to mingle, like at a house party.” His family also owns Jenkinson’s Club in Point Pleasant, a traditional nightclub he called a “meat market.” Age usually dictates who arrives at what time. Diana Lopera of Elizabeth, Adriana Berges of Roselle Park and Jose Rodriguez of Elizabeth, all in their early 20s, usually come on the later side — 10:30 on a recent night at Vivo — for the music, drinks and dancing. If the night includes dinner, they lounge-hop: “We’ll go somewhere else to eat — not that the food isn’t good here. Just for variety,” Ms. Lopera said. At the other end of the spectrum is Linda Van Liew, 50, of Somerville, who recently stopped with friends for dinner at the bar at Verdigré. “I come for the ambience and the nice service, and I really enjoy the food,” she said. “But I’m not here to party all night. I’m not one of those. I like to go home by 10,” she said. THE LOUNGE LOWDOWN Most places have cover charges for special events or on weekends after 10 or 10:30. Various dress codes apply. MATTISON PARK 649 Mattison Avenue, Asbury Park; (732) 807-3435; mattisonpark.com . Open 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Tuesday through Sunday; dinner until 10 p.m. Sunday and Tuesday to Thursday, 11 on Friday and Saturday; tapas available until 11 p.m. Sunday and Tuesday to Thursday and 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday. NINE 333 Washington Street, Hoboken; (201) 795-9899; ninehoboken.com . Open 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Tuesday to Thursday, 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 3 a.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday. (Brunch served weekends April through November.) Tapas available until 11 p.m. No cover charge. VERDIGRé 25 Liberty Street, New Brunswick; (732) 247-2250; verdigrenb.com . Open 5 p.m. to midnight (or later) Tuesday to Thursday, to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Dinner and tapas until 10 p.m. VIVO TAPAS LOUNGE 167 Ferry Street, Newark; (973) 465-4800; vivolounge.com . Open 11:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday, to 3 a.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Dinner and tapas until 10:30 p.m. VORO 52 Vose Avenue, South Orange, (973) 763-1143; vororestaurant.com . Open 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Monday to Wednesday, to 2 a.m. Thursday to Sunday. Dinner and tapas, 5 p.m. to midnight.
|
Nightclubs and Cabarets;New Jersey
|
ny0091577
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2015/08/20
|
Chinese Report Details Role of Political Connections in Tianjin Blasts
|
BEIJING — The mayor of the northern Chinese city where huge explosions killed more than 100 people last week took responsibility for the disaster on Wednesday, as the authorities sought to contain growing public anger about the accident. Mounting evidence has suggested that political malfeasance and rampant safety violations played significant roles in the accident. “I bear unshirkable responsibility for this accident as head of the city,” said Huang Xingguo, the mayor and acting Communist Party secretary of the metropolis, Tianjin, in his first news conference since the blasts at a chemical warehouse on Aug. 12. The authorities have said that the explosions killed 114 people and injured 674, and that more than 17,000 homes were damaged. Displaced residents have protested for days in Tianjin to demand that the government buy back their homes, which they say are now worthless. The mayor’s televised mea culpa appeared to signal a shift in the authorities’ response to the political fallout from the disaster. After days of official silence, the government has begun releasing information about the owners of the warehouse company, Rui Hai International Logistics, including their admission of corruption, in an effort to quash public accusations of a cover-up. On Wednesday, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported that two major shareholders in Rui Hai had admitted to using their political connections to gain government approvals for the site, despite clear violations of rules prohibiting the storage of hazardous chemicals within 3,200 feet of residential areas. Yu Xuewei, the company chairman, is a former executive at a state-owned chemical company, and Dong Shexuan, the vice chairman, is the son of a former police chief at the Tianjin port. The two executives, who deliberately concealed their ownership stakes behind a murky corporate structure, told Xinhua that they had leveraged their personal relationships with government officials to obtain licenses for the site. Both men have been detained. Image Displaced residents protested in Tianjin, China, on Wednesday to demand that the government buy back their homes. Credit Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters “The first safety appraisal company said our warehouses were too close to the apartment building,” said Mr. Dong, 34, referring to a residential complex that was severely damaged and now stands empty. “Then we found another company who got us the documents we needed.” The executives established Rui Hai in 2012 but had other people list their shares to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. Mr. Yu, 41, acknowledged that he held 55 percent of the shares through his cousin, Li Liang, the president of the company. Mr. Dong holds 45 percent of the shares through a former classmate. “I had my schoolmate hold shares for me because of my father,” a former police chief who died in 2014, Mr. Dong told Xinhua. “If the news of me investing in a business leaked, it could have brought bad influence.” In the wake of previous crises that reflected poorly on the ruling Communist Party, including a tainted milk scandal in 2008 in which six infants died and a high-speed train crash in 2011, top government officials placed the blame on others rather than holding themselves accountable. So the sight of Mr. Huang accepting responsibility on Wednesday seemed to reflect a revision of crisis management, coming after a series of news briefings in which officials refused to answer reporters’ questions, creating outrage. “As the first few conferences were chaired by relatively low-ranking officials, the results proved unsatisfactory and the conferences were received by public criticism,” said a report on Wednesday in People’s Daily, the official Communist Party newspaper. Mr. Huang explained his absence from previous news conferences by saying he had been busy directing the rescue operations. Describing the 53 firefighters killed in the blasts and the 49 still missing as “martyrs,” he vowed that a memorial park would be built on the site of the explosions in their honor. Maps, Videos and Photos of the Explosions in China Maps and videos showing the extent of damage from two explosions that ripped through an industrial area in the coastal city of Tianjin, China. The government was continuing to search for missing people, while doing all it could to save the injured and monitor the environment for chemical contamination, he added. In light of the news that political connections had played a role in the accident, Mr. Huang promised a thorough investigation and harsh punishment for those at fault. “No matter who owns the company, what kind of connection there is, we will investigate until the end,” he said. Still, accountability appeared to go only so far, at least in public. When asked by reporters whether any Tianjin officials would resign over the disaster, Mr. Huang said only that “we will handle it objectively and fairly according to facts.” Zhang Ming, a professor of politics at Renmin University in Beijing, said the accident had emphasized the dangers of the lack of official accountability in China. “Arresting people is not going to solve this problem,” he said in a telephone interview, citing the ease with which the politically connected executives were able to flout regulations, despite a host of government agencies set up to prevent such violations. “This is the time to push for the reform of China’s political structure and let everyone be treated equally before the law.” Even though the Chinese authorities have implored the public to trust the government since the blasts occurred, many people remain skeptical that the disaster will lead to an end to corruption or believe that the government will punish the officials responsible. “The corruption is like cancer, and we are a patient at a late stage,” said Wang Baoshun, 36, who owns a newsstand in central Beijing. “You can have a few surgeries, but you won’t be able to get rid of it for good.”
|
Tianjin China;Explosions;Rui Hai International Logistics;Huang Xingguo;China;Corruption;Fires
|
ny0276140
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2016/02/24
|
G.O.P. Senators Say Obama Supreme Court Pick Will Be Rejected
|
WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leaders said Tuesday that there would be no confirmation hearings, no vote, not even a courtesy meeting with President Obama ’s nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, all but slamming shut any prospects for an election-year Supreme Court confirmation . Together with a written vow from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee that they would not hold any confirmation hearings, the pledge was the clearest statement yet from the Senate’s majority party that it would do everything it can to prevent Mr. Obama from shifting the ideological balance of the nation’s high court. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky , the majority leader, urged Mr. Obama to reconsider even submitting a name. “This nomination will be determined by whoever wins the presidency in the polls,” Mr. McConnell said. “I agree with the Judiciary Committee’s recommendation that we not have hearings. In short, there will not be action taken.” Their first full day back at the Capitol since Justice Scalia’s death afforded Senate Republicans the opportunity to unite around a message and strategy to thwart Mr. Obama. Huddles in Mr. McConnell’s Capitol suite and a lunchtime conclave appeared to stem any wavering and push Republican troops into line. And they had the ammunition they needed in a June 1992 floor speech by Joseph R. Biden Jr. , then a senator, urging President George Bush against any nomination to the Supreme Court until after that year’s presidential election. The forceful moves that followed, even before Mr. Obama put forward a choice for the court, has the Senate into unprecedented territory: Senators meet with high-court nominees as matters of courtesy and cordiality, but even that tradition has been rejected. “I don’t know the purpose of such a visit,” Mr. McConnell said. “I would not be inclined to take that myself.” Judiciary Committee Letter Opposing Supreme Court Hearings Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee sent this letter to the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, vowing not to hold hearings on a nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican and a member of the Judiciary Committee, concurred. “I don’t see the point of going through the motions if we know what the outcome is going to be,” he said. Battles over the Supreme Court have grown increasingly contentious since the 1960s, when Republicans and conservative Democrats blocked President Lyndon B. Johnson’s nomination of Justice Abe Fortas to become chief justice, congressional historians said. But the refusal to grant a nominee any consideration was a startling turn. “What is remarkable is the opposition is not to a particular candidate or even to the notion Obama will only nominate someone too extreme, but that he should not have any right to have a nomination considered,” said Julian E. Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. “This is not even like the drawn-out confirmation process that President Wilson faced with Louis Brandeis,” Professor Zelizer said. “This is the argument that nothing should even be considered.” The White House on Tuesday warned that the Republicans were risking an extraordinary escalation of partisan rancor in a process that should be free of it. “This would be a historic and unprecedented acceleration of politicizing a branch of government that’s supposed to be insulated from politics,” said Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, who said on Twitter that every Supreme Court nominee since 1875 had received a hearing or a vote. Senate Democrats lashed out but seemed powerless to force Republicans to alter course. “The Senate, the world’s greatest deliberative body?” the minority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, asked, railing against the Republicans. “They’re not going to deliberate at all.” Battle for the Supreme Court: Our Insiders’ Guide Times reporters discuss the “potential disaster” of Joe Biden’s 1992 comments, the memorial service for Justice Scalia and more. Mr. Reid asserted that Senate Republicans were taking direction from the party’s leading presidential candidates — “It’s what Donald Trump and Ted Cruz want.” He also took aim at Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who has the power to hold confirmation hearings but signed the letter to Mr. McConnell on Tuesday, along with every other committee Republican, saying no such proceedings would take place until a new president is in the White House. “It appears that Senator Grassley’s going to follow through on this plan,” Mr. Reid said. “He will go down in history as the most obstructionist Judiciary chair in the history of our country.” While Democrats said they had so far not come up with any parliamentary tactic that might force Mr. McConnell’s hand, they began laying the groundwork for an aggressive effort to keep public attention focused on the court fight, at least until Mr. Obama announced a nominee. The Republicans’ refusal to even meet with a candidate raised the prospect of some dramatic confrontations as Democrats usher a nominee through the halls of Congress. But Republicans seemed emboldened in large measure because of Mr. Biden’s 1992 floor speech, which has become a staple of their talking points. Mr. Biden, now the vice president, said his words were taken out of context, and he issued a statement boasting of his record in confirming federal judges while the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Aides to Mr. Biden also insisted on Tuesday that he had been warning against filling a vacancy created by a voluntary resignation of a justice, not by an unexpected death. In any event, no such vacancy occurred. Told that Democrats were asserting that such past statements were irrelevant, Mr. McConnell and other Republican leaders laughed. Scalia’s Supreme Court Seat Has Been Vacant For More Than 400 Days Since 1900, the Senate has voted on eight Supreme Court nominees during an election year. Six were confirmed. Mr. Obama “has every right to nominate someone,” Mr. McConnell said Tuesday on the Senate floor. “Even if doing so will inevitably plunge our nation into another bitter and avoidable struggle, that certainly is his right. Even if he never expects that nominee to be actually confirmed but rather to wield as an election cudgel, he certainly has the right to do that.” Mr. McConnell added: “But he also has the right to make a different choice. He can let the people decide and make this an actual legacy-building moment rather than just another campaign roadshow.” As Republicans made their intentions clear, the White House was digging in for what could be a long fight, tying the coming confirmation battle to other issues on which Congress has stymied Mr. Obama’s agenda. “There is this emerging trend in Congress that has worsened in just the last few weeks, where Congress isn’t simply in a position of just saying ‘no,’ Congress is actually refusing to engage,” said Mr. Earnest, the press secretary. He cited Republicans’ refusal on Tuesday to consider the president’s plan for shutting the United States military prison at Guantánamo Bay, their inaction on a new authorization for military force against the Islamic State, and their unwillingness to convene the customary annual hearing on the president’s budget plan. “They’re doing just about everything, except for fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibilities,” Mr. Earnest said. Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, said he had urged the White House to select a centrist candidate with impeccable credentials for the court. He urged Republicans to allow the process to move forward, and said he feared the breakdown that could result should they ultimately refuse. Holding a confirmation hearing “shows respect and deference to the constitutional role of the presidency,” he said. If Republicans refuse, he continued, “it would be just one more reminder to the average American and to the world that our carefully constructed constitutional framework is at risk of failure.”
|
Supreme Court,SCOTUS;Barack Obama;Senate;Congress;2016 Presidential Election;Mitch McConnell;US Politics;Appointments and Executive Changes;Antonin Scalia
|
ny0038798
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2014/04/18
|
Thailand: 2 Journalists Face Charges
|
Thai authorities on Thursday charged two journalists with defaming Thailand’s navy in an online news report about the trafficking of refugees from Myanmar. The English-language news website Phuketwan posted a story last July carrying excerpts from a report by the Reuters news agency about members of the Thai military who were involved in trafficking captured immigrants from the Rohingya ethnic minority in Myanmar. The charges against the journalists — Alan Morison, the website’s Australian editor, and his Thai colleague, Chutima Sidasathien — came several days after Reuters won a Pulitzer Prize in international reporting for its series on the violent persecution of the Rohingya — a Muslim minority that human rights groups say has been subjected to systematic abuse and forced segregation. The journalists were charged with defamation and violation of the 2007 Computer Crime Act. Both were released on bail.
|
News media,journalism;Defamation;Thailand;Myanmar,Burma;Rohingya;Reuters;Human trafficking;Refugees,Internally Displaced People
|
ny0006948
|
[
"business",
"global"
] |
2013/05/28
|
Sony’s Bread and Butter? It’s Not Electronics
|
TOKYO — Sony is best known as a consumer electronics company, making PlayStation game consoles and televisions. And it loses money on almost every gadget it sells. Sony has made money making Hollywood movies and selling music. That profitable part of the business is what Daniel S. Loeb, an American investor and manager of the hedge fund Third Point, wants Sony to spin off to raise cash to resuscitate its electronics business. But as Mr. Loeb pressures Sony executives to do more to revive the company’s ailing electronics arm, some analysts are asking, Why bother? Sony, it is suggested, might be better off just selling insurance. Or just making movies and music. But not electronics. A new report from the investment banking firm Jefferies delivered a harsh assessment of Sony’s electronics business. “Electronics is its Achilles’ heel and, in our view, it is worth zero,” wrote Atul Goyal, consumer technology analyst for Jefferies, in the report, released this week. “In our view, it needs to exit most electronics markets.” The maker of the Walkman and the Trinitron without electronics? What would it do? Although Sony sells hundreds of products as varied as batteries and head-mounted 3-D displays, it so happens that Sony’s most successful business is selling insurance. While it doesn’t run this business in the United States or Europe, Sony makes a lot of money writing life, auto and medical policies in Japan. Its financial arm accounts for 63 percent of Sony’s total operating profit last year. Life insurance has been its biggest moneymaker over the last decade, earning the company 933 billion yen ($9.07 billion) in operating profit in the 10 years that ended in March. Sony’s film and music divisions, which produced hits like the Spider-Man movies and “Zero Dark Thirty” and recorded musicians like the cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the electronic music duo Daft Punk, have contributed $7 billion to the company’s bottom line over the last decade. In that time, Sony’s electronics division has lost a cumulative $8.5 billion. Hardly Sony’s crown jewels, experts say. “The problem is that the board is still absolutely focused on fixing electronics,” said Kouji Yamada, a visiting professor at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo and research director of Mission Value Partners, a Sonoma, Calif., investment company. Sony’s chief executive, Kazuo Hirai, said last Wednesday that its board would consider Third Point’s proposal , even as it emphasized that the discussions were preliminary and that it had not set a time for a response. But to a small band of analysts, Mr. Loeb’s prescriptions for Sony are shortsighted, merely milking the company’s profit-making content business for good money to throw after the bad. As proof of the untenable future facing Sony’s electronics, critics point to its televisions and smartphones. Competition is intense, and in cellphones Sony remains a bit player. Even where it is more successful, in digital cameras or game consoles, it is struggling to stay abreast of stronger companies. Sheer lack of managerial attention could soon start to hurt Sony’s insurance and entertainment divisions, Mr. Yamada warned. Sony Financial Holdings, a publicly traded company of which Sony owns 60 percent, has been underperforming its peers on the Tokyo stock exchange. Its share price has risen just 4 percent this year, compared to a 36 percent increase in shares of its rival, Dai-ichi Life Insurance. And in the entertainment business, where alliances and tie-ups are starting to dominate strategy, Sony’s film and music units could be slowed by having to deal with a board that sits in Tokyo and does not have its hand on the pulse of a fast-moving industry, Mr. Yamada said. “Maneuvering three completely different industries, that’s too much,” Mr. Yamada said. “These should all be separate companies.” Sony maintains that its varied units make up a coherent whole. But the history of how it acquired its hodgepodge of companies suggests otherwise. Sony’s co-founder, Akio Morita, first got the idea of buying a finance company on a trip to the United States in the 1950s to promote the company’s new transistor radio, according to an official recounting of its corporate history. On that trip, Mr. Morita was stunned by the sight of Chicago’s skyscrapers, especially the Prudential Building that dominated the Chicago skyline. “Why would a life insurance company have such an enormous building?” Mr. Morita marveled. “One day, we will also establish our own bank or financial institution and build a building like that.” Mr. Morita’s wish was finally granted in 1981, when Sony started a life insurance venture in Japan with Prudential, the large American insurance company. Perhaps disappointingly, Sony Financial Holdings has its headquarters on the fourth floor of a nondescript midrise building in Tokyo. Sony’s acquisitions of Columbia Pictures and CBS Records in the late 1980s got a lot more attention. Mr. Morita, a co-founder of Sony, and another executive, Norio Ohga, had long contended that content was crucial in promoting Sony’s expanding electronics universe, first wading into music with a venture with CBS Records in 1968. But infighting between hardware and movies hindered that objective from the start, as did misaligned incentives that led Sony to wrestle with how to build devices that let consumers download and copy content without undermining sales at its music labels or film studios. “Sony has tried to make this strategy work for a long time,” said Gerhard Fasol, president of the Tokyo technology consulting firm Eurotechnology Japan, “But it’s never really worked. Each part would be better competing on its own.” Insurance never had that conflict. Sony’s 4,100 “ Lifeplanners ” would visit homes and offices to offer advice and make sales. Sony also runs a Web-only bank, Sony Bank, which accepts deposits and offers mortgage products, investment trusts and foreign-exchange margin trading. On Wednesday, Mr. Hirai defended the company’s continued focus on electronics. “Electronics has a future. And it is in Sony’s DNA,” he said at a corporate presentation. “It is my mission to revive it.” There are some glimmers that Sony is finding its way again, even as Apple and Samsung widen their lead. Sony’s sleek new XPeria Z smartphone has received generally rave reviews. Photography buffs have called its high-end, full-frame RX1 camera the most advanced compact camera. “Not so long ago, we had despaired at Sony’s ability to ever again produce stellar products (especially when faced with duds like the Dash alarm clock and the Rolly music player),” Damian Thong, Tokyo-based technology analyst at Macquarie Securities, said in a report published Thursday. “Yet we now have had a consistent run of beautifully designed, technologically advanced, class-leading products,” Mr. Thong said. “We think these products hark back to Sony’s glory days.” Last quarter, Sony was back in the black, but its electronics division continued to lose money.
|
Electronics;Sony;Personal finance;Japan
|
ny0104334
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2012/03/07
|
Saints’ Coach and G.M. Acknowledge Bounty Inquiry
|
New Orleans Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis and Coach Sean Payton finally acknowledged on Tuesday the N.F.L. ’s investigation into the Saints’ bounty system, which paid players to injure opponents. The acknowledgment came four days after the league said Loomis and Payton were aware of the system and did nothing to stop it even, in Loomis’s case, after the owner Tom Benson told him to put a stop to it. In a statement released by the team, Loomis and Payton apologized to Benson for the hardship the investigation’s findings have brought upon him. They offered no other apologies. But without mentioning the former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams — who administered the bounties — or admitting they knew about the scheme while it was happening, Loomis and Payton took “full responsibility” for the situation and vowed that it would not happen again. “We acknowledge that the violations disclosed by the N.F.L. during their investigation of our club happened under our watch,” the statement said. It continued: “These are serious violations, and we understand the negative impact it has had on our game. Both of us have made it clear within our organization that this will never happen again, and make that same promise to the N.F.L. and most importantly to all of our fans.” Williams apologized for his role in the bounties on Friday. Williams, Loomis, Payton and perhaps some Saints players who were involved are expected to face severe penalties in the form of suspensions and fines. The team could also lose draft picks. The N.F.L. is continuing to investigate, and discipline is expected to be announced before the end of the month.
|
Football;New Orleans Saints;Payton Sean;Loomis Mickey;Williams Gregg;Benson Tom;National Football League;Assaults;Sports Injuries
|
ny0157572
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2008/06/25
|
Belarus Cracks Down on Internet News
|
MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Belarussian lawmakers gave final approval on Tuesday to a crackdown on Internet journalism. The new measures require that all Internet sites originating in the country be registered with the government. Many independent newspapers that the authorities closed now have a presence on the Internet. The bill, drafted by the office of President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, “is among the harshest in Europe,” said Oleg Gulak, the leader of the Belarussian Helsinki Committee rights group. But Liliya Ananich, the first deputy information minister, said, “We have to protect society from the negative effects of the Internet.” The legislation also provides for up to two years of imprisonment for journalists who reproduce foreign media reports that “discredit Belarus.”
|
Belarus;Computers and the Internet
|
ny0014705
|
[
"us"
] |
2013/10/03
|
As Demand Stays High, Officials Try to Address Problems in Exchanges
|
Federal and state officials moved Wednesday to strengthen the computer underpinnings of the new online health exchanges, which proved inadequate to handle a flood of consumer inquiries that began as soon as the system opened on Tuesday and continued into the next day. On the second day of the exchanges’ operation, users were still encountering long waits, malfunctioning Web pages and messages telling them to try again later, particularly in the 34 states where the marketplaces are being managed by the federal government. Most system managers around the country reported that traffic on Wednesday continued to exceed their expectations, though in places it declined somewhat from the peaks of Tuesday. The federal exchange Web site, healthcare.gov, opened to the public at 8 a.m. Tuesday, and by Wednesday afternoon, it had had 6.1 million unique visitors, the Department of Health and Human Services said — a pace many times as great as the Medicare site had ever seen. “While this overwhelming interest is continuing to cause wait times, there will be continuing improvements in the coming hours and days,” said Joanne Peters, a department spokeswoman. The rollout laid bare the complexity of the endeavor, which requires state and federal systems, and the work of myriad private contractors, to communicate as a seamless whole. In some cases, officials conceded that they could not be sure which problems were caused by simply not having the computer capacity to handle the initial demand — a shortfall that should correct itself in time — and which might be signs of design flaws or software bugs. “It’s like building a bridge from two sides of the river; you just hope it comes out in the middle,” said Kevin Walsh, a senior executive at Xerox, which won a $72 million contract to build Nevada’s state-run exchange. With such complexity, he said, “usually you do a lot more testing than we’ve had time to do.” A Health and Human Services official said Wednesday that the government would be adding computer servers to the system to make it more robust. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the department was “working with highly qualified experts to improve the system capacity,” though it was not clear whether that would involve more than just additional hardware. New York State’s exchange doubled its computer capacity from Tuesday to Wednesday, said Donna Frescatore, the executive director, leading to smoother operation of a system that had been overwhelmed on the first day. She said it was not yet clear how many people had visited — or tried to visit — the exchange’s Web site, but that 12,000 had filled out forms or browsed through their options. In Maryland, with one of the most trouble-plagued state-run systems, enrollment counselors said they had to resort to paper applications for a second day because the state exchange Web site remained so slow. Rebecca E. Pearce, the executive director of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, said that “there’s a bottleneck in the account creation process,” and that officials were considering adding more computing and routing capacity. Christopher Clark, the technology program manager at Kentucky’s state-run insurance exchange, said that its first-day problems were caused by simply not having enough “computing horsepower,” and that capacity was added, making for smoother sailing on Wednesday. Late in the afternoon, workers at the exchange’s headquarters in Frankfort were eating cake to celebrate the fact that 100,000 users had gone through pre-screening on the exchange Web site to see whether they might be eligible for Medicaid or federal subsidies. Video On the day that health care exchanges went live, millions of Americans tried to go online to see how affordable their health care could be. Credit Credit Angel Valentin for The New York Times But many state-run systems — including in Minnesota, California, Nevada, Connecticut and Vermont — seemed to be functioning, albeit, in some cases, slowly and with occasional crashes. One bottleneck identified by state officials on Wednesday seemed to be occurring when state-run exchanges communicate with the federal data “hub” to verify a person’s citizenship, identity and income through agencies like the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security. About 18,000 people had created accounts on Nevada’s exchange by midafternoon Wednesday, said C. J. Bawden, a spokesman. But he said processing was slowed by trouble communicating with the federal system to establish their identity and eligibility, one of the last steps in the process. Minnesota officials also reported problems with the identity checking process. “We have it corrected as of now, but it was a federal-side problem,” Mr. Bawden said. Federal and state officials had promised for months that the exchanges would be ready for heavy use, and had run numerous tests to ensure that the systems would work properly from the start. The contractors who built the federal system under the guidance of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services made similar commitments. On Wednesday, federal officials declined to discuss whether they had found design flaws in their system, but their comments appeared to place most of the blame on the sheer volume of traffic. They pronounced themselves pleased, saying that the intense interest showed a pent-up demand that demonstrated the need for the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 law known as Obamacare, which created the exchanges. But interviews with consumers and the social service agencies hired as “navigators” to help people use the federal database made clear that of those who tried to access it, few were able to create accounts before hitting snags, and fewer still were able to go beyond that step to shop for plans. Even fewer were able to actually apply for coverage. Federal officials declined to provide those figures. “We haven’t gotten anyone all the way through the process,” said Tim McKinney, president and chief executive of United Way of Tarrant County, in Texas, which has one of the nation’s biggest teams of enrollment counselors. “Yesterday, we were completely frozen out. Today, some of our navigators were able to at least get into the system, but they can’t get very far into it.” People have until Dec. 15 to sign up for plans that take effect Jan. 1, and can enroll as late as March 31 without incurring financial penalties in the law for not having insurance. For that reason, counselors said they were not very concerned about problems with enrollment in the first few days. Tim Liddle, 53, a Web designer in Nashville, Tenn., said he was frustrated after not being able to create an account on the federal exchange Web site for two days, and called the technological problems “a very bad omen of things to come with this Web site and this program.” “I can’t imagine Apple or Ford or McDonald’s rolling out any new product before making perfectly sure they first could provide what they promised,” he said.
