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ny0076896
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2015/05/21
|
U.S. to Send Rockets to Iraq for ISIS Fight
|
WASHINGTON — The United States is rushing 1,000 antitank rockets to the Iraqi military to help combat the massive suicide vehicle bombs that Islamic State militants used in capturing the provincial capital of Ramadi, a first step as the Obama administration weighs a range of difficult options to help its beleaguered ally. The deployment of the weapons, expected to arrive in early June after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq asked for them during a visit to Washington last month, comes as the defeated Iraqi security forces regroup outside the city. A senior State Department official said Wednesday that Iraqis were “licking their wounds a bit” as they worked with American advisers to begin planning a counterattack. Obama administration officials have called the fall of Ramadi a huge setback, but they have sought to quell critics in the region and on Capitol Hill by portraying the defeat as a temporary blow that will not change the overall strategy for fighting the Islamic State or lessen the administration’s support of Mr. Abadi’s government. Still, a day after Mr. Obama gathered his national security team to discuss the latest developments in Iraq and how to retake Ramadi, officials across the government expressed dismay at the rapid collapse of the Iraqi security forces in Ramadi and the tough decisions ahead. The Islamic State is at the same time making substantial gains across the border in Syria. “You’d have to be delusional not to take something like this and say, what went wrong and how do you fix it?” said the senior State Department official, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration assessments and plans. “This is an extremely serious situation.” The immediate American objective over the past four days, the official said, has been to work with Iraqi political leaders and commanders to consolidate the retreating Iraqi forces — many of whom were physically and psychologically traumatized by car bombs roughly the magnitude of those used in the Oklahoma City attack in 1995 — and prevent any further retreat. American warplanes are flying round-the-clock missions over the city, hunting fighters from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, who were setting up defensive positions or trying to seize vehicles and other equipment abandoned by the Iraqi troops. The options the administration is considering in Iraq include training a cadre of Iraqi Special Forces troops to help American bombs get to their targets faster and expanded the training of regular Iraqi security forces. The training of Iraqi Special Forces would be an alternative to using American troops to accompany Iraqi forces on the battlefield to call in American and allied bombing attacks. So far, Mr. Obama is not considering using Americans to call in airstrikes, the State Department official said, although Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, has pushed the idea. Mr. Abadi complained during his visit to Washington that it had been taking too long for the United States to carry out airstrikes on behalf of Iraqi forces. The administration continues to reject any use of American troops in ground combat, as do Republicans on Capitol Hill, although there are some 3,000 Americans on the ground in Iraq in advising, logistics and intelligence roles. The absence of air controllers poses challenges for urban warfare, particularly when Iraqi troops are battling so close to their enemy that the two sides are intermingled, making it difficult for American pilots flying overhead to identify Islamic State militants. Iraqi Army Retakes Government Complex in Central Ramadi Efforts to stem the rise of the Islamic State. The other option, expanding American efforts to train and equip Iraqi security forces as well as Sunni tribal fighters, is also problematic. Doing so would most likely require even more American advisers and trainers on the ground in Iraq. A major flaw in the Iraqi security forces remains the lack of credible Sunni ground forces. Sunni politicians have criticized Mr. Abadi for being too weak to secure long-promised reforms, including the establishment of national guard units, a move that American officials have encouraged as a way to empower local Iraqis but that is still being debated by the Iraqi Parliament. Iraq has budgeted to train and equip 8,000 Sunni fighters in Anbar Province, and about 5,000 of them have been deployed so far there, American officials said. In Iraq on Wednesday, government security forces, joined by Shiite militiamen from Baghdad and other parts of the country, continued to gather at a base in Habbaniya, east of Ramadi in Anbar. At the same time, the government put out a call for new recruits to join the depleted army. Mr. Abadi is also looking beyond the United States for help. He flew to Russia on Wednesday in an effort to secure more military support. Russia has been a supplier to Iraq of weapons, including fighter jets, helicopters and smaller arms, for some time. When Islamic State militants stormed an operations center in Anbar on Sunday, they captured a large cache of weapons, including arms supplied by both the United States and Russia, according to a security official who had been stationed there. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., in a phone call last Friday, as the attack was underway, assured Mr. Abadi of other accelerated security assistance to combat the militants, according to a White House statement. The heavy weaponry includes AT-4 shoulder-held rockets to counter the massive car bombs the Islamic State detonated in the attack on Ramadi’s city center. The Ramadi offensive involved 30 car bombs, including 10 that were each roughly the size of those in the Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people, and that “took out entire city blocks” in Ramadi, the State Department official said. On Sunday, Iraqi reinforcements sent into the city center came under immediate fire and quickly started to retreat, the official said. That set in motion a chain reaction, with other Iraqi forces who had been holding in place also fleeing the city. “Nobody is kidding themselves about what ISIL was able to pull off last week,” the State Department official said, acknowledging not only the militants’ victory on the ground but also a major propaganda triumph. “We’re still trying to piece together exactly what happened there.” “We’ve never seen something like this,” said the official, referring to ISIL, and noting that many of the 22,000 foreign fighters from more than 100 countries who have been drawn to Iraq and Syria have largely joined the Islamic State rather than other terror groups. “It thrives on the notion of an expanded caliphate. They see their entire campaign as a war of flags.” As American advisers in Iraq sought to help Iraqi forces regroup, administration officials voiced new concerns about 3,000 Shiite militia fighters, many supported by Iran, who have arrived at a military base near Ramadi as part of the effort to reclaim the city. American officials say they will continue their air campaign as long as the Shiite militias are led by the Iraqis, and not by Iranian advisers. “We have been clear that the decision to use these forces is one of the government of Iraq to make in conjunction with Anbari leaders,” a White House spokesman, Eric Schultz, said on Wednesday. “But we’ve also been very clear that all forces there should be under the command and control of the Iraqi security forces.”
|
Iraq;ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State;Ramadi;US Military;Terrorism;US Politics;Barack Obama;Haider al-Abadi
|
ny0039857
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2014/04/09
|
Man Wrongfully Convicted in 1989 Brooklyn Murder Is Set Free
|
A timeworn phone bill from a Quality Inn in Orlando, Fla., turned out to be one of the most valuable pieces of paper Jonathan Fleming owns. Mr. Fleming, 51, who was serving the 25th year of a sentence of 25 years to life after being found guilty of a 1989 murder in Brooklyn, was released on Tuesday after new evidence was uncovered in his case. The evidence included a receipt that established he was in Florida less than five hours before the killing. He stood quietly, his hands clasped behind his back, as his lawyers detailed new evidence that they and the Brooklyn district attorney’s office discovered. “Had it been available at the trial, the likely outcome of the trial would have been different,” an assistant district attorney, Mark Hale, told the judge, Matthew J. D’Emic, as he explained that his office supported Mr. Fleming’s release. It was only when the judge said that the motion was granted and the indictment dismissed that Mr. Fleming’s composure wavered, his shoulders shaking and his eyes tearing up as he hugged his lawyers. Cries of “Thank you, God,” “Our prayers have been answered now” and “You’re a free man” came from his friends and family in the courtroom. Mr. Fleming’s is one of dozens of wrongful-conviction cases that the new Brooklyn district attorney, Kenneth P. Thompson, inherited when he took office this year. The office is also combing through 50 cases that a detective, Louis Scarcella, who has been accused of using illegal tactics to frame suspects, was involved in; Mr. Scarcella was not part of Mr. Fleming’s case. Mr. Thompson’s predecessor, Charles J. Hynes, created the Conviction Integrity Unit to look into questionable cases after criticism over wrongful convictions. Mr. Thompson, who campaigned in part on reforming the district attorney’s office, has so far gained the release of two prisoners who were serving time for murder after new evidence was obtained, and prisoners’ advocates are pushing him to move quickly on other cases. The office on Monday appointed Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., a Harvard Law School professor, to lead the unit, now called the Conviction Review Unit, and added three outside lawyers to help evaluate cases. Mr. Fleming was convicted of second-degree murder in the killing of Darryl Alston, a rival drug dealer, on Aug. 15, 1989, at the Williamsburg Houses. His alibi was simple: He was in Orlando at the time of the shooting, on a family trip to Walt Disney World. During the trial, Mr. Fleming’s lawyers gave evidence showing that he was in Orlando around the time of the murder — plane tickets and video footage and vacation photos from family members. But prosecutors argued he could have returned to Brooklyn and shot Mr. Alston, producing a list with 53 possible flights he could have taken, according to a document prepared by Mr. Fleming’s lawyers, Taylor Koss and Anthony Mayol. And they cast doubt on the testimony from Mr. Fleming’s family members about his whereabouts. A woman who said she was an eyewitness, Jacqueline Belardo, identified Mr. Fleming as the killer. Though she recanted what she said before sentencing, saying she had identified Mr. Fleming in exchange for a dismissal of grand larceny charges against her, the prosecution contended that Ms. Belardo was lying, according to the document. In June 2013, the Conviction Integrity Unit began examining Mr. Fleming’s conviction after investigators and lawyers for Mr. Fleming brought it the new witness statements. In November, the unit turned over to the defense police logs that it had come across during its look at the case. The logs showed that Ms. Belardo, the purported eyewitness, had been brought in after being found in a stolen van and charged with grand larceny; after several hours of questioning, she pointed to Mr. Fleming as the killer, according to the defense document. A little over an hour later, her charges were voided and she was released. Ms. Belardo still stands by her recantation, according to the document. The Conviction Integrity Unit also turned over the phone receipt. At 9:27 p.m. on Aug. 14, 1989, Mr. Fleming had paid a phone bill at the Orlando Quality Inn, making it unlikely he could have made it back to Brooklyn in time for the 2:15 a.m. shooting on Aug. 15. But the receipt was not a part of trial evidence. Mr. Koss said at Tuesday’s hearing that Mr. Fleming had asked about the receipt at the time of the trial and that a detective at the trial was questioned about the receipt and said he did not recall recovering it. Investigators found the receipt in the case file last year. Other new evidence was a report from the Orlando Police Department, which had looked into Mr. Fleming’s alibi at the New York Police Department’s request. The Orlando police interviewed Quality Inn staff members who remembered Mr. Fleming; at the trial, the only witnesses to vouch for Mr. Fleming’s presence in Orlando were family members. It was the new documentary evidence that was most compelling in this case, said Mr. Hale, the assistant district attorney, specifically the receipt and the Orlando Police Department’s letter. “We, in looking at the evidence, do not believe we have the present ability to retry the defendant,” nor will the office be able to retry him in the future, Mr. Hale said. As part of their investigation, the defense and prosecutors then reinterviewed witnesses to the murder, and their accounts pointed to a different suspect. “They’re bringing my baby home,” said Mr. Fleming’s mother, Patricia Fleming, 72. An innocent man “did all this time,” she said. “It was hard on him and it was hard on me.”
|
Jonathan Fleming;Kenneth P Thompson;False arrest;Murders;Brooklyn
|
ny0007633
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2013/05/09
|
Brooklyn Navy Yard Is Home to Manufacturing Cooperative
|
Across the partition from the roboticist who was making coffee tables with magnetized cubes, an artist was boxing up woodcuts that, when held to the ear, sounded like a forest. Beyond him, just past the software designer on the treadmill, a muscular man in a T-shirt tinkered with his design for a motorcycle. This eclectic mix of entrepreneurs, among the first tenants of a communal space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, did not in any way resemble workers in a traditional factory, but their landlords and city officials hope they represent the seedlings of a rebirth of manufacturing in New York City. The loftlike space, known as New Lab, is to be unveiled by local and state officials on Thursday. It is a precursor to a much bigger manufacturing cooperative scheduled to open in about 18 months in a neighboring building. The idea driving the project was to bring together a variety of creative people and have them share equipment, like laser cutters and three-dimensional printers, that would be too costly for them to rent or buy on their own. David Belt, the developer of New Lab, said he hoped to do for manufacturers what the M.I.T. Media Lab in Cambridge, Mass., had done for technology researchers. “New York City is supposed to be sort of a design hub,” Mr. Belt said in an interview. “I was frustrated seeing so much time and effort pumped into software. I’m more interested in products and hardware.” Manufacturing in the city has been dying a long, slow death as a source of jobs and prosperity. The Navy Yard, where thousands of men built battleships for World War II, is helping Brooklyn buck that trend. In the last three years, Brooklyn has been the only borough in the city to add manufacturing jobs, according to the Center for an Urban Future , a research organization. Though it gained just 39 manufacturing jobs from 2010 to 2012, that was a sharp reversal from the previous decade, when Brooklyn lost nearly 24,000 jobs in manufacturing. “This is probably one of the most positive signs in manufacturing in years,” said Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the Center for an Urban Future. “We’re seeing for the first time in a while a real entrepreneurial boom in manufacturing in Brooklyn. The question is, will it continue?” Image In a smaller space that is to be unveiled on Thursday, Jessica Banks worked on a chandelier that expands and contracts in response to ambient sound. Credit Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times The activity in Brooklyn has not been purely organic: It has been fertilized with infusions of money and other financial support from city and state agencies. All told, about $1 billion has been invested in transforming the Navy Yard into an industrial park on the East River, and about a quarter of that money has come from public sources, said Andrew H. Kimball, the chief executive of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation. The cost of renovating the bigger building that will house New Lab will be about $60 million, about $42 million of which is coming from private sources and a package of tax credits, Mr. Kimball said. The rest was supplied by a regional council of the Empire State Development Corporation, the City Council and the Brooklyn borough president’s office. Once the building is ready, possibly by the summer of 2014, Mr. Belt plans to spend an additional $21 million outfitting 84,000 square feet that could be home to as many as 350 jobs. Some of that money, too, is expected to come from the regional council. The bigger space will include a full metal shop, a wood shop, and 3-D printers for making and honing prototypes of new products, Mr. Belt said. He said that communal core, which will fill about 40 percent of the space, would be operated by a nonprofit company. Already, Mr. Belt said, there is a waiting list of potential tenants in the smaller lab, which he calls the beta space. He said he needed to choose carefully to bring together people with the most mutually beneficial array of skills and knowledge. His first set of tenants revealed his leaning toward the intellectual side of product design. At one end of the room, Jessica Banks of RockPaperRobot was shaping cubes of wood to be parts of a “float table” held together with magnets and steel cables. Close by, Eric J. Forman had been up all night producing TreeShell, a disc of birch that produces sounds of the forest, much like a seashell that suggests the sounds of the sea. He was racing a deadline to deliver to the MoMA Design Store. Several work spaces away sat Edward Jacobs of D.N.I., a design consulting company, who was working on several projects at once. He was designing a motorcycle chassis for Triumph, a system for producing photosynthesis for an underground park and a line of small gadgets like pocketknives. “The ability to have manufacturing at your fingertips is really a dream come true for anybody that deals with concept design,” said Mr. Jacobs, who like many of the new tenants of the Navy Yard, lives nearby in Brooklyn. Normally, he said, the cost of making prototypes is 10 to 20 times the cost of mass producing the same piece. “To be able to have those facilities here really allows you to get to market much faster and it allows you an affordable way to materialize your concepts.”
|
Innovation;Brooklyn Navy Yard;Manufacturing;David Belt;Macro Sea;NYC
|
ny0249549
|
[
"business"
] |
2011/02/03
|
Visa Posts 16% Rise in Profit
|
Visa said on Wednesday that its quarterly profit rose 16 percent in its most recent quarter as debit card use continued to grow and consumers returned to using credit cards. The company said net income for the period rose to $884 million, or $1.23 a share, from $763 million, or $1.02 a share, a year earlier. Revenue in the period, which ended Dec. 31 and was the first quarter of Visa’s fiscal year, rose across all of its main businesses, gaining 14 percent, to $2.24 billion from $1.96 billion. Visa said its growth was driven by higher payments volume both in the United States and globally. The total number of transactions handled in the quarter rose 15 percent, to 13 billion. The results topped Wall Street’s expectations. Analysts were expecting profit of $1.20 a share and revenue of $2.22 billion, according to data provided by FactSet. Shares, however, slipped in after-hours trading. The stock fell 94 cents, to $71.15, after closing up $1.39, or 1.97 percent, at $72.09. A UBS analyst, Jason Kupferberg, suggested investors might have been disappointed that the results did not exceed expectations by a larger margin. Visa often posts stronger numbers than Wall Street predicts. Nevertheless, he said that the quarter was strong, there were no major surprises and the increase in global spending on cards was positive. Higher consumer spending “started to emerge over the last couple of quarters, and now seems to be gaining a little traction,” he said. Visa’s chief executive, Joseph W. Saunders, called the results a “great start” to the company’s fiscal year. He said in a statement that the company was “intensely focused” on increasing global revenue. He pointed to efforts to expand its money transfer business and card use in countries where cash and checks still dominated, along with investments in new technologies like mobile payments and ecommerce. Credit card use in the United States, which dropped off during the recession , rose 7.5 percent. Debit card use jumped 16 percent. International credit card use rose 20 percent. Global debit card use, a much smaller business, rose 34 percent.
|
Company Reports;Visa Inc
|
ny0070994
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2015/03/16
|
Suicide Attacks on Pakistan Churches Kill 15
|
LAHORE, Pakistan — Suicide bombers attacked two Christian churches here during Sunday services, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens in the latest attack on religious minorities in the country. The attacks occurred in quick succession outside Catholic and Protestant churches in Youhanabad, one of Pakistan’s biggest Christian neighborhoods. A man rigged with explosives blew himself up outside the main gate of St. John’s Catholic Church after being prevented from entering by a security guard, said Haider Ashraf, a senior police officer. A second blast went off minutes later in the compound of Christ Church, about a half-mile away. In the aftermath of the attacks, an enraged crowd lynched two people suspected of being accomplices in the bombings, one of whom was wrenched from police custody. Local news outlets reported that the mob set their bodies on fire. Image A family mourned a boy who was killed in a suicide attack in Lahore on Sunday. Credit K.M. Chaudary/Associated Press The crowd also prevented the police from entering the scene of the attacks, and angry protests spread across the city. Demonstrations were also reported in Karachi and other cities. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. Local television stations broadcast images of wailing and distraught relatives in hospital corridors. One woman wept hysterically as relatives tried to calm her. Pervez Masih, 45, who was in one of the churches, said the explosion went off just as the prayer service was concluding. “Afterward people were running here and there, trying to save their lives,” he said. Religious minorities including Shiites, Christians and Ahmadi Muslims have been under violent attack for years in Pakistan. At least 85 people were killed in an attack on All Saints Church in Peshawar in September 2013. There have also been sporadic attacks on Christians in Punjab, the country’s most populous province, often prompted by accusations of blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad. Image People wounded in a suicide attack on churches in Lahore were transported to a hospital on Sunday. Credit Rahat Dar/European Pressphoto Agency But Pakistan has been particularly on edge in recent months since a Taliban assault on a Peshawar school that killed at least 150 people, most of them children. Nabila Ghazanfar, a spokeswoman for the Punjab police, said the deaths from the attack on Sunday included 13 worshipers, two police officers deployed for security outside the churches and the two suspects beaten to death by the mob, in addition to the two bombers. Television images showed police officials struggling to keep the angry crowd away from one of the men who was later lynched. Dr. Muhammad Saeed, the chief doctor at Lahore General Hospital, where scores of the wounded were brought, said that many were in critical condition. Sohail Johnson, a witness who lives close to the churches, said that more than 1,000 worshipers usually attended the Sunday services. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan strongly condemned the blasts, saying that the anger and grief shown by members of the Christian community in the aftermath of the episode strengthen the government’s resolve to counter the menace of terrorism.
|
Pakistan;Bombs;Terrorism;Christianity;Fatalities,casualties;Lahore
|
ny0277710
|
[
"business"
] |
2016/11/28
|
How Tour Guides Abroad Learn to Cater to Exotic Americans
|
Don’t compliment an American’s girth. Answer their children’s questions. Fill your museum tour with fun facts. These are among the tips that tour guides in countries as different as Uganda, Russia, Guyana and Italy might receive as they train to play host to people from the United States. If you’re an American traveler fascinated by the foreign and exotic, understand this: Your tour guide probably finds you equally strange and otherworldly. Just ask the people who train the guides. Because American tourists tend to want a personal connection to the guide, and expect the tour to be interactive and entertaining, guides need special training, said Chuck Lennox , a travel consultant in Seattle who has trained guides in South America and Africa among other places. In many cultures, the classroom teaching model is the expert delivering a steady stream of knowledge to students who do not ask questions. This tradition can seep into a didactic presentation style among tour guides. Americans like more give and take, Mr. Lennox said. “We teach guides to ask what their group is interested in, and what they already know, so the tour can be customized,” he said. Guides are also taught to observe and respond to body language for signs of interest or disinterest. Even compliments and expressions of gratitude can be tricky. On his tours in Guyana in South America, Mr. Lennox noted that some rural guides would give overweight Americans a thumbs-up and say things like, “Ah, packing it on — good deal!” as a compliment, equating an ample waistline with abundant wealth. Conversely, Americans seemed to say “thank you” for everything the guides did, a custom that made the local people feel indebted to them, Mr. Lennox said. Learning cultural cues is important for guides and tourists alike, given the large number of people from the United States who visit other countries. Tens of millions of Americans travel abroad each year , according to the Commerce Department. And when they travel, nearly 40 percent of American leisure travelers overseas participate in some kind of guided tour , according to the research website Statista.com. Mark Jordahl, who has run his own tour company in Uganda for almost a decade, says that Americans often want to become friends with their guides, and so they will ask questions about the guides’ families, education and homes to get to know them better. Mr. Jordahl, an American who has hired and trained people to guide his American clients, said the trainees sometimes ask him, “Why is this person I don’t even know asking me so many personal questions?” Image Luigi Simeone guiding a group of American, Canadian and British tourists inside the Colosseum in Rome. Credit Susan Wright for The New York Times Mr. Jordahl explains to them that Americans in search of an “authentic” experience hope to interact with the guide as more of an equal than as a hired hand. That same expectation of equality applies to the tourists’ children, who may want to pepper the guide with questions. Mr. Jordahl, who has two young sons of his own, says that in Ugandan society, men do not interact with children as fully as Americans do, so “it doesn’t occur to them to engage with the kids who are part of the group.” When children ask direct questions, he said, guides sometimes “literally don’t even hear them and often don’t acknowledge their presence.” Elena Weber, who teaches at the Irkutsk State Linguistic University in Siberia, and trains tour guides in the Lake Baikal and Irkutsk area, encourages personal interaction. The Americans who travel to Siberia have probably already been to many of the most famous tourist destinations in the world, she said, and they will have had better food and lodging elsewhere. So she tells her student-guides to try to treat their American visitors the same way they might a personal guest or family member. “It is only through personal connection,” she said, that they can help tourists, “find some place in their hearts for Siberia.” In Europe, on the other hand, the guide might need to approach the American tourist not so much as a valued family member but as, perhaps, a less cultured second cousin. Americans usually don’t have the same depth of knowledge in history and art as Europeans do, according to Jason Spiehler, a founder of Walks of Italy , Walks of New York and Walks of Turkey , so his group leaders are trained to start at a more basic level when giving tours. “It’s easy for a guide in Italy to reference a painter like Bellini or an architect like Borromini and assume their clients are following along,” he said. Not so if the clients are Americans, whose knowledge of the Italian masters might stop at Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. The guide’s mix of information is important, too. While Italians prefer an “academic” tour, Mr. Spiehler said, Americans want a tour that is “not only informative but also entertaining, filled with stories and fun facts.” So, for example, Americans touring St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican might be told that the interior of the dome, from floor to ceiling, is high enough to accommodate nearly three Statues of Liberty if they were stacked atop one another. Americans also like privileges like priority lines and V.I.P. access, Mr. Spiehler said, which accounts for the popularity of his company’s “Pristine Sistine” tour of the Sistine Chapel, early in the morning before it opens to the general public. Of course, the training that guides receive and the adjustments they make to accommodate the Americans can have its own rewards, Mr. Lennox noted. “It absolutely can affect the amount in tips they receive,” he said.
|
Travel,Tourism;US
|
ny0147161
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2008/07/30
|
Government Report Points to Diplomats’ Abuse of Workers They Bring With Them
|
Every year, thousands of foreigners are brought to the United States, mainly to New York and Washington, to work in the homes of diplomats: cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping and caring for the diplomats’ children. For the envoys, such workers bring a knowledge of their traditions and customs and help provide them with a seamless transition to the United States. For the workers, who arrive on special visas and are often poor and uneducated, the arrangement promises an opportunity to earn enough money to support their own families back home. But immigrant and human rights advocates have warned for years that behind the veil of diplomatic immunity, some envoys have subjected their workers to hardships that range from underpayment and excessive hours to physical and psychological injury, creating conditions that can amount to indentured servitude or even slavery. According to a report released on Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office, since 2000 at least 42 foreigners brought to the United States to work as live-in workers have said that they were abused by their employers in some way. The report is the most comprehensive survey by the federal government of abuses of household workers by foreign diplomats, said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, a Democrat and chairman of a Senate subcommittee on human rights, who requested the report last year. The number of those complaining is a tiny fraction of the more than 17,900 workers who have received special visas since 2000 to work for foreign diplomats. But the report’s authors, and Mr. Durbin, warned that allegations of abuse are probably more widespread. “I believe the report just scratched the surface,” the senator said in a telephone interview. “It’s unthinkable that we would let this continue.” The report provided few details of the cases and did not say where they occurred, except that special visas are issued to foreign workers working in the diplomatic community, which is concentrated in New York, Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia. It was unclear whether, among the 42 cases, accountability office researchers included a lawsuit filed last month by a Filipino woman who accused her employer of luring her from the Philippines to the United States with false promises of help in finding work as a nurse. In that case, the woman, Marichu Suarez Baoanan, 39, said her employer, Lauro L. Baja Jr., then an ambassador to the United Nations, and his wife forced her instead to work more than 120 hours a week as a domestic servant in their town house, prevented her from leaving the house alone and paid her only $100 a month. A lawyer for the Bajas has denied the charges and said Ms. Baoanan was trying to use the case to secure a visa that would allow her to remain in the country. Allegations are probably underrecorded in the accountability office survey, because of foreign workers’ suspicion of the American government and fear of being deported, the report said. In some cases, the victims could be held captive inside their employer’s house, unable to reach the authorities, the report said. In addition, nongovernmental organizations that were trying to help foreign workers were unwilling to identify some of their clients because of confidentiality agreements, according to the report. And federal agencies rebuffed attempts by accountability office researchers to get information on certain allegations, further contributing to the undercount, the report said. In nine of the 42 cases of alleged abuse uncovered by accountability office investigators, the workers involved filed lawsuits. Five were concluded in settlements, three were dismissed by judges on account of immunity and one concluded in a default judgment against the defendants for failure to respond to the complaint, the report said. Most of the plaintiffs were seeking to recoup unpaid wages, the report said. Federal agencies have investigated at least 17 cases, though no case has resulted in prosecutions and most of the investigations remain open, the report said. Investigations into the allegations have been hampered by several factors, the report said, including diplomatic immunity, which constrains law enforcement officials; the sclerosis of the federal bureaucracy, particularly the State Department’s process for determining which investigative techniques are permitted under international law; and the reluctance of some workers to cooperate with investigators out of concern for their immigration status. In one of the federal investigations, the Justice Department sought to indict a foreign diplomat’s wife, the report said, without specifying any details of the case, like the name of the diplomat or the diplomat’s nationality. The State Department requested that the diplomat’s home country waive immunity for the diplomat’s wife. But the foreign government refused, the diplomat and his wife left the United States, and the case was closed. The survey said that of the foreign diplomats named in the 42 reports of alleged abuse, 32.5 percent came from Africa, 30 percent were from the Near East, 20 percent were from “the Western Hemisphere,” 15 percent from Asia and 2.5 percent were from Europe.