|
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act;Health Insurance;Barack Obama;Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry;Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services;HealthCare.gov
|
ny0004488
|
[
"business",
"economy"
] |
2013/04/26
|
Fewer Layoffs, but Employers Are Still Hesitant to Hire
|
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to a seasonally adjusted 339,000, the second-fewest in more than five years. The drop in jobless claims suggests that layoffs have declined and that job growth may pick up from last month’s sluggish pace. Applications for benefits dropped 16,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average declined 4,500 to 357,500. Jobless claims are a proxy for layoffs. When they decline, it signals that companies are cutting fewer jobs. Still, layoffs are only half the equation. Businesses also need to be confident enough in the economy to step up hiring. Many companies have been advertising more jobs but have been slow to fill them. Job openings jumped 11 percent during the 12 months that ended in February, but the number of people hired declined, according to a Labor Department report this month. Image The still-uncertain economy has made many companies reluctant to hire. Some employers appear to be holding out for perfect job candidates. In particular, companies say they cannot find enough qualified candidates for high-skilled manufacturing and engineering jobs. Still, most economists were encouraged by Thursday’s report on unemployment benefits, though some cautioned against reading too much into one week’s data. “The downtrend in unemployment remains on track,” said Jim O’Sullivan, chief United States economist at High Frequency Economics. In March, employers added only 88,000 jobs. That was a sharp drop from the previous four months, when hiring averaged 220,000 a month. The unemployment rate fell to a four-year low of 7.6 percent in March from 7.7 percent in February. But the drop occurred because more people out of work stopped looking for jobs. The government does not count people as unemployed unless they are actively looking for work. More than five million Americans received unemployment aid in the week ending April 6, the latest data available. That is about 80,000 fewer than the previous week. Some recipients may no longer receive benefits because they have found jobs. But many have used up all the benefits available to them. The economy is expected to have grown at a much quicker pace in the January-March quarter, and the government will give its first estimate on growth in the nation’s gross domestic product on Friday. Many economists forecast that growth accelerated to an annual rate of more than 3 percent in the first quarter, up from just a 0.4 percent rate in the fourth quarter.
|
Jobs;US Economy;Unemployment;Unemployment benefits
|
ny0104093
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2012/03/19
|
Yankees’ Swisher Hones His Physique and Changes His Attitude
|
TAMPA, Fla. — When Nick Swisher talks about the stress he felt last season, he comes across like a walking contradiction. But he insists he felt the pressure. “Oh, yeah, man,” Swisher , the Yankees ’ regular right fielder, said, his bobbing head punctuating each syllable. “I was stressed last year. Super stressed.” He laughed at how his words sound even to him, never mind how they must come across to those who perceive him as a carefree soul. He is, after all, one of the most ebullient Yankee players, someone who exudes enthusiasm. Stressed? Swisher? “It’s crazy, man, isn’t it?” he said. “You wouldn’t think a guy like me gets stressed, but I do. I think that’s always kind of the inner fight for me. It affected me last year.” So this year, Swisher arrived at the Yankees’ spring training camp with a new physique and a new attitude, which he attributed to off-season workouts with N.F.L. players, a healthier diet and visits with a sports psychologist. Swisher, whose contract is up after this season, says he hopes the combination will produce the kind of season that will keep him with the Yankees through another contract. But Swisher realizes the odds of his returning to the Bronx might be against him. He is 31, and the Yankees, with new contracts for Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson also on the horizon, are looking to get their payroll down to $189 million by 2014. “It could be my last year here,” Swisher said. “I don’t want it to be, but it possibly could be. And for me, man, I just wanted to come in and be the best player I could be. I’m one of those guys who’s never had an arbitration year, who’s never had a contract year. I don’t even know how to do it.” So he took control of what he could. He worked out with N.F.L. players, including Ray Lewis, Clay Matthews, Antonio Cromartie and Dwight Freeney. He had healthy meals catered for him. And then there was his work with a sports psychologist, whose identity Swisher prefers to keep private. The results, though, he hopes will be evident. He feels stronger, leaner, lighter and faster. But as much as he feels his body has improved, it pales in comparison with how he has changed his mind-set. “I’m way more proud of the things I’ve been able to accomplish mentally this off-season than what I’ve done physically,” he said. What caused Swisher the most concern last season was a slow start that developed into a slump. He did not hit a home run until the end of April, and as June approached his batting average was barely above .200. “You want to do so well, and in this game, I think, you get caught up in the numbers,” said Swisher, who finished the season with a .260 average, 23 homers and 85 runs batted in. “When I got out of the gate slow, it just ate me up. I wanted to pop out of the gate like a sprinter, and when it didn’t happen I started getting frustrated. “Those are things I worked on. How do you deal with failure? How do you set your expectations to where you feel they’re obtainable and not a billion miles away? Because that’s where I’ve always kind of kept my goals. I do a lot of things now that are a lot more non-outcome-related — you know, the process of getting to a point.” The difference, Swisher said, was learning to “take each at-bat for that at-bat,” and not to sabotage the fourth at-bat of an 0-for-3 day. Asked where he expected that outlook to take him, Swisher shrugged and said: “It’s a very negative game, and you have to find ways to keep your spirits up, because you’re going to go through tough times. And I went through some tough times last year. “But regardless, at the end of the day, nobody is checking the stats to see how I did. They’re checking to see how the Yankees did. That’s all that matters. Let’s go win another World Series, and then we’ll figure out where this thing is going. Me? I’m just going to go out there and do my thing, and hopefully continue this journey.” And not stress about it. INSIDE PITCH In the battle for three remaining rotation spots, Ivan Nova did not advance his cause in Sunday night’s game against the Orioles. Nova surrendered two homers in the first inning and gave up five earned runs in four innings, ballooning his spring earned run average to 7.82. Nova nevertheless showed strong command, with four strikeouts and no walks, and he attributed the first-inning homers to miscommunication with his catcher, Gustavo Molina. “After that first inning, I thought I was throwing good — all my pitches,” he said. Manager Joe Girardi said that because of the communication problems, Nova was out of rhythm the first two innings but finished strong the final two. “It happens,” he said. ... Robinson Cano left in the sixth after an inside pitch struck him just below his left pinkie. X-rays were negative. “He’ll be fine,” Girardi said. ... Girardi said he was cautiously optimistic that reliever Dave Robertson (bruised foot) could be ready for opening day. Robertson is scheduled to pitch a bullpen session Tuesday, and Girardi said he hoped Robertson could make four or five appearances in spring training.
|
Baseball;New York Yankees;Swisher Nick
|
ny0057894
|
[
"us"
] |
2014/09/12
|
Campaign Spending Curb Defeated
|
Senate Republicans have killed a constitutional amendment written by Democrats aimed at limiting spending in election campaigns by corporations, wealthy individuals and candidates themselves. The vote was 54 to 42 in favor of the measure — short of the 60 votes needed to keep the amendment alive.
|
Constitutional amendment;Senate;Congress;Campaign finance;Democrats;Republicans
|
ny0001612
|
[
"world",
"americas"
] |
2013/03/07
|
A Leader’s Cry in Venezuela: ‘I Am Chávez’
|
CARACAS, Venezuela — In the weeks leading up to his mentor’s death, Vice President Nicolás Maduro’s imitations of President Hugo Chávez became ever more apparent. He has taken on many of Mr. Chávez’s vocal patterns and speech rhythms, and has eagerly repeated the slogan “I am Chávez” to crowds of supporters. He has mimicked the president’s favorite themes — belittling the political opposition and warning of mysterious plots to destabilize the country, even implying that the United States was behind Mr. Chávez’s cancer. He has also adopted the president’s clothes, walking beside his coffin in an enormous procession on Wednesday wearing a windbreaker with the national colors of yellow, blue and red, as Mr. Chávez often did. But now that Mr. Chávez is gone, the big question being raised here is whether Mr. Maduro, 50, his chosen successor, will continue to mirror the president and his unconventional governing style — or veer off in his own direction. “He can’t just stand there and say ‘I am the Mini-Me of Chávez and now you have to follow me,’ ” said Maxwell A. Cameron of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. The puzzlement over what sort of leader Mr. Maduro will prove to be extends to Washington, where American policy makers have been feeling out Mr. Maduro for months, years even, to determine whether he might provide an opening for closer ties between the two nations. Image Nicolás Maduro Credit Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press American officials say Mr. Chávez, despite his very public denunciations of Washington, worked behind the scenes to keep trade relations between the two countries, especially in the oil sector, strong. They recalled how Mr. Chávez once picked up the phone and dialed an American diplomat to talk policy, an odd move for a leader who more than once barred American ambassadors from Caracas and regularly denounced Washington and its leaders, sometimes using barnyard epithets. “The United States needs to fix this,” Mr. Chávez said during the call, which concerned the ouster of the Honduran president in 2009. “You are the only ones who can.” Beneath the bluster, American diplomats and analysts said, Mr. Chávez could be a pragmatist, albeit a sometimes bombastic one, and they hope Mr. Maduro will prove to be even more of one. “I know Nicolás Maduro well,” said William D. Delahunt, a former Massachusetts member of Congress. “I know he’s a pragmatist.” The United States reached out to Mr. Maduro last November to gauge interest in improving the relationship. He responded positively, and the two nations held three informal meetings in Washington, the last one taking place after it was clear that Mr. Chávez’s condition was severe, American officials said. The Venezuelans wanted to once again exchange ambassadors, but Washington insisted on smaller steps to build trust, and it seemed that a tentative plan was in place, American officials said. But then the talks stalled this year and have not resumed, leaving American officials wondering about Mr. Maduro’s true intentions toward the United States. “Maduro is just beginning to govern and create his own identity,” a State Department official said. “I don’t believe we had ever concluded one way or another whether he was a moderating influence. Our effort to reach out and create a more productive relationship was not based on a belief that he would be easier to deal with necessarily.” Most diplomats and political analysts agree that the start of the post-Chávez landscape looked bleak; Mr. Maduro accused the United States of plotting against the country and expelled two American military attachés. But some observers saw the moves as an overtly calculated — one analyst called it “inelegant” — attempt by Mr. Maduro to unify a traumatized country bracing for Mr. Chávez’s death, appeal to the president’s supporters and propel his own chances of winning an election to succeed him. Video Simon Romero, The Times’s former Caracas bureau chief, reflects on the presidency of Hugo Chávez. Credit Credit Jorge Silva/Reuters “Maduro has to be careful about every step he takes, and every word he utters about the United States,” said one senior American official who is closely watching developments here. “How he is going to handle that pressure is the big unknown. We’re about to find out.” One past sign of Mr. Maduro’s willingness to listen to critics — which was not one of Mr. Chávez’s strong points — was his attendance at meetings with members of the Venezuelan opposition that were held in the United States after a 2002 coup that briefly removed Mr. Chávez. The sessions were organized by Mr. Delahunt and took place in Hyannis Port, Mass., prompting participants to call themselves “El Grupo de Boston.” But more recently Mr. Maduro has shown himself as a hard-liner, lashing out at his political enemies and lambasting Henrique Capriles Radonski, the state governor he will probably face in the election, for his recent trip to New York. Among oil executives and analysts, there was cautious optimism that Mr. Chávez’s death could soften the hostility his government had toward foreign investment in exploration and refining. “It makes sense that Maduro will be more pragmatic to get the country going,” said Jorge R. Piñon, former president of Amoco Oil Latin America. He said he had talked with several oil executives and come away surprised by their optimism. “Industry executives believe that there is a high probability that a Maduro administration will be a bit more realistic on what is needed to increase the country’s oil production,” Mr. Piñon added, “and change the investment model to attract more foreign investment.” On the streets, the vast majority of Chávez supporters say they will vote for Mr. Maduro, often for the simple reason that Mr. Chávez told them to before he succumbed to cancer. At the procession on Wednesday, some actually chanted as the coffin passed, “Chávez, I swear it, I will vote for Maduro!” But there are some Chávez loyalists who say they are unhappy with Mr. Maduro, at times for reasons that illuminate the drawbacks inherent in his political mimicry. In the Streets of Venezuela, Bidding Farewell to Chávez 11 Photos View Slide Show › Image Ariana Cubillos/Associated Press In the eastern city of Cumaná on Wednesday, some ardent Chávez supporters said they found Mr. Maduro’s constant attacks on the political opposition too jarring — a startling assertion, since Mr. Maduro uses virtually identical language to the phrases popularized by Mr. Chávez, repeating the same insults and put-downs, calling his opponents “good-for-nothings” and accusing them of selling out the country to the United States. But coming from Mr. Maduro, the same words seem to have a different impact. “I don’t like Maduro because I feel that he does things that incite hatred, which is not a revolutionary feeling,” said Luis Marcano, 67, an unemployed cook in Cumaná. Mr. Maduro, whose father was involved in left-wing politics, became a political activist as a young man, joining a group called the Socialist League, traveling to Cuba at one point for political training. Back in Caracas, he took a job as a bus driver and then shifted to union activities. Eventually, he became involved with Mr. Chávez, who staged a failed coup in 1992. Mr. Maduro fought to have Mr. Chávez released from prison and then worked on his first presidential campaign in 1998. He became a legislator and then president of the National Assembly. He later served six years as Mr. Chávez’s foreign minister before he was named vice president after the president’s re-election in October. During that long career by Mr. Chávez’s side, Mr. Maduro earned a reputation as an agile survivor of the inner circle, where absolute loyalty was a prerequisite. He was seen by many as a yes-man who kept his position by hewing closely to his boss and taking care not to outshine or contradict him. “Nicolás Maduro is a soldier that has to obey orders, just like any other,” said Rommel Salazar, 40, a teacher and musician in Cumaná. “I will vote for him because I must obey Chávez’s instructions.” But he added a warning, saying that if Mr. Maduro does not adhere to the line set by Mr. Chávez, his followers will hold him accountable. “He will have nailed himself to the cross,” Mr. Salazar said.
|
Venezuela;Nicolas Maduro;US Foreign Policy;Hugo Chavez;Appointments and Executive Changes;International relations
|
ny0086528
|
[
"sports",
"soccer"
] |
2015/07/26
|
United States’ Gold Cup Performance Culminates With a Whimper
|
CHESTER, Pa. — The United States national soccer team did not want to be here Saturday afternoon, playing a Gold Cup consolation match in a small soccer arena instead of the championship game at a large football stadium. And it showed for long, somnolent stretches in the American attack as a 1-1 match fizzled to a conclusion with the United States losing, 3-2, in a penalty shootout to Panama before an announced crowd of 12,598 at PPL Park. Panama’s backup goalkeeper, Luis Mejía, who started for the suspended Jaime Penedo, went to his knees and raised his arms to the sky after saving penalty shots by Michael Bradley and DaMarcus Beasley. Fabian Johnson sailed his spot kick over the crossbar. The decisive penalty kick was delivered by Panama’s Harold Cummings, whose assertive shot beat Brad Guzan inside the left post. Panama had taken a 1-0 lead in the 54th minute when Roberto Nurse cut inside John Brooks, who struggled through this tournament. Nurse slotted a left-footed shot inside the far post. The United States tied the match, 1-1, in the 69th minute as DeAndre Yedlin, with his back to the goal, slid a pass to Clint Dempsey, who scored his seventh goal of the Gold Cup on a shot from about 15 yards. But that was it for the Americans, who put only two shots on goal compared with 13 for Panama on a desultory afternoon. After recent exhibition victories over Germany and the Netherlands, the Americans ended the Gold Cup with consecutive defeats in a tournament that the their stated goal was to win. That will increase scrutiny of Coach Jurgen Klinsmann as the United States prepares for home friendlies against Peru and Brazil in September and an important playoff match against the Gold Cup winner in October. Mexico and Jamaica will play the Gold Cup final Sunday night at Lincoln Financial Field in nearby Philadelphia. On Oct. 9, the winner will face the United States, the 2013 Gold Cup champion, for the right to represent Concacaf at the 2017 Confederations Cup, an important tuneup for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. A playoff victory would erase the Gold Cup frustration for the Americans, but it is not likely to come easily, especially if the United States has to face Mexico at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., where the fans would support Mexico in large numbers. The best that can be said about Saturday for the Americans is that they finished without a suspension or major injury for the playoff. The bronze medal for Panama brought relief and smiles to a team that lost a heartbreaking qualifying match to the United States that kept the Panamanians out of the 2014 World Cup. And, on Wednesday, Panama went down in a disputed loss to Mexico in a Gold Cup semifinal. “It’s a third place that’s very honorable for us,” said Hernán Darío Gómez, Panama’s coach. On Friday, Pedro Chaluja, the president of Panama’s soccer federation, criticized the refereeing of the American Mark Geiger in the semifinal match and said that it had been fixed. On Saturday, Alfredo Hawit, the president of Concacaf, said in a statement that Geiger had acknowledged that “officiating errors had been made during Wednesday’s match and that these impacted the outcome of the game.” But Hawit added, “We at Concacaf regret these circumstances but accept that such human errors are part of the game.” That did not assuage Panama’s players, who arrived for Saturday’s match wearing T-shirts that said in Spanish, “Dignity isn’t bought.” The team was depleted without Penedo, who pushed an assistant referee after the semifinals, and without forward Luis Tejada, who was given a red card and ejected against Mexico. Still, Panama did not appear dispirited and might have won in regulation if not for a late save by Guzan and shots cleared off the line by Tim Ream and Johnson. Afterward, Klinsmann repeated what he had said Friday: that his primary goal is to build toward the 2018 World Cup and that he expected “some situations where you take a step back and you hopefully make two forward.” Coach Bob Bradley was fired after the United States lost the 2011 Gold Cup final to Mexico. But Sunil Gulati, president of the United States Soccer Federation, said the situations were not parallel. He called this Gold Cup “a disappointment” but added, “I wouldn’t call it a step back.” Asked if he would assess Klinsmann’s status differently if the United States lost the Concacaf playoff, Gulati said: “No. Let’s get past today. I’m not going to speculate on stuff that’s three or four months away.” Extra time served as a testimonial for Beasley, 33, the only American man to play in four World Cups. Klinsmann said he had told Beasley: “I don’t know if you can walk out like that. We might have to get you back in. The guys were clapping.” Next week, Klinsmann said he would speak with goalkeeper Tim Howard, who was superb at the 2014 World Cup and who has said that he is ready to end his yearlong sabbatical from the national team. Klinsmann said he would also speak with Guzan to “see how we want to move forward. But Brad kept us in the game with a couple of tremendous saves. “We allowed, defensively, too many chances,” Klinsmann added. “This game was under a kind of weird feeling for both sides. We wanted just to make sure nothing bad really happens, and let’s get it done.”
|
Soccer;Panama;Referee;Confederation of North; Central American and Caribbean Association Football CONCACAF;Mark Geiger;Mexico;CONCACAF Gold Cup
|
ny0204746
|
[
"us"
] |
2009/01/11
|
In Nashville, a Ballot Measure That May Quiet All but English
|
NASHVILLE — In crisp Japanese, the metropolitan councilman read aloud his resolution to limit Nashville government workers to communicating only in English. “Kono jyoukyou wa kaeru bekidesu,” said the councilman, Eric Crafton, who is fluent in Japanese. Translated, it meant, “This situation must change.” The fact that few people, if any, attending the council meeting understood Mr. Crafton proved his point. Nashville, like most cities in the country, allows government officials to communicate in any language they choose, and Mr. Crafton wants to end that practice. In a proposal that has defined him publicly and dominated local politics for two years, Mr. Crafton hopes to make Nashville the largest city in the United States to prohibit the government from using languages other than English, with exceptions allowed for issues of health and safety. On Jan. 22, city residents will vote on the proposal, which Mr. Crafton calls English First and critics call English Only. His vision for Nashville — and eventually America — has drawn criticism from Mayor Karl Dean and a broad coalition of civil rights groups, business leaders, ministers and immigration experts. The leaders of nine institutions of higher education in Nashville wrote an opinion article in The Tennessean newspaper opposing the proposal, which they said would sully the city’s reputation for tolerance and diversity. “The irony of the city known as the ‘ Athens of the South’ becoming the first major metropolitan community in America to pass ‘English only’ is a distressing prospect,” they wrote. The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, in a rare alliance with liberal groups like the Green Party, has opposed the proposal for business reasons. “Economics is global, and to be competitive you cannot drive away immigrants and the businesses that rely on them,” said Ralph J. Schulz, the chamber president. “Businesses from outside Nashville have been calling and saying, ‘Is Nashville a xenophobic place?’ ” The city government spends more than $100,000 on translation and related costs every year, Mr. Crafton said, adding that he believes the cost of those services should be borne by the constituents who require them. Mr. Crafton, 41, who became fluent in Japanese after serving in the Navy in Japan in the 1990s, said he also believed that encouraging immigrants to learn English would help them assimilate. Jonathan Z. Crisp, a former chairman of the county Republican Party and a supporter of the proposal, said: “Our opponents talk about Nashville being the ‘Athens of the South.’ But if you go to the other Athens, in Greece , all of the government workers are speaking Greek.” Thirty states, including Tennessee , and at least 19 cities have declared English the official language, according to Rob Toonkel, a spokesman for the U.S. English Foundation, which advocates such policies. But most of the cities are small, places like Hazelton, Pa., and Culpeper, Va. In Nashville, which has a population of about 600,000, two factors have been driving interest in Mr. Crafton’s proposal: the booming immigrant population and the faltering economy. In the 1990s, the number of immigrants in Nashville tripled, according to government estimates, and more than 10 percent of residents were born outside the country. But over the past year, as the state unemployment rate rose to 6.9 percent from 5 percent, experts say, immigrants came under greater criticism. “While the immigrant population burgeoned, there was very little organized anti-immigrant attitude,” said Daniel B. Cornfield, a sociology professor at Vanderbilt University . “But the anti-immigrant sentiment seemed to mobilize as the economy slowed down.” On a recent weekend, volunteers for a coalition called Nashville for All of Us, which opposes the proposal, knocked on doors and distributed campaign literature in Woodbine, a heavily Hispanic neighborhood. Melissa Gordon, 29, a graduate student, and Laura Barnett, 24, a recent college graduate, rang the doorbell at David Morales’s ranch-style house. Mr. Morales, a Mexican immigrant and language translator, told them he already knew about the proposal and planned to vote against it. “It’s part of a larger problem of people not understanding immigrants: their habits, their languages, their barbecues in the front yard,” he said. “It’s more than just fear about jobs. It’s fear about a whole way of life.” But Mike Watson, 40, a construction worker interviewed in downtown Nashville, said he supported Mr. Crafton’s proposal. “It’s not about racism or anything,” Mr. Watson said. “I just think we need to save our money in this economy, and we can’t be translating everything into any language all the time.” Early voting began on Jan. 2 and will continue until Jan. 17. With low turnout expected, as with any ballot initiative, the election will depend on which side can rally supporters without mobilizing the opposition, said Michael P. McDonald, a political science professor at George Mason University in Virginia . “There are high levels of support for these types of measures if people don’t view them as punitive against immigrant communities,” Mr. McDonald said. “The trick is, you don’t want to somehow motivate your opponent’s voters with emotional rhetoric.” In 2006, Mr. Crafton drafted his first resolution to make English the official language of Nashville. The Metropolitan Council approved the bill in 2007, but Bill Purcell, the mayor at the time, vetoed it. In response, Mr. Crafton collected more than 5,500 signatures, nearly twice the number necessary, to force a referendum. Mr. Crafton’s singular focus on changing the language policy has earned him a far larger profile than most council members. In October, a Vanderbilt professor was investigated by the police for placing threatening phone calls to Mr. Crafton about the English proposal. Last month, an alternative newspaper spoofed a famous red-and-blue Obama poster, with the word “English” replacing “Change” under a drawing of Mr. Crafton. Still, critics say he has wasted at least $350,000 of taxpayer money on a special election for an issue that does not matter to most voters. “I don’t think English Only would be an issue if it weren’t for Eric Crafton,” said Mr. Schulz of the Chamber of Commerce. But Mr. Crafton insists that momentum is on his side in Nashville and across the country. “We’ll make English the official language here,” he said. “After that happens, we’re going to go city to city, show them how we’ve done it here, and let the dominos fall.”