|
Diplomatic Immunity;Labor;Immigration and Refugees;Visas
|
ny0251024
|
[
"business",
"global"
] |
2011/02/08
|
Liu Wen, Ex-Dow Scientist, Guilty of Selling Secrets in China
|
A jury in Baton Rouge, La., on Monday found a former Dow Chemical scientist guilty of conspiring to steal company secrets and sell them to firms in China, the Justice Department said. Evidence at the three-week trial showed that the scientist, Liu Wen, 74, also paid a $50,000 bribe to a Dow employee to supply materials about how the company made a polymer used in automotive hoses, jackets for electrical cables and vinyl siding. The conviction illustrates what federal authorities have described as a growing threat in the competition with China for an economic edge. As nations like China broaden efforts to obtain technology, they have increasingly been able to buy secrets from current and former insiders at big American companies. Another former Dow Chemical scientist, Huang Kexue, is awaiting trial in Indiana on more serious charges that he engaged in economic espionage in sharing some of Dow’s insecticide secrets with Chinese researchers. Over the last year and a half, charges involving the theft of trade secrets have been filed against former engineers from General Motors and Ford Motor. Scientists at DuPont and Valspar, a Minnesota paint company, recently pleaded guilty to stealing their employers’ secrets after taking jobs in China. Justice Department officials said the conspiracy led by Mr. Liu, of Houston, unfolded over at least eight years. Trial testimony indicated that Mr. Liu, also known as David W. Liou, began the conspiracy in 1995 and that it ran through 2003. Justice Department officials said he sold the secrets for more than $500,000 and was negotiating to sell them for $4 million before authorities uncovered the scheme. Justice Department officials said Mr. Liu was a research scientist at Dow from 1965 until he retired in 1992. He worked with the polymer, Tyrin CPE, at a company plant in Plaquemine, La. Mr. Liu’s lawyer, C. Frank Holthaus, said his client had not stolen anything and witnesses had lied about his activities. The government presented evidence that after Mr. Liu left the company, he paid the $50,000 bribe to a Dow worker to obtain a manual describing Dow’s process for making the polymer. He also made payments to two other co-conspirators that prosecutors did not describe as bribes. Prosecutors said Mr. Liu traveled extensively in China to sell the information. Dow executives testified that the company had spent substantial money to develop the technology and had taken steps to protect it.
|
Bribery and Kickbacks;Industrial Espionage;Dow Chemical Co;China;United States
|
ny0183297
|
[
"nyregion",
"thecity"
] |
2007/12/30
|
As an Age Recedes, a Craftsman Soldiers On
|
WITH small but energetic steps, Walter Schnerb turned from a cutting machine to his desk, a page from a score of the Puccini opera “La Fanciulla del West” in his hand. Using his index finger, he reached inside a small blue glue pot, then swiftly stuck a thin strip of paper over a ripped edge of the page to repair it. Mr. Schnerb, 82, was born and raised in Frankfurt and left his homeland in 1938. He is the quintessential German Jew, and like few people alive, he represents the old Washington Heights, which in its heyday was called Frankfurt on the Hudson, home to at least 20,000 displaced refugees from Germany and Austria during the Nazi rise to power. The names remaining in the lobby of Mr. Schnerb’s building speak volumes: Goldfarb, Rosenberg, Zimmerman, Hoffman, Mandelbaum, Schoenberg. But most of these early residents have long since died or moved away. Of Mr. Schnerb’s four children, just one stayed in the area. The Schnerb family moved into an apartment on West 176th Street in 1939, and a few years later, Walter Schnerb became an apprentice to a bookbinder named Gabriel Harwitt. “I was a youngster,” he explained. “I didn’t have any money, so my parents said O.K.” Since 1951, he has owned the business, which is still called Harwitt Bindery, and he operates out of a large basement room filled with dusty machines and documents waiting to be repaired. Along with his wife, Elsie, Mr. Schnerb made a living repairing and binding dissertations, scores and other reading material. This day, he was working on a copy of “La Fanciulla del West” because a conductor had asked him to rebind three poorly bound scores, one for each act, into a single document. Mr. Schnerb began by ripping the old books apart, “unbinding” them, as he calls the process, while trying to keep the pages intact. But inevitably, some pages got torn, which was why he was repairing them with thin paper strips. Since the death of his wife last year, Mr. Schnerb has been doing everything in the bindery by himself. His wife used to stitch together different sections of manuscripts using a sewing machine, but Mr. Schnerb never learned to operate the machine, so he resorts to needle and thread. The only interruptions of his days are occasional visits from customers and the obligatory prayer break at 1:15 p.m., his only companions the music and voices on the radio station WQXR. The memories of his late wife, to whom he proposed on New Year’s Eve 1951, in Times Square, are ever-present. “She was something special,” Mr. Schnerb said in a creaky voice as he bent over the Puccini score. “Everybody loved her.”
|
Bookbinding;Washington Heights (NYC);Books and Literature
|
ny0202309
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2009/08/05
|
China’s Tally of 718 Arrests in July Riots Is Questioned
|
BEIJING — Chinese authorities said Tuesday that they had taken 718 people into custody in connection with last month’s ethnic riots in the western region of Xinjiang, but an official with an ethnic Uighur exile group said the true number was far higher. The new report, released by the state-run Xinhua news agency, left it unclear whether the 718 detainees represented the total of suspects captured since the July 5 unrest, or were in addition to previous arrests and detentions. The government had previously said that more than 1,500 people had been detained after the riots. Nor was it clear how many of the suspects had been charged with crimes. State radio, quoted by Reuters, reported on Tuesday that 83 suspects had been accused of crimes ranging from murder and arson to assault and disturbing the peace. The Xinjiang riots in the regional capital, Urumqi, killed at least 197 people — most of them ethnic Han Chinese, officials said — and injured about 1,100 others. The violence broke out after Uighur residents, the area’s original settlers, marched to protest the treatment of Uighur factory workers involved in a disturbance in eastern China . The resulting unrest was the worst ethnic violence in China in at least a decade. Tuesday’s Xinhua report, a summary of progress in the official inquiry into the riots, quoted the head of Urumqi’s Public Security Bureau, Cehn Zhuangwei, as saying that 718 “criminals who disturbed the peace” had been detained. Investigators were pursuing nearly 600 important leads, he said, and were examining hundreds of photographs and video clips, as well as DNA samples in an effort to track down those involved in the violence. In Washington, Omar Kanat, the vice president of the World Uighur Congress , an exile group, said that the Chinese reports of detainees were understated, and that the new report of 718 detentions could only add to previously reported totals. “Many people are calling us every day, and they say the number of arrests exceeds five, six thousand,” he said in a telephone interview. “We cannot confirm that. But we know that the numbers of arrests are much more than the Chinese figures.” Most of the detained people are of Uighur descent, he said, adding that Uighurs in Xinjiang have told the organization in recent days about a wave of new detentions in Urumqi and surrounding areas.
|
Xinjiang (China);Demonstrations and Riots;China;Uighurs (Chinese Ethnic Group)
|
ny0053885
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2014/07/26
|
Robinson Cano Is Thriving With the Mariners
|
SEATTLE — Where’s the defector? Homesick and crying into his organic tea and sashimi? I’ve journeyed west in search of Robinson Cano, who was supposed to be a Yankee until the end of time. Cano, an All-Star second baseman, took an offer of $240 million and 10 years and departed the Bronx for the Northwest. Rarely has a New York emigrant left to such a loud chorus of doomsayers. It was as if he had slipped out the back door of Olympus and fallen off the edge of the earth. New York tabloids and blogs heaped disbelief. This shirker, this ingrate, had taken the money and run. As if the Yankees have not relied on their unending honey pot of cash to attract and retain generations of stars. It was March 3, deep into the first weeks of spring training, when this headline appeared: “Robinson Cano Already Facing Harsh Reality of Life Away from Yankee Stadium.” Sabermetricians beavered down deep into comparative statistics, a blur of equations and O.B.P./O.P.S./O.M.G.-no-more-stats-please to explain why the Seattle Mariners were doomed to mediocrity and Cano would slowly take root in the moist soil and turn into a fir tree. The Yankees’ hitting coach, Kevin Long, implied that Cano was a dog because, even as he had played every inning of every game, he sometimes lollygagged running to first base. Yes, well. As it happened this week, I looked onto the field of the Mariners’ splendid stadium and watched Cano adjust his white gloves and wiggle-waggle down into that Barcalounger batting stance of his and cock his black bat. On Wednesday afternoon, Mets pitcher Bartolo Colon was working on a perfect game. Colon painted a fastball on the outside corner. Cano roped it to left field. Base hit, and that was that. He still glides after pop flies and line drives and makes that effortless sidearm throw on double plays. Oh, and he’s hitting in the neighborhood of .330. His team, a 91-loss junk heap last year, is neck-and-neck with the Yankees in the race for a playoff spot. Teammates talk of him as their jokester and leader. Watch him on the field before the game, and he calls to mind a mayor, pivoting on his bat as if it were a fancy cane, cracking jokes, greeting players and coaches with bro hugs. “I’m not going to lie to you; I don’t look back any more. Move on,” he said, sitting cross-legged atop a table in the Mariners’ locker room. His hand stroked his neatly trimmed and un-Yankee-like beard. “I like it here, and the food really is pretty good, you know?” August beckons, and Cano has just seven homers, far fewer than in years past. Maybe this owes to the air or to deep power alleys that appear to inhale hard-hit baseballs. Most likely it owes to the fact that he is surrounded by struggling batters. On Thursday night against the Baltimore Orioles, the second hitter in the Mariners’ lineup — Cano’s table-setter — was hitting .195. The cleanup hitter batted .212. Late in the game, the manager pushed a .211 batter out to pinch-hit. It’s very Mets-like. “I’ve said all along, this club is challenged offensively,” Manager Lloyd McClendon said. Right on that. Yet teammates appear to dig Cano. Catcher Mike Zunino, hitting .201 entering Friday, is one of many in need of bat rehabilitation. “Cano will really study your swing and talk with you; he’s thoughtful and disciplined,” he said. Image Cano, connecting for a single last week against the Angels’ Jered Weaver, was hitting .329 entering Friday. Credit Michael Nelson/European Pressphoto Agency Even though they’re on a nice little run, the Yankees miss Cano. Their starting pitchers could fill their own medical wing. C. C. Sabathia is off to the knee rehab garage; Mark Teixeira limps in and out of the lineup; Alex Rodriguez is on steroid sabbatical. Even Derek Jeter, as fine a shortstop as ever played in New York, is a motor winding down. You read comparative team coverage, Yankees and Mariners, and it is difficult not to conclude that what we have here is a cross-cultural failure to communicate. The Mariners have tumbled of late. Yet Seattle baseball writers have the temerity to counsel — I’m not joking — patience. “With 162 games in the regular season, baseball is a marathon,” a Seattle newspaper writer typed recently. “M’s fans ought to remember that.” Oh, please. In New York, that global capital of cosmopolitan parochialism, the default style is hair-on-fire. Fire him! Demote him! No, extend his contract, then demote him! The Yankees spend about twice as much annually as the Mariners. That’s not remotely enough. San Diego Padres pitcher Ian Kennedy spent his formative years in this crucible and/or zoo and said he loved the memories. “I got booed off the mound one game, the whole stadium going wild and throwing things,” Kennedy said. “The next game, I got a standing ovation. They are just super, super passionate fans.” One time, Kennedy recalled, he went to physical rehabilitation. The therapist, a Mets fan, razzed him as he worked on his shoulder. “I’m like, ‘Don’t hate on me!’ ” he said. I mentioned these memories to Cano. He smiled. “Ian said it all: It’s that crazy intensity in that city,” Cano said. “You get so much attention. I would say thank God I did well there.” Cano’s style is not to show frustration. But the loss Thursday to the Orioles was unsightly. He hit a tapper and a grounder and looked off balance. With two outs in the ninth, the Mariners sat at five hits, all singles. McClendon sent Logan Morrison trudging to the plate with his .211 batting average. He struck out looking. Cano did not make a locker-room appearance. He was frustrated and worked out with the weights. That’s very dedicated of him. Afterward, he probably went for a fine salmon and juniper berries, a side of quinoa and kale, washed down with an excellent pinot. As if. It’s not Gowanus, if you know what I mean.