|
English language;Nashville;Politics;Referendum
|
ny0080213
|
[
"business"
] |
2015/02/01
|
Cars With Faulty Airbags Are Recalled Second Time, but Fix May Take a Year
|
Toyota, Chrysler and Honda are recalling about 2.1 million vehicles with airbags that might suddenly deploy even when the vehicle is not in a crash after earlier recalls did not sufficiently address the problem. Federal regulators said replacement parts might not be fully available until the end of the year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Saturday that it knew of three injuries but no deaths from unexpected airbag deployments. About one million of the Honda and Toyota models are also covered by recalls for defective inflaters made by the airbag manufacturer Takata that can deploy with too much force and send pieces of metal into the interior of the vehicle. The problem in this recall is an electronic component made by the American supplier TRW Automotive. The fix under the previous recalls involved installing an electronic filter to try and protect the component. Mark Rosekind, the N.H.T.S.A. administrator, said the automakers would now replace it entirely. Toyota is recalling about one million vehicles, Chrysler about 753,000 and Honda about 374,000. All of the vehicles were recalled for problems with inadvertent deployments in 2012, 2013 and 2014, but the safety agency has been facing the issue since 2011, when it opened an investigation after complaints from Jeep owners. “The airbag deployed for no reason when driving on freeway at speed of 65 m.p.h.,” one 2003 Jeep Liberty owner wrote to the agency in 2011. “Very dangerous. Cannot see road in front of me because of inflated airbag and kind of dust.” During the earlier recalls, many owners had to wait for parts before getting their cars fixed — some for more than a year — and now the agency says there are serious questions whether those replacement parts worked. The failed repair issue was raised by Chrysler in January 2014, when the automaker told the safety agency of two unexpected deployments involving vehicles that had the recall repair, and then, in April, of four more, according to regulatory documents filed by Chrysler. That May, safety regulators opened an investigation into the adequacy of the fix administered during the earlier recalls. That investigation branched out to Honda and Toyota, which also used an airbag part made by TRW Automotive, according to regulators, though Honda said in its regulatory filings that it first learned of an episode involving an inadvertent deployment in a 2003 Odyssey on April 2, 2014. Toyota began receiving field reports of unexpected deployments, starting in June 2014, according to its government filings. On Saturday, Mr. Rosekind said the three automakers were again recalling the vehicles, which include models of the 2003-04 Toyota Corolla and Corolla Matrix, the 2003-04 Avalon, the 2003-04 Pontiac Vibe, the 2003 Acura MDX, the 2003-04 Honda Odyssey, the 2002-03 Jeep Liberty, the 2002-04 Grand Cherokee and the 2003-04 Dodge Viper. Regulators received about 40 reports that the original remedy did not work, prompting the agency to investigate, Mr. Rosekind said. The full remedy for the vehicles may not be available immediately and repairs might not be completed on all of the cars until the end of 2015, he said. Still, he urged drivers who had not yet fixed their cars under the previous recall to at least get that original remedy. While it would be a temporary fix, it would still reduce the risk of an inadvertent deployment, he said. “This is unfortunately a complicated issue for consumers, who may have to return to their dealer more than once,” Mr. Rosekind said. “But this is an urgent safety issue, and all consumers with vehicles covered by the previous recalls should have that remedy installed.” The safety agency has asked TRW and the automakers why it could take so long to fully repair all of the recalled cars and whether anything could be done to speed the process. “We want these companies to get it right,” Mr. Rosekind said. The pace of the Chrysler airbag repair under the earlier recall has been a source of frustration for some owners and consumer advocates. While Chrysler announced the recall of 745,000 vehicles in November 2012, The New York Times reported that the automaker had repaired only about 6 percent of the vehicles 14 months later. At the time, Chrysler said it had taken time to develop the needed part — the same part that the safety agency now suspects does not work. The agency has been under heavy scrutiny since last February, when General Motors recalled millions of Chevrolet Cobalts and other small cars with an ignition defect that went undisclosed for more than a decade and has been linked to at least 50 deaths. By the end of 2014, the automobile industry had recalled a record of more than 60 million vehicles in the United States. The Takata airbag flaw alone has forced Honda and nine other manufacturers to recall millions of vehicles across the nation and at least five deaths have been linked to the airbag flaw. Honda is investigating whether another death, which occurred on Jan. 18, is linked to the airbags. Congressional lawmakers called Mr. Rosekind’s predecessor, David Friedman, to Capitol Hill five times last year to testify about safety issues. In September, a Times investigation found that the agency had repeatedly been slow to identify and act on safety problems and hesitant to employ its full legal powers against automakers. More recently, however, the agency has shown signs of taking more aggressive action against automakers, including a record $70 million penalty against Honda and an investigation into a 2013 Ford recall of its biggest pickup trucks.
|
Chrysler Group;Honda;Toyota;Automobile safety;Recalls and Bans;Takata;US;National Highway Traffic Safety Administration;TRW Automotive Holdings
|
ny0207980
|
[
"sports"
] |
2009/06/06
|
At Belmont, Dunkirk Gets Second Chance to Prove His Worth
|
He cost $3.7 million at the yearling sales and was among the most hyped 3-year-olds this spring, reasons that Dunkirk was supposed to produce in the Kentucky Derby . It did not turn out that way. Trained by Todd Pletcher, he finished 11th, never threatening. But Pletcher does not think any less of the horse than he did in the hours before the Derby. He still considers Dunkirk extraordinary, worth the money shelled out for him at the 2007 September sales at Keeneland. “I still believe this is a very, very good horse,” Pletcher said. “He’s a very talented horse and he’s come a long way in a short period of time. Ability-wise, I certainly wouldn’t trade him with anybody in this race.” The race is the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, when Dunkirk will face, among others, the Kentucky Derby winner, Mine That Bird . Mine That Bird beat Dunkirk by 19 lengths in the Derby, but Pletcher is confident that will not happen again. Dunkirk, he says, just needs better luck. Dunkirk’s trip around Churchill Downs in the Derby was far from smooth. Under jockey Edgar Prado, he stumbled at the start, was steadied nearing the first turn and never seemed to get his footing over a sloppy surface. “The horse never got untracked and never got a hold of the track,” Pletcher said. “He stumbled out of the gate and it wasn’t the traditional one-stride stumble where you recover and go from there. It was a succession of repeated stumbles and that indicated to me he was struggling with the going.” Had he been more experienced, Dunkirk might have been better able to deal with the adversity. But the Derby was the fourth race in his career, which began less than four months earlier. Dunkirk, the most expensive yearling sold in the United States in 2007, was a brilliant winner of his first two races and then finished a solid second in the Florida Derby. Pletcher had to rush the lightly raced Dunkirk into the Derby, but will have no such problems this time. Dunkirk sat out the Preakness and has been waiting at Belmont Park since. “The horse, physically, has done well here,” Pletcher said. “His appetite is good and he’s put on some weight. We’ve had an uninterrupted training schedule.” John Velazquez, who rides most of Pletcher’s top horses, has replaced Prado. His primary job will be to make sure that Dunkirk stays close early, a priority for Pletcher. With Rachel Alexandra not running, the Peter Pan winner, Charitable Man, looks like the only horse in the field with early speed. For that reason, Pletcher has said that Charitable Man — not Mine That Bird — is the horse he fears most. Velazquez does not necessarily agree. “Going a mile and a half, I don’t think my horse is going to be too far out of it,” Velazquez said. “I’m more worried about the horse who will be coming from behind, Mine That Bird.” Should he win the Belmont, a $1 million race that is worth $600,000 to the winner, Dunkirk would have career earnings of $793,200. But a win in a Grade I race like Saturday’s is exactly what is needed to make his value as a potential sire soar. A Belmont victory would make his total value about $15 million. That makes the Belmont more important for him than most. The opportunity will be there, but is Dunkirk really that good? He will get a second chance Saturday to prove that he is.
|
Horse Racing;Pletcher Todd;Belmont Stakes;Kentucky Derby;Horses
|
ny0252092
|
[
"us"
] |
2011/11/18
|
Mormon Ad Campaign Seeks to Improve Perceptions
|
After Sunday worship in recent months, Mormon bishops around the country gathered their congregations for an unusual PowerPoint presentation to unveil the church’s latest strategy for overcoming what it calls its “perception problem.” Top Mormon leaders had hired two big-name advertising agencies in 2009, Ogilvy & Mather and Hall & Partners, to find out what Americans think of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Using focus groups and surveys, they found that Americans who had any opinion at all used adjectives that were downright negative: “secretive,” “cultish,” “sexist,” “controlling,” “pushy,” “anti-gay.” On seeing these results, some of those watching the presentation booed while others laughed, according to people at the meetings. But then they were told that the church was ready with a response: a multimillion-dollar television, billboard and Internet advertising campaign that uses the tagline, “I’m a Mormon.” The campaign, which began last year but was recently extended to 21 media markets, features the personal stories of members who defy stereotyping, including a Hawaiian longboard surfing champion, a fashion designer and single father in New York City and a Haitian-American woman who is mayor of a small Utah city. “We’re not secretive,” Stephen B. Allen, managing director of the church’s missionary department, who is in charge of the campaign, said in an interview. “And we’re not scared of what people think of us. If you don’t recognize the problem, you can’t solve the problem. If nobody tells you you have spinach in your teeth, how would you know?” Church leaders like Mr. Allen say that the timing and tenor of the campaign have nothing to do with the political campaigns of two Mormons running for president: Mitt Romney , the putative front-runner, and Jon M. Huntsman Jr. , both former Republican governors. To avoid the percep-tion that it was trying to influence politics, the church is intentionally not airing the campaign in states that have early primaries, going so far as to cancel their advertising in Las Vegas when Nevada moved up its primary, said Mr. Allen. And yet, the church’s campaign could prove to be a pivotal factor in the race for the presidency. The Mormon image problem is a problem not only for the church, but also for Mr. Romney. For all their success professionally and financially, Mormons still face a level of religious bigotry in the United States equal only to that faced by Muslims. Mormons make up less than 2 percent of the American population; the church says it has six million members in this country out of 14 million worldwide. They believe in Jesus Christ, read the Bible and consider themselves Christian, but their theology differs significantly from traditional Christianity. They claim three additional books of scripture, including the Book of Mormon. They believe that the prophet Joseph Smith, who founded the church in 1830, restored Christianity to its true path. Polls taken during the last presidential race showed that 4 in 10 Americans said they would not vote for a Mormon for president. While some more recent polls have shown a slight softening of attitudes, a Mormon candidate still has a huge hurdle to overcome. If the church’s upbeat advertising campaign succeeds in warming public perceptions of Mormons, then a campaign intended to sell the church could also help sell a president. The highly negative poll numbers that surfaced in the first Romney campaign were deeply disturbing to the church’s top leadership, according to people involved with the church’s advertising campaign who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize their jobs. Church leaders were also taken aback by the vitriol directed at Mormons after the church contributed money and volunteers to pass Proposition 8 , the California measure in 2008 that banned same-sex marriage . “You would think,” said one person involved with the advertising campaign, “that the higher Romney’s profile, the better it is for the church. It’s actually the opposite. “The people who are very savvy within the church and understand media,” this person said, “know that if Romney gets the nomination, ultimately for the church it’s a problem. Politicians are polarizing figures, they’re not uniting figures. What it does is completely eliminate the option of Mormonism among a whole swath of people who will never ever consider it. They’ll say, I know one Mormon — our president — and I hate that guy.” In many ways, Mr. Romney and Mr. Huntsman embody the Mormon archetype: clean-cut, Republican American family men. The church’s campaign is designed to introduce a rainbow of Mormon faces who counter the stereotype. These Mormons are not only white, but also Asian, black and Hispanic, and from countries other than the United States. There are plenty of traditional two-parent families, but there are also single parents, working women and stay-at-home fathers, and even an interracial couple — all family arrangements rare among Mormons until recently. The video featuring Erick Lund, an Army veteran, opens with him playfully spinning his cat on the slick wood floor of his home. It shows him reveling in his life with his wife and two children, studying to be a dentist, and only gradually, when he takes off his shoe, does the video reveal that he was seriously injured in Iraq . “My faith is so intertwined with my life,” he said in a phone interview. “But nobody wants religion shoved at them. I don’t. I don’t think anybody does. What I like about this campaign is it’s a really nice way to start a conversation.” Brandon Burton, president and general manager of Bonneville Communications, an advertising agency owned by the church, said that the church’s previous, long-running media campaign promoted the church’s doctrine, providing a toll-free number to call for a free Bible or Book of Mormon. However, this new campaign introduces doctrine only if a viewer seeks out the Web site mormon.org . “What we found was that in order for people to have a desire to understand doctrinally what the church stands for, it was necessary for us to overcome the stigmas that existed,” said Mr. Burton in an interview. The biggest stigma, said those involved in the campaign, is the belief that Mormons are not Christians. After the presentations in their churches, members in good standing were asked by their bishops to go to the Web site and post their own personal profiles and testimonies. Screeners reviewed the text before it was made public to make sure that nothing in it contradicted church theology, said Mr. Allen of the missionary department. Is the campaign working? In the past 12 months, the Web site has had more than one million people initiate online chats with Mormons, he said, but it is too early to tell whether this is bringing in more converts. Mia B. Love, the daughter of Haitian immigrants and mayor of Saratoga Springs , Utah, said she had received a letter from a man she didn’t know saying that her video had helped convince the man’s wife to join the church. “The church has always been incredibly involved in missionary work, and the ads are an extension of that,” said Ms. Love. “They wanted to get the word out that we’re not a cult, we’re not sitting in the mountains here with five wives. They wanted to let people know that we’re normal.”
|
Mormons;Advertising Marketing;2012 Presidential Election;Campaign advertising;Jon M Huntsman Jr;Mitt Romney
|
ny0221073
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2010/02/07
|
In Brooklyn Bridge Park, a Study of the Fight to Pay for Open Space
|
A majestic staircase of granite rises some 30 feet above the Brooklyn edge of the East River, revealing a panorama that sweeps from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to Midtown Manhattan. A salt marsh lined in limestone offers a contemplative look at the river as ecosystem. Along paths winding up manufactured hills and ridges are hundreds of trees that outline velvety fields of green. This is Brooklyn Bridge Park, perched atop a ribbon of piers, and already hailed for its design and scope. But the park is taking shape only in fits and starts, and even opening the small part that is complete has been delayed until spring as the city and state hash out questions of money and control. Despite 20 years of planning, work has barely begun on the bulk of the project. The $350 million construction budget is still short $125 million, and no one is sure who will come up with the $16 million needed each year for operations and maintenance. Like the other important, expensive New York City green spaces built in recent years — Hudson River Park and the High Line — this one is arriving piecemeal as it awaits fresh infusions of money. And like the others, this park faces an uncertain future as the recession and resistance to its source of financing — in this case, luxury apartments — threaten its ability to move forward. The struggle to pay for Brooklyn Bridge Park echoes similar problems around the country in creating urban parkland in a postindustrial age when open space must often be carved, at great cost, from derelict manufacturing zones, military installations or rail yards. Governments no longer have the fiscal or political muscle to finance the projects alone, and the involvement of private donors or commercial ventures has led to public battles. The days of grand development in the style of Frederick Law Olmsted and Robert Moses, whose parks and playgrounds were built and maintained by the government for decades, have given way to an era of private-public partnerships and pay-as-you-go. “There is this accelerating notion that not just parks but many aspects of the public realm have to be self-financing,” said Michael Sorkin, director of the graduate program in urban design at the City College of New York. “The paradox is that it’s always amounting to giving away some public good in order to realize some other public good.” The tradeoff has provoked fights in many cities. Millennium Park in Chicago is a huge hit, but only after bruising battles as the price tag swelled to $475 million from $150 million. That money, critics said, would be better spent on public education and the poor, and there were concerns that the city was making public space corporate by taking $200 million from private donors whose names now adorn the park. In San Francisco, a fierce dispute ensued during the redevelopment of the Presidio, which started in the mid-1990s. Originally envisioned as a campus for nonprofit organizations, the park has become a more conventional entertainment zone, with restaurants, housing and a Disney museum. In New York, the Bloomberg administration’s insistence that new developments include open space has fostered a boom in parks: the city has added more than 500 acres of parkland since 2002, with thousands more to come, including large-scale projects like Governors Island and Fresh Kills. But it is unclear who is to pay for all these new parks, many of which are on waterfront sites, making them much more expensive to maintain than those inland. Two of three sections of the High Line, an abandoned elevated rail bed that was transformed into a linear park, cost about $152 million to build. Now, the private conservancy that developed the park with the city is scrambling to devise an income stream to cover the expected $3.5 million to $4.5 million annual cost of maintaining its jewel-box appeal. A proposal to assess a fee on nearby property owners foundered after business owners and residents objected to paying for what they see as a tourist destination. Officials are now looking to increase concessions and to raise money for an endowment. Hudson River Park, a city and state collaboration, is about half complete after 30 years of fractious planning and $400 million spent; most of the remainder is due to open later this year. The park gets about half of its operating money from a parking garage on Pier 40, said Connie Fishman, president of the park’s trust. The income is “enough for now,” she said, but will not be for the long term, especially since the pier is in need of repair. There is potential for income at Pier 57 from creating a cultural hub and marketplace, but one elaborate plan fell through and a new proposal is still in negotiations. “While the idea is that the park would generate funds to sustain itself, they put so many restrictions on what could be done in the park that it just doesn’t work,” said Douglas Durst, a real estate developer whose $330 million proposal for the pier was rejected in favor of a less expensive plan from Youngwoo & Associates. Brooklyn Bridge Park is using city and state money for construction, but officials plan to cover operations and maintenance with revenue from concessions and, more controversially, fees from housing developments built at its edges. A luxury complex, One Brooklyn Bridge Park, has been open since 2007, but some of its 441 condominiums remain empty, despite price cuts and rentals. Construction has not begun on a hotel and three other proposed housing developments near the park, with nearly 800 additional apartments. City officials say they are open to other ideas for financing operation and maintenance — which is especially expensive because the 12,000 pilings supporting the piers are under constant attack from marine borers like shipworms and gribbles. But they say they have not seen any strategy with as much promise as housing. “We came up with a novel way to fund the operation of the park,” said Robert C. Lieber, the deputy mayor for economic development. “The market today may not be as receptive to that idea as it was when it was conceptualized, but we’re as optimistic as you can be that the markets will recover.” Community activists and elected officials who fear that developers could turn what should be a public amenity into a private backyard for wealthy homeowners have accelerated efforts to block more housing. Daniel L. Squadron, a first-term Democratic state senator who represents the area, has suggested that the city instead dedicate to the park any increased tax revenues from rezoned properties within four-tenths of a mile. “When you talk more broadly about parks,” he said, “I don’t think we have figured out how to make them self-sustaining.” Worried that Albany’s fiscal woes could stymie progress, city officials have stepped up efforts to take over the project, now overseen by the Empire State Development Corporation. The city would pay $55 million, allowing work to begin on Piers 2 and 3, including installing a covering to permit winter recreation. But it is unclear whether the governor and the Legislature will give up their signatures on an amenity that could prove popular with the public. Meanwhile, the park is coming into view, with benches and tree-lined paths atop Pier 1 at the foot of Old Fulton Street, and a 1.6-acre playground on Pier 6 near Atlantic Avenue. Regina Myer, president of the park’s development corporation, decided to open the park in phases, building as money became available. She said she was confident the real estate market would rebound and support the rest. “We know that these sites will have incredible inherent value,” she said.
|
Brooklyn Bridge Park (NYC);Brooklyn (NYC);Parks and Other Recreation Areas;New York City
|
ny0161517
|
[
"technology"
] |
2006/04/24
|
Patent Awarded to RealNetworks May Give It a Competitive Edge
|
SAN FRANCISCO, April 23 - RealNetworks has received a patent on a way to stream multimedia content over the Internet, and the company said last week that it believed the patent would give it leverage as companies rapidly expand their efforts to turn the Internet into a broadcast medium. RealNetworks competes against Apple, Adobe, Microsoft and other companies in developing and selling software to media businesses that use the Internet to broadcast audio and video. The patent could allow the company to demand royalty payments from those competitors or from media companies. In a telephone interview Friday, Robert Glaser, the founder and chief executive of RealNetworks, said the patent was related to an invention that the company first sought protection for in 1994. Mr. Glaser called it a "foundation" patent, giving RealNetworks a strong position that it would seek to use to help it sell its Helix media server product, which streams video and audio in several formats. Mr. Glaser described what he referred to as a Kafkaesque struggle to persuade the patent office that RealNetworks' "click to stream" invention was a novel one that deserved patent protection. The company, which now has 35 patents in the interactive multimedia field, went back and forth with the patent office for five years before it filed the 1999 patent in its current form. Mr. Glaser, who left Microsoft to found what was first called Progressive Networks in Seattle in 1994, said the company would probably not use the patent against its direct competitors. Many of the companies it competes with use patents as defensive protection, like the needles on porcupines, he noted. "We're an operating company and we're not likely to go after big hairy porcupines," he said, "but we want our intellectual property to be respected." The patent, which is described as being for a "multimedia communications system and method for providing audio on demand to subscribers" (No. 6,985,932), describes the idea of permitting a PC user to play back audio, video and other information on a PC. RealNetworks executives said the technology was distinguished from other similar systems by the fact that it permitted "intelligent" streaming of data in potentially congested networks. "We're hoping that people will say, 'Oh, I get it,' and that this will boost the identity of Helix," Mr. Glaser said. The patent lies at the heart of one of the commercial Internet's most competitive arenas. Thousands of companies are now offering multimedia services over the Internet, from AOL, Yahoo and ABC to newer video storage and distribution services like Google Video and YouTube. The new patent is known as a continuation patent, with additional claims based on an original filing in November 1994. One of the challenges that will confront RealNetworks in enforcing the patent is an earlier one owned by Apple Computer. Apple applied for a patent related to its QuickTime technology for streaming media in May 1994, before RealNetworks' first filing. The Apple patent, No. 5,561,670, for "method and apparatus for operating a multicast system on an unreliable network," was issued in October 1996. It appears the patent office examiners did not consider it in their evaluation of the RealNetworks patent. Several analysts said they believed that the RealNetworks patent, coupled with the company's other patents related to broadcasting multimedia, could be used to help it expand its market share. "The timing is pretty interesting," said Allen Weiner, an analyst at Gartner, a market research firm. "Streaming has always been important in the media world. However, with the creation of a significant number of services, streaming is the hottest thing around." The issue facing RealNetworks will be how to turn this into an opportunity, Mr. Weiner said. "This is less about who they can go after legally, and more about how they can turn their business in a new direction and make themselves attractive to all of these media companies." Several industry veterans said that Mr. Glaser, whose name is listed first on the patent, had been early to happen upon the idea of the Internet as a broadcast medium. "At the National Association of Broadcasters meeting in 1995, he came up to me like a madman and asked me if I wanted to a listen to a baseball game broadcast over the Internet," said Richard Doherty, president of the Envisioneering Group, a consumer electronics consulting firm based in Seaford, N.Y. "I had never heard audio on the Internet." But Mr. Glaser was not the first one to think of the idea. One pioneer who proceeded him was Carl Malamud, an early member of the community of Internet researchers who explored new uses for the technology before it was commercialized. In 1993, Mr. Malamud, who was then a writer and an economist based in Alexandria, Va., began broadcasting a weekly 30-minute radio talk show over the Internet. In an interview last week, Mr. Malamud, who is now a fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, said he thought Mr. Glaser had been an innovator. "Rob, to his credit, did make some innovations," he said.
|
REALNETWORKS INC;INVENTIONS AND PATENTS;COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET
|
ny0291507
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2016/01/23
|
With Calm and Experience, John Kasich Connects in New Hampshire
|
WOLFEBORO, N.H. — At a Rotary Club meeting in Laconia, N.H., on Thursday, a woman confided that she feared whether the United States would be safe for her children and grandchildren, citing dangers like the Islamic State. “First of all, we have to stay very calm about this,” Gov. John Kasich of Ohio replied, before laying out his plans in measured terms and wrapping up, “Now, do I sound panicked? I’m not.” In a Republican primary filled with bleak assessments of the country’s problems and dire predictions about its future, Mr. Kasich has largely been overshadowed by more fiery competitors. But the conspicuously nonangry candidate is now enjoying a wave of attention in New Hampshire, with some polls showing him gaining strength here, several newspapers in the state endorsing him and, in a sure sign that he is no longer an idle threat, a new attack ad directed at him. By talking of balancing budgets and working with Democrats, Mr. Kasich is appealing to New Hampshire’s large proportion of independent voters, who can participate in either party’s primary, and the state’s centrist tradition of embracing moderate candidates. Mr. Kasich, who was a congressman and the chairman of the House Budget Committee before he was governor, leans hard on his fiscal experience, displaying a national debt clock at town hall-style meetings. But what seems to be stirring support is his strikingly different tone; he even described himself as “the prince of light and hope.” Image Ted and Gail Starkweather of Franklin, N.H., signed in Friday for a Kasich campaign event. Credit Ian Thomas jansen-Lonnquist for The New York Times “He’s not an alarmist,” said Sharon Norby, a retired teacher who came to a campaign event Mr. Kasich hosted on Thursday night in the lakeside town of Wolfeboro. An independent, she left the meeting having decided to vote for Mr. Kasich. “Yeah, there are big problems,” she said. “But he’s not saying, ‘And therefore we have to carpet bomb these people.’ No. You have to be calm. I like that.” Some of the other candidates, she added, were “making people more nervous than they need to be.” Mr. Kasich’s presidential ambitions depend on New Hampshire because he remains far behind the front-runners in national polls, Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. There are also questions about the reliability of some polls in New Hampshire that have Mr. Kasich as high as second. He is hoping that a strong showing in the Feb. 9 primary here would give him the kind of national attention that has so far been elusive. Asked whether they had a favorable or unfavorable impression of Mr. Kasich in a Monmouth University poll released on Wednesday, half of Republican voters nationally had no opinion. When a woman at one of his events on Thursday described the primary season as “particularly entertaining,” Mr. Kasich, who has sometimes seemed to be a spectator in his own race, playfully responded, “I may have a little different view.” 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. Mr. Kasich has largely avoided being bloodied in recent weeks by attacks from other candidates, unlike some of his rivals for the so-called establishment vote, such as Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. But in a sign of the competition to attract these voters, Mr. Kasich is now being targeted with a negative television ad from a “ super PAC ” supporting former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, which shows him with President Obama and asserts that he is “wrong on New Hampshire issues.” (A super PAC supporting Mr. Kasich has its own ad going after Mr. Bush, accusing him of “desperately slinging mud on fellow Republicans.”) Compared with some of his rivals, Mr. Kasich has a markedly different view of how voters are feeling — and what they are looking for, and not looking for, in the country’s next president. “If you turn on the television or if you read, people say that the voters are all angry,” he said at the Rotary Club meeting, addressing a small crowd gathered inside a 19th-century textile mill. “I must be going to the wrong meetings because I don’t really pick that up.” Instead, Mr. Kasich said, “I find that people want to have answers and they want to be hopeful.” People, he added, “don’t want to be angry about things.” Image Gov. John Kasich made a campaign stop Tuesday at Morse Sporting Goods in Hillsboro, N.H. Credit Cheryl Senter for The New York Times “We never enjoy our lives when we’re mad about things all the time,” he said. In the past, candidates like Mr. Kasich have done well by appealing to New Hampshire voters with a centrist streak. Jon Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah, took third place in the 2012 Republican primary with 17 percent of the vote, though he dropped out of the race shortly afterward. While Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz have thrived by presenting themselves as outsiders, Mr. Kasich proudly tells war stories from working on the federal budget in the 1990s, apparently not minding the low opinion in which Americans hold Congress. “I want you to know I have a lot of experience,” he said. “That’s another thing: People say, ‘Nobody likes anybody with experience.’ I don’t know who they’re talking to.” His newspaper endorsements have hit a similar note. “Kasich is not the flashiest candidate in the field, but he has proved a highly effective leader both in Congress and as Ohio’s top executive,” The Portsmouth Herald and Foster’s Daily Democrat wrote . (The state’s largest paper, The New Hampshire Union Leader, has endorsed Mr. Christie.) The path he takes in responding to questions from voters can sometimes be a meandering one. Asked about his plans for his first 100 days in office and beyond, he detoured at one point to recall misplaying a line drive hit by former Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a Democrat, in a baseball game. (The point: Mr. Kasich has relationships with Democrats.) He also can go off script. At the town hall-style event in Wolfeboro, one of more than 70 the campaign says he has held in the state, he started to talk about a woman he had met at the Rotary Club meeting earlier in the day, only to stumble on the geographic location of that encounter. “Where were we?” he asked aloud. After pronouncing Laconia as “Latonia,” he gave up. “Wherever the hell we were,” he said, drawing laughs. But most noticeable is his tone, especially compared with other Republican candidates, which was apparent at several moments during his campaign stops on Thursday. Describing his approach on foreign policy, he said: “I don’t think you have to raise your voice. I don’t think you have to saber rattle.” On immigration, he said, “If anybody’s anti-immigrant, you’re not for me,” adding, “If we didn’t have immigration, I’d be running, probably, for president of Croatia.” Asked about where the country needs to go on health care, he spoke for nearly two and a half minutes — talking about the need to provide financial incentives to encourage low-cost, high-quality care — before even mentioning the Affordable Care Act, which he said he would replace, and which he dispatched with in under 10 seconds. “We have a lot of people that are looking in the rearview mirror,” he said at another point. “We spend all our time talking about President Obama. He’s gone. Let’s talk about what we’re going to do.”
|
2016 Presidential Election;New Hampshire;John R Kasich;Primaries;US Politics;Republicans
|
ny0280243
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2016/10/10
|
U.N. Chief Condemns Airstrike on Yemeni Funeral and Dismisses Saudi Denials
|
GENEVA — The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, on Monday condemned a weekend airstrike on a funeral ceremony in the Yemeni capital, Sana, as well as the Saudi-led bombing campaign believed to be responsible for it. Mr. Ban said he supported demands for an international inquiry into whether the attack, which killed at least 140 people, was a war crime. “Despite mounting crimes by all parties to the conflict, we have yet to see the results of any credible investigations,” he said. “This latest horrific incident demands a full inquiry.” Brushing aside Saudi Arabia’s initial denials of responsibility, he said reports from the site of the attack indicated that it was carried out by the Saudi-led coalition. According to witness accounts cited by United Nations human rights investigators, two airstrikes struck the Al Kubra community hall in Sana, seven to eight minutes apart. It was packed with families attending the funeral of a leader of the Houthi rebel movement, which is battling the Saudi-backed government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi for control of the country. Many prominent military and political leaders associated with the Houthis were in the hall and were killed in the assault, the United Nations said. “Aerial attacks by the Saudi-led coalition have already caused immense carnage and destroyed much of the country’s medical facilities and other vital civilian infrastructure,” Mr. Ban said. “Excuses ring hollow given the pattern of violence throughout the conflict. Parties cannot hide behind the fog of this war. A man-made catastrophe is unfolding before our eyes.” Earlier on Monday, the United Nation’s top human rights official, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, called for an independent international inquiry, noting a sharp rise in civilian casualties since the collapse of Yemeni peace talks in August. At least 369 civilians have been killed or injured since the start of October, Mr. Hussein said in a statement, bringing total documented civilian deaths since the coalition entered Yemen ’s civil war in March 2015 to at least 4,125 and the number of injured to 7,207. In response to the attack on the funeral, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran, widely seen as the main backers of the Houthis, issued an angry statement saying that the rebel group, which Iran refers to as the Ansarullah movement, would “avenge” the bombing, and that the attack was “a U.S., Saudi, Israeli joint conspiracy.” The statement concluded: “The glorious and sublime nation of Iran will continue to support the resistance of Muslim nations, especially the innocent people of Yemen, against the Zionist wrongdoing of House of Saud and calls all divisions of the Islamic nation to condemn the great and brutal crime in Sana and unveil the face of hypocrites who claim to be servants of the holy shrines.” In Yemen on Monday, a Houthi military official denied reports that the Houthis had targeted an American guided missile destroyer that came under fire on Sunday from coastal areas controlled by the rebel groups. Two missiles were fired, but they both fell into the sea, the Pentagon said. The Houthis are known to have a stockpile of various Soviet-era rockets and missiles. Saudi Arabia nevertheless accuses Iran of sending missiles to the rebels, as it does to the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and to the Islamic Jihad group in Gaza. Iran denies that it has provided weapons to the Houthi rebels. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps views the United States Navy as its main opponent in the region. In August, there were multiple episodes in the Persian Gulf involving Guards Corps ships challenging American vessels. On Sunday evening, the United States destroyer Mason, while conducting routine operations in international waters, detected two missiles fired at the ship in under an hour, according to a statement from Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. He said both missiles had fallen well shy of the ship — he would not say by how much — and had caused no damage or injuries. The ship was operating in the southern Red Sea, north of Bab el Mandeb, a strait. “We assess the missiles were launched from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen,” Captain Davis said.
|
Yemen;Houthis;US Navy;Red Sea;UN;Ban Ki moon;War Crimes,Genocide,Crimes Against Humanity
|
ny0060205
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2014/08/08
|
Key Cleric in Egypt Rejects Executions
|
CAIRO — In a rare official rebuke, Egypt’s highest Muslim religious authority refused to approve death sentences imposed by a court on senior leaders of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, saying that the case lacked evidence, court officials said on Thursday. The opinion issued by the grand mufti of Egypt, Shawqi Allam, was an unusual effort by a prominent figure to restrain the country’s judiciary, which has handed down hundreds of death sentences and harsh prison terms over the past year in cases against Islamists and political dissidents. Human rights groups say these prosecutions have largely relied on flimsy evidence. The death penalties that Mr. Allam rejected were for Mohamed Badie, the leader of the Brotherhood, and several other senior figures who were convicted of inciting murder during street violence in Cairo last summer. As is required in capital cases here, the court referred the sentences to the mufti in June. Though his opinions are advisory, they carry significant weight. The mufti’s past opinions on judicial matters have rarely been made public, but in this case the rejection was published in a state newspaper this week. Image Mohamed Badie, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, at trial. Credit Mohamed El-Shahed/A.F.P. — Getty Images A panel of judges said they would send the sentences back to the mufti for him to reconsider, so that he might impose a “legitimate opinion,” according to a defense lawyer who was in the court. It was not clear to what extent the mufti’s criticism reflected wider discomfort within Egypt’s often-inscrutable ruling circles over the harshness of the verdicts and sentences. Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has spoken repeatedly in public of his faith in the independence of the judiciary. And he has so far resisted appeals to pardon political prisoners, including three journalists from the Al Jazeera English news network, youth activists and thousands of Islamists arrested in a government crackdown over the last year. The judges’ insistence on Thursday that the mufti reconsider his objection appeared to signal that they still intended to follow through with the sentences. Egyptian authorities have increased their use of the death penalty since Mr. Sisi became president, executing nine people, after a nearly three-year de facto moratorium, according to Diana Eltahawy of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an advocacy group. The executions were not for political cases, she said. Even so, the substance and public nature of Mr. Allam’s criticism appeared to signal unease with the stampede of prosecutions, which have often been based on no more evidence than a police report and the testimony of arresting officers. An opinion published under the name of the Dar al-Ifta, the authority led by the mufti that is responsible for issuing religious edicts, said that the prosecution’s case against Mr. Badie and the others was “free of any evidence to issue a death penalty.” Ms. Eltahawy said the situation seemed to be unprecedented. “It was not just a religious opinion, but a casting of doubt over the whole process,” she said, adding that the matter could be a “test case” for determining whether there is broader dissent over the judiciary’s behavior. Mr. Badie also faces a death sentence in a separate case, one “that has even more concerns when it comes to fair standards,” Ms. Eltahawy said.
|
Capital punishment;Shawqi Allam;Muslim Brotherhood Egypt;Egypt;Mohamed Badie;Criminal Sentence;Murders;Islam;Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
|
ny0216250
|
[
"business",
"economy"
] |
2010/04/26
|
From Docks to Dealerships, Signs of Economic Turn
|
PORTLAND, Ore. — The docks are humming again at this sprawling Pacific port, with clouds of golden dust billowing off the piles of grain spilling into the bellies of giant tankers. “Things are looking up,” said Dan Broadie, a longshoreman. No longer killing time at the union hall while waiting for work, instead he is guiding a mechanized spout pouring 44,000 tons of wheat into the Arion SB, bound for the Philippines. At malls from New Jersey to California, shoppers are snapping up electronics and furniture, as fears of joblessness yield to exuberance over rising stock prices. Tractor trailers and railroad cars haul swelling quantities of goods through transportation corridors, generating paychecks for truckers and repair crews. On the factory floor, production is expanding, a point underscored by government data released Friday showing a hefty increase in March for orders of long-lasting manufactured items. In apartment towers and on cul-de-sacs, sales of new homes surged in March, climbing by 27 percent, amplifying hopes that a wrenching real estate disaster may finally be releasing its grip on the national economy. After the worst downturn since the Great Depression , signs of recovery are mounting — albeit tinged with ambiguity. Despite worries that American consumers might hunker down for years — spooked by debt, lost savings and unemployment — thriftiness has given way to the outlines of a new shopping spree: households are replacing cars, upgrading home furnishings and amassing gadgets. Many economists estimate that consumer spending — which makes up some 70 percent of American economic activity — swelled by 4 percent during the first three months of the year, more than the double the pace once anticipated. Some have nudged upward their estimates for economic growth to more than 3 percent this year. “Consumers are showing extraordinary resilience,” said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group. “There’s a lot of pent-up demand out there that is now being unleashed. The whole supply chain system is now being revitalized.” While few dispute signs of recovery across much of the economy, significant debate remains on how robust and sustained it will be. The lingering effects of the financial crisis have some economists envisioning a long stretch of sluggish growth. But recent months have delivered a stream of news bolstering the notion of a more vigorous recovery. Technology companies have racked up substantial sales. After a decade of painful decline, manufacturing is tentatively adding jobs. Retail sales increased by 9.1 percent in March at established stores compared with a year earlier, according to Thomson Reuters, marking the seventh consecutive month of growth. Exports swelled in the first two months of the year by nearly 15 percent compared with a year earlier, according to the Commerce Department. Still, much of the improvement appears the result of the nearly $800 billion government stimulus program. As that package is largely exhausted late this year, further expansion may hinge on whether consumers keep spending. That probably depends on the job market, which remains weak. “The recovery is under way, and it’s better than expected, but it hasn’t become self-sustaining because the job market hasn’t developed yet,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com . “I don’t think we’re there yet.” In a sign of the anxieties still gnawing at households, the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index this month plunged to a preliminary level of 69.5 compared with 73.6 in March. Still, even that number represented a substantial gain over the record low of 55.3 reached in November 2008. And many economists dismiss such surveys as indicative of what people think, as opposed to what they do. What they are doing increasingly is shopping. “I’m certainly interested in spending now that the stock market seems so relaxed,” said Dan Schrenk, an information technology consultant, as he stood outside a Best Buy store in the Portland suburb of Beaverton. Last year, Mr. Schrenk’s income declined as local companies put off servicing computer systems. He and his wife cut back on dinners out and purchases. But in recent weeks, Mr. Schrenk’s stock portfolio has expanded. He has picked up five new clients. “I’m feeling very optimistic,” he said. “People are just far more interested in spending money.” So, there he was, shopping for an iPad . On the other side of the country, at the Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus, N.J., Marie Bauer, who sells clothing for a living, was feeling similarly emboldened. “I’m working more now,” she said. “I bought myself a watch.” As John D. Morris, a retail analyst with BMO Capital Markets, wandered past stores like Gap and J. Crew on his weekly “mall check,” he spotted large numbers of women 25 to 45 years of age — prime earning years. “The mainstay of the mall is back,” he said. “That’s your signal that we’re in a more meaningful recovery with staying power.” A year ago, Columbia Sportswear, the Portland-based apparel brand, was turning away some retail customers whose finances seemed worrisome. Now, Columbia has one of its largest order backlogs. “People saw that the world didn’t come to an end,” said Timothy P. Boyle, Columbia’s president and chief executive. “Maybe they just said, ‘Hey, I can at least spend a little bit of money.’ ” Spending power has been enhanced by a monumental reduction in household debt, which has shrunk by about $600 billion since the fall of 2008, according to Equifax credit data analyzed by Economy.com. That amounts to about $6,300 a household. “Household deleveraging is clearing the decks for better consumer spending going forward,” said Mr. Zandi. Still, some economists note that many consumers are reaching into savings to finance spending, suggesting consumption could run out of fuel. “Look at employment and income,” said Brian Bethune, chief United States financial economist at the economic analysis firm, IHS Global Insight. “It’s glacial. If we don’t get strong growth in employment and income, we’re really just building this up as a house of cards.” The American savings rate climbed during the recession but has recently fallen. Among households in the top fifth of American incomes — those earning $98,000 a year and up — the savings rate dropped to 2 percent of income in the first half of 2007 and then spiked above 14 percent by the middle of 2008, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by Economy.com. By the end of last year, the savings rate of this group had slipped back to 3.5 percent. Since the end of World War II, the first year after a recession tends to feature growth at roughly twice the pace of the decline during the downturn, implying a current pace exceeding 7 percent. Yet even optimistic economists assume the economy is growing at perhaps half that rate. “I keep calling it a half-speed recovery, not the full-speed-ahead recovery that we typically get after deep, prolonged recessions,” said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh. But at a Porsche dealership in downtown Los Angeles, the sales manager, Victor Ghassemi, has seen sales rise by about 5 percent in recent weeks, a trend he attributes to rising stock portfolios. “People get tired of holding on to their money, or just sitting at home and not doing anything,” he said. “People love to shop. And you take that privilege away from somebody, it lasts about a year. Eventually, people want to come back. They want to buy new merchandise, a new product, to make them feel really good about themselves.” The key question is whether this burst of consumption will prompt businesses to hire, adding paychecks needed to amplify economic growth and replace the eight million net jobs lost in the course of the recession. Optimists suggest this is already unfolding, pointing to the addition of 162,000 net jobs in March, the biggest surge of hiring in over two years. In this view, job growth amounts to a corrective after excessive layoffs during the worst of the crisis. “You didn’t fire people because you had a judicious plan about how to run your company,” said Robert Barbera, chief economist at the research and trading firm ITG. “You fired pell-mell, because you were afraid you were going to lose access to credit.” Now, he argues, companies are guided by a new anxiety that demands hiring: fear of missing out on the profits of fresh growth. Still to come, he added, is a wave of spending from American businesses. “They are awash in cash,” Mr. Barbera said. “They’re in a position to step up spending across the board.” Technology companies are already benefiting from strong consumer growth. Sales of PCs rose more than 5 percent last year, trumping analysts’ predictions of double-digit declines. This month, Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, reported its highest first-quarter revenue in history. Google added about 800 jobs over the first three months of this year, and Amazon has added 1,800. Intel plans to hire 1,000 to 2,000 employees this year. Silicon Valley is already cashing in on the return of Wall Street, as trading houses fold profits into new high-speed computer systems aimed at securing a competitive edge. Global trade holds promise. At the Port of Portland — a major shipping point for commodities harvested as far east as the Great Plains — the tonnage of goods swelled by 42 percent during the first three months of the year compared with a year earlier. Minerals like soda ash — an important industrial ingredient to make glass and detergent — increased by 93 percent. Activity here and at ports along the Pacific coast is generating business through related industries. Rail freight traffic was up nearly 8 percent in March from a year earlier, according to the Association of American Railroads. That has bolstered revenue for Greenbrier, a Portland-based maker of rail cars that was hard hit during the recession. At Diversified Services Inc., a truck repair business in Mira Loma, Calif., general manager Dave Pilarcik is contemplating hiring, as customers put their fleets back on the road. “For the first time in a long time,” he said, “I’ve seen a little bit more movement.”
|
United States Economy;Economic Conditions and Trends;Shopping and Retail;Labor and Jobs;Consumer Behavior;Recession and Depression;International Trade and World Market
|
ny0020087
|
[
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] |
2013/07/23
|
Ohio State Coach Punishes Four Players
|
Ohio State Coach Urban Meyer has disciplined four of his football players for legal problems, including suspending the Buckeyes’ leading scorer, Carlos Hyde, who is suspected of assaulting a woman over the weekend in Columbus. In addition, the star cornerback Bradley Roby, who was arrested in Indiana for an altercation with a security guard at a bar this past weekend, will not represent the Buckeyes at this week’s Big Ten media days. The freshmen recruits Marcus Baugh, a tight end, and defensive lineman Tim Gardner were also disciplined Monday. Hyde, a 6-foot, 242-pound senior from Naples, Fla., rushed for 970 yards on 185 carries last season, second best on the team behind quarterback Braxton Miller, and was the unbeaten Buckeyes’ leading scorer with 17 touchdowns and 102 points. ■ A report commissioned by Rutgers after a scandal led to the ousting of its basketball coach and athletic director found breakdowns in communication as the university learned about the coach’s physical and verbal abuse of players. The report called for the university’s board and central administration to take tighter control of the finances and communications of the athletics department. “It is crucial that the risks and rewards of the athletics program be managed with extraordinary diligence and care,” the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom wrote in the report. The firm was hired in May to hash through the details of problems that blew up a month earlier, when video was made public of the then-basketball coach Mike Rice’s berating players with antigay slurs, kicking them and throwing basketballs at them during practices over three years. ■ Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said there was “unanimity” among leaders from five power conferences that significant changes were needed now in the N.C.A.A. “We all have a sense that transformative change is going to have to happen,” Bowlsby said in Dallas at the start of the Big 12’s football media days. “This is not a time when trimming around the edges is going to make very much difference.” Bowlsby and the commissioners of the Southeastern Conference, the Big Ten, the Pacific-12 and the Atlantic Coast Conference met about six weeks ago to discuss issues, including an N.C.A.A. legislative system that makes it difficult to enact substantial changes or enforce the rules in place. There are also huge gaps in resources between universities in the same divisions. A.C.C. Commissioner John Swofford also addressed the issue, saying significant changes could be put in place when the N.C.A.A. held its annual convention in January.
|
College football;Ohio State;Rutgers;Urban Meyer;Tim Gardner;Carlos Hyde;Bradley Roby;Braxton Miller
|
ny0077109
|
[
"business",
"dealbook"
] |
2015/05/09
|
The Curious Case of Negative Interest Rates
|
Anthony Scaramucci is founder and co-managing partner of global investment firm SkyBridge Capital and host of the television program “Wall Street Week.” For people who grew up in the last four decades of the 20th century, it is hard to grasp the concept of negative interest rates. How is it even possible? If interest rates are the price of money, is the marketplace broadcasting that money is on sale? Are we just giving it away? Ask practically anyone on the street about negative interest rates, and the response will be bewilderment. We’re used to paying for loans and getting paid for savings. Suddenly, the world is topsy-turvy and, well, it’s all so confusing. Top 5 Hedge Fund Earners The men at the top of the hedge fund universe now run firms that are bigger than they have ever been. Here are the basics that you need to know about our new world: Negative rates imply that the money in your pocket today will buy more goods tomorrow. Think of money as just another fungible asset: A $20 bill today is still a $20 bill tomorrow or two $10 bills a year from now. Interest rates, on the other hand, reflect the opportunity cost of spending that money today relative to tomorrow. When rates are negative, the $20 bill is still worth four $5 bills in the future, but its utility value (i.e. what it buys) increases with time. When money appreciates, it implies that its purchasing power is expected to increase. And that’s precisely what’s occurring today -- the world is awash in a glut of labor, goods and energy with little economic growth. Negative interest rates are symptomatic of a slowly growing (or no-growth) world in which demand is deferred and, as a result, prices and wages become depressed. Powerful forces unique to our time are affecting the overall global economy. John Keynes, you see, was actually wrong. His famous utterance, “In the long run, we are all dead,” isn’t true. Like it or not, the long run is upon us, and we are all very much alive (aside from Keynes). Keynes reasoned that governments could use the mechanism of borrowing to reprime the growth pump and smooth out cycles. For the most part, that approach has worked for 75 years. But today, we’re up against the wall as borrowings continue at full tilt and growth stays basically stagnant. We also face a demographic explosion of people worldwide that want to consume like those in the West. These billions of people are triggering a confusing development. They are creating excess labor, goods and other services with widespread slack in factory capacity. This confluence, in tandem with the energy revolution, has created sluggish prices and a slowdown in growth. This is puzzling, because typical policy measures to spur growth haven’t worked. We can’t lower rates any more and the world is awash in sovereign debt. Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers terms this conundrum secular stagnation. So is Mr. Summers’ thesis of such stagnation correct and we’re stuck in this muddle? The answer: a resounding maybe. Once again, everything depends on the United States. The United States remains the world’s largest economy and the global fount for creativity and innovation. The rest of the world, of course, doesn’t like hearing this — it smacks of American self-centeredness — but, assuredly, it will be up to the United States to pull the world from this morass. The theory of decoupling -- when returns on asset classes diverge from their normal pattern of correlation -- was proved to be a false totem long ago. As the United States goes, so does the world. However, we find ourselves at a major inflection in our forward influence. Although we are growing at a faster pace than the rest of the world, we carry a millstone of political sclerosis around our neck, which is holding us back. Without the right political leadership and the right policy execution, we will be stuck. The Fed cannot save us from ourselves. What’s needed? For starters, political leaders must reform the tax code. Taxes ought to: * Be fairer and simpler and tilted toward pro-growth. * Include an incentive for corporations to repatriate their overseas earnings. * Be easier to understand, less influenced by special interests and require less paperwork. * Be progressive, but also fairer and flatter. We will also need labor reform and changes to our health care requirements. I am not trying to make this overly simplistic. But small businesses are so scared of the current labor and health care regulation that they are braking on hiring the incremental employee. We must repair the rampant partisanship in Washington and act. If we succeed in rebooting government and ending the malaise and bickering in Washington, the economy will grow at a rate that will surprise all of the pundits. A tremendous abundance and innovation lies ahead for the world, but we require legislative and executive reform. Until we make such changes, the specter of global deflation and negative rates will persist like a pox.
|
US Economy;Deflation;John Maynard Keynes
|
ny0039651
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2014/04/26
|
International Prosecutor Weighs Case in Ukraine Killings
|
PARIS — The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced Friday that she would consider whether grounds exist to open a formal criminal investigation into the killings of civilians during antigovernment protests in Ukraine in the last months of President Viktor F. Yanukovych’s tenure. The announcement by the prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, posted on the website of the court, based in The Hague, was a response to a recent request by Ukraine’s interim government to investigate the killings of more than 100 civilians, which it has described as crimes against humanity. For this purpose, Ukraine, which is not a court member, this month granted the court jurisdiction over the period from Nov. 21, 2013, to Feb. 22, before and during the fall of Mr. Yanukovych. It also followed a declaration from the Ukrainian Parliament urging the court to prosecute Mr. Yanukovych and several of his subordinates. But Ukraine’s request will face a number of hurdles. The prosecution must decide whether the alleged crimes meet the court’s standard of crimes against humanity, and will cross the court’s so-called gravity threshold. It must also establish whether Ukraine, where the political situation is unstable, is refusing or unable to investigate and try its former leader and others whom it blames for the killings of the civilians. The invitation by the Ukrainian government may help blunt longstanding criticism that the court has to date indicted only Africans. A Ukraine prosecution would be the court’s first on European soil. Ukraine is one of the few European countries that is not a court member. Although it signed the Rome Statute , the court’s founding treaty, Ukraine did not ratify the treaty after its highest court said that ratification would be unconstitutional. The jurisdiction given to the court by Ukraine’s new government carries risks. Others, including Russia, may argue that the investigation would be one-sided because the short period excludes violent actions by various groups, including Ukrainian nationalists that Moscow has described as terrorists, fascists and putschists. Russia is not a member of the court, but the prosecutor’s docket also has a preliminary investigation pending into Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia, which has not made much progress. Russia has nonetheless swamped the court with documents in defense of its actions. The question of the gravity of the crimes committed in Ukraine may be contentious. The International Criminal Court was established to deal with the most serious crimes — that is, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Several years ago, the court’s judges were divided and debated at length whether the killings of more than 1,000 people in Kenya’s postelection violence belonged in the court. Prosecutors have argued that gravity is not only about numbers, but also a measurement of the impact of crimes on a society. The prosecution’s relatively swift announcement that it will look into Ukraine’s complaint may well place the inquiry higher on a list of other lingering “preliminary investigations.” These include complaints about alleged crimes in Afghanistan, Colombia, Comoros, Guinea, Honduras, Nigeria and North Korea.