|
Robinson Cano;Baseball;Yankees;Seattle;Mariners
|
ny0219741
|
[
"business",
"global"
] |
2010/05/14
|
Imminent End of Secrecy Will Alter Swiss Banking
|
As Swiss lawmakers appear poised to resolve a tax dispute between UBS and Washington, one thing is becoming clear: an end to absolute banking secrecy will change the country’s pre-eminent financial sector. Niche private banks that previously specialized in undeclared assets in Geneva and Zurich will have to adapt, and some may fail, analysts and academics predict. Those that remain will have fewer assets to manage. The changes are being wrought not only because of what is known in Switzerland as the UBS bill, which Parliament is expected to pass early next month. Several updated tax treaties with the United States, France, Germany and other countries, by promising government cooperation, also aim to dissuade would-be tax dodgers from trying to shelter undeclared assets in Switzerland. “In my view, it’s over, and it’s not a bad thing,” Luc Thevenoz, a professor of law at the University of Geneva, said of using Swiss banks to hide from the tax collector. The switch was not Switzerland’s idea. Its neighbors, painfully aware of the tax receipts they were losing, have been increasing the pressure for years. But it was not until the United States government threatened UBS, the biggest Swiss bank, with criminal prosecution slightly more than a year ago that the wall really began to tumble. In August 2009, UBS agreed to disclose the names and accounts of 4,450 wealthy Americans suspected of evading taxes and to pay a $780 million fine, in return for the suspension of United States legal action. But in February, Switzerland’s top court said the deal violated Swiss law, prompting the Swiss government to seek retroactive approval from Parliament. The Swiss are well aware of the stakes in the UBS case. Failure to back the settlement would probably reopen the lawsuit against UBS. The bank’s license to do business in the United States could be revoked. The bank expanded in the United States with its takeover of PaineWebber in 2000; about 37 percent of its employees are in the Americas. “There could ultimately be collateral damage across the field if this is not passed,” said Martin Naville, chief executive of the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce in Zurich. “If push comes to shove and Switzerland is declared a tax haven in the U.S., it would be very negative for Switzerland. U.S. companies would have to leave.” Switzerland is the host of regional operations for several American companies, including Yahoo, eBay, Caterpillar and Microsoft. American companies directly employ about 70,000 people in Switzerland. Failure could also accelerate new tax cases against other Swiss banks, though Mr. Naville said “there is no indication for now that any other Swiss bank was behaving in the systematic way that UBS was in the United States.” Not everyone in Switzerland is in favor of scrapping bank secrecy. The largest group in Parliament, the nationalist Swiss People’s Party, plans to vote against the UBS bill, which it views as an infringement of national sovereignty. But three other parties appear ready to offer the support needed to pass the bill, although they are still jockeying over details, members of Parliament said. In particular, the Social Democrats, the main center-left party, are trying to exchange support for government concessions to tighten rules on bonuses and bank supervision. Both issues have resonated in placid Switzerland, where citizens have been shocked by recent bank payouts — especially after a government bailout of UBS last year. “I believe that in the end there will be a majority in favor, because most M.P.’s are aware that there would be serious repercussions if it doesn’t go through,” said Manuel Ammann, director of the Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance at the University of St. Gallen. The Swiss economy leans heavily on finance. About 195,000 people, or 5.8 percent of the work force, are employed in the financial sector, which pays 12 percent to 15 percent of all taxes and contributes almost 12 percent of national income, according to the Swiss Bankers’ Association. The Swiss People’s Party has said it might seek a referendum to restore banking secrecy in the next few years, but prospects for success appear limited for now. In parallel, Switzerland has now signed at least 18 treaties with its most important partners, which incorporate Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development standards on exchanging information on tax evasion and fraud, provided there are formal requests based on credible information. This has removed the country from a so-called gray list at the O.E.C.D. The Swiss have said they will not cooperate with cases involving data theft, which recently has become something of a cottage industry. In Germany, governments have paid for computer data stolen from Swiss banks, which they then used to pursue tax cheats. The French last year received a disk containing information on thousands of clients of HSBC’s private banking business in Switzerland and have said they will use it to pursue investigations in France. The Swiss banking sector still has significant strengths: a pool of experienced managers, linguistic skills, currency stability and low taxes. But whether that will be enough to stanch a decline in assets managed is unclear. In February, foreigners held 689 billion Swiss francs, or $621 billion, in securities in Swiss custody accounts, down from a recent peak of 1.04 trillion francs in 2007, before the financial crisis and a Group of 20 crackdown on tax havens, according to the Swiss National Bank. Analysts point out that the figure has been stable since 2007, during a period of weakness in markets. And despite its legal problems — and tens of billions in outflows over the last couple of years — UBS remains among the world’s largest asset managers, with more than $2.3 trillion under management. “Switzerland remains very attractive for offshore wealth management, even in a fiscally transparent world,” Mr. Thevenoz said.
|
UBS AG;Tax Evasion
|
ny0127257
|
[
"business"
] |
2012/01/28
|
Profit Slips for Chevron, Disappointing Analysts
|
Chevron ’s fourth-quarter profit declined to $5.1 billion, or $2.58 a share, from $5.3 billion, or $2.64, a year earlier. Its earnings per share were 32 cents below the average of five analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales rose 11 percent to nearly $60 billion during the quarter. Chevron’s American refineries lost an average $2.2 million a day during the final three months of 2011 as crude-processing margins shrank and maintenance work at a California plant curbed fuel output, the company said in a statement. Chevron added the equivalent of 1.67 billion barrels in reserves last year, enough to replace 171 percent of the oil and gas the company pumped last year.
|
Company Reports;Chevron Corporation;Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
|
ny0245095
|
[
"sports",
"tennis"
] |
2011/04/16
|
Early Exit for Federer
|
Roger Federer lost to Jürgen Melzer, 6-4, 6-4, in swirling wind in the Monte Carlo Masters quarterfinals Friday, his earliest tournament exit since Wimbledon last year. Federer, who was seeded second in his first clay-court tournament of the year, lost to Melzer for the first time in four matches. It was the first time this year that Federer was beaten by someone other than Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic. Nadal, the six-time defending champion, beat Ivan Ljubicic, 6-1, 6-3, for his 35th straight win at the tournament.
|
Federer Roger;Tennis;Melzer Jurgen
|
ny0004483
|
[
"business"
] |
2013/04/26
|
Cancer Physicians Attack High Drug Costs
|
With the cost of some lifesaving cancer drugs exceeding $100,000 a year, more than 100 influential cancer specialists from around the world have taken the unusual step of banding together in hopes of persuading some leading pharmaceutical companies to bring prices down. Prices for cancer drugs have been part of the debate over health care costs for several years — and recently led to a public protest from doctors at a major cancer center in New York. But the decision by so many specialists, from more than 15 countries on five continents, to join the effort is a sign that doctors, who are on the front lines of caring for patients, are now taking a more active role in resisting high prices. In this case, some of the specialists even include researchers with close ties to the pharmaceutical industry. The doctors and researchers, who specialize in the potentially deadly blood cancer known as chronic myeloid leukemia, contend in a commentary published online by a medical journal Thursday that the prices of drugs used to treat that disease are astronomical, unsustainable and perhaps even immoral. They suggested that charging high prices for a medicine needed to keep someone alive is profiteering, akin to jacking up the prices of essential goods after a natural disaster. “Advocating for lower drug prices is a necessity to save the lives of patients” who cannot afford the medicines, they wrote in Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology. While noting that the cost of drugs for many other cancers were just as high, the doctors focused on what they know best — the medicines for chronic myeloid leukemia, like Gleevec, which is enormously profitable for Novartis. Among the critics is Dr. Brian Druker, who was the main academic developer of Gleevec and had to prod Novartis to bring it to market. Novartis argues that few patients actually pay the full cost of the drug and that prices reflect the high cost of research and the value of a drug to patients. Gleevec entered the market in 2001 at a price of about $30,000 a year in the United States, the doctors wrote. Since then, the price has tripled, it said, even as Gleevec has faced competition from five newer drugs. And those drugs are even more expensive. The prices have been the subject of intense debate elsewhere as well. The Supreme Court in India ruled recently that the drug could not be patented, clearing the way for use of far less expensive generic alternatives. Some of the doctors who signed on to the commentary said they were inspired by physicians at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who last fall refused to use a new colon cancer drug, Zaltrap, because it was twice as expensive as another drug without being better. After those doctors publicized their objections in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times, Sanofi, which markets Zaltrap, effectively cut the price in half . What impact the new commentary will have remains to be seen. The authors, however, call merely for a dialogue on pricing to begin. The leader of the protest is Dr. Hagop M. Kantarjian , chairman of the leukemia department at the prestigious MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Many of the roughly 120 doctors who were co-authors of the commentary — about 30 of whom are from the United States — work closely with pharmaceutical companies on research and clinical trials. They say they favor a healthy pharmaceutical industry, but think prices are much higher than they need to be to ensure that. “If you are making $3 billion a year on Gleevec, could you get by with $2 billion?” Dr. Druker, who is now director of the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health and Science University, said in an interview. “When do you cross the line from essential profits to profiteering?” Gleevec’s sales were $4.7 billion in 2012, making it Novartis’s best-selling drug. A newer Novartis leukemia drug, Tasigna, had sales of $1 billion. Novartis said in a statement released Thursday: “We recognize that sustainability of health care systems is a complex topic and we welcome the opportunity to be part of the dialogue.” It said that its investment in Gleevec continued after the initial approval, expanding the drug’s use to other diseases. It also said that it provided Gleevec or Tasigna free to 5,000 uninsured or underinsured Americans each year and to date had provided free drugs to more than 50,000 people in low-income countries. Novartis and the manufacturers of the other drugs for chronic myeloid leukemia say the prices reflect the value of the drug. While many cancer drugs with equally high prices extend life by only a few months on average, it is widely agreed that Gleevec and rivals are near-miracle medicines that essentially turn a death sentence into a chronic disease like diabetes. “It is a little surprising that their focus is in a cancer where the small-molecule medicines have had the greatest impact on long-term benefit,” said Dr. Harvey J. Berger, chief executive of Ariad Pharmaceuticals, which sells the newest and most expensive of the leukemia drugs, Iclusig. Dr. Berger said the price of Iclusig was $115,000 a year, not the $138,000 a year cited in the commentary. Pfizer said the price of its drug, Bosulif, also was overstated in the piece. The manufacturers cite the price at which they sell to wholesalers, while the authors of the commentary were referring to a price they say better reflects what is charged by a pharmacy to patients. The other drugs for chronic myeloid leukemia are Sprycel from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Synribo from Teva. The commentary noted that despite drug company programs, a minority of the estimated 1.2 million to 1.5 million people in the world with chronic myeloid leukemia were receiving one of the drugs. In many developing nations, it said, cancer experts were advocating risky bone marrow transplants because that is a one-time procedure that is cheaper than continuous treatment with one of the drugs. The article also said the survival rate for patients in the United States appeared to be less than it should be, perhaps because costs are forcing patients to not take their medicine. Prices for the drugs are twice as high in the United States as in many other countries, which often apply some government pressure or price controls to keep drug costs down. Even if out-of-pocket costs can be low, health systems in general still must pay for the drugs, the commentary says. And some patients say assistance programs are not always easy to use. Raven Riedesel of Winlock, Wash., said she had been turned down by various charities — though she hadn’t yet tried Novartis itself — because her husband, a pipe fitter, makes too much money. Yet the insurance from his union would require her to pay $1,200 to $1,600 a month as a co-payment for Tasigna. “It would take everything that we had left over after buying necessities and paying our bills,” said Ms. Riedesel, 28, a mother of two young children. She is now in a clinical trial allowing her to obtain Tasigna free; the trial will end in November. Patients in the United States circulated an online petition last year protesting the price of Gleevec, but the effort was dropped after receiving about 400 signatures. Cheap generic versions could enter the American market as early as 2015 when the main patent on Gleevec expires. Novartis might try to assert other patents to stave off competition, however. It is also trying to shift patients to Tasigna, which has a longer patent life. Dr. John M. Goldman, emeritus professor of hematology at Imperial College in London and a co-author of the commentary, said he knew several researchers who declined to become authors because they feared losing research money from the industry. Dr. Kantarjian, the lead author, said that was a risk. “I am sure I am going to be blackballed,” he said. “My research career will be hurt.” But he said it was time to speak out. “Pharmaceutical companies have lost their moral sense,” he said. Prices, he added, “are getting to the point where it is becoming unsustainable.”
|
Pharmaceuticals;Price;Health Insurance;Leukemia;Cancer;Blood Journal;Novartis
|
ny0172831
|
[
"technology",
"personaltech"
] |
2007/11/15
|
XM Satellite Radio’s XpressRC Receiver
|
In a world where fancy graphics exist on a device as small as a mobile phone, the radio receivers offered by Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio have remained pretty much stuck in the 1990s, often sporting single-line monochrome text displays. Which is why the new XpressRC after-market receiver offered by XM is such a welcome addition to its lineup. The XpressRC is a successor to XM’s black-and-white XpressR. It features improved graphics and a few TiVo-like features for about $130. In the eye-candy department, the XpressRC offers a bright and sharp full-color display. In addition to listing the current channel, the unit can be configured to show what is simultaneously playing on as many as three other stations. Listeners can program the unit to alert them when a favorite artist or song is playing, or when a favorite sports team is on; access to team statistics is available at any time. As with a DVR, the XpressRC stores the past 60 minutes of playing time, allowing listeners to pause and replay programming. All of which ensures that you never need to worry about missing that favorite Barry Manilow tune. ERIC A. TAUB
|
Radio;Sirius Satellite Radio Inc
|
ny0214257
|
[
"sports",
"skiing"
] |
2010/03/07
|
Vonn Gains Her Third Straight Downhill Season Title and Ties Miller
|
Lindsey Vonn won her third straight World Cup downhill title Saturday with a narrow victory in her first race since the Vancouver Olympics. She beat Johanna Schnarf of Italy by a hundredth of a second, and tied Bode Miller for the most World Cup victories in a career by an American, 32. “It was a tough race out there,” Vonn said. “Sometimes there would be a head wind, sometimes a tail wind. It was snowing really hard, and there was a lot of new snow on the track.” Vonn finished the Nationale downhill course in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, in 1 minute 35.26 seconds. Marianne Abderhalden of Switzerland was third, 0.38 behind. Vonn, whose only gold medal at the Olympics came in the downhill, clinched the Crystal Globe for the title by increasing her lead to over Germany’s Maria Riesch with one race left. Her sixth victory in seven World Cup downhill races this season extended her lead in the overall World Cup standings to 197 points ahead of Riesch, who was sixth. Anja Paerson of Sweden, who is third in the overall and downhill standings, broke off her run after a problem with her goggles. A drastic change of conditions at the top of the course midway through the event allowed several slower skiers to post impressive times, including Schnarf and Abderhalden, who celebrated their first World Cup podium finishes. Marusa Ferk of Slovenia was fourth, followed by Germany’s Viktoria Rebensburg, a surprise winner in the giant slalom at the Olympics. Vonn started 16th in a field of 48 under poor visibility and an icy wind that forced organizers to cancel Friday’s super combined race for safety reasons. The International Ski Federation said it would not reschedule the event, prompting Vonn and the United States Ski Team to claim she had won the super combined title. But only two events have been held this season, and the federation rules stipulate that three races must be run, making it unclear whether the federation will officially hand Vonn the title. Vonn has an unbeatable lead in the super-G standings. CUCHE CLINCHES TITLE Didier Cuche of Switzerland secured his third straight World Cup men’s downhill title with a dominant victory in the first race after the Olympics. Cuche finished the race on the 1994 Olympic course in Kvitfjell, Norway, in 1:45.98 to beat the Olympic silver medalist Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway by nearly half a second. Klaus Kröll of Austria was third. “It’s a nice day, I really enjoyed it,” Cuche said. “I was very nervous about 30 minutes before the start but then I calmed down. I found a really tight line down the course.” It was his third victory this season in the event, and Cuche clinched the discipline title with one race remaining at the World Cup finale in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. With a giant slalom and super-G victory as well, Cuche has won five races this season and has a career total of 14 wins. The race in sunny but freezing weather was marred when the American Andrew Weibrecht, the Olympic super-G bronze medalist, crashed. Weibrecht lost his balance while landing after a long jump, tumbled several times with his skis and poles flying away and came to a stop in the safety netting. He dislocated his shoulder and will miss next weekend’s World Cup season finale. Svindal, who won the super-G Olympic gold medal, delighted the home crowd with a fast run, but he went too wide in a bend compared with Cuche and finished second in 1:46.45. Kröll was third in 1:46.55. A FIRST-TIME WINNER Maurice Manificat of France won the men’s cross-country 30-kilometer pursuit and Marit Bjoergen of Norway won the women’s 15-kilometer race at the Lahti Ski Games in Finland. Manificat held off Lukas Bauer of the Czech Republic in the final sprint for his first World Cup win. Bjoergen, who won the pursuit at the Olympics, beat the World Cup leader Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland by 11.1 seconds.
|
Vonn Lindsey;World Cup (Skiing);Skiing
|
ny0251271
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2011/02/24
|
New York State Proposal Would Cap Annual Medicaid Increases
|
ALBANY — The State Health Department on Thursday will propose a cap on yearly increases in Medicaid financing that will require across-the-board spending cuts by health care providers. The spending cap, part of an overhaul of the way the state budgets its spending on health care for the poor, would require millions of dollars in cuts by hospitals, nursing homes and other health care providers. It would also leave them vulnerable to additional cuts if enrollment increases and Medicaid costs rise. But it would allow providers flexibility in finding their own cost savings, and it would go a long way toward filling the biggest remaining hole in Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ’s budget proposal, which counts on a $2.85 billion reduction in Medicaid spending to close the state’s $10 billion budget gap. As sketched out by the Health Department, the proposal would incorporate Mr. Cuomo’s proposed $52.8 billion budget for total Medicaid spending this year, and it would limit future growth in spending to 4 percent each year. Medicaid spending has grown far more than that in the past; this year, even with a razor-thin budget, the state’s projected $53.8 billion in total Medicaid spending would amount to a 6 percent increase from a year earlier. It was unclear whether health care providers, including hospitals and nursing homes, would support the proposal, but the notion of giving them control over how to shave costs might make it more appealing. Reining in Medicaid costs has been one of the most intractable problems facing the state. Mr. Cuomo delegated the task of finding the necessary savings to a committee of health care officials, lawmakers and others, whose recommendations are due on Tuesday, one month before the Legislature’s deadline to pass a budget. The committee will meet on Thursday and Friday to review dozens of cost-saving proposals, some that would save as little as a few hundred thousand dollars, others with possible savings in the hundreds of millions. Another proposal that will be unveiled on Thursday is a steep reduction in Medicaid spending for the administration of personal care services in New York City, which Mr. Cuomo has called a particular source of wasteful spending. Aides to Mr. Cuomo said that the measures to be discussed Thursday were proposals and that they could change significantly before the committee made its recommendations final. “The committee is going to consider dozens of proposals, as it has throughout this process and as it will continue to do,” said Josh Vlasto, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo. A spokeswoman for the Health Department declined to comment on any of the proposals in advance of the meeting on Thursday. But a state official involved with the Medicaid committee confirmed the authenticity of a draft of the proposals that was obtained by The New York Times. An earlier batch of 49 cost-saving proposals was presented to the committee last week to evaluate. Some of those will be discussed on Thursday; others were discarded after the Health Department reviewed the feedback. In order to balance this year’s budget, all health care providers would face an across-the-board 2 percent cut in Medicaid payments. That would total $345 million over all, with hospitals, nursing homes, managed-care providers and long-term care providers each facing a cut of more than $50 million. The providers would also have the freedom to propose their own cost-saving measures that have not already been brought before the Medicaid committee for consideration. The proposal would also provide an incentive for health care providers to find efficiencies and limit spending growth. “An essential element” of the proposal, according to a summary that was sent to committee members, is a commitment from providers to voluntarily reduce spending if enrollment increases, so that the state would stay within the 4 percent cap. Ultimately, though, if spending is on a pace to exceed the cap and the health care industry cannot find ways to control its costs, the state would be empowered to reduce reimbursement rates — but not curtail eligibility — to stay within the spending limit. The proposal also calls for long-term structural changes, most notably shifting budgeting for Medicaid spending to a two-year cycle, to give the state and health care providers more flexibility in staying within the set spending limits.
|
Budgets and Budgeting;Medicaid;Cuomo Andrew M;Medicine and Health;New York State
|
ny0057803
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2014/09/15
|
Health Law Has Caveat on Renewal of Coverage
|
WASHINGTON — Millions of consumers will soon receive notices from health insurance companies stating that their coverage is being automatically renewed for 2015, along with the financial assistance they received this year from the federal government. But consumer advocates and insurers say they see a significant potential for confusion because some of the information will be out of date and misleading on costs and other aspects of coverage. Some people who have been receiving monthly subsidy payments this year could get much less if they stay in their current health plans. The Obama administration announced in June that most people with insurance purchased in the federal marketplace would be automatically enrolled in the same or similar plans next year, so they would not need to file applications or go back to HealthCare.gov to continue their coverage. Now, however, the administration is emphasizing that consumers should revisit the marketplace to make sure they are getting the right amount of financial assistance and to compare other health plans. President Obama said in April that eight million people had enrolled in private health plans through federal and state marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the total will climb to 13 million in the next open enrollment period, which runs for three months starting on Nov. 15. Federal officials told insurers this month to send out standard renewal notices written by the government. The notices inform consumers of the new monthly premium for their health plans in 2015 and the most recent amount of any subsidy, or tax credit, paid for a household in 2014. In many cases, insurers will notify consumers that they face higher premiums but will not provide them any information about higher subsidies in 2015, a prospect that distresses insurers and consumer advocates. A typical letter to consumers says: “You don’t have to do anything. You’ll automatically be enrolled and just have to pay the monthly premium.” In some cases, it says, “You will be automatically enrolled in a new plan, but the plan won’t offer lower co-payments, co-insurance and deductibles based on income.” In June, the administration emphasized the benefits of passive re-enrollment. “At least 95 percent of consumers in the marketplace will not have to do anything to renew plans and their financial assistance,” Aaron Albright, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that runs the federal marketplace, said at the time. Consumer advocates complained that this was the wrong message to send because it incorrectly implied that no action was required and that nothing was changing, and administration officials have responded. “We will encourage everyone to come back to the marketplace to update their eligibility information and shop for the best coverage option that meets their needs,” Andrew M. Slavitt, the No. 2 official at the Medicare agency, said last week. Federal officials said they did not have the ability to compute 2015 subsidies from the income data currently available to them, which could be one or two years old. For this reason, they said, consumers should go back to the marketplace and report changes in income or family size, which could affect the amount of their subsidies. Kaiser Permanente, the large nonprofit health plan, said in a recent letter to the administration that requiring consumers to go to an exchange to ascertain their new subsidies would “significantly increase the administrative burdens on enrollees, marketplaces and carriers,” and seemed to defeat the purpose of a “passive renewal process.” If people update their information online, Mr. Albright said, they will be directed to the “plan finder” at HealthCare.gov, where they can see all the insurance options available in their area. If they like their current coverage, they can renew it by entering the 14-digit identification number for their health plan. Or they can search for the plan in the online catalog of private insurance options known as Plan Compare. Insurers have complained to the administration that the process is much more cumbersome than the one followed by workers at private companies. “Consumers will be frustrated and confused by having to locate their current option in Plan Compare, or by having to type a 14-digit number directly into the website,” Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans said in a recent letter to the administration. Tax credits are affected by the premium cost for a benchmark “silver” policy and could change even if a person has the same income and the same health plan next year, experts say. The government says people with insurance should report “income or life changes” — if, for example, they marry, have a new baby or start receiving coverage through a job. The changes can be reported online or by telephone, but administration officials said the federal exchange would no longer accept such information by mail. Consumer groups objected to elimination of the mail option. Many low-income people do not have ready access to computers, said Lynn Quincy, a health policy analyst at Consumers Union, and “call centers will be inundated with millions of new applicants during the open enrollment period.” Consumers can expect at least two notices this fall, one from their insurer and another from the federal or state exchange through which they bought their insurance. The federal exchange does not have accurate enrollment and payment records for some consumers because the “back end” of the computer system for HealthCare.gov, which keeps such data, has not been completed. As a result, the government and insurers have records that can differ on who is enrolled, the dates of coverage and demographic factors used to calculate premiums and tax credits. Thus, for example, an insurer may have halted coverage for a consumer who failed to pay premiums, but the government may not have a record of the termination, so the federal marketplace would send a notice saying the coverage will be renewed in 2015. The government and insurers are trying to reconcile their records, but the effort is behind schedule. “This coming year will be one of visible and continued improvement, but not perfection,” Mr. Slavitt said.
|
Health Insurance;Obamacare,Affordable Care Act;HealthCare.gov;Barack Obama
|
ny0038030
|
[
"technology"
] |
2014/03/22
|
Obama and Tech Executives to Meet Again on Privacy Issues
|
WASHINGTON — President Obama will meet with technology executives on Friday afternoon to discuss “issues of privacy, technology and intelligence,” a senior White House official said, amid growing concerns in Silicon Valley that intelligence agencies’ cyber snooping is steering customers away from buying American technology. The White House has not provided a list of the executives who were invited to the Oval Office meeting, which is scheduled to begin around 4 p.m. Mr. Obama held a similar meeting in December. A month later, the president announced he was taking steps to re-evaluate the breadth of the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance programs, including a curtailing of the bulk collection of phone records, though he provided few details and said almost nothing about Internet eavesdropping. Last week, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, wrote on his Facebook page that he was “confused and frustrated” by a series of news media disclosures about ways in which the N.S.A. has penetrated the defenses of hardware and software companies to monitor Internet activities. “I’ve called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote. “Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform.” The Obama administration is reviewing the bulk data collection program, and several bills are pending in Congress that would curtail N.S.A. surveillance.
|
NSA;Government Surveillance;Barack Obama;Mark E Zuckerberg
|
ny0291890
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2016/01/13
|
Britain: The Frustration Also Rises
|
In one of the rainiest British winters on record, some London commuters were surprised to hear that their trains had been delayed on Monday because of the sun. The rail operator Southeastern posted a message on Twitter on Tuesday saying that “we had severe congestion through Lewisham due to dispatching issues as a result of strong sunlight.” The company said low winter sun was hitting monitors at an angle that created a glare, impairing the drivers’ ability to see. Commuters are used to hearing a wide array of excuses for the frequent delays. Previous culprits have included “leaves on the line” and “the wrong type of snow.”
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Commuting;Public Transit;Great Britain
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ny0278542
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2016/11/01
|
In a Divorce, Who Gets Custody of Electronic Data? The Lawyers
|
A marriage is not just the union of two people. It is also the union of their data. And when they divorce, the data often gets spilled. The electorate is now witnessing a vivid example of this, arising from the separation of Anthony D. Weiner, a former congressman, and Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton. The F.B.I. is poring over their emails with a presidential election just days away. Divorce lawyers and data analysts interviewed on Monday said less public versions of this story play out all the time. “The problem is, once they’ve already engaged in bad behavior, it’s out there,” said John Slowiaczek, the president-elect of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. “You can’t recapture it, you can’t bury it.” No matter a person’s level of technical skill, it can be difficult to hide digital behavior from a spouse, a spouse’s lawyers or, in Mr. Weiner’s case, federal investigators. In August, Ms. Abedin, one of Mrs. Clinton’s closest aides and confidantes, informed her husband, a disgraced former congressman and mayoral candidate, that she wanted to separate after his latest sexting scandal. A federal investigation of Mr. Weiner revealed a trove of messages, including some belonging to Ms. Abedin. Nancy Berg, the president of the International Academy of Family Lawyers and a partner at the law firm Berg, Debele, DeSmidt & Rabuse, said that it was not uncommon to see situations like that of Ms. Abedin’s, where, she said, “her husband’s garbage is destroying her life.” In divorce proceedings, lawyers and investigators routinely mine public social media profiles for a glimpse into the activities of the client’s spouse. But their investigations go far beyond that, as they sift through whatever data they can legally obtain for signs of hidden assets or to catch the spouse in a significant lie. Lawyers are likely more focused on questions of finance and child custody than lurid questions of adultery or betrayal. Even so, a computer “tells you everything about a person’s character,” said Brook Schaub, a forensic analyst and licensed private investigator at the accounting firm Eide Bailly. It has “become the file cabinet, the stationery, the social networking, the everything,” he said. The data that can become publicly available depends largely on the individuals’ penchant for privacy and how careful they have been. Even those who value privacy during the relationship are at risk of the former spouse finding sensitive data. The first steps taken after the divorce process begins can be critical. Christine Leatherberry, a family lawyer in Dallas, said she recommended that her divorce clients create a new email account, stop sharing calendars and turn off the ability for apps on their phones to track their locations. Someone committed to finding embarrassing or otherwise discrediting information about a spouse can most likely find a way, especially if he or she is willing to flout the law. Such revelations may not be admissible in court, but they could bring professional ramifications or personal embarrassment. Take, for instance, the security questions that most important digital accounts, including email and banking, use to recover passwords if forgotten. Identifying your mother’s maiden name or the street you grew up on might foil distant identity thieves, but not a spouse. Annette Burns, a family lawyer in Phoenix, suggested concocting untruthful answers that you could remember but that no one else could guess. Frank Rudewicz, a principal at Marcum L.L.P. of Boston who focuses on forensic practice, said people had gone so far as to install malware on a spouse’s computer that would log keystrokes. But there are also fully innocent and legal ways that a spouse can gain access to what was thought to be private data, especially among those lacking savvy with their technology. As an example, a text message could go simultaneously to a phone and an iPad that was left with children or a former spouse, something many people forget or don’t know, especially if they didn’t set the devices up themselves. “It’s so convenient to have our texts pop up all over, and all of our computers synced,” Ms. Burns said. “But if one of those computers is left at home, that means your separated spouse has access to everything.” Mr. Slowiaczek said that the trend of social media evidence in divorce cases had started between five and eight years ago and had picked up “dramatically” over the last three to five years. He said evidence from social media was a “primary source for virtually anyone who has any divorce practice whatsoever, for getting information not only to understand our own clients, but also to understand the dynamics of people on the other side of a case.” Mr. Schaub described a case he had handled in which a father who had been unemployed for several years had claimed that he had been acting as a “Mr. Mom.” His computer use revealed a different story. ”His activity during the day is not dedicated to doting on the kids, it’s sitting at the computer, doing various things,” Mr. Schaub said, whether that be viewing pornography or racking up debts on online poker sites. Ms. Leatherberry said she did not recommend people who have filed for divorce delete photos, texts or social media posts, because that could be considered destruction of evidence. But people should be aware that lawyers introduce text messages and social media posts into almost all of their hearings and trials, she said. “Anything they put in a text or an email or in social media, assume it will be blown up onto a poster board in a courtroom one day,” she said.