|
Ukraine;International Criminal Court;Viktor F Yanukovych
|
ny0247441
|
[
"technology"
] |
2011/05/11
|
Google’s Digital Music Service Falls Short of Ambition
|
Google had big plans for its new digital music service. It wanted an online store to compete with iTunes and Amazon, as well as a “smart locker” storage system in which the company would stream music to its millions of users from a gigantic central jukebox. But the service that the company unveiled on Tuesday, called Music Beta by Google , fell short of those ambitions. There is no store, the streaming function comes with restrictions, and, like Amazon’s Cloud Drive service announced in March, using it requires a long upload process. What came between Google and its ambitions was an obstacle familiar to many digital music start-ups: despite months of negotiations, the company could not obtain licenses from the major record companies. In interviews, Google executives put the blame squarely on the labels. “Generally there were demands on the business side that we think were unreasonable and don’t enable us to have a sustainable, scalable music business,” said Zahavah Levine, director of content partnerships for Google’s Android unit and the lead negotiator with the labels. Music Beta was introduced on Tuesday at Google I/O, a developers’ conference in San Francisco. Neither Google nor the labels would specify which points they stumbled over. But their disagreement follows a long pattern of friction in which the labels demand high prices for licenses or withhold the licenses altogether. The stubbornness of the labels has earned them a particular caricature in Silicon Valley: the bridge troll, demanding payment for passage. “They tend to not look at these things as opportunities, but as someone taking advantage of their business,” said Fred Goldring, a former top music lawyer who invests in media and technology companies. “Until they figure out how they’re going to deal new technology on their terms, they don’t make a move. And when they finally do, it’s usually too late.” The labels believe they are protecting their content and maximizing income for themselves and their artists. But as technology companies and industry analysts see it, the labels’ conservatism in striking deals that involve their licenses hinders technological development and ultimately harms the marketplace by reducing consumer choice. “The history of the digital music marketplace is littered with the ramifications of record label conservatism,” said Mark Mulligan, an analyst at Forrester Research. Music Beta, which Google is offering by invitation only while in its trial state, will allow users to store 20,000 songs at no charge and stream them to Android phones, tablets and other devices. As with Amazon’s Cloud Drive, the company does not need special licenses as long as it stores each user’s files separately and then streams them back only to that user, intellectual property lawyers say. But to sell music, or to operate a master jukebox of every available song and then matching users’ collections to it — widely viewed as the most efficient form of cloud music — Google would need licenses from the labels. Google’s plans were described by many record label executives who have been in discussions with them but spoke on condition of anonymity because their talks were private. Google and Amazon have not been the only companies negotiating with the labels for cloud music services. Apple is preparing its own, and Spotify, a popular European subscription service, has been locked in talks for two years over American distribution rights. In most of these cases the disagreements are over lump upfront payments or concerns that a service that charges users too little could cannibalize other sales and devalue music overall, executives say. Ted Cohen, a consultant and former major-label executive, said that when both sides of such negotiations have bad faith, customers suffer. “Neither side is playing fair with the other,” he said. “They go into the negotiations believing that the other side of dishonorable. It’s rare that both sides see that the common goal is to create a consumer experience that people value and are willing to pay for. Things don’t come to market because of this.” But whether Google and Amazon have abandoned their bigger plans or were just scaling them back temporarily was unclear. In an interview, Ms. Levine denied that the abrupt introduction of Music Beta was a negotiating tactic. But music executives said that since Amazon introduced Cloud Drive — with almost no advance notice to the labels — it has been in discussions over licenses, and these executives, speaking anonymously, said they expected Google to eventually return to the negotiating table. A more robust digital music service would attract more users to Google. But Mr. Goldring said that it was the labels that really needed to strike a deal. “At the end of the day they’re clearly hurting themselves,” he said, “because they’re leaving money on the table.”
|
Google Inc;Music;Cloud Computing;Computers and the Internet;Recordings and Downloads (Audio)
|
ny0129379
|
[
"sports",
"golf"
] |
2012/06/07
|
Yani Tseng Takes Aim at the L.P.G.A. Championship
|
PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Yani Tseng, the top-ranked female golfer in the world and the defending champion at this week’s L.P.G.A. Championship, acknowledges that she is motivated by chasing L.P.G.A. records. She also says that the voice she still hears in her head is that of the Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam. “Annika always told me that I need to have a goal, whether it’s big or small, and that you can’t win without a goal to keep going or to play better,” said Tseng, a 23-year-old from Taiwan. So Tseng’s first goal this week is retaining her title at the L.P.G.A. Championship. Last year she won by 10 strokes over Morgan Pressel and Cindy LaCrosse, finishing at 19-under-par 269, with 27 birdies. As if to prove a point, she book-ended that week with six-under 66s in the first and final rounds. Tseng also hopes to add another major championship to her list of 15 career wins. At last year’s championship, at the age of 22 years 4 months 16 days, she became the youngest woman to win four major golf championships. When she added a win later in the season at the Women’s British Open, she became the youngest player — male or female — to win five majors. Tseng recorded 7 L.P.G.A. wins and 12 worldwide victories last year. “I try to treat the majors as just another tournament,” she said, before going on to add, “but there is pressure there.” She said she tried to turn the pressure into a positive force. “Sometimes it’s good to have a little pressure to push you.” As dominant as Tseng has been the last two years on the tour — collecting honors as the Rolex Player of the Year for the second consecutive year in 2011 and winning the L.P.G.A.’s 2011 Vare Trophy for the low scoring average (69.66) — every now and then she is reminded that there is still work to do. In her last tournament, she posted an uncharacteristic tie for 12th at the ShopRite L.P.G.A. Classic in Galloway, N.J. Tseng said it bothered her a bit not to finish in the top 10, “but at least it wasn’t at a major and it came early in the season.” She added, “It’s hard to be in the top 10 every week.” Tseng enters this week’s second major on a mission to add to her 2012 results. She has three wins this season and leads the tour with a scoring average of 69.54 strokes per round. But Tseng must deal with the long, thick rough and narrow fairways of Locust Hill Country Club, as well as formidable competition from the field of 150 players. One of those competitors will be Stacy Lewis, who has won two of the last three L.P.G.A. tournaments, including the ShopRite L.P.G.A. Classic. Lewis has moved into the No. 3 spot in the player of the year rankings, making her the top-ranked American, and she has seven top-10 finishes this season. “I’m not the longest hitter and I’m not the straightest hitter,” Lewis said. “But now, I feel like when I step up on the tee, I can win and play any type of golf course.” Lewis said she hopes to add another major to her portfolio this week and “wants to be the player who challenges” Tseng. “Careers are made and lost, based on major wins,” Lewis said. “To win a major, you have to be sharper in all parts of your game.” Cristie Kerr is No. 7 in the rankings and set an L.P.G.A. Championship record in 2010 with a 12-stroke victory. After a few tweaks to her swing and a caddie change, Kerr says she is ready for Locust Hill this week. “The rough is bad, so whoever wins will have to play really well, but will also have to make some saves out here,” said Kerr, who has 14 tour wins and career earnings of more than $13.7 million. Also in the field seeking her first win of the year is Anna Nordqvist of Sweden. Like Tseng, Nordqvist made the L.P.G.A. Tour Championship her first tour victory in 2009. And, as a surprise, the Hall of Famer Se Ri Pak of South Korea, winner of the 1998 L.P.G.A. Championship, is also playing. Pak was injured in late April when she fell down some stairs at the Mobile Bay L.P.G.A. Classic. She tore the rotator cuff and labrum in one shoulder — injuries that could make the gnarly rough a major factor in her return.
|
Golf;Tseng Yani;Lewis Stacy;Kerr Cristie
|
ny0149847
|
[
"world",
"americas"
] |
2008/09/06
|
Mexican Court Rules Against Wal-Mart
|
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) — Mexico ’s Supreme Court ruled Friday that Wal-Mart de México, the country’s top retailer, violated the Constitution by paying a worker in part with store cards usable only in Wal-Mart stores. Wal-Mart de México, which is also known as Walmex and is a unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., gives employees electronic store cards as part of their salaries. The court said the practice harked back to exploitative wage schemes of a century ago. For now, the ruling applies only to the worker who brought the lawsuit and will not require Walmex to stop giving store cards to other employees. But if enough other workers decide to bring a similar case to court, the ruling could guarantee similar decisions in the future, a court spokesman said. During the long dictatorship of President Porfirio Díaz, which ended in 1911, wealthy landowners and businessmen paid employees with special currency valid only in company stores. Walmex said that its store card program was voluntary but that it would study the court ruling.
|
Wal-Mart Stores Inc;Mexico;Retail Stores and Trade;Courts
|
ny0096843
|
[
"sports",
"golf"
] |
2015/01/25
|
Phil Mickelson to Skip Favored Events in Favor of Family
|
It was easy for Phil Mickelson to skip the Match Play Championship in Arizona when his children had spring break because he never cared for the golf courses at Dove Mountain or the tournament’s fickle one-and-done format. This year he is sacrificing two tournaments that he loves, and where he has won a combined six times. Mickelson, who made his 2015 debut in the Humana Challenge in La Quinta, Calif., said on his website that in February he will skip the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in Pebble Beach, Calif., and the Northern Trust Open at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, Calif., because of spring break. “Those are two of my favorite events, two of my favorite courses,” Mickelson said. “But with the kids in two schools with different spring breaks, I’ll take that time off. They’ve accommodated my schedule enough over the years. It’s time for me to accommodate theirs.” Mickelson is a four-time winner at Pebble Beach. He won at Riviera in 2008 and 2009, and lost in a playoff in 2007 and 2012. He has not missed Pebble Beach since 1997. After the Humana Challenge, where Mickelson was tied for 36th at seven under par entering the weekend, he will play the Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale in Arizona starting Jan. 26 and at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego starting Feb. 5. NEW GOLF CHANNEL HOST Golf Channel is adding a familiar face to golf worldwide, but new to America. Cara Robinson, an English sports television host, has been hired as a co-host for “Morning Drive” and is expected to start her new role in late February as the PGA Tour begins its Florida swing. Robinson was host of “Golfing World,” a weekly television program on Sky Sports that was available to 20 million viewers in Britain, Ireland, Italy, Germany and Austria. She traveled extensively to the biggest events for player profiles and features. She also played a lead role in “Open Live,” a digital telecast at the British Open. Robinson also hosted Sky Sports’ tennis coverage during the 2012 Olympics in London. A MODEL FOR HENLEY If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Brandt Snedeker should take a bow. And it came from Russell Henley, already regarded as a good putter. He was told at Kapalua Resort in Hawaii, which hosted the Hyundai Tournament of Champions earlier this month where Henley tied for third, that the way he goes through his pre-shot routine on the green looked like Snedeker. Turns out looks were not deceiving. “I take it as a compliment,” Henley said. “I remember the week after Brandt won the Tour Championship, I was in Charlotte and I struggled. I missed the cut the week before in Midland on the Web.com Tour. I remember watching how he didn’t take a lot of time and he just kind of got over the putt and he reacted. That’s how I’ve always done everything.” Henley changed his routine. Instead of looking at the ball during his practice strokes, he looks at the hole before he gives it a rap. “I remember trying to emulate that just because I was searching for something because I needed to play well,” he said. It seems to have worked. Henley has won twice in his first two years on the PGA Tour. ADVISORY COUNCIL NAMED The PGA Tour has never had a foreign-born player on its policy board, a streak that will continue. The tour announced its 16-member Player Advisory Council, which advises and consults with the board on competition issues. Three of those players on the council were selected to run for chairman, and the winner will serve a three-year term on the board. The candidates are Davis Love III, Webb Simpson and Kevin Streelman. Voting ends Feb. 17. Of the top 125 on the PGA Tour money list last year, 38 percent of the players were born overseas. The council has only three foreign-born players (19 percent) this year: Freddie Jacobson of Sweden, Geoff Ogilvy of Australia and John Senden of Australia. OLD PUTTER FINDS NEW LIFE Jimmy Walker went back to his favorite putter for two weeks in Hawaii, and he could not miss on his way to winning the Sony Open last Sunday for the second time in a row. He one-putted 16 times on the back nine at Waialae in the third and fourth rounds. Walker won twice on the Nationwide Tour and captured the money title in 2004 using a Scotty Cameron model. He sent the 11-year-old putter to the studios last fall to add the weight he felt it needed. Tungsten was added to the sole, and Walker fell in love with it again. “I’ve always loved the look of it,” he said. “I got it back last month and put it back in the bag as soon as I saw it. I don’t foresee taking it out any time soon.”
|
PGA Championship;Golf;Phil Mickelson
|
ny0214160
|
[
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] |
2010/03/21
|
With Ohio State’s Turner, Surprises Keep Panning Out
|
COLUMBUS, Ohio — While pregnant with her third child, Iris Turner was thrilled to learn that sonograms showed she was going to have her first girl. She chose a name, Aulbri Leanette. But when the baby arrived, the doctor handed her a 10-pound boy. “What happened?” she asked. “This is devastating!” Over the next 24 hours, a nurse repeatedly asked her to name her son, but she refused to respond. On the third visit, the nurse would not leave without an answer. “That’s how Evan Turner came to be my baby,” Iris Turner said of Ohio State ’s junior point guard. “It’s been a struggle, in and out of the hospital, ever since.” Over his first four years, Turner was sickly. He had measles, chickenpox, pinkeye, enlarged tonsils and swollen adenoids. He also had a severe overbite and could not speak clearly until he was 3. He communicated through his older brother Darius until his speech was corrected through therapy. Other children would tease him, saying he was a mama’s boy. He would say, “So?” Turner, now a favorite to be named national player of the year, leads the second-seeded Buckeyes, who are on an eight-game winning streak and who play Georgia Tech on Sunday in the N.C.A.A. tournament’s second round. He has returned from another hospital stay to play the best basketball of his career. When Turner landed on his back after a dunk attempt against Eastern Michigan on Dec. 5, his mother’s initial instinct was to jump from her seat in the parents’ section. But she walked to the elevator instead. Once inside the training room, she overheard her son asking if she was hysterical. “Why would I be hysterical?” she asked. “I’ve taken care of him forever.” At the hospital, they learned that he had fractured the transverse processes of two vertebrae, affecting his rotational movement. When he returned to his apartment with his mother, his teammate Jon Diebler and his youth coach Yancy Colquitt, he lay gingerly and picked up the book “Lone Survivor,” about rescuing Navy Seals. “Life is survival of the fittest,” said Turner, who is averaging 19.9 points, 9.2 rebounds and 5.9 assists. He was expected to miss eight weeks but was back in four. On the day he was cleared to play, his mother drove 356 miles from Chicago to see for herself. “You could see the nervousness that a mother would have,” Ohio State Coach Thad Matta said. “It was their decision, them sitting in a room without me around.” Turner was a wiry 6-foot-7 freshman. The first time he and Diebler went to the weight room, they watched their teammate David Lighty lifting a barbell with several weights. When it was their turn, Diebler and Turner started to take off plates, but the strength and conditioning coach Dave Richardson told them the bar had been set for everyone. Neither could lift it. “To be honest, I didn’t expect much from Evan,” Richardson said. Matta had been attracted to Turner while watching Diebler, one of the nation’s best sharpshooters, in the King James Classic in Akron. Turner did not allow Diebler to get a shot off in the second half. “I had to offer him a scholarship,” Matta said. A perfectionist who played piano as a youth, Turner passed up shots at Ohio State and tried to make sure conditions were perfect before he let the ball loose. That perturbed Matta. By the end of Turner’s first season, Matta took him into an otherwise empty practice gym. He made Turner throw a rack of balls across the floor. He started with one short, then threw deep. Turner had no idea what Matta wanted. “Do I look mad?” Matta asked. Turner said no. “You’re going to make a lot more plays than you are errors,” Matta said. Turner’s game and his relationship with Matta have improved since. After playing small forward and power forward, Turner moved to point guard this season. His ball-handling skills have tightened, and his ease with his left hand allows him to dribble with his eyes closed. Colquitt, his youth coach, said, “Whoever drafts him eventually is going to get three players.” The skills have attracted interest from outsiders, but his mother has been the protector. The woman who never let her sons leave home without knowing the destination, and had them phone whenever they reached it, has been accepting business cards from agents and financial advisers who approach after games. By last season’s final game, she had a stack and kept them. Some thought he would follow the former Buckeyes Greg Oden, Mike Conley Jr., Daequan Cook and Kosta Koufos to the N.B.A. “I thought Evan was going after last season,” Iris Turner said. “He didn’t tell me until after the final game.” A random fan caught her attention during the Big Ten tournament title game last Sunday. A Minnesota enthusiast sitting in the Ohio State parents’ section was talking about Turner, referring to him as No. 21. Feeling she should inform him of the Buckeyes star’s identity because he had stolen the show that weekend with a buzzer-beater against Michigan, Iris Turner volunteered, “That’s my baby.”
|
NCAA Basketball Tournament (Men);Ohio State University;Turner Evan;Basketball;College Athletics
|
ny0295060
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2016/12/02
|
After Bitter Campaign, Election Positions Trump to Shape Rules on How You Vote
|
After an extraordinarily contentious election, crucial elements of the rules that determine how Americans vote will be under assault from conservatives and facing legal challenges heading toward the Supreme Court as Donald J. Trump prepares to become president. Mr. Trump’s claims of a “rigged” election — made before he won — and his false declaration after his victory that “millions of people” had voted illegally for Hillary Clinton made headlines. They also amplified longstanding Republican claims that rampant voter fraud justified a welter of state laws making it more difficult to register and vote. Democrats say the laws are not about combating fraud but about suppressing the vote of minorities and other Democratic-leaning constituencies. Mr. Trump will have enormous power to shape future policy on voting. “The last time we had a national government that was as hostile to the protection of minority voting rights as we may have with this president was probably near the end of the first Reconstruction” after the Civil War, said Pamela S. Karlan, a Stanford University law professor, who was a deputy assistant attorney general under President Obama until 2015. “There are still strong Republican protectors and champions of voting rights,” she said. “But they don’t seem to have the whip hand in their own party.” Such concerns could prove overstated. Beyond warnings of fraud, Mr. Trump has offered little specific about his views on voting rights. Four Trump transition officials did not reply to emailed requests for comment. One conservative scholar of election law, Hans A. von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, called the worries “way overboard.” “The emphasis may be a little different,” he said. “But this idea that when Republicans come in, they’re suddenly going to stop enforcing the Voting Rights Act and other laws — the evidence doesn’t bear it out.” Mr. Trump will take office at a pivotal moment in a battle over the rules governing voting and elections, one in which voting-rights advocates seemed to be gaining an upper hand. Several potentially decisive federal court rulings on voting rules and redistricting, most favoring voting-rights advocates, now appear bound for a Supreme Court whose ideological balance is in Mr. Trump’s hands. Enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a linchpin of some of those cases, will fall to a Justice Department whose likely attorney general, Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, is viewed with deep suspicion by civil rights advocates. One Trump adviser, Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, is among the most aggressive national crusaders for voting restrictions. Entering a meeting with Mr. Trump last week, Mr. Kobach was photographed carrying a sheaf of policy recommendations. The visible text proposed to “Draft Amendments to the National Voter” — an apparent reference to the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, the “motor voter” law that has come under sharp attack from Republicans. The law prohibits states from purging voters from the rolls for technical reasons like moving within a district, and imposes a waiting period and other requirements to remove voters. Conservatives say the requirements keep ineligible voters on the rolls and promote fraud. Democrats say the law prevents partisan purges of poor and minority voters. Mr. Kobach, who once suggested that Mr. Obama was plotting to replace American voters with socialist-leaning legalized immigrants , is the leading advocate of requiring everyone to present proof of citizenship when registering to vote instead of swearing an oath. Critics say the poor are far less likely to have those documents, and the costs of obtaining them essentially amount to a poll tax, which has long been unconstitutional. But some actions that voting-rights advocates call regressive actually would improve election integrity and efficiency, Mr. von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation said. Requiring citizenship documents, he argued, would reduce fraud. And he said that Mr. Obama’s Justice Department has failed to enforce the part of the motor-voter law that requires election officials to cull voter lists of people who have died or moved. Image Kris Kobach, right, one of the most aggressive figures nationally in support of voting restrictions, met with Mr. Trump in November. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times A Justice Department under Mr. Trump is likely to press on both those fronts, he said. In general, he noted, Mr. Obama’s Justice Department has filed far fewer lawsuits to enforce the Voting Rights Act than the department under President George W. Bush, where Mr. von Spakovsky worked on civil rights cases. “They’ve been sitting on their rumps for eight years,” he said. Others say the department’s Civil Rights Division in the Bush era was sometimes a hostile environment — an inspector general’s report noted that one leader compared voting-rights lawyers to mold spores — and that Obama-era lawsuits, while fewer in number, have had national rather than local impacts. Mr. Trump’s greatest influence over election policy may lie in the Supreme Court, where he has pledged to nominate a reliable conservative to the seat vacated by Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February. At least two major voting lawsuits against the Texas and North Carolina state governments seem likely to be appealed to the court. In both, federal courts of appeals this summer voided or modified Republican laws requiring voters to produce photo IDs, saying they disproportionately reduced minorities’ turnout. The court has upheld photo ID requirements before. But the new cases marshal far more evidence of their outsize effect on minority voters. The North Carolina ruling concluded that the state intentionally imposed restrictive rules “with almost surgical precision” to suppress African-American voters. Whether the Supreme Court will agree is an open question. Many legal experts say the eight justices appear evenly split over whether the Texas and North Carolina laws violate the Voting Rights Act or the Constitution. Should the cases be heard after a Trump nominee is approved, legal analysts agree, the chance that the laws will be reinstated will markedly increase. “If it is someone whose stance is like Justice Scalia, you should expect a reversal” of the appeals courts, said Ellen D. Katz, a former Justice Department lawyer and a law professor at the University of Michigan. “Every signal they’ve given us to date is that they would overturn the decisions.” Yet some analysts are less certain. In recent cases, for example, courts have broadly agreed that ID laws must be written so that people who cannot reasonably obtain required identification cards still get an opportunity to vote. “Courts are going to insist on a safety net” for voters without proper IDs, said Edward B. Foley, a professor and director of the Election Law Project at Ohio State University’s law school. “Even conservative appeals judges are buying into that.” The Supreme Court also seems certain to address a second important question: whether majority parties in state and local governments can gerrymander political maps during redistricting, redrawing boundaries in ways that solidify their hold on power. Gerrymandering to dilute minority voters’ power has long been illegal. But while justices have said partisan gerrymandering is wrong, they have never decided whether they can outlaw it. Three partisan gerrymandering cases are moving toward hearings in a Supreme Court that some experts say could be poised to rein in the tactic, even with a Trump appointee. Other policy questions remain unanswered, Professor Katz and others said, including whether the Justice Department will pursue voting rights lawsuits that the Obama administration started or joined. Nor is it clear how vigorously it will enforce Voting Rights Act clauses that remain. The 2013 ruling ended the department’s power to oversee voting and election rules in jurisdictions with histories of racial bias. Advocacy groups and pro bono lawyers have assumed some of those watchdog duties. But whether the agency will enforce remaining clauses of the law by bringing or joining lawsuits like those in the Texas and North Carolina cases is unknown. “The consequences here will be in what they don’t do as well as what they affirmatively do,” Professor Katz said. Should enforcement taper off, she said, “it’s not clear that the private bar can step up and do all the things the Justice Department has been doing.” Still, officials at voting-rights organizations said they hoped to build a bipartisan consensus on issues like automatic voter registration and restoring voting rights to ex-felons where some Republicans support reforms. Beyond that, they said, they will regroup and decide what causes are most important. One leading organization, Common Cause, will renew efforts to block any resurgence of state or federal laws making registration or voting more difficult. “There’s a concern at the federal level that there could be the introduction of laws to make photo IDs a national requirement, or to require documentary proof of citizenship at registration,” said Allegra Chapman, the group’s director of voting and elections. It is a sharp turnabout from the scenario most expected would unfold under a Clinton presidency. “What’s the phrase? ‘These are the times that try men’s souls,’” said Lloyd Leonard, director for advocacy at the League of Women Voters in Washington. “We’ll be playing defense in a number of areas.”
|
Voter registration;US Politics;Legislation;Immigration;Civil Rights;Voting Rights Act;Donald Trump
|
ny0049241
|
[
"sports",
"basketball"
] |
2014/11/14
|
Klay Thompson Leads Warriors Past Nets
|
OAKLAND, Calif. — Led by Klay Thompson’s 25 points, the Golden State Warriors stopped a two-game losing streak by beating the Nets, 107-99, on Thursday night. Draymond Green had 17 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists, and Stephen Curry added 17 points and 5 assists as the hot-shooting but turnover-prone Warriors started to cut down on mistakes. They shot 45.6 percent from the field and had just 11 turnovers. Golden State (6-2) entered the game leading the N.B.A. in shooting percentage and turnovers. Jarrett Jack, a former Warrior, was 10 for 10 from the field and scored 23 points to lead the Nets (4-4), who lost for the second time in two nights. They fell to the Phoenix Suns, 112-104, on Wednesday to begin a game trip. The Warriors finished each half with a flurry. Their 15-4 run at the end of the second quarter roused the announced sellout crowd of 19,596. Andre Iguodala highlighted the spurt by dribbling from one end to the other through traffic and throwing down a one-handed dunk that helped Golden State go ahead, 66-55, at halftime. The Nets fell behind by 15 in the third quarter and looked like a tired team ready to crumble. Instead, they regrouped and rallied in the fourth, slicing Golden State’s lead to 93-88 on Bojan Bogdanovic’s 3-pointer. Just as they did in the first half, though, the Warriors closed strongly. Thompson hit a 3 and converted an alley-oop layup on a pass from Green in the final minutes to stretch Golden State’s lead to 105-96. The Nets shot 43.8 percent from the field and had only 12 turnovers. But they went 3 for 16 from 3-point range, and Golden State finished 11 of 34 from beyond the arc. Brook Lopez and Deron Williams each had 18 points for the Nets. The Warriors were coming off losses to Phoenix and San Antonio after a 5-0 start under their new coach, Steve Kerr .
|
Basketball;Brooklyn Nets;Golden State Warriors;Klay Thompson;Draymond Green;Stephen Curry;Jarrett Jack
|
ny0223047
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2010/11/17
|
Egypt: Rumor of Coptic-Muslim Affair Leads to Burning of Christians’ Homes
|
Muslims set fire overnight to at least 10 houses belonging to Coptic Christians in a southern Egypt village over rumors that a Christian resident had an affair with a Muslim girl, security officials said Tuesday. They said security forces sealed off the village of Al Nawahid in Qena Province, about 290 miles south of Cairo, to prevent the violence from spreading, and several people were arrested. The village was calm by nightfall, after religious leaders from both sides persuaded their followers to end the confrontation. Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s population of 80 million. Coptic Christians and Muslims generally live in peace, though violence occasionally occurs in the south, mostly over disputes about land or church construction.
|
Egypt;Christians and Christianity
|
ny0278937
|
[
"science"
] |
2016/11/12
|
‘We Couldn’t Believe Our Eyes’: A Lost World of Shipwrecks Is Found
|
The medieval ship lay more than a half-mile down at the bottom of the Black Sea, its masts, timbers and planking undisturbed in the darkness for seven or eight centuries. Lack of oxygen in the icy depths had ruled out the usual riot of creatures that feast on sunken wood. This fall, a team of explorers lowered a robot on a long tether, lit up the wreck with bright lights and took thousands of high-resolution photos. A computer then merged the images into a detailed portrait. Archaeologists date the discovery to the 13th or 14th century, opening a new window on forerunners of the 15th- and 16th-century sailing vessels that discovered the New World, including those of Columbus. This medieval ship probably served the Venetian empire , which had Black Sea outposts. Never before had this type of ship been found in such complete form. The breakthrough was the quarterdeck, from which the captain would have directed a crew of perhaps 20 sailors. “That’s never been seen archaeologically,” said Rodrigo Pacheco-Ruiz, an expedition member at the Center for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton, in Britain. “We couldn’t believe our eyes.” Image A photogrammetric image of a ship from the Ottoman era that most likely went down between the 17th and 19th centuries. The discoverers nicknamed it the Flower of the Black Sea because of its ornate carvings, including two large posts topped with petals. Credit Expedition and Education Foundation/Black Sea MAP Remarkably, the find is but one of more than 40 shipwrecks that the international team recently discovered and photographed off the Bulgarian coast in one of archaeology’s greatest coups. In age, the vessels span a millennium, from the Byzantine to the Ottoman empires, from the ninth to the 19th centuries. Generally, the ships are in such good repair that the images reveal intact coils of rope, rudders and elaborately carved decorations. “They’re astonishingly preserved,” said Jon Adams, the leader of the Black Sea project and founding director of the maritime archaeology center at the University of Southampton. Kroum Batchvarov, a team member at the University of Connecticut who grew up in Bulgaria and has conducted other studies in its waters, said the recent discoveries “far surpassed my wildest expectations.” Independent experts said the annals of deepwater archaeology hold few, if any, comparable sweeps of discovery in which shipwrecks have proved to be so plentiful, diverse and well preserved. Image A photogrammetric image of the stern of the Ottoman-era ship showing coils of rope and a tiller with elaborate carvings. A lack of oxygen at the icy depths of the Black Sea left the wrecks relatively undisturbed. Credit Expedition and Education Foundation/Black Sea MAP “It’s a great story,” said Shelley Wachsmann of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University. “We can expect some real contributions to our understanding of ancient trade routes.” Goods traded on the Black Sea included grains, furs, horses, oils, cloth, wine and people. The Tatars turned Christians into slaves who were shipped to places like Cairo. For Europeans, the sea provided access to a northern branch of the Silk Road and imports of silk, satin, musk, perfumes, spices and jewels. Marco Polo reportedly visited the Black Sea, and Italian merchant colonies dotted its shores. The profits were so enormous that, in the 13th and 14th centuries, Venice and Genoa fought a series of wars for control of the trade routes, including those of the Black Sea. Brendan P. Foley, an archaeologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, Mass., said the good condition of the shipwrecks implied that many objects inside their hulls might also be intact. “You might find books, parchment, written documents,” he said in an interview. “Who knows how much of this stuff was being transported? But now we have the possibility of finding out. It’s amazing.” Experts said the success in Bulgarian waters might inspire other nations that control portions of the Black Sea to join the archaeological hunt. They are Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine. Dr. Foley, who has explored a number of Black Sea wrecks, said the sea’s overall expanse undoubtedly held tens of thousands of lost ships. “Everything that sinks out there is going to be preserved,” he added. “They’re not going away.” For ages, the Black Sea was a busy waterway that served the Balkans, the Eurasian steppes, the Caucasus, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and Greece. It long beckoned to archaeologists because they knew its deep waters lacked oxygen, a rarity for large bodies of water. The great rivers of Eastern Europe — the Don, the Danube, the Dnieper — pour so much fresh water into the sea that a permanent layer forms over denser, salty water from the Mediterranean. As a result, oxygen from the atmosphere that mixes readily with fresh water never penetrates the inky depths. In 1976, Willard Bascom , a pioneer of oceanography, in his book “Deep Water, Ancient Ships,” called the Black Sea unique among the world’s seas and a top candidate for exploration and discovery. Image A photogrammetric image of a Byzantine wreck, dating perhaps to the ninth century. Superimposed is an image of one of the expedition’s tethered robots that photographed the lost ships. Credit Expedition and Education Foundation/Black Sea MAP “One is tempted,” he wrote, “to begin searching there in spite of the huge expanse of bottom that would have to be inspected.” In 2002, Robert D. Ballard, a discoverer of the sunken Titanic , led a Black Sea expedition that found a 2,400-year-old wreck laden with the clay storage jars of antiquity. One held remnants of a large fish that had been dried and cut into steaks, a popular food in ancient Greece. The new team said it received exploratory permits from the Bulgarian ministries of culture and foreign affairs and limited its Black Sea hunts to parts of that nation’s exclusive economic zone, which covers thousands of square miles and runs up to roughly a mile deep. Although the team’s official name is the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project , or Black Sea MAP, it also hauls up sediments to hunt for clues to how the sea’s rising waters engulfed former land surfaces and human settlements. Team members listed on its website include the Bulgarian National Institute of Archaeology , the Bulgarian Center for Underwater Archaeology , Sodertorn University in Sweden, and the Hellenic Center for Marine Research in Greece. Image An illustration of what the research team believes the medieval ship found in the Black Sea looked like during its heyday. Credit Jon Adams/University of Southampton/Black Sea MAP The project’s financial backer is the Expedition and Education Foundation, a charity registered in Britain whose benefactors want to remain anonymous, team members said. Dr. Adams of the University of Southampton, the team’s scientific leader, described it as catalyzing an academic-industry partnership on the largest project “of its type ever undertaken.” Nothing is known publicly about the cost, presumably vast, of the Black Sea explorations, which are to run for three years. The endeavor began last year with a large Greek ship doing a preliminary survey. This year, the main vessel was the Stril Explorer , a British-flagged ship bearing a helicopter landing pad that usually services the undersea pipes and structures of the offshore oil industry. Instead, archaeologists on the ship lowered its sophisticated robots to hunt for ancient shipwrecks and lost history. In an interview, Dr. Pacheco-Ruiz of the University of Southampton said he was watching the monitors late one night in September when the undersea robot lit up a large wreck in a high state of preservation. “I was speechless,” he recalled. “When I saw the ropes, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I still can’t.” Dr. Pacheco-Ruiz said the vessel hailed from the Ottoman Empire, whose capital was Constantinople (today Istanbul), and most likely went down sometime between the 17th and 19th centuries. He said the team nicknamed it “Flower of the Black Sea” because its deck bears ornate carvings, including two large posts with tops that form petals. In an interview, Dr. Batchvarov of the University of Connecticut said most of the discoveries date to the Ottoman era. So it was that, late one night, during his shift, he assumed that a new wreck coming into view would be more of the same. “Then I saw a quarter rudder,” he recalled, referring to a kind of large steering oar on a ship’s side. It implied the wreck was much older. Then another appeared. Quickly, he had the expedition’s leader, Dr. Adams, awakened. “He came immediately,” Dr. Batchvarov recalled. “We looked at each other like two little boys in a candy shop.” Dr. Batchvarov said the wreck — the medieval one found more than a half-mile down — was part of a class known by several names, including cocha and “round ship.” The latter name arose from how its ample girth let it carry more cargo and passengers than a warship. Dr. Adams said the remarkable color images of the lost ships derived from a process known as photogrammetry. It combines photography with the careful measurement of distances between objects, letting a computer turn flat images into renderings that seem three-dimensional. He said tethered robots shot the photographic images with video and still cameras. The distance information, he added, came from advanced sonars, which emit high-pitched sounds that echo through seawater. Their measurements, he said, can range down to less than a millimeter. A news release from the University of Southampton refers to the images as “digital models.” Their creation, it said, “takes days even with the fastest computers.” Filmmakers are profiling the Black Sea hunt in a documentary, according to the team’s website . Another part of the project seeks to share the thrill of discovery with schools and educators. Students are to study on the Black Sea, the website says, or join university scientists in analyzing field samples “to uncover the mysteries of the past.” The team has said little publicly on whether it plans to excavate the ships — a topic on which nations, academics and treasure hunters have long clashed. Bulgaria is a signatory to the 2001 United Nations convention that outlaws commercial trade in underwater cultural heritage and sets out guidelines on such things as artifact recovery and public display. Dr. Pacheco-Ruiz said the team had so far discovered and photographed 44 shipwrecks, and that more beckoned. Which was the most important? Dr. Adams said that for him, a student of early European shipbuilding, the centerpiece was the medieval round ship. He said it evoked Marco Polo and city states like Venice. The ship, he added, incorporated a number of innovations that let it do more than its predecessors had and paved the way for bigger things to come. “It’s not too much,” he said, “to say that medieval Europe became modern with the help of ships like these.”
|
Shipwrecks;Archaeology,Anthropology;Marco Polo;Black Sea;Middle Ages
|
ny0283076
|
[
"business"
] |
2016/07/07
|
U.S. Safety Agency Investigates Another Tesla Crash Involving Autopilot
|
The nation’s top auto safety regulator said on Wednesday that it had begun an investigation of a second crash involving a Tesla Motors car equipped with Autopilot technology, a system designed to let vehicles drive themselves for brief periods. In the nonfatal crash, a Tesla sport utility vehicle rolled over last Friday on the Pennsylvania Turnpike after hitting barriers on both sides of the highway. Safety officials continue to investigate a fatal Florida accident in May . The driver of the Pennsylvania vehicle told the Pennsylvania State Police that he was operating it in Autopilot mode. The accidents have put new scrutiny on Tesla’s Autopilot system and raised questions about whether the technology, which the company describes as only an experimental “beta” test, lulls drivers into a false sense of security. Although Tesla drivers have posted YouTube videos of themselves operating the vehicles completely hands-free — even climbing into the back seat — the company has cautioned that Autopilot is meant only as an “auto-assist” feature that requires drivers to keep their hands on or near the steering wheel at all times. In the Florida crash, the first known fatality involving an autonomous driving system, the driver was killed when his Tesla Model S sedan struck a tractor-trailer that was crossing the roadway. An account given on Wednesday by a witness to the Florida accident seemed to indicate that the Autopilot system continued operating the car at highway speed, even after the vehicle’s top was sheared off by the impact and the Tesla went under the trailer and continued down the road. “The car came from underneath the trailer,” said the witness, Terence Mulligan, who was named in the Florida Highway Patrol’s accident report. Mr. Mulligan, who was driving behind the tractor-trailer at the time, said: “The top was gone. It went right by me.” Mr. Mulligan, in a telephone interview, said he turned and followed the Tesla, which did not slow down until it had left the road, crashed through two fences and hit a utility pole. His account jibed with the accident report by the Florida Highway Patrol, which said the car was traveling at 65 miles per hour when it hit the tractor-trailer. Tesla Fans Show Off Their Cars The driver of a Tesla in self-driving mode was recently killed in an accident in Florida. The company called the driver “a friend of Tesla” and the broader community. Below is a look at how some Tesla enthusiasts engage with the technology. Tesla has declined to comment on the details of the Florida crash, which is still under investigation by state and federal officials. In a statement on Wednesday about the Pennsylvania crash, Tesla said it had “no reason to believe that Autopilot had anything to do with this accident” based on the information it had collected so far. The Pennsylvania crash involved a Model X S.U.V. heading east on the Pennsylvania Turnpike about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh. The car scraped a guardrail on the right side of the road, crossed the roadway and hit the concrete median. It then rolled over onto its roof and came to a stop in the middle of the road. Tesla vehicles have the ability to send data back to the company about their condition and operation. In a statement, the company said it received an automated alert from the Model X in Pennsylvania on July 1 showing that its airbags had deployed. But the company said more detailed information about the car’s operation was not received, a situation that could happen if the car’s antenna was damaged in the crash. Details of the Pennsylvania crash were first reported by The Detroit Free Press . The Pennsylvania State Police declined to release additional details because an investigation is in progress. The Pennsylvania driver, Albert Scaglione, said by phone on Wednesday that he had just been released from the hospital and declined to comment on the accident. “My attorneys will be releasing a statement shortly,” he said. A passenger in the car, Tim Yanke, was reportedly not seriously injured. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Wednesday that it was collecting information from the Pennsylvania State Police, Tesla and the driver to find out whether automated functions were in use at the time of the crash. The federal safety agency has also sent a crash investigation team to Florida to determine if the Tesla Autopilot system was at fault in the accident on May 7 , which killed Joshua Brown, a 40-year-old from Canton, Ohio. In the Florida crash, charges are pending against Frank Baressi, the driver of the tractor-trailer that was hit by Mr. Brown’s Tesla. But no final determination on charges will be made until the inquiry is complete, Sgt. Kim Montes, a spokeswoman for the Florida Highway Patrol, said on Wednesday. Inside the Self-Driving Tesla Fatal Accident After Joshua Brown, 40, of Canton, Ohio, was killed driving a Tesla Model S in the first fatality involving a self-driving car, questions have arisen about the safety of the car’s technology. “We know the truck made a left turn, and the person going straight has the right of way,” she said, referring to Mr. Brown’s vehicle. Mr. Baressi, reached by phone, declined to comment. In an interview with The Associated Press last week, Mr. Baressi said he had heard a Harry Potter movie playing from Mr. Brown’s vehicle, but also acknowledged, “He went so fast through my trailer, I didn’t see him.” Sergeant Montes said, “We don’t know if that’s accurate,” adding, “We may never know, obviously, given the damage of the vehicle. In a very violent crash, there’s not going to be a lot left inside a car that could be playing.” A DVD player and a laptop computer were recovered from Mr. Brown’s vehicle after the crash. Questions have been raised about why neither Tesla nor the federal safety agency notified the public sooner about the May 7 accident, if only to caution other drivers about using Tesla’s Autopilot feature. When the federal investigation of Mr. Brown’s accident was disclosed last week, Tesla released a statement saying it had informed the agency of the crash “immediately after it occurred.” But in a statement on Tuesday, Tesla said it did not tell the federal agency about the accident until nine days later. The Florida Highway Patrol contacted Tesla, seeking help in downloading data from the car’s so-called black-box recorder, seven to 10 days after the crash. The company said in a statement that it was obligated to notify the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on a quarterly basis when it became aware of a fatal accident involving a Tesla vehicle. “As part of its regular ongoing communication and not as part of any formal process, Tesla told N.H.T.S.A. about the accident while it was still in the process of conducting its investigation,” Tesla said. “This happened on May 16.”
|
Tesla;Car Crash;Driverless Cars,Self-Driving Cars;Automobile safety;National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
|
ny0249628
|
[
"us"
] |
2011/02/04
|
For Tucson Survivors, Cost of Medical Care Is a Concern
|
TUCSON — Seconds after gunfire erupted outside a supermarket here last month, Randy Gardner, one of those struck during the barrage, said another potential crisis immediately entered his mind. “I wondered, ‘How much is this going to cost me?’ ” he said. “It was a thought that went through my head right away.” Tucson ’s medical system quickly swung into action after the shootings , with ambulances and medical helicopters rushing victims to hospitals where trauma specialists awaited them. The life-saving treatment the victims received over the ensuing days carried a heavy cost, though, and the bills — the costliest of which may be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for Representative Gabrielle Giffords — are still being tallied. But despite the fears of some victims, it does not appear that the shooting will ruin anyone financially. Interviews with victims as well as advocates assisting them suggest that most, if not all, of the 13 people wounded that morning had health insurance , and health care providers say they expect insurance companies to cover the bulk of the medical costs. On top of that, the fact that federal charges have been filed against Jared L. Loughner in the shootings means that state victim-compensation money will be supplemented by federal help. Private charitable efforts to aid victims have also been created. Ms. Giffords, who received a bullet wound to the head and was the most gravely injured of those who survived the shooting, also had probably the best insurance, a federal plan known for its comprehensive coverage that was held out as a model during last year’s debate over the health care overhaul. Dr. Peter Rhee , chief trauma surgeon at Tucson’s University Medical Center, has repeatedly said that Ms. Giffords received the same care there as any other gunshot victim. “We don’t have time or luxury to ask for insurance cards or to know if they are a good guy or how they are going to pay,” he said. “We deal with whoever comes in the door. We don’t know if they are immigrants, if they are legal, illegal. We just treat them.” Still, some of those who are following Ms. Giffords’s treatment, including her speedy transfer from Tucson to a top rehabilitation facility in Houston , can only wish their health plans were as responsive. Monique Pomerleau, a mother of three from Northern California , suffered a traumatic brain injury in a traffic accident last February but has not yet undergone rehabilitation because her insurer, Health Net of California , said it lacked such services within the network. Her family has hired a lawyer to press the matter and recently received word that a 30-day rehabilitation program had been approved. “We watched the congresswoman’s care and we thought, How marvelous, but there are real people out there like Monique who don’t get the same possibilities,” said Lisa Kantor, a lawyer who specializes in challenging insurance companies and was hired by Ms. Pomerleau’s father, Tom. A spokesman for the insurer said federal privacy laws prevented it from commenting on individual patients’ cases. After a tragedy like the Tucson shooting, billing is a topic that appears almost unseemly to raise. But with health costs spiraling, it is one that was on the minds of some victims, not to mention their care providers. “We have to recover our costs so that we can provide the service to others,” said Craig Yale, vice president of corporate development for the Colorado -based Air Methods Corporation , which operates LifeNet helicopter service in Tucson, one of three private helicopter operators that were called to the shooting scene. At University Medical Center, where the most seriously injured victims were treated, Misty Hansen, the hospital’s chief financial officer, said she did not anticipate any problems recovering costs. “It is my expectation that the bills will be paid and the hospital will be appropriately compensated,” she said. Declining to discuss the case of individual patients, Ms. Hansen said 5 percent of patients were “self pay,” which means they lack insurance and are billed personally. Even those like Mr. Gardner, who lost a solid health insurance plan when he retired five years ago and now has a deductible in the $10,000 range, will most likely benefit from the plethora of special public and private victim funds to fill gaps in his coverage. The Federal Bureau of Investigation ’s victim assistance fund cannot be used directly for medical care. But the money was used after the Tucson shooting to replace the eyeglasses of two injured victims and to fly relatives of victims to Tucson and the remains of one victim to her home state, said Kathryn Turman, director of the F.B.I.’s office for victim assistance. The Safeway supermarket where Mr. Loughner is accused of spraying the crowd with bullets has begun a fund to aid victims, although company officials have not yet detailed how the money will be spent. A nonprofit victims rights group based in Tucson, Homicide Survivors, is similarly raising money on behalf of victims. “My fund is too small to cover their medical bills,” said Carol Gaxiola, who is director of the survivors’ group. “But we’ll be able to pitch in to cover other costs.” Besides the ambulance bill ($991.80 and $16.96 a mile for ground transport) and the hospital expenses, victims could face travel costs if they wish to follow the federal court proceedings against Mr. Loughner, especially if the trial is moved out of state. There are also the costs of funeral expenses for the six people who died, as well as trauma counselors and loss of wages for the injured. Mary Reed, who was shot three times that morning, said her insurer, through her husband’s job at the University of Arizona , had been unusually accommodating since the shooting, approving medicines and services in 24 hours, significantly faster than usual. One concern she has, though, is whether her 17 -year-old daughter, who was at the scene but was not hit — Ms. Reed threw herself on her daughter to protect her — will qualify as a victim. Her husband and son were there as well, and they ran for cover. They are all undergoing counseling, but Ms. Reed is uncertain who will pick up the cost. Kenneth Dorushka, 63, was struck in the arm by a bullet and is still awaiting word on how much of his costs will be covered by his insurer, United Healthcare. “It’s hard to tell because we haven’t gotten any bills yet, so you don’t know how much they’re going to cover or not,” said Mr. Dorushka, adding that he had spent about $100 so far on co-payments and other medical costs. Ron Barber, district director for Ms. Giffords’s Congressional office who was hit twice in the shooting, said he expected to emerge from the shooting without any financial cost. “I was thinking at first about what kind of deductible I’d have to pay, but then I learned that workers’ compensation will cover everything,” said Mr. Barber, who was working when he was shot. Even as he recovers at home, Mr. Barber said he was trying to ensure that the shooting does not cause undue financial strain on those affected. “It’s obvious that those of us who were shot are victims, but there are others,” he said. “I don’t know anyone who didn’t have medical coverage, but I’m interested in making sure no one continues to suffer from this.”
|
2011 Tucson shooting;Health Insurance
|
ny0143185
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2008/11/14
|
Officer’s Killer Gets a Life Sentence
|
A Yonkers man convicted of killing an off-duty New York police officer during a botched burglary has been sentenced to life in prison without parole. The man, Steven Armento, 51, was convicted of murder last month in the shooting of Officer Daniel Enchautegui (pronounced EN-cha-tay-gee) on Dec. 10, 2005. A co-defendant in the case, Lillo Brancato Jr., 31, an actor who had a lead role in the 1993 movie “A Bronx Tale” and also appeared in episodes of “The Sopranos,” is expected to go on trial next week. Authorities said that on that night, after drinking at a strip club, Mr. Armento and Mr. Brancato broke into a Bronx basement apartment to steal prescription drugs. Officer Enchautegui, 28, who lived next door, heard them and went to investigate. Mr. Armento shot the officer with a .357 Magnum, hitting him in the heart. The dying officer fired back, wounding both men. Mr. Brancato has said he did not know Mr. Armento had a gun.