|
Divorce;Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry;Text messaging;Social Media;Email
|
ny0109183
|
[
"us"
] |
2012/05/19
|
Obama Finds Middle Way on Gay Vows
|
NEW YORK — This president of the United States is a man from many worlds. Barack Obama has long cast himself as a transcender of tribes. “Born and raised between opposing dogmas, between cultures, between voices,” as the novelist Zadie Smith has written, he seems to take pride in acknowledging the truth in multiple ways of seeing. And so he pursues the liberal goal of widening health care access, but relies on private insurers and frames it as a question of budgets more than justice. He sustains and intensifies George W. Bush’s “war on terror,” while at the same time refusing to call it a war on terror and speaking more gingerly about America’s role in the world. It was this president who this month endorsed same-sex marriage . Once again, he appeared to seek to bridge two streams of thought: embracing a liberal priority in a notably conservative way. Speaking after his vice president and two cabinet secretaries had preceded him, Mr. Obama declared, “For me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” You don’t need to be a licensed grammarian to count the qualifications in that sentence: “for me,” “personally,” “for me” (again), “affirm” (a kind of going-along rather than declaring), “I think.” Qualifying words account for fully one-third of a sentence that was nonetheless deemed historic. What Mr. Obama apparently sought in that single sentence — to lend support to the cause, without letting anyone believe he was calling for a legally binding right — held true throughout the televised interview. He spoke in an essentially personal capacity; he declined to endorse same-sex marriage as a constitutional right that transcends state law; and, in cases like this at least, he seemed to conceive of rights as something that majorities confer on minorities when they please. In the interview, Mr. Obama was at pains to suggest that he was speaking as a (very special) regular guy, not as a national leader. “Part of my hesitation on this has also been I didn’t want to nationalize the issue,” he said. “There’s a tendency when I weigh in to think suddenly it becomes political and it becomes polarized.” Indeed, in the interview, Mr. Obama spoke repeatedly and admiringly of the activity of others in how the gay rights question is being “worked out” at the state and local level. His interviewer, Robin Roberts of ABC News, noted that this working-out has resulted in 30 states banning same-sex marriage. What this amounts to, in the American system of law, is Mr. Obama’s declining to define same-sex marriage as a constitutionally protected federal right the way, say, blacks going to the same schools as whites once was not and now is. Mr. Obama, a former constitutional law professor, knows that what is left to the states is a right that governors and legislators can confer or deny. That goes to the heart of an enduring tension in the very special division of powers and definition of rights that is the U.S. system of government. In American life, the friction lies in reconciling the majoritarian principle of letting voters decide with the idea of carving out rights that voters can’t infringe. In the words of the late John Hart Ely, a renowned legal scholar, the difficulty is to find “a way or ways of protecting minorities from majority tyranny that is not a flagrant contradiction of the principle of majority rule.” In recent American history, conservatives have been the principal champions of letting the states decide. Liberal icons like Martin Luther King Jr., who is so often invoked by Mr. Obama, have appealed to countermajoritarian rights and a law that lies above what the voters enact. For the president to leave matters to the states, despite his liberal personal view, seems to amount to a traditionally conservative position on rights. But the most striking thing about Mr. Obama’s statement was his call for patience: his contention that gay rights will come into force as a democratic majority becomes more comfortable with the gays in their own communities, thrashes out the issues in local forums and comes around to tolerance. “Different communities are arriving at different conclusions, at different times,” he said. “And I think that’s a healthy process and a healthy debate.” What seems to loom here is the specter of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that made abortion a federal constitutional right — but did so in a manner that interrupted an unresolved national conversation, as many supporters of abortion rights concede today, and thereby divided the country into two irreconcilable camps. Perhaps Mr. Obama, the onetime community organizer, is betting on the power of local dialogue. Perhaps he’s hoping that a vibrant national conversation can, as he often puts it, “bring people together” and create a consensus instead of the fault line that a presidential intervention might cut. In the past week, a new survey by The New York Times and CBS News suggested that 67 percent of Americans believe Mr. Obama’s new stance flowed from political considerations. Just 24 percent said it was “because he thinks it is right.” But the survey also found support for the president’s wager that social change is more effective in bringing rights than any presidential proclamation. In the last nine years, the proportion of Americans who said they had a gay colleague, close friend or relative increased 56 percent — from fewer than half of respondents to 7 out of 10. And, perhaps not coincidentally, over the last eight years, the proportion of Americans who favor same-sex marriage rights rose by one-third. “I think the whole country is evolving and changing,” Mr. Obama said in the interview. “And, you know, one of the things that I'd like to see is that a conversation continue in a respectful way.” Join an online conversation at http://anand.ly ; Follow on Twitter.com/anandwrites
|
Giridharadas Anand;Obama Barack;Same-Sex Marriage Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships
|
ny0155830
|
[
"business"
] |
2008/06/18
|
Big Banks Sued Over Sewer Bonds
|
A man in Jefferson County, Ala., has sued JPMorgan Chase , Morgan Keegan and 10 other banks, advisers and insurers, claiming their work on county bond transactions saddled residents with soaring sewer bills. The complaint, filed in an Alabama court on Tuesday by Charles Wilson, also accuses seven current and former county commissioners of breaching their fiduciary duty. The suit seeks damages for the 146,000 sewer customers in Jefferson County as well as the return of fees. Sewer bills for residents rose more than fourfold over the last 11 years as the county amassed $3.2 billion of debt to build a new sewer system.
|
Suits and Litigation;Morgan J P Chase & Co;Morgan Keegan & Co;Alabama
|
ny0145163
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2008/10/01
|
French Police Clash With Youths
|
ROMANS-SUR-ISÈRE, France (AP) — A French police officer was shot and wounded during clashes with youths that broke out after a teenager was killed in a car crash while fleeing the police, the authorities said Tuesday. The police used tear gas and rubber-coated pellets to push back about 50 people during clashes late Monday and early Tuesday. In an effort to prevent a second night of violence, about 300 riot police officers and gendarmes took up positions around the center of Romans-sur-Isère, 60 miles east of Lyon in the Rhone Valley. Some officers were brought in from neighboring regions. The wounded officer appeared to have been shot in the leg with a hunting rifle, the police prefecture said. The officer’s life was not in danger. Dents from bullets and buckshot were also found in police vehicles nearby. The violence broke out after a 16-year-old was killed after driving a stolen car into a wall while fleeing the police. Four other minors in the car were injured. Accidents involving the police and youths have been potentially explosive in France since riots in 2005 that were set off by the deaths of two teenagers electrocuted in a power substation while hiding from the police. Jean-Pierre Nahon, a prosecutor in the regional capital, Valence, said a police watchdog agency would investigate the latest episode. Mr. Nahon said that, according to a preliminary investigation, the five teenagers had stolen the car overnight and were driving at high speed through the center of Romans-sur-Isère when the police began chasing them. The driver took a sharp turn and lost control of the car, running into a wall.
|
France;Demonstrations and Riots;Police;Accidents and Safety
|
ny0198495
|
[
"us"
] |
2009/07/17
|
Nevada Sees an Opening in California’s Troubles
|
LAS VEGAS — Like buzzards circling a dying animal, Nevada business leaders gleefully mocked the California budget crisis on Thursday and crowed about the opportunities it offered their state to poach companies from its ailing neighbor. The president of the nonprofit Nevada Development Authority, A. Somer Hollingsworth, donned a tinfoil hat for part of a speech in which he told local business executives and politicians that California’s excessive government had led to its near-bankruptcy. “Nobody’s really working there — everybody’s a recipient of some kind of state program,” said Mr. Hollingsworth, whose organization’s mission is recruiting companies to the Las Vegas area and whose talk was entitled, “California Has Lost Its Mind and Las Vegas Is Providing Psychoanalysis.” After reciting Nevada’s favorable attributes — no personal or corporate income tax, lower sales taxes than in California — he asked, “Why would you not move?” California faces a $26.3 billion budget shortfall for which lawmakers have no solution, so the state has been forced to issue more than 91,000 i.o.u.’s worth more than $350 million to its employees in lieu of paychecks. Banks there have said they will not honor them after Friday. Mr. Hollingsworth made fun of several fees and taxes proposed by California lawmakers, like a $50-an-ounce tariff for recreational marijuana . “Whatever happened to a nickel bag, huh?” he said to laughter. One member of the audience, Jason McMillin, who recently moved his lighting business to Las Vegas from Utah, rejected the idea that it was unseemly for a state to openly take advantage of another’s misfortune. “It’s irresponsibility on the California side that got them here,” Mr. McMillin said. The president of the California Chamber of Commerce , Allan Zaremberg, shrugged off the speech, calling Mr. Hollingsworth’s tinfoil hat a gimmick and insisting that his organization was fighting to avert higher business taxes specifically to avoid losing employers. "I sense they’re being so aggressive because their economy is struggling, too," Mr. Zaremberg said. "I would match our higher education system against their higher education system any day. Also, our quality of life." Indeed, Nevada has had its share of economic and budgetary woes. The state has the nation’s highest home foreclosure rate, and the Legislature this year approved nearly $1 billion in new taxes and cut services to close a $2.5 billion budget gap. Still, the state and California have had a long history of tit-for-tat efforts to steal businesses from each other. Four years ago, after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger staged a press event on the Las Vegas Strip to urge Nevada companies to move west, the Nevada Development Authority bought a billboard at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles that warned companies their businesses would “be terminated” under the leadership of Mr. Schwarzenegger. “What’s happening, they’re doing to themselves,” Mr. Hollingsworth said in an interview after the speech. “The companies are going to leave, I want to make sure that I get my fair share.”
|
Nevada;Relocation of Business;Budgets and Budgeting;Schwarzenegger Arnold;California
|
ny0157434
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2008/06/22
|
Question of Fate and Justice After an Immigrant’s Death
|
MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. Back home, there wasn’t much difference between Mauricio Arriaga and Rene Perez. They grew up at the same time in the same poor rural area in the mountains of eastern Guatemala outside the town of Esquipulas, where they would join the pilgrims visiting the famous Basilica of Esquipulas, with its dark wooden image of the Crucifixion known as the Shrine of the Black Christ. They worked together in the rice and bean fields. They shared the meager life of the fields and the mountains with its abject poverty, its rampant alcoholism and its one avenue of escape, the arduous journey that took the most ambitious of them north, often to Westchester County, N.Y. They lost contact when Mr. Perez joined the Guatemalan army at 16 or 17. But it came as no great surprise to Mr. Arriaga that about five years after he arrived in Mount Kisco in 1989, following his cousin Tony, he ran into Mr. Perez one day on the street. By that time, the exodus was in full swing and Mount Kisco was filling with young men from the villages around Esquipulas. And then, there was all the difference in the world between the two men. Mr. Arriaga soon realized that Mr. Perez, whose family had raised an almost-impossible $3,000 to smuggle him across the border, was at the bottom of the bottom of life in Mount Kisco. He was not just one of the faceless Latinos looking for work in front of the train station every day. He was also a drunk, and before long, homeless, a chronic irritant to the police, who arrested him dozens of times for petty crimes — that $3,000 a source of incessant, stinging shame. Mr. Arriaga, on the other hand, managed to make it against all odds. There were jobs starting as a dishwasher in restaurants in Mount Kisco; Stamford, Conn.; New Windsor, N.Y.; and Atlanta. Then he went back to Mount Kisco. He started a restaurant, Tacos la Cabana, and then a larger, glossier one, the Mango Café, on Main Street in Mount Kisco, which became a favorite of families, full of kids in soccer uniforms and young couples. He started four restaurants in all and now runs the Mango Café and another in Guatemala. Sometimes, he would see Mr. Perez outside the Mount Kisco restaurant, lost on the sidewalks or hanging out at a deli across the street. He was still making a pest of himself, but never at Mr. Arriaga’s place. He figured Mr. Perez was too embarrassed to stop in. Even the arrival of Mr. Perez’s younger brother, Anibal, in 2005 couldn’t halt his slide. And then, as if coming full circle, what they had in common came to matter more than what they didn’t. Maybe there was something almost inevitable about Mr. Perez’s death on April 29, 2007, after he was found on a lonely country road in nearby Bedford. But it never felt that way to Mr. Arriaga, and it never felt that way to Anibal Perez. So both sat through the entire trial of the former Mount Kisco police officer, George Bubaris, accused of driving Mr. Perez to the country road where he was found and causing the injuries that led to his death. And both ended up convinced that the not-guilty verdict on Tuesday reflected a judgment on Mr. Perez’s life as much as a judgment on what caused his death. “The jury looked at this case and they put zero value on this man’s life, and they decided no policeman deserves to go to prison for someone whose life has no value,” Mr. Arriaga said. “What did the lawyer say? Taking him out there was like driving him to the Ritz-Carlton of homelessness? Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that people with more power get more justice.” He’s surely correct in saying that we value some lives more than others. Just check out the sneers and slurs in the comment section on the Web site of the local newspaper, The Journal News, if you doubt that. But jurors and legal experts said that wasn’t the whole story, either. The prosecution’s circumstantial case never definitively placed Mr. Perez and Mr. Bubaris together anywhere near where Mr. Perez was found or presented any evidence that Mr. Bubaris had harmed him. Perhaps a civil suit and a federal inquiry will produce a different result. Yes or no, even Mr. Arriaga, sitting with Anibal Perez and Jorge Lorenzo, a lawyer, at his restaurant the other night, seemed both angry and philosophical, as if aware that the most tantalizing story line in Rene Perez’s life had as much to do with fate as with justice. There was, he said, alcoholism in his own family. There was strength in Mr. Perez’s. In Anibal Perez, 27, who has two young daughters in Guatemala, he no doubt saw some of his younger self. Mr. Lorenzo, who is representing the Perez family, talked about the incredible loneliness of the immigrants on the street — not speaking the language, being away from their families and communities, working by day and seeking some solace at night, usually in female companionship or in the bottle. They were quiet as Colombian music buzzed in the background. You could see how thin was the line between what happened to Rene Perez and what happened to Mauricio Arriaga.