|
Armento Steven;Sentences (Criminal);Attacks on Police;Yonkers (NY)
|
ny0246830
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2011/05/03
|
Big News at the Ballpark
|
Usually, the sports world’s intersections with the real one are awkward and embarrassing, perspective not generally being a strong suit of people who paint their faces and erupt in streams of profanity over a referee’s call. Inevitably, the news could be Armageddon and someone will be upset that it interrupted the baseball scores crawling at the bottom of the screen. There will be at least one inappropriate headline like, “N.F.L. draft takes backseat to news of Osama bin Laden’s death.” On Sunday night, though, sports offered us the chance to watch everything take a back seat to the news that United States forces had killed Bin Laden. Network television cameras were on hand to capture a crowd at the Mets-Phillies game , which went long enough to overlap the big news. And a large part of the crowd leaving the Capitals-Lightning N.H.L. playoff game merged into the celebration headed toward the White House, although someone did stop to tell The Sporting News’s Craig Custance that he guessed he would trade the Capitals loss for the death of a national enemy. No, perspective is not absolute. (Hey, the Caps are down, 2-0!) In an odd bit of timing, the Washington Nationals had scheduled a military appreciation night for Monday. The rest of the games will muddle along in that gray area between appropriate recognition and jingoism — you can vote on where sports should fall in a USA Today poll — and athletes will chime in on Twitter with varying perspective levels until the two worlds can retreat safely back to their own corners. Because, as satisfying as it might be, the United States military is not going to intervene in the N.F.L. lockout next. Getting back to sports as usual, though, is not quite so simple. In the N.B.A., we suddenly have the Heat becoming the bullies in a series with the Celtics, who were rather stunned with that turn of events in Game 1, writes Ken Berger on CBSSports.com . With elbows flying and tempers flaring, it was the Celtics’ minds that went mushy, writes Dave Hyde in The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel , and as Israel Gutierrez writes in The Miami Herald , suddenly it’s LeBron James realizing that toning down his act is a good thing. Of course, if you are looking for full perspective from James, you will be disappointed when you read that he responded to the criticism that he quit against the Celtics last year as the leader of the Cavaliers by calling it corny. If all that isn’t weird enough for you, the Grizzlies remain on a mind-boggling surge , led by the sudden N.B.A. powerhouse duo of Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol, whom SI.com’s Chris Mannix has dubbed the bruise brothers. The N.H.L. is throwing some odd twists into its playoffs as well. It’s usually about this time of year that the San Jose Sharks forget how to keep pucks out of their own net, but they are suddenly blitzing to a 2-0 lead over the usually steady Detroit Red Wings. SI.com’s Darren Eliot tries to get to the bottom of this while ESPN.com’s Scott Burnside lauds Tampa Bay’s sudden outburst of character in its 2-0 lead over Washington. If you are looking for character in baseball, steer wide of the Atlanta pitching coach Roger McDowell — which would be a wise move just out of general principle — although baseball is giving you a hand in that by suspending him for two weeks and sending him to sensitivity training, after he went on a homophobic rant at some fans in San Francisco. It’s hard to imagine McDowell has any sensitivity that might have any hope of being trained. So, if there is any extra perspective floating around out there in the sports universe after Sunday, consider shipping it to Atlanta. Follow Leading Off on Twitter: twitter.com/zinsernyt
|
Baseball;New York Mets;Philadelphia Phillies;bin Laden Osama;James LeBron;Randolph Zach;Basketball
|
ny0295312
|
[
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] |
2016/12/27
|
Alabama Win in 1926 Rose Bowl Put Southern Stamp on College Football
|
The first time Alabama played Washington, in the 1926 Rose Bowl, the Crimson Tide arrived in Pasadena, Calif., more than a week early. The Huskies, by contrast, did not come down from Seattle until the day before the game, because their officials had determined, according to a New York Times article from Dec. 26, 1925, that “experience has proved that the Huskies play better when they have not been exposed to the enervating Southern breezes for any length of time.” Washington still might have come too soon. On Jan. 1, 1926, Alabama won, 20-19, with a robust passing game that included what was purported to be the longest forward pass in football history at the time, a 59-yard touchdown that, at least initially, was listed at 65 yards. Though the outcome of that game might not seem to be much more than a footnote eight decades later, to Alabama fans — whose fight song instructs them to “remember the Rose Bowl” — it remains central to their mythology. ( The university produced a documentary about the game in 1997. ) More than that, the 1926 Rose Bowl was one of the most significant college football games ever. And, in the way that it is said that the flaps of a butterfly’s wings can alter the trajectory of history, it is arguably responsible for the rematch between the teams that will take place on Saturday afternoon in Atlanta, when No. 1 Alabama (13-0) will face No. 4 Washington (12-1) in a College Football Playoff semifinal. The 1926 game put Southern college football on the map. It is the variant that has now come to dominate and even define the sport, with nine of the past 10 national champions hailing from the region, and Alabama now laying claim to 16 national titles. Image Alabama Coach Wallace Wade and his players watched Washington warm up before the game. Alabama and Washington will meet again on Saturday. Credit University of Alabama But back then, Alabama and the entire South were still looking for legitimacy even though college football — born a few years after the Civil War ended — was already a half-century old. “The Northern Invasion, I think they called it,” said Derek Johnson, the author of several books about Huskies football. “Beating Washington was a big deal.” Southern football had spent decades in a state of justifiable disrespect. The teams could not compete with the Northeastern programs that had developed this rugby knockoff, nor could they beat the Midwestern teams that had adopted it. “Before 1910, the South really lagged behind the rest of the country, certainly the East and the Midwest, in its development,” said Kent Stephens, the historian and curator of the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta. “Before that time, if they had rankings, you’d never find a Southern team in the top 20. Same would have been true of all-American rankings.” When Southern teams occasionally ventured north for intersectional games, the results could be grim. In 1890, Princeton beat Virginia, 116-0. In 1905, Vanderbilt lost to Michigan, 18-0, prompting a Nashville sportswriter — quoted in an academic paper by Andy Doyle, a professor at Winthrop University who has researched the history of sports in the South — to praise the Commodores for their “greatest triumph since the team was organized.” For Southerners — or at least white Southerners, who were the only ones allowed to play on big-time Southern teams at the time — those losses stung. Playing football, the game of East Coast preps, was an attempt to put themselves and their region on even footing after decades of being behind, economically and culturally, after the Civil War and Reconstruction. Image Alabama scored all of its points in the third quarter, the first coming on a touchdown by Pooley Hubert. Credit University of Alabama “It was an elite sport, created on Northeastern campuses,” Doyle said. “The Southern elite and middle class were adopting football and attaining proficiency at it to prove that they belonged in the charmed circle.” Slowly, the South improved. Georgia Tech, led by Coach John Heisman, claimed a national title in 1917. Kentucky’s Centre College beat Harvard in 1921. Alabama beat Penn in 1922. Southern teams, starting with Alabama, began to place players on all-American lists. One marker of legitimacy remained untouched, however: a berth in the Rose Bowl. Back then, teams that did not get a bid to play in Pasadena could not count on a consolation such as the Camellia Bowl, much less the Peach Bowl. The granddaddy of them all, as the Rose Bowl became known after its creation in 1902, was the only postseason game until the 1930s, and it was explicitly conceived as an “Atlantic-Pacific coast game,” as one contemporaneous article put it. Previous matchups had included Stanford-Michigan, Oregon-Penn, California-Ohio State — but no Southern teams. Still, by the mid-1920s, many prominent teams had taken to turning down postseason bids, as a feeling that college football had become too commercial swept the sport. In fact, days before the 1926 Rose Bowl, at the Hotel Astor in Manhattan, the presidents of Dartmouth and Ohio State joined a general and a bishop at the N.C.A.A.’s convention to discuss “The Place of Athletics in an Educational Program.” They sought to find, The Times reported, “a cure-all for the overemphasis bugaboo and lightening the load which modern conditions now put upon the football coach.” (It is possible that they failed.) But Rose Bowl officials required an opponent for Washington. Eventually and reluctantly, they secured Alabama, and the Pacific Coast Conference prevailed upon Washington to change its earlier decision not to accept the bid. After Alabama won, the notion that the victory had been another blow for the Lost Cause was not really the subtext of the South’s reaction — it was the text. The next year, according to Doyle, as the Crimson Tide were set to meet Stanford in the Rose Bowl, Gov. William W. Brandon of Alabama said in a pep talk, “May each member of your team turn his face to the sun-kissed hills of Alabama and fight like hell as did your sires in bygone days.” The message did not produce another victory; Stanford and Alabama tied, 7-7. But the South had won its own kind of victory. “Starting with that Alabama game, of the next 21 Rose Bowls, 14 included schools from below the Mason-Dixon line,” Stephens said. Under Bear Bryant, Alabama claimed six national championships in the 1960s and 1970s. Other Southern teams, such as Tennessee and Georgia Tech, also built formidable programs. Today, the Southeastern Conference’s run of dominance is a major story line, and Alabama, which is hunting an astonishing fifth title in eight seasons, is heavily favored to beat the Huskies. The script, in effect, has been flipped. “These days,” said Johnson, the Huskies’ chronicler, “I think the Pac-12 and the West Coast — and maybe even the North — has an inferiority complex to the South.”
|
College football;Rose Bowl Game;University of Alabama;Southern US;University of Washington
|
ny0092780
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2015/08/31
|
Jason Rezaian’s Status Unclear After Iran Sentences 2
|
TEHRAN — Iran’s judiciary sentenced two people to 10 years in prison on Sunday for spying for the United States and Israel, but their names were not released, local media reported. It was not clear if the Iranian-American reporter Jason Rezaian, who faces similar charges, was one of them. It is not uncommon in Iran to hand down sentences without revealing names of the convicted, especially in matters involving national security. Judiciary spokesman Gholami Hossein Mohseni Ejei told reporters that a revolutionary court, which is also handling Mr. Rezaian’s case, had sentenced the two “due to their espionage for the United States and Israel,” he said according to the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency. Iran in the past has organized court cases for those charged with spying, in one instance even executing one before the announcement of his trial, in 2010. That man, Ali-Akbar Siadat, was hanged at Evin Prison in Tehran after he had been found guilty of passing information about the country’s military capability to Israel, including on Iran’s missile program. Relatives of Mr. Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter who has been held in Iran since July 2014, are waiting for a verdict to be issued, after court proceedings against Mr. Rezaian ended earlier this month. Mr. Mohseni Ejei said that he did not know whether a verdict in his case had been reached. “But the final session took place two weeks ago,” he said. Mr. Rezaian is charged with spying and assisting the “hostile” American government, Iran’s judiciary has said. Despite four sessions in a closed court, no further details of the case or the allegations have been publicized. According to Iranian law, a verdict needs to be issued one week after the final court session. Mr. Rezaian’s last session was held on August 10. Instead of issuing a verdict, Iran’s judiciary issued a statement saying that it was up to the judge, Abdelqassem Salavati, to decide whether the August 10 session was the final one. State TV quoted Mr. Rezaian’s lawyer, Leila Ahsan, as saying that a verdict had been issued but not announced, but in a phone interview she denied that she had said such a thing. “I said I suppose a verdict has been issued by now, but I have no further information,” Ms. Ahsan said. In a news conference this month, Iran’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Marzieh Afkham, highlighted the fate of what she said were 19 Iranian citizens in American prisons. Analysts said this could be a hint for a potential prisoner swap, but another Iranian official ruled out such a plan. “An exchange of Jason Rezaian is not on the agenda. Each of the issues has their own separate case,” Hassan Qashqavi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister in charge of legal and consular affairs, was quoted as saying in Iranian semiofficial news agencies Tasnim and Fars. In October, Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi, announced the arrest of multiple spies in Bushehr Province, home to Iran’s first nuclear plant. It is unclear whether the two convictions are related to this case. “Some [spying] services like Mossad, the MI6 and the C.I.A. and the countries which are enemies of Iran are naturally in pursuit of negative objectives in the Islamic Republic or sometimes they act directly and leave negative effects in political, economic and social fields,” Mr. Alavi had said, referring to the spy agencies of Israel, Britain and the United States. “Our nuclear, defense and missile industries and advanced technologies are the arenas in which they seek to gain intelligence and carry out sabotage operations,” he added. Iranian officials often accuse separatists along its borders of working for western intelligence agencies. In 2010, mysterious explosions took out several gas pipeline hubs across the country. In 2011, the top commander of Iran’s missile program was killed in a huge blast that many say was also caused by sabotage. Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei, the lawyer for Amir Hekmati, the Iranian-American Marine veteran who was convicted of spying for the C.I.A. in 2012 by an Iranian court, said he had no idea who the two convicted spies were or what they have done. “I am trying to get a pardon for my client,” Mr. Tabatabaei said of Mr. Hekmati. “They now agree he is not a spy,” he said of the courts that are still studying his case. “But they still accuse him of cooperating with the United States as an Iranian, in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.”
|
Iran;Jason Rezaian;Political prisoner;Washington Post;Criminal Sentence;News media,journalism;Spying and Intelligence Agencies
|
ny0016923
|
[
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] |
2013/10/06
|
Ohio State Rallies in Big Ten Showdown
|
Carlos Hyde ran for 3 touchdowns and a career-high 168 yards, and No. 4 Ohio State rallied to a 40-30 victory at No. 16 Northwestern on Saturday night, extending the nation’s longest winning streak to 18 games. On a rain-soaked field, the Buckeyes (6-0, 2-0 Big Ten) rallied from a 10-point third-quarter deficit and remained undefeated since Urban Meyer took over as the coach before last season. Northwestern (4-1, 0-1) was aiming to show it could beat the best in the conference, but two fourth-quarter scoring runs by Hyde helped prevent that. ALABAMA 45, GEORGIA ST. 3 A J McCarron completed 15 of 16 passes for 166 yards and 4 touchdowns in the first half, and No. 1 Alabama (5-0) routed visiting Georgia State (0-5). OREGON 57, COLORADO 16 Marcus Mariota, who played only two and a half quarters, threw for five touchdowns and ran for two, and No. 2 Oregon (5-0, 2-0 Pacific-12) brushed off some early trickery to win at Colorado (2-2, 0-2). CLEMSON 49, SYRACUSE 14 Tajh Boyd threw for 455 yards and 5 touchdowns in three quarters, and No. 3 Clemson (5-0, 3-0) topped host Syracuse (2-3, 0-1) to spoil the Orange’s Atlantic Coast Conference debut. GEORGIA 34, TENNESSEE 31 Georgia scored a tying touchdown with five seconds left in regulation, and the No. 6 Bulldogs (4-1, 3-0 Southeastern Conference) overcame several injuries to win at Tennessee (3-3, 0-2) in overtime. F.S.U. 63, MARYLAND 0 Jameis Winston threw for 393 yards and 5 touchdowns, and No. 8 Florida State (5-0, 3-0 A.C.C.) cruised to a home victory over No. 25 Maryland (4-1, 0-1), which seemed lost after quarterback C. J. Brown left the game with a concussion. L.S.U. 59, MISSISSIPPI ST. 26 Zach Mettenberger threw for 340 yards and 2 touchdowns, Odell Beckham Jr. had nine catches for 179 yards and 2 scores, and No. 10 Louisiana State (5-1, 2-1 SEC) won on the road, its 14th straight victory over Mississippi State (2-3, 0-2). Image Georgia’s Josh Harvey-Clemons stopping Tennessee’s Rajion Neal, who ran for 148 yards and scored two touchdowns. Credit Wade Payne/Associated Press The game was tight until the first play of the fourth quarter, when Mettenberger found Beckham for a 33-yard touchdown that gave the Tigers a 38-26 lead. OKLAHOMA 20, T.C.U. 17 Brennan Clay ran for a 76-yard score late in the fourth quarter, and No. 11 Oklahoma (5-0, 2-0 Big 12) held off visiting Texas Christian (2-3, 0-2). Oklahoma’s defense opened with seven straight three-and-outs. S. CAROLINA 35, KENTUCKY 28 Connor Shaw passed for a touchdown and ran for another as No. 13 South Carolina, playing without the injured defensive end Jadeveon Clowney, held off a comeback by visiting Kentucky (1-4, 0-2 SEC). The Gamecocks (4-1, 2-1) led by 21-0 in the second quarter. MIAMI 45, GEORGIA TECH 30 Duke Johnson ran for 184 yards, and No. 14 Miami (5-0, 1-0 A.C.C.) shook off a problematic first quarter to beat visiting Georgia Tech (3-2, 2-2). BAYLOR 73, WEST VIRGINIA 42 Bryce Petty threw for two touchdowns and had one of Baylor’s eight rushing scores as the No. 17 Bears (4-0, 1-0) racked up 864 total yards, a Big 12 record, and beat visiting West Virginia (3-3, 1-2). Petty had 347 passing yards while playing only one drive into the second half. FLORIDA 30, ARKANSAS 10 Solomon Patton turned two short receptions into touchdowns, finishing with six catches for a career-high 124 yards, to help No. 18 Florida (4-1, 3-0 SEC) beat visiting Arkansas (3-3, 0-2). TEXAS TECH 54, KANSAS 16 Baker Mayfield passed for 368 yards but was helped off the field with a leg injury in the third quarter as No. 20 Texas Tech (5-0, 2-0 Big 12) beat host Kansas (2-2, 0-1). OKLAHOMA ST. 33, KANSAS ST. 29 J. W. Walsh found Charlie Moore for a 6-yard touchdown pass with 4 minutes 16 seconds left in the fourth quarter to help No. 21 Oklahoma State (4-1, 1-1 Big 12) rally past visiting Kansas State (2-3, 0-2). NOTRE DAME 37, ARIZONA ST. 34 Tommy Rees threw for 279 yards and 3 touchdowns, and Notre Dame (4-2) moved to 5-0 in its annual Shamrock Series games by beating No. 22 Arizona State (3-2) at AT&T Stadium, the home of the Dallas Cowboys. AUBURN 30, MISSISSIPPI 22 Nick Marshall ran for 140 yards and 2 touchdowns, and host Auburn held off No. 24 Mississippi (3-2, 1-2) for its first win over a top-25 team in two years. The Tigers (4-1, 2-1 SEC) have already topped their win total from last season, when they finished 3-9. FRESNO ST. 61, IDAHO 14 Derek Carr threw five touchdown passes as No. 23 Fresno State (5-0) pounded host Idaho (1-5), scoring at least 40 points for the fifth time this season.
|
College football;Ohio State;Northwestern University
|
ny0222302
|
[
"business",
"global"
] |
2010/11/02
|
Axel Weber, Favored to Lead Europe’s Central Bank, a Dissenter
|
FRANKFURT EVEN people who have known Axel A. Weber for years are not quite sure why he has breached European Central Bank etiquette — and dimmed his chances of becoming Europe ’s top central banker — by discussing policy spats outside the clubhouse. As the default favorite to succeed Jean-Claude Trichet as president of the bank a year from now, the safe path for Mr. Weber would simply be to keep a low profile. Instead, Mr. Weber has stridently voiced his dissent on decisions that most on the bank council have made since May to combat the European sovereign debt crisis. Normally, little inside information escapes the conference room high in the European Central Bank headquarters, where members of the governing council meet twice a month around a large doughnut-shaped conference table. Does Mr. Weber, now the president of the Bundesbank, not want Mr. Trichet’s job? Is he simply not able to keep his views to himself? Or is he simply making sure that European heads of government know exactly what they are getting if they put him in charge of monetary policy for the countries that use the euro ? “My own judgment is that he is certainly not making it easier to select him for the job,” said Jan Pieter Krahnen, a professor of finance at Goethe-University Frankfurt and director of the Center for Financial Studies. “He clearly states that ‘I will not be an easy person to deal with. With me you will not get a dependent central bank,’ ” said Mr. Krahnen, who was co-director with Mr. Weber of the center from 1998 to 2002. Mr. Weber surprised analysts and investors when, in May, he made it clear he did not support the E.C.B.’s unprecedented decision to buy government bonds to slow a sell-off of Greek government debt and other troubled sovereign paper. Mr. Weber surprised them again when — despite the furor his first round of comments provoked — he repeated his criticism last month during a speech in New York, where he called on the E.C.B. to end the so-called Securities Markets Program. “As the risks associated with the S.M.P. outweigh its benefits, these securities purchases should now be phased out permanently,” Mr. Weber argued. In fact, the E.C.B. has not bought any bonds in the last three weeks, though it has not formally ended the program. Just last week, during a speech to an audience of business executives in Frankfurt, Mr. Weber split from Mr. Trichet again. Siding with Germany ’s chancellor, Angela Merkel , he argued that in future debt crises, bond investors should have to share the costs when a government gets in financial trouble, rather than leaving taxpayers with the bill. That same day in Brussels , Mr. Trichet had argued that talk of making investors pay would only unsettle bond markets and complicate efforts to deal with the current crisis. “I wish that in the future, the E.C.B. would speak with one voice,” Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg and head of the so-called euro group, complained to the German newspaper Die Welt in an interview published Monday. Mr. Weber also seems to have annoyed Mr. Trichet, who almost never publicly criticizes his colleagues. Since taking office in 2003, Mr. Trichet has toiled for consensus among the members of the council. That was no mean task, given that most are themselves presidents of their countries’ central banks , with their own administrations to command and constituencies to serve. Asked about Mr. Weber’s comments by the Italian newspaper La Stampa last month, Mr. Trichet said, “There is only one single currency; there is one governing council, only one monetary policy decision, and one president, who is also the porte-parole of the governing council,” using the French word for spokesman. There are signs that other countries are seizing on Mr. Weber’s behavior to try to block his appointment. French newspapers reported last month that President Nicolas Sarkozy of France now considered Mr. Weber unacceptable. But there are few other obvious candidates who would pass political muster and also possess the stature and intellect to do a job that could be the most powerful in Europe. Mario Draghi, governor of the Bank of Italy , has raised his profile recently as chairman of the Financial Stability Board, a panel based in Basel , Switzerland , that has a mandate from the Group of 20 countries to make proposals for a more resilient financial system. Mr. Draghi has stuck to the E.C.B. hymn sheet in his public comments but could suffer from having worked as vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International from 2002 to 2005. The investment bank helped Greece mask the true extent of its financial problems. Other candidates, like Nout Wellink, president of the Bank of the Netherlands and chairman of a prominent panel that is rewriting global banking regulations, are dark horses. Germany, as the largest financial contributor to the euro zone, inherently has a strong claim to supply the next E.C.B. president. Mr. Trichet is French and his predecessor, Wim Duisenberg , was Dutch. The decision on who succeeds Mr. Trichet will have wide significance for the European economy. If leaders choose Mr. Weber, a militant on price stability issues, there would be an effect on bond prices, bank lending and other investment decisions tied to the inflation rate. If investors expect inflation to be low, bond yields could fall and banks could become more willing to lend. But investors might also expect interest rates to rise, which would raise borrowing costs and make it more difficult for countries like Greece to solve their debt problems. “If you get a president like Weber, that is a clear signal that there is absolutely no way we will be giving up on the inflation front,” said Silvio Peruzzo, a euro area economist at Royal Bank of Scotland . “The market reaction will be quite quick.” Among people who know Mr. Weber, the most likely explanation for his vocal dissent is simply that he feels too strongly about some issues to keep quiet. “He is a man who honestly speaks his opinion,” said Jürgen von Hagen, a professor of economics at the University of Bonn , where Mr. Weber taught from 1994 to 1998. “I think he is truly worried about the independence of the E.C.B.” A stocky 53-year-old and father of two who wears his dark hair slicked back, Mr. Weber spent most of his career as a university professor, teaching in Bonn, Frankfurt and Cologne . He became president of the Bundesbank in 2004 after serving on the German government’s council of economic experts, an influential advisory body. As co-director of the Center of Financial Studies, Mr. Weber pushed for more interchange between the academic community and banks, which had avoided each other. He was crucial in organizing an annual conference that brings E.C.B. policy makers together with professors and analysts who focus on monetary issues, requiring the camps to confront one another in person. “Some professors sit critically on the sidelines,” Mr. Krahnen said. “This was not Axel’s position. He was more into dialogue, research with practical applications.” Though he enjoys a vigorous debate, Mr. Weber is not dogmatic, Mr. Krahnen said. “He listens, he argues,” Mr. Krahnen said. “He is not like other people I have seen in senior positions who basically don’t question their own views.” “He has always been, as far as I can remember, a very outspoken person and not the diplomat you see in these positions,” he added. While Mr. Weber enjoys wide respect for his intellect, some question whether that lack of diplomacy could be a liability. Certainly Mr. Weber would be a very different E.C.B. president compared with Mr. Trichet, a lifelong civil servant known for decorum. “It is a good thing to have an internal debate,” said Marie Diron, a former E.C.B. economist who now provides advice on economic issues to Ernst & Young, the consulting firm. “But once the decision is taken, debate is harmful. It increases volatility in the markets, which is not helpful.”
|
European Central Bank;Jean-Claude Trichet
|
ny0032872
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2013/12/11
|
Lebanon Worries That Housing Will Make Syrian Refugees Stay
|
WADI KHALED, Lebanon — The modest shelter housing some Syrian refugees here, a few hundred yards south of the border with Syria, hardly looks objectionable. Made of plywood walls on a concrete foundation of some 250 square feet, with one door, two windows and a corrugated zinc roof, the squat structure is called a “box shelter.” But Lebanon has banned box shelters, regarding them as a threat to this already fragile nation. In the eyes of the Lebanese, the box shelters, made by the Danish Refugee Council, look too permanent and could encourage the Syrians to stay. “The fear of permanence is very embedded in the Lebanese political psyche,” said Makram Malaeb, a manager in the Syrian refugee crisis unit at the Ministry of Social Affairs. “We had Palestinian refugees who were supposed to stay here for a month in 1948, and now they are a population of 500,000. And we went through a 15-year civil war where the Palestinians were a large player.” Of the many factors complicating the world’s response to the Syrian refugee crisis, none are perhaps more peculiar to the Middle East than Lebanon’s deep-seated fear of permanence. The Lebanese have so far rejected the establishment of any refugee camp, citing their long, troubled history with Palestinian camps on their soil. Acutely aware of the history of refugee housing — flimsy tents that metamorphosed over decades into concrete multistory dwellings — the Lebanese view even the most modest of new shelters for Syrians with suspicion. Designs by other aid groups have also been rejected, including one by Ikea, the Swedish retailer of assemble-it-yourself furniture. Theirs may have been tweaked with soft walls, less sturdy flooring and frames capable of quick dismantling, but they still gave off the whiff of permanence. “Does the government want us to sleep in tents?” asked Ahmed al-Hussein, 18, a refugee who now lives in a box shelter. As the Syrian neighbor most vulnerable to being drawn into the war there, Lebanon has adopted a seemingly contradictory attitude toward the influx of Syrians. It has been the most welcoming, accepting hundreds of thousands of refugees, who along with the many Syrians already living in Lebanon now make up a quarter of the country’s population. And yet, fearing that they will stay and disrupt the country’s delicate balance among Sunnis, Shiites and Christians, Lebanon has tried to minimize their presence. The refugees, who are mostly Sunni Muslims, are now believed to rival Lebanese Christians in numbers, and to have helped make Sunnis the nation’s dominant religious group. Those fears have forced the refugees to try to squeeze into pre-existing buildings and blend into the landscape. Those with means rent apartments. But hundreds of thousands are living in garages and occupying the nooks and crannies of buildings under construction. Abandoned buildings, including universities and shopping malls, have been taken over in their entirety by refugees. With the arrival of winter, the politics of shelters has left legions of Syrians particularly vulnerable, though relief organizations have been scrambling to deliver blankets, heating fuel and other items. A severe winter storm was expected to sweep across northern and central Lebanon by midweek, bringing heavy snow and fierce winds to areas with the poorest refugees. The Danish Refugee Council began building the box shelters more than a year ago. Mindful of Lebanon’s sensitivities, it struck deals with homeowners who accepted the construction of the shelters as an addition to their property; the shelters would belong to the homeowners after the refugees left. But as the number of refugees swelled this year, so did the shelters, eventually totaling 160. The number was small, given the total number of refugees, but it was enough to unsettle the government. “They were concerned that we were building more and more of the box shelters,” said Imad Aoun, a spokesman for the council. “So we stopped a couple of months ago.” The government ordered the aid groups to stop building new shelters, though existing ones were grandfathered. Faisa Abdullah, a Lebanese homeowner who had two box shelters planted in her back yard, said the decision should be left to individual landlords. “Where will the Syrians go?” she said. Expressing the widespread pessimism over a resolution to the war in the near future, she added, “Will they be able to go back to Syria before the next 10 years?” The government, Mr. Malaeb of the Social Affairs Ministry said, was worried that besides creating the impression of permanence, the box shelters might have a negative impact on the poor areas where the refugees are concentrated. “This will create resentment among poor Lebanese who see the Syrians getting these semi-bungalows installed,” he said. With the box shelters running into trouble, others came forward with more temporary-looking options. The Norwegian Refugee Council designed a softcover shelter held together by metal frames over a concrete foundation. If the base proved objectionable, the shelter could be erected over one made of plastic and gravel. The government nixed it either way. “Our understanding is that they didn’t wish any perception of permanence,” said Roger Dean, the organization’s shelter program manager. “We were never quite sure what the sticking point was, whether it was the fact that it had a rigid metal frame or the fact that it was usually to be cemented into the ground.” The United Nations refugee agency asked the government if it could test a modular shelter designed by Ikea that was lightweight and could be assembled in four hours. Even more important, it had a life span of five years. “The refugees could erect them and put them down and take them home,” said Ninette Kelley, the refugee agency’s representative in Lebanon. “Even that wasn’t acceptable because it had the appearance of permanence. It’s almost a visceral reaction to anything that could suggest the ongoing nature of the presence of refugees in Lebanon.” Some aid groups are navigating the politics of shelters by focusing on buildings that are already part of the landscape. The Norwegian Refugee Council found that Lebanon was dotted with countless half-finished buildings — a legacy of the rebuilding that followed its long civil war but was interrupted by an economic slump in recent years. It has added doors, windows, basic kitchens and bathrooms to 7,000 such buildings, investing about $1,500 per refugee family, Mr. Dean said. In return, the landlords allow refugees to live rent-free in the buildings for one year. In one upgraded house near the southern city of Tyr, the owner, Ahmed al-Nasrallah, said he had yet to decide whether to allow the refugees to stay beyond the one-year contract. “If the Norwegians fix my house more, I might consider it,” he said. In the northern province of Akkar, Concern Worldwide, an Irish organization whose shelter prototype also failed to receive Lebanon’s endorsement, has been transforming large chicken coops into multifamily dwellings. Concern upgrades the coops and pays the owners $500 a month over a three-year contract. “Chicken farms-to-homes might sound bad,” said John Kilkenny, Concern’s country director, standing on the roof of a building that was being turned into a residence for 24 Syrian families. “But it’s simply a reflection of where we are with the government.”