|
Immigration and Refugees;Westchester County (NY);Guatemala
|
ny0235475
|
[
"sports"
] |
2010/01/30
|
Colleges Prepare for Ripple Effects as Big Ten Studies Expansion
|
When the Big Ten Conference announced last month that it was considering expansion, the college sports world began a high-stakes game of musical chairs that will be influenced by athletic performance, academic standing, geography and money. Several universities have begun to circle hopefully, lobbying, eyeing a potential seat in new conference alignments, wanting desperately to avoid being left out of the big-money alliances once the music stops. “The Big Ten study puts everyone on notice that opportunities may be available for change,” Terry Holland, the athletic director at East Carolina, which is in Conference USA, said in an e-mail message. “Positioning will intensify.” However any Big Ten expansion would shake out — possibly adding one member, or even three or five, to the current 11, said Bill Martin, the outgoing athletic director at Michigan — it could have a domino effect on other conferences. The goal for any university would be to realign allegiances within, or to join, one of the six Bowl Championship Series conferences that control hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. As costs rise at a rate that the National Collegiate Athletic Association says is unsustainable, only 25 of 119 major-college athletic departments operated in the black in 2007-8, with the others averaging deficits of $9.87 million. “The only schools that have a shot of getting out of deep red ink are the ones in major conferences,” said Jay Coakley, a sports sociologist at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and the author of “Sports in Society.” “It’s just basically a survival tactic. For the most part, schools aren’t looking to make money; they’re just trying to cut losses.” Ritualized lobbying will be done mostly behind the scenes so that current conference affiliations are not damaged. E. Gordon Gee, the president of Ohio State, called this praising of stadium expansions, television markets and research facilities a “quiet kabuki dance.” An important consideration to admitting any new member, Gee said, would be academic credentials. All Big Ten members belong to the Association of American Universities, a consortium of the nation’s 62 leading research institutions. So are four universities being mentioned for potential Big Ten inclusion — Missouri of the Big 12, and Pittsburgh, Rutgers and Syracuse of the Big East. “It’s significant that we have institutions that meet the academic standing and reputation of institutions now in the Big Ten,” Gee said. “I don’t want to coin a phrase here, but we are sort of the public equivalent of the Ivy League in our quality.” When Missouri’s name surfaced for possible inclusion in the Big Ten, Gov. Jay Nixon focused primarily on academics in saying the option should be explored. He told The Associated Press, “I’m not going to say anything bad about the Big 12, but when you compare Oklahoma State to Northwestern, when you compare Texas Tech to Wisconsin, you begin looking at educational possibilities that are worth looking at.” Pittsburgh, Rutgers and Syracuse would probably give serious consideration to joining the Big Ten to enhance their academic reputations, said Kyle V. Sweitzer, a data resource analyst at Michigan State who wrote about university ambitions and conference affiliations in the most recent issue of New Directions for Higher Education. Rutgers, for example, could bring the New York television market to the Big Ten. It has a football stadium expansion under way and announced plans this month to renovate its basketball arena. Tim Pernetti, the Rutgers athletic director, said in an e-mail message that he would not speculate on Big Ten expansion, adding, “We are a proud member of the Big East.” Still, Rutgers and others would be “foolish not to explore” a move to the Big Ten, Sweitzer said. “No question the Big Ten has the academic reputation to go along with athletics,” he said. “I’m not sure the Big East does as a whole.” Yet, there is often tension between academic and athletic interests. Big Ten members also belong to the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, a pooling of resources and research opportunities that includes the University of Chicago. A majority of the Notre Dame faculty would surely like to join such a consortium, said Murray Sperber, a visiting professor of graduate education at the University of California, Berkeley, who has written two books about Notre Dame football. But Notre Dame has repeatedly said it is not interested in joining the Big Ten, relishing its football independence, traditional rivalries and revenue from a television deal with NBC that does not have to be shared. Some students have also expressed concern that the undergraduate experience may become compromised if Notre Dame became primarily a research institution, Sperber said. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the Big Ten will study possible expansion. Apart from academics, growth would be based primarily on athletic factors: adding a conference championship football game that could bring in an estimated $15 million; increasing the reach of the conference’s television network; and countering the perception that Big Ten football has become inferior to, say, the Southeastern Conference or the Big 12. Jim Delany, commissioner of the Big Ten, declined to comment. Conference officials and university presidents, who will make the final decision, are not believed to support expansion unanimously. Some speculate that a Big Ten expansion could have a broad, rippling effect, as in 2003 when the Big East lost Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech to the Atlantic Coast Conference and later added five members from Conference USA: Cincinnati, DePaul, Louisville, Marquette and South Florida. Notre Dame also competes in the Big East in sports other than football. A Big Ten expansion, some coaches and administrators said, might spur the Pacific-10 to do likewise, or set in motion a restructuring that could lead to a handful of so-called superconferences or even the withdrawal of a cartel of powerful universities from the N.C.A.A. “I do think the Big Ten holds a key, maybe the key, in terms of what is going to be the next phase of college athletics,” Ohio State’s Gee said. “We need to explore this carefully. The law of unintended consequences applies most specifically to college athletics.” Geno Auriemma, who has coached the Connecticut women’s basketball team to six national titles, forecast “a huge chain reaction.” “Whatever we thought, don’t think it anymore,” Auriemma said. “How many car companies were there? How many accounting firms? Airlines? You look at the rest of the world. The landscape keeps changing. The big get bigger. The ones who are struggling try to figure out a way not to get left behind. It’s not fair, but it’s the way of the world. Unfortunately, universities fall right into that same category.” Others say the effect will be much less seismic. But whatever happens, the Big East will be paying close attention. The loss of Pittsburgh, Rutgers or Syracuse would be a blow to the conference’s prestige. And it could leave the remaining Big East football schools to consider a separate alliance. To fortify its attractiveness, the Big East has contracted for a bowl game beginning next season at Yankee Stadium. It has partnered with the regional cable network SportsNet New York to bring a minimum of 16 conference football games and more than 100 basketball games per season into the nation’s largest television market. And it has extended its long-term arrangement with Madison Square Garden. “We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’re working hard to ensure that if something does happen, we can be in the best possible position,” John Marinatto, the Big East commissioner, said. And down the line the game of musical chairs could continue. If a Big East team joins the Big Ten, Conference USA members like Memphis, Central Florida and East Carolina will become candidates to fill the vacancy. East Carolina has a football stadium expansion scheduled to be completed for next season, which could enhance its chances if the Big East came calling. “The money involved is so much greater now than the last time this happened” in 2003, said Richard Lapchick, chairman of the DeVos Sport Business Management program at Central Florida. “Almost everybody will be in play to make sure they don’t get left short.”
|
College Athletics;Big Ten Conference;National Collegiate Athletic Assn;Bowl Championship Series;Rutgers The State University of New Jersey;University of Missouri;University of Pittsburgh;Syracuse University
|
ny0144745
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2008/10/09
|
2 McCain Words Touch Off a Lot More of Them
|
During Tuesday night’s debate, Bill Burton, a spokesman for Senator Barack Obama , sent an e-mail message to political reporters. “Did John McCain just refer to Obama as ‘that one’?” the message said. Indeed he had. Mr. McCain had been speaking of an energy bill that was “loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney.” “And you know who voted for it?” he asked. “You might never know. That one,” he said, smiling and pointing to Mr. Obama, without looking at him. After the debate, Mr. Obama’s aides rushed to the spin room and pronounced the phrase “odd.” Many people posting comments on the Internet kicked up a storm, as did callers to black talk radio, saying Mr. McCain had dehumanized and disrespected a fellow senator. Some offered a benign interpretation, saying Mr. McCain used the term frequently and had simply been clumsy this time. Others, like Warren Ballentine, an African-American host of a syndicated radio program who is a strong Obama supporter, said his chat room “exploded” with objections during the debate, and he devoted much of Wednesday’s show to the phrase. “It was totally disrespectful,” Mr. Ballentine said in an interview. “If you disrespect someone who is your equal, how will you treat me as a citizen?” Nicolle Wallace, a spokeswoman for Mr. McCain, said she was astounded that during an economic crisis, the Obama campaign was “again proving to be the fussiest campaign in American history.” Mr. Burton was asked Wednesday on MSNBC to specify his objection to the phrase. He replied that in their first debate Mr. McCain did not look at Mr. Obama and that in Tuesday’s, “he didn’t say his name.” Some apparent Obama supporters saw a merchandising opportunity, creating a Web site, www.thatone08.com , and a companion Facebook page to sell T-shirts emblazoned with the Obama campaign logo next to a new slogan: “That One 08.”
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Presidential Election of 2008;Debating;McCain John;Obama Barack
|
ny0048460
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2014/11/01
|
Colbert Announces End Date for ‘Report’ and His Blowhard Persona
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Only seven weeks are left for one of television’s most original comic characters: the blowhard conservative commentator created by Stephen Colbert. Thursday night, Mr. Colbert told his audience that Dec. 18 would be the end date for his Comedy Central program, “The Colbert Report,” and thus the final appearance for the persona he created for it. He has said he will retire the character before he succeeds David Letterman on CBS in 2015. Mr. Colbert made a joke of the announcement, of course, using it to push sales of his book, “America Again,” which was just released in paperback. “Stephen Colbert, the guy you’ve seen here every night for nine years will be gone,” Mr. Colbert announced. “All you’ll have left of me is this book.” Comedy Central will replace “The Colbert Report” with a new late-night program, “The Minority Report,” starring Larry Wilmore. It is expected to start sometime in January.
|
TV;Stephen Colbert;Comedy Central;CBS;Larry Wilmore;The Minority Report
|
ny0168114
|
[
"sports",
"hockey"
] |
2006/01/12
|
No. 11: Yesterday, Tonight, Forever
|
The tears flowed long before he stepped up to the microphone. "Jeez, maybe I should have kept playing," Mark Messier said haltingly, choking back tears several times at a news conference at Madison Square Garden. Yesterday, of course, was not the first time that Messier had cried in public. It surely will not be the last. He will probably reach for a handkerchief tonight when the Rangers retire his No. 11 at the Garden before their game against -- who else? -- the Edmonton Oilers. Most members of the Rangers' 1993-94 Stanley Cup championship team will join the Messier celebration. Brian Leetch, Alex Kovalev and Sergei Zubov, who are still playing, are the notable absences. "I think he'll be better tomorrow," Messier's father, Doug, said yesterday. "I know he's been thinking about it. I thought the time off might have made it a little bit easier. But he played like that. He played with a lot of emotion." How many times had Doug Messier seen Mark, who turns 45 next Wednesday, cry? "Generally it was just the joy of winning the Stanley Cup six times," Doug Messier said. He then referred to his son's returns to New York, first as a Vancouver Canuck in 1997-98 and as a Ranger for the 2000-1 season. "But I think when he came back -- he's great friends with Brian Leetch -- when he came back and the appreciation that the fans showed when he came back with Vancouver, those were kind of special nights." Reading from a statement, James L. Dolan, the Garden's chairman, said, "There is no name more appropriate than Messier to hang in Madison Square Garden forever." Messier, who played 10 of his 25 seasons in New York, won six Stanley Cups, five in Edmonton. In the spring of 1994, Messier, in his third season with the Rangers, helped end 54 years of frustration, leading the Rangers to their first Stanley Cup since 1940. "I would think that '84 and '94 meant the most to him," said Kevin Lowe, the Oilers' general manager and former defenseman. "And I would say that they're very close because of the emotion that Mark talked about in that letter to the Garden." Lowe, who teamed with Messier to win five Cups in Edmonton and one in New York, was referring to a letter that Messier wrote to what he called "the Garden faithful," thanking them for his 10 seasons in New York. "I remember him one time saying to me: 'We've got to slay the dragons. We've got to slay the demons and everything else that's gone on here for a lot of years in order to win this,' " Lowe said. "So it really meant a lot to him. I think he obviously adopted New York and New York adopted him. And he wanted to win as badly a Cup here as he did probably win his first ever. So very close, but I think he'd say they're almost identical. And to some degree, I feel the same way." If the six Stanley Cups were the highlights of Messier's career, then spending his last seven seasons -- three in Vancouver and four in New York -- without reaching the playoffs ranks among his biggest disappointments. Still, Messier, who is second to Wayne Gretzky on the career scoring list, said, "Having had the chance to finish my career here was obviously a dream come true." Which was another reason why yesterday's tears came as no surprise. "If he is reputed to be perhaps the greatest leader in all of professional sports, you're seeing why," Lowe said. "It's that emotion. He carried that emotion everywhere." Doug Messier added: "I felt bad for him. I think it would have been tougher for me if it was a year and a half ago. I think that in really that time I've had a chance to see him away from the game, like a lot of guys have been. And he's really enjoyed all of the time he's had with his kids and the family. And I think that that time away helped him really make the decision." Messier displayed a sense of humor about his tears, which first began when Glen Sather, the Rangers' president and general manager, lauded Messier from the lectern. "Aw, don't start now," Sather said. "You've got a long way to go." When it was Messier's turn to speak, he simply could not. Each time, tears would choke his voice. Finally, he said, "Trying to condense the last 26 years into one minute or one night is obviously very difficult." Shortly thereafter, Messier said: "I said to somebody coming in here, 'I wonder what the over-under in Las Vegas is before I start crying, how many words.' I guess everybody made money on that."