|
Lebanon;Syria;Refugees,Internally Displaced People;Real Estate; Housing;Arab Spring
|
ny0005718
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2013/04/14
|
President Obama’s Budget Revives Benefits as Divisive Issue
|
WASHINGTON — Whether or not Republicans ever agree to a budget deal with President Obama, one thing seems certain: now that he has officially put Social Security and Medicare benefits on the negotiating table, opponents on his party’s left will make that an issue for Democrats in the midterm elections next year — and perhaps in the 2016 presidential contest. In the midterm races already taking shape, Democrats who back Mr. Obama’s budget proposals to trim future benefits as part of a long-term deficit-reduction compromise could be attacked from the left and the right. Liberal groups and some union activists are threatening to recruit candidates to challenge these Democrats in their primaries. At the same time, the head of the House Republicans’ campaign committee gleefully signaled last week that he would use Mr. Obama’s “shocking attack on seniors” against Democrats in general-election races — though Republican Congressional leaders demanded the concessions from Mr. Obama. And while party leaders rebuked the campaign committee chief, Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, individual Republican candidates and “super PACs” would be free to wage their own attacks. For now, at least, the political warnings to Democrats are coming mostly from the left of their own party. “You cannot be a good Democrat and cut Social Security,” said Arshad Hasan, the executive director of Democracy for America, a liberal grass-roots group, which staged a small protest outside the White House last week even before Mr. Obama released his annual budget on Wednesday. “People would be looking to punish them,” said Robert Borosage, a co-founder of the Campaign for America’s Future, another liberal group, “and they would be looking for primary challengers.” Even if Democratic incumbents do not draw a primary challenger, liberal activists say, they might face a shortage of volunteers motivated enough to do the hard work of campaigning — just as Democrats did in the 2010 midterms, which resulted in big Republican gains. Looking further ahead, to 2016, some on the left have already begun talking about encouraging a liberal Democrat — the freshman Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is the name most bandied — to take up the “don’t touch Social Security or Medicare” banner as part of a liberal bid for the party’s nomination to succeed Mr. Obama, even against Hillary Rodham Clinton or Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Such talk was stoked when Ms. Warren, within hours of the release of the president’s budget on Wednesday, sent supporters an e-mail sounding an alarm: “Our Social Security system is critical to protecting middle-class families, and we cannot allow it to be dismantled inch by inch.” She was not available for an interview, aides said on Friday. “If the major candidates running for the Democratic nomination hedge on important issues like Social Security, they will leave open a tremendous amount of space for an insurgent,” said Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a group often critical of Mr. Obama. But, Mr. Green acknowledged, “I wouldn’t say anybody’s laying the groundwork yet.” At a minimum, Mr. Borosage said, all Democratic candidates in 2014 or 2016 “will be forced to take a stand.” That prospect could complicate the campaign strategies of establishment favorites. Mr. Biden is inevitably tied to Mr. Obama’s policies. And Mrs. Clinton, as a senator, was a fiscal moderate who extolled her husband’s budget-balancing record of compromise. President Bill Clinton negotiated Medicare savings with Congressional Republicans, and their 1997 deal nearly included the same proposal trimming Social Security cost-of-living increases that Mr. Obama has put in his budget to entice Republicans to compromise in turn. Ideological litmus tests have lately been more divisive for Republicans than for Democrats, over taxes and social issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and immigration. But the agitation on the left to defend Social Security and Medicare, the two programs that Democrats consider perhaps their party’s greatest legacy, did not begin last week with Mr. Obama’s new budget. It had been building since mid-2011, when the president, in private negotiations with Speaker John A. Boehner, tentatively agreed to the new formula for calculating cost-of-living adjustments in Social Security; economists recommend the formula as more accurate, but it would mean smaller increases for Social Security beneficiaries. Even so, Democrats in Congress and the White House agree that the party would have supported Mr. Obama back then if a compromise deal had come to a vote. But the 2011 talks, just like a second round of negotiations in December, collapsed after Mr. Boehner declined to agree to Mr. Obama’s counterdemands: new taxes on the wealthy and on some corporations, and job-creating investments in infrastructure projects, research and education. As his second term began, Mr. Obama used his annual budget proposal to make his most public overture toward compromise yet. The budget, incorporating the final December offer to Mr. Boehner, also proposed other cuts in spending for domestic programs and the military and $400 billion in savings over 10 years from Medicare. Those savings would come mostly from reducing payments to hospitals and pharmaceutical manufacturers, but also from trimming benefits and raising out-of-pocket costs for higher-income beneficiaries. Liberals found much to praise, like Mr. Obama’s proposed new spending for road construction, nationwide prekindergarten education and advanced manufacturing research; a higher federal minimum wage; and reduced tax breaks for the wealthy. But they were shocked that he proposed the new cost-of-living formula. With that as the kindling, their opposition movement intensified. More than two years away from Democrats’ presidential-nominating contest, however, it is hard to see who could or would become the left’s standard-bearer. Besides Ms. Warren, other party leaders mentioned include Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. Certainly an unexpected candidate could emerge, as Mr. Obama did in the 2008 race. Three years ahead of that year’s nominating convention, few Democrats saw him as a likely candidate, much less one who could vanquish Mrs. Clinton. Now Mrs. Clinton is again seen as the nearly invincible front-runner, should she choose to run. Many potential aspirants, including Ms. Warren, are widely considered unlikely to challenge her as Mr. Obama did in 2008. Back then, the issue that he seized was opposition to the Iraq war. In 2004, Democrats’ disgust with that war had powered Howard Dean’s liberal challenge to Senator John Kerry, who ultimately defeated Mr. Dean for the nomination. Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster, said that while the issue of protecting Social Security and Medicare could be potent in coming Congressional and presidential campaigns, it “will not be galvanizing in 2016 quite the way that voting for the Iraq war was.” “Certainly today, and presumably still at the time of the next election, President Obama has enormous credibility with Democratic voters, particularly liberal Democrats,” Mr. Garin said. That credibility extends, he added, to the president’s case for making changes that bolster the finances of the social-insurance programs for future generations. “While I have no doubt that there would be some Democratic voters who rally around a candidate who runs on a ‘don’t touch Social Security or Medicare’ platform,” Mr. Garin added, “there would not be enough to sustain a candidacy unless that candidate has a lot of other things going for him or her.”
|
Democrats;2016 Presidential Election;US Politics;Barack Obama;Health Insurance;Social Security;Federal Budget;Medicare;US
|
ny0199038
|
[
"business"
] |
2009/07/31
|
It May Be Outrageous, but Wall Street Pay Didn’t Cause This Crisis
|
There is a lot about Wall Street pay to make the rest of us livid, or at least jealous. And now Congress seems poised to act on it. The House of Representatives is expected to pass on Friday a bill to empower regulators to change what the bill’s sponsor, Barney Frank, calls “imprudently risky compensation practices” on Wall Street. Other companies will have to face regular shareholder votes on pay, although the votes will be nonbinding, and board compensation committees will have to jump through more hoops. The big winners will be compensation consultants, for whom there are likely to be more jobs available as conflicts of interest force companies to hire more consultants. I doubt all of this will hurt very much, unlike the last Congressional stab at doing something about excessive executive pay , passed when Jimmy Carter was president. That led to soaring pay and some of the abuses that now outrage people. But neither will it do much good. It is galling to see executives making tens of millions of dollars for running companies that have to be bailed out by taxpayers, but there is little evidence that big pay — or the incentives connected to it — caused the financial train wreck that sent the world into recession . To the contrary, there is plenty of evidence that no one who counted — traders, chief executives or regulators — understood the risks that were being taken. A new study shows that banks run by chief executives with a lot of stock were, if anything, likely to do worse than other banks in the crisis. “Bank C.E.O. incentives cannot be blamed for the credit crisis or for the performance of banks during the crisis,” states the study, by René Stulz, an Ohio State University finance professor, and Rüdiger Fahlenbrach of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. “A plausible explanation for these findings is that C.E.O.’s focused on the interests of their shareholders in the build-up to the crisis and took actions that they believed the market would welcome,” Mr. Stulz said. The chief executives were wrong, of course. Most lost tens of millions of dollars in equity value but sold few shares before the crisis hit. Whatever else they lacked, they had plenty of incentive to keep their banks from failing. But those incentives did not matter when they should have. Bankers and regulators believed in the “Great Moderation,” a term popularized by Ben Bernanke, then a member and now the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, in a 2004 speech . Thanks in part to “improvements in monetary policy,” Mr. Bernanke said, without excessive modesty, there had been “a reduction in the extent of economic uncertainty confronting households and firms.” Recessions, he added, “have become less frequent and less severe.” Bankers were not the only ones who concluded that the chances of a very bad outcome were exceedingly low. As year after year went by with nothing very bad happening, they saw no reason not to borrow more and more money to place what they deemed to be safe bets. It may be worth noting that, of the 98 financial companies studied by Professors Stulz and Fahlenbrach, the one with the most valuable holdings of stock and options in his company at the end of 2006 was Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers. His holdings, now worthless, were valued at $1 billion. I had lunch with Mr. Fuld in early 2008, after the financial crisis was under way and less than eight months before Lehman failed. The conversation was off the record, but I am sure he had no inkling of the how great were the risks Lehman faced as a leader in the mortgage securitization business. He was later raked over the coals in Congressional hearings about his huge compensation. That most of it was in stock and options that he never cashed in seemed to be something most legislators could not comprehend. As Congress moves to do something about executive pay, it is worth asking what would have happened if Mr. Fuld had somehow realized in 2005 that the mortgage business was a time bomb and had gotten Lehman out of it. Within a year, its profits would have sagged and its share price collapsed. Mr. Fuld would have been labeled a dunce, and might have lost his job. The same can be said of Jimmy Cayne of Bear Stearns and Stan O’Neal of Merrill Lynch, the two runners-up in the richest bank C.E.O. sweepstakes of 2006. President Obama has proposed legislation to deal with many aspects of the financial crisis, and it is no surprise that this bill is the one that seems to be having the easiest road to passage, even though every Republican voted against it in the House Financial Services Committee. The banks probably realize it won’t make much difference and are doing their most intensive lobbying elsewhere. I asked Professor Stulz what he thought of the bill. “It is hard to believe that regulators will be better at devising compensation plans with proper incentives,” he said. “Properly designed capital requirements are a much more efficient approach to regulate the risk of financial institutions than fiddling with compensation.” Indeed, much of the financial “innovation” of recent years consisted of bankers coming up with ways to evade capital requirements. The regulators are now trying to deal with that, but their efforts are handicapped by bankers warning that they will maker fewer loans if capital rules are tightened. That said, the bill could help some. The Sarbanes-Oxley law, passed in 2002, does seem to have resulted in board audit committees taking their jobs much more seriously. It would be good if the same happened at compensation committees. Perhaps it will do some good to tie compensation to long-term results, or to force executives to hold stock rather than sell it quickly when options vest. Still, as Alan Blinder, the Princeton economist and former vice chairman of the Fed, wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal: “The executives, lawyers and accountants who design compensation systems are imaginative, skilled and definitely not disinterested. Congress and government bureaucrats won’t beat them at this game.” The last time Congress took action in response to populist outrage at executive pay, it changed tax laws to bar salaries of more than $1 million from being deducted as corporate expenses. Payments based on performance could still be deducted. The result was not what Congress intended. At large companies, $1 million soon became a floor, not a ceiling, for the boss’s salary. Bonus and stock option plans proliferated to take advantage of the “performance-based” loophole. Eventually, we got to the oxymoron of “guaranteed bonuses.” Since most of their promised compensation was in the form of bonuses, Wall Streeters could not understand why people thought they should not be paid just because their firms had to be bailed out. A promise is a promise, they said. We can hope that this bill will have fewer unintended consequences. But even if Mr. Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is right to call it “the first step towards comprehensive financial regulatory reform ,” there will have to be much larger steps taken to reach that goal.
|
Executive Compensation;Law and Legislation;United States Politics and Government;Banks and Banking;House of Representatives;Bonuses
|
ny0162799
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2006/02/28
|
On First Pitch, Son Gets the Better of the Father
|
KISSIMMEE, Fla., Feb. 27 - Roger Clemens's son homered on his father's first pitch of spring training Monday, crushing a trademark fastball over the left-field fence. "That was probably one of the harder fastballs I cut loose," Roger Clemens said after pitching to Koby Clemens and other minor leaguers at the Houston Astros' spring training camp. "He got my attention." Then Clemens got Koby's. The next time Koby, 19, his oldest son, came to the plate, Clemens buzzed him high and tight with another fastball. The younger Clemens dodged the pitch, then smiled at his father. Clemens, 43, was applauded by about 100 fans when he walked to the mound behind the Astros' minor-league complex. He made 18 tosses from behind a screen before Koby's home run on his first pitch after the screen was moved away. "I'm getting old," Clemens said. "It happens." Based on what he saw, Koby said his father still had it. "He's just hitting the spots out there," Koby said. "His stuff is pretty nasty." Clemens threw 66 pitches to minor leaguers as he prepared for the World Baseball Classic, then told reporters he was no closer to deciding his future beyond that event. If asked today, he said, he would opt "to go watch baseball" after the Classic. But asked if that meant he was retiring, Clemens said, "I've been trying to do that for a couple of years now, and it's not working." Clemens can't re-sign with the Astros until May 1. But he could sign with another team. Between three simulated innings on the mound, Clemens stretched behind second base with Brian McNamee, his strength coach for the past 10 years. He stretched again after he was done pitching and said he felt close to 100 percent afterward. "I don't think I'm ever going to be too far behind," Clemens said. "Right now, my arm is a little bit ahead of the curve. I want to make sure my legs are where they need to be." To get ready for the Classic, Clemens also has been throwing to players at a Houston high school and at the University of Texas, his alma mater. Clemens will pitch to the minor leaguers at the Astros' camp again Thursday. The minor leaguers are working separately from the Astros, and since Clemens is a free agent, he is, too.
|
HOUSTON (TEX);HOUSTON ASTROS;CLEMENS KOBY;CLEMENS ROGER;BASEBALL;MINOR LEAGUES
|
ny0209123
|
[
"business"
] |
2009/12/16
|
Credit Suisse to Pay Fine Over Dealing With Iran
|
Credit Suisse is expected to pay a fine of $536 million to settle accusations by the United States government and New York State authorities that it violated sanctions by helping Iran and other countries secretly funnel hundreds of millions of dollars through American banks, people involved in the negotiations said Tuesday. Investigators found that the bank, the second-largest in Switzerland, removed information from American-bound wire transfers that would have signaled that the money originated in Iranian banks, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the case. Two of the organizations that Credit Suisse facilitated transactions for, the official said, were the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the Aerospace Industries Organization, both of which are designated as proliferators of weapons of mass destruction by the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control. Both are barred from doing business with the United States. In a statement released Tuesday, Credit Suisse confirmed that it would most likely pay $536 million in a settlement. The release did not provide details about the case, other than to say that it involved dollar payments from 2002 through April 2007 for “parties that are subject to U.S. economic sanctions.” Credit Suisse said it began an internal investigation into the situation in December 2005 and had since changed its practices, including termination of all business with organizations that have been subject to sanctions by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, closing an office in Tehran and appointing a global sanctions compliance officer. An official settlement, which will allow Credit Suisse to avoid prosecution, is expected to be announced on Wednesday, but late Tuesday, the bank issued a statement confirming the fine. In October, Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, announced that his office, the Justice Department and the Federal Reserve were working on a case against a large international “mainstream bank” for allowing illicit financial transactions with Iran, which has long been subject to sanctions by the United States government. In the weeks that followed, Credit Suisse officials negotiated the amount of the fine with federal and state authorities. Mr. Morgenthau declined to comment Tuesday. His office is expected to split the settlement amount evenly with the federal authorities. Under a new state law, Mr. Morgenthau’s office would then disburse his office’s share — $268 million — equally between New York City and the state. The $268 million would be the largest financial settlement that the Manhattan district attorney’s office has ever secured. The fine imposed on Credit Suisse comes at a time of heightened tension between the United States and Iran. The Obama administration recently signaled its intention to push for a new set of sanctions that could further restrict Tehran’s economic and commercial activities unless Iran agrees to bring its nuclear activities under stricter international supervision. Federal and state authorities reached a similar settlement in January with Lloyds TSB, a London-based bank now under British government control. In that case, Lloyds agreed to pay $350 million to settle accusations that it had removed identifying information from transactions originating in Iran, Libya and Sudan. But in the Lloyds case, the authorities were not able to identify specific Iranian organizations that were carrying out the transactions or what was being purchased. The authorities identified more than 7,000 illicit transactions that Credit Suisse facilitated, worth about $700 million, a law enforcement official said. Investigators found an additional $1.1 billion in transactions that had been manipulated, but they have not deemed them as violating sanctions in this case, the official said. Investigators found that Credit Suisse’s employees violated both state and federal laws by falsifying outgoing dollar payment messages that involved Iran. The bank’s employees removed reference to Iran or its banks, a practice called stripping. Not only did Credit Suisse employees strip the wire transfers, but they also advised the Iranian banks on how to format their transfers to avoid detection, according to the official. As a result, investigators say, Iranian banks like Bank Saderat and Bank Melli were able to use Credit Suisse to send more than a billion dollars through New York banks. The Atomic Energy Organization is said to have ties with Iran’s nuclear weapons program, while Aerospace Industries works with long-range missiles, the authorities said. Law enforcement officials said they thought the organizations had been buying materials for their programs. The sellers, most of whom were outside the United States, wanted dollars, and so the money passed through Manhattan banks, law enforcement officials said. But in some cases, a law enforcement official said, the money was used for purchases from United States companies. But the Iranian organizations concealed their identities from the American sellers by setting up shell companies, law enforcement officials said. Credit Suisse also facilitated smaller transactions for banks in other sanctioned countries, including Cuba, Sudan, Burma and Libya, the official said. It has not been a good year for Swiss banks in the United States. In February, UBS was fined $780 million by the Justice Department for helping about 50,000 wealthy Americans evade taxes. UBS admitted criminal wrongdoing in selling offshore banking services that the I.R.S. said it suspected had been used by Americans to avoid taxes. Six months later, in August, UBS turned over the names of about 4,450 of those clients. That move contributed to the decision by 14,700 Americans to join an I.R.S. amnesty program and disclose their previously secret foreign bank accounts. In the fall, UBS received a $5.3 billion capital injection from the Swiss government in return for a 9 percent stake. It was allowed to dispose of up to $60 billion of illiquid securities and impaired assets. The Swiss government offered Credit Suisse a similar deal, but the bank opted to raise money from private investors.
|
Credit Suisse Group;Justice Department;Iran;Embargoes and Economic Sanctions;UBS AG
|
ny0027551
|
[
"sports"
] |
2013/01/19
|
Elena Nikitina of Russia Wins World Cup Skeleton Race
|
Elena Nikitina, 20, of Russia beat Noelle Pikus-Pace of the United States in a World Cup skeleton race in Igls, Austria. It was Nikitina’s first win in only her third Cup start.
|
Skeleton Sport;Noelle Pikus-Pace
|
ny0065260
|
[
"sports",
"hockey"
] |
2014/06/10
|
USA Hockey Permits Use of Safety Feature Resembling Warning Track
|
USA Hockey, the sport’s governing body in the United States, announced Monday that it had permitted use of the Look-Up Line, an orange warning track painted on the ice designed to reduce paralyzing neck injuries that could result from collisions into the boards. However, the measure fell short of mandating its use in American ice rinks. Under the measure, rinks that wish to employ a Look-Up Line are permitted to do so and are encouraged to report their results to the USA Hockey Look-Up Line Safety Task Force. “I was hoping for a strong recommendation, at the very least,” said Tom Smith, a 24-year-old hockey player from Boston who walks with the aid of two canes after having suffered a spinal-cord injury when he crashed into the boards in 2008. “But I’m told this is a giant step, considering that we put down the first Look-Up Line on May 9, 2013, and now we have it down in the policy and rules sections for USA Hockey and the N.C.A.A.” The Look-Up Line is to be painted around the perimeter of the ice surface, extending 40 inches in width from the bottom of the boards. Its goal is to warn players to use caution when giving and receiving checks in the danger area close to the boards. In the past 10 months, Smith said, three players under the jurisdiction of USA Hockey sustained broken necks from collisions with the boards. Smith will serve on the task force, alongside Dr. Michael Stuart of the Mayo Clinic, the chief medical officer for USA Hockey, and two other medical researchers. The USA Hockey board of directors approved the addition of a 10-minute misconduct to any fighting major in the United States Hockey League — the country’s top level of junior hockey — and in the North American Hockey League, the second level. But the resolution fell far short of the automatic ejection and suspension for all fights that researchers had urged.
|
Ice hockey;Sports injury;USA Hockey;Tom Smith
|
ny0202375
|
[
"science",
"earth"
] |
2009/08/02
|
An Underwater Fight Is Waged for the Health of San Francisco Bay
|
SAN FRANCISCO — Chela Zabin will not soon forget when she first glimpsed the golden brown tentacle of the latest alien to settle in the fertile waters of San Francisco Bay. “I had that moment of ‘Oh God, this is it, it’s here,’ ” said Dr. Zabin , a biologist with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. “I was really hoping I was wrong.” The tentacle in question was that of an Asian kelp, Undaria pinnatifida, a flavorful and healthful ingredient in miso soup and an aggressive, costly intruder in waters from New Zealand to Monterey Bay. The kelp, known as wakame (pronounced wa-KA-me), is on a list of “ 100 of the World’s Worst Invasive Alien Species ,” compiled by the Invasive Species Specialist Group . Since her discovery in May, Dr. Zabin and colleagues have pulled up nearly 140 pounds of kelp attached to pilings and boats in the San Francisco Marina alone. Every year the damage wrought by aquatic invaders in the United States and the cost of controlling them is estimated at $9 billion, according to a 2003 study by a Cornell University professor, David Pimentel, whose research is considered the most comprehensive. The bill for controlling two closely-related invasive mussels — the zebra and the quagga — in the Great Lakes alone is $30 million annually, says the United States Federal Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force . Many scientists say that San Francisco Bay has more than 250 nonnative species, like European green crab, Asian zooplankton and other creatures and plants that outcompete native species for food, space and sunlight. “Here you’ve got a veritable smorgasbord of habitats from shallow and muddy to deep water,” said Lars Anderson, a lead scientist with the United States Agriculture Department. The Oakland port ranks as the fourth busiest in the nation, and ships bring in tiny hitchhikers from across the globe to take up residence in the bay. Most invasive aquatic species arrive stuck to hulls or as stowaways in ballast water. Wakame first arrived at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in 2000, Dr. Zabin and other scientists said. A year later it had moved south into Baja California and north as far as Monterey Bay, where scientists in scuba suits yanked it off boat hulls and marina moorings. “It’s just like gardening, you can pull out all the weeds you want, but there will always be that little dandelion seed that will sprout and recolonize,” said Steve Lonhart , senior scientist at the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary . The kelp, which can grow an inch a day, could spread as far north as Canada before the water becomes too cold to sustain it, Dr. Lonhart said. Native to the Japan Sea, wakame has now spread to the Mediterranean and elsewhere along European coastlines, and to New Zealand, Australia and Argentina, where the fetid smell of rotting kelp has kept beachgoers from parts of the coast. Wakame harms native kelp, mucks up marinas and the undersides of boats, and damages mariculture like oyster farming. Money to help eradicate invasive species is difficult to come by on both state and federal levels, particularly in a state facing an unprecedented financial crisis and cuts to programs. “When there is a big wildfire, no one stops and asks, ‘Who is going to pay for this?’ They just fight the fire,” Dr. Anderson said. “We don’t have that kind of automatic response with invasive species.” On weekends, Dr. Anderson trolls Tomales Bay, 50 miles north of here, in a sea kayak, looking for wakame’s wide leaves. John Finger is owner of Hog Island Oyster Farm, which has beds in 160 acres of Tomales Bay. His beds yield 2.5 million oysters per year, worth $6 million, Mr. Finger said. Of wakame’s approach, he said, “It seems inevitable that it will show up here.” Though wakame has not yet been spotted in the bay, Mr. Finger said he was pre-emptively training his staff on how to identify and remove the kelp. “This is just another sign of how small the world is,” he said. Back in San Francisco, Dr. Zabin and colleagues from nonprofit groups and state and federal agencies have been pooling resources and volunteers, donning scuba and snorkeling equipment and filling black plastic trash bags with the kelp. But before trucking it to the landfill, Dr. Zabin plans to ship some to Texas. “I got an e-mail from a guy who wants to use it to make biofuel,” Dr. Zabin said. “Maybe he could just come and vacuum it up.”
|
Seaweed;Invasive Species;San Francisco (Calif);Environment
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.