|
NEW YORK RANGERS;EDMONTON OILERS;MESSIER MARK;HOCKEY ICE;UNIFORMS;STANLEY CUP;AWARDS DECORATIONS AND HONORS
|
ny0017919
|
[
"sports",
"tennis"
] |
2013/07/04
|
Emotional Win for Polish Tennis
|
WIMBLEDON, England — Chair umpires have made no shortage of announcements through the decades at Wimbledon, but not many could have felt the need to say what Carlos Ramos said Wednesday as Jerzy Janowicz and Lukasz Kubot reached a critical phase of the second set on Court 1. “Please, as a courtesy to the players, can we please get back to this match,” Ramos said to the crowd. “Thank you.” These, clearly, were unusual circumstances. Henman Hill lies just outside Court 1, and the crowd gathered on that grassy slope was not watching big-screen television coverage of Janowicz and Kubot. It was watching coverage of the British star Andy Murray’s perilous match with Fernando Verdasco that was being played across the concourse on Centre Court. The predominantly British fans inside Court 1 were watching Murray on their smartphones and also picking up on reactions from the Hill: roaring and groaning themselves, often out of sync with the triumphs and disasters available in the match at hand. But in truth, they had another quality tennis tale developing right in front of them: the first all-Polish men’s singles match in Grand Slam history. That it came in a Wimbledon quarterfinal made it even more of a novelty, and when it ended, the 22-year-old Janowicz was the first Polish man to reach a Grand Slam semifinal. Janowicz, a 6-foot-8 force of nature, has not been universally embraced by his elders because of his demonstrative, in-your-face style and perhaps because of the obvious threat he now poses with his massive serve (an overused term that truly applies) and his surprising touch and mobility. But he and the 31-year-old Kubot are Davis Cup teammates as well as countrymen and when Janowicz’s 7-5, 6-4, 6-4 victory was complete and Janowicz had dropped to the grass with a mixture of disbelief and delight, Kubot soon crossed to his side of the net, waited for him to rise to his feet and hugged him. Image Agnieszka Radwanska, above, faces Sabine Lisicki in a semifinal. Lisicki’s parents are Polish immigrants. Credit Tom Hevezi/European Pressphoto Agency It was a long embrace, longer than Kubot expected as the taller Janowicz buried his head in his shoulder and they exchanged thumps on the back. When it ended, they borrowed a rite from soccer and swapped shirts even if they were, in a sense, representing the same team. “It was first time,” Kubot said. “It just came quick to my mind: ‘Let’s do it, and let’s do it quickly and show it’s not just about playing and challenging each other on the court. Just show the friendship and show that Polish tennis is getting better and we have one player in the semifinals.’ ” In fact, Poland has two singles players in the semifinals, and one more than that if you count Polish roots. Agnieszka Radwanska, the No. 4 seed in the women’s tournament, is back in the semifinals after reaching the final last year. Though she is as subtle as Janowicz is brash, they are on fine terms. “I know her many, many years,” Janowicz said. “We stay in touch all the time. She’s my really good friend.” On Thursday, Radwanska will face Sabine Lisicki, the powerful German whose parents are Polish immigrants and who speaks the language and understands the culture. “It’s amazing; this is the Polish Wimbledon,” said Wojtek Fibak, the last Polish man to advance to the final eight in a Grand Slam tournament. Fibak has long called Radwanska “a tennis genius” for her artful, adaptive approach to the game, but he said Janowicz was the one grabbing the most attention at home. “You need quite the connoisseur to appreciate Radwanska’s tennis,” Fibak said in a phone interview. “Because she doesn’t come across as the athlete, she doesn’t hit big. Janowicz is much easier to appreciate and understand for the Polish people because he’s tall and big and hits hard.” Fibak, now 60, was ranked as high as No. 10 and reached the quarterfinals at four different major tournaments, the last run coming at the 1980 United States Open. He later coached and advised Ivan Lendl, the great Czech champion who eventually took United States nationality and now coaches Murray. Image Janowicz, left, embraced Kubot after winning their quarterfinal match in straight sets. Credit Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters For years, Fibak waited for Polish successors without success. “On the men’s side, nobody even played in Wimbledon for 20 years,” Fibak said. “There was no Polish player in the main draw, much less two guys in the quarterfinals.” Kubot, in light of his age and ranking of 130, will likely struggle to get this far again, which is a pity considering how delightful it was to watch his throwback serve-and-volley style in the second week of the tournament where it was once a full-fortnight staple. The fans, when they were not focused on the Murray developments, seemed to appreciate Kubot’s deft low volleys and fast-twitch reactions, too. But the Wimbledon crowd is likely to get other chances through the years to appreciate Janowicz, who was seeded 24th here and is now guaranteed to break into the top 20 after his first run to a Grand Slam semifinal, where he will face Murray. “I hope Andy will feel some kind of pressure,” Janowicz said. “I’m sure he feel some kind of pressure because Great Britain is waiting for the English champion in Wimbledon.” The rough-cut Janowicz knows he can beat Murray. He defeated him in three sets last November when he announced himself to the tennis world at large by reaching the final of the Masters 1000 indoor event in Paris. “I think he has potential to be, for sure, top 5 player,” Kubot said. “With his character he can beat everyone, I think. He can focus for the next game, and let’s see what’s going to happen.” Though it is an unexpected matchup — Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were once in this half of the draw, remember? — it is also a compelling matchup. It will be the increasingly mature Murray and his home-court support against the combustible Janowicz, who looks like the sort of ill-shaven competitor who enjoys a big occasion even if the roars are against him. Image Janowicz, right, and Kubot leaving the court. The players, Davis Cup teammates, swapped shirts after the match. Credit Carl Court/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images It will be Murray’s world-class returns against Janowicz’s explosive serve, delivered at a top speed of 140 miles per hour Wednesday. His serve, like many a great serve, is compact, and the astonishing racket-head acceleration is reminiscent of the swing speed that Andy Roddick used to generate. “He’s got a very, very good serve and variations of the serves,” Kubot said. “It’s not only they’re big, powerful, but it’s always, you know, a little bit slice; little bit keep mixing it up, which makes it very difficult, especially on the surface which is grass.” Janowicz’s boyhood idol was Pete Sampras, winner of seven Wimbledons, and Janowicz’s numbers against Kubot were certainly numbers that Sampras could have been content with: 30 aces in just three sets and a remarkable 90 percent of his first-serve points won. But what is also intriguing about Janowicz is that, despite his height, he is agile. He does not move like any tennis player of comparable size has moved at this level. The 6-foot-9 John Isner and 6-foot-10 Ivo Karlovic are lumbering in comparison. “He’s like a Kevin Durant,” said Peter Fleming, the former American doubles star working as a television analyst here. Janowicz also has nervous energy to burn and no apparent reticence to share his emotions. They were on display for Kubot and everyone else in Court 1 as he dropped to his knees after match point, covered his eyes with both hands and then rolled onto his back on the close-cropped lawn where Sampras once played. He was soon shaking with the force of it all, sitting in the courtside chair that looked too small for him and crying while Kubot, now in possession of Janowicz’s shirt, waited politely for him so they could walk out together. Eventually they did just that: two Poles; two teammates, but only one teary-eyed semifinalist in the late-afternoon English sunshine.
|
Tennis;Wimbledon Tennis,Wimbledon;Jerzy Janowicz;Lukasz Kubot;Agnieszka Radwanska;Poland
|
ny0187944
|
[
"us"
] |
2009/04/09
|
Applications for Foreign Worker Visas Are Down
|
Federal immigration authorities said Wednesday that they were still accepting petitions by employers for temporary visas for foreign scientists and technology engineers for the next fiscal year, reflecting a sharp drop in applications over last year. The announcement came as a surprise to some employers, researchers and immigration advocates, who had predicted that in spite of the recession and other factors, the quotas for petitions for the so-called H-1B visa would most likely be reached within the initial five-day period, which began on April 1. The State Department issues up to 85,000 H-1B visas, including 65,000 for applicants with a bachelor’s degree or similar training and 20,000 for those with a master’s degree or higher from an American university. Some analysts have attributed the decline to the economic downturn and to new restrictions on financial companies that received emergency federal aid. But Chris Rhatigan, a spokeswoman for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services , which handles the petitions, said that in 2006, the agency did not reach the regular H-1B cap for at least a month and did not reach the master’s cap until July. In 2007, the regular cap was met in the first five-day filing period and the master’s degree cap was met within a month. Last year, the agency received about 163,000 petitions within the first five-day petition period, more than meeting the quotas. “The last two years were anomalies,” Ms. Rhatigan said. “This is going back to normal.” As part of the economic stimulus legislation, Congress added conditions for H-1B visas requiring banks that received bailout money to show that a newly hired immigrant is not displacing an American from a job for three months before and after the immigrant is hired.
|
Migrant and Foreign Workers;Visas;Recession and Depression;Citizenship and Immigration Services (US)
|
ny0092226
|
[
"sports",
"tennis"
] |
2015/08/17
|
Winning Rogers Cup, Andy Murray Ends a Skid Against Novak Djokovic
|
Andy Murray beat top-ranked Novak Djokovic, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, in the Rogers Cup in Montreal on Sunday for his fourth tournament victory of the year and his third title in the event. The second-seeded Murray, a Scot who also won the tournament in 2009 and 2010, ended an eight-match losing streak against Djokovic dating to the 2013 Wimbledon final. Djokovic, the champion in 2007, 2011 and 2012, lost for only the fourth time in 56 matches this year, a defeat that ended his bid to tie the ATP Tour record for consecutive Masters 1000 event titles at five. Djokovic, a Serb, was playing in his ninth straight final, a run that included championship victories over Murray this year at the Australian Open and in Key Biscayne, Fla. Murray cut Djokovic’s series lead to 19-9. In hot, muggy conditions at Uniprix Stadium, Murray served at 3-1 in the third set, already up a break. A ferocious baseline battle went to deuce 10 times, and Murray fought off six break points to take the game. Murray pounded two service winners in the final game and eventually won when, after a brief rally, Djokovic hit a groundstroke long. Murray will move to No. 2, ahead of Roger Federer, in the world rankings Monday. BENCIC WINS WOMEN’S EVENT The Swiss teenager Belinda Bencic won the women’s side of the Rogers Cup in Toronto, following her upset of Serena Williams with a 7-6 (5), 6-7 (4), 3-0 victory over an ailing Simona Halep. Halep, a 23-year-old Romanian and the second seed, was hampered by a left leg injury and heat exhaustion, and she retired from the match in the third set. Bencic, 18, won her second WTA Tour title, after Eastbourne in England this summer. Bencic, who is ranked 20th, beat four of the tournament’s top five seeds, including the top-ranked Williams in a semifinal. Halep tried to shake out her leg pain at times in the first set and, with a 6-5 lead, called for a trainer to work on her quadriceps. Down by 2-1 in the second set, she had the trainer come out again to rub her leg. Halep took another break before the third set and went back to the locker room. Bencic fumed after the interruption and voiced her displeasure with the umpire.
|
Tennis;Andy Murray;Novak Djokovic;Belinda Bencic;Simona Halep;Canadian Open (tennis)
|
ny0229558
|
[
"business"
] |
2010/07/25
|
A DNA Search Method Raises Privacy Questions
|
IT’S the latest criminal investigation technique, and it gives new meaning to that old saw “the ties that bind.” Recently, forensic scientists in California used a genetic analysis procedure called “familial searching” or “kinship searching” to help the police identify a suspect in the “Grim Sleeper” serial murder case — and they did so by using a DNA sample collected for another purpose from the suspect’s own son. The Los Angeles police later arrested the father, Lonnie David Franklin Jr., who has since been charged with 10 counts of murder . Forensic scientists routinely use a standard search method to try to identify a suspect who has left bits of DNA at a crime scene. They use a computer analysis to compare DNA from the scene to DNA profiles of known convicted offenders stored in a state database. When the profiles match exactly, genetic analysts call it a “cold hit.” But the Grim Sleeper case (so named because of an apparent hiatus in a killing spree that dates back to 1985) is unusual because, after regular searches came up empty, officials at California’s Bureau of Forensic Services decided to use familial searching, a more controversial technique. The procedure involved widening the genetic net to include convicted felons whom they knew had not committed the murders but whose DNA profiles were partial matches to the suspect — similar enough to the suspect’s that they might be related to him. Lo and behold, Mr. Franklin’s son had recently been convicted on a felony weapons charge, and his DNA offered a partial match to crime-scene DNA. And for the first time in California, that kind of one-degree-of-separation search ultimately led to an arrest. Although Britain has been using the technique for years, familial searching in the United States is the Botox of criminal investigation. Early-adopter states like California and Colorado have tried it, like it and plan, where appropriate, to use it again. The wait-and-see states are holding out while they consider the potential side effects and longer-term social ramifications. Some critics have contended that the technique might lead to an abuse of the system or, over time, to the disproportionate arrest of African-American males because they have a higher incarceration rate than men in other ethnic groups. But the immediate concern is that kinship searches could produce a long list of convicted felons who are only partial matches to an unidentified suspect. The risk is that the police, while looking for a suspect’s family members, might intrude on people who have not committed a crime. Some lawyers call it guilt by genetic association. “Our concern is that the initial comparison that generates a list of partial matches does not narrow it down to a single suspect’s likely family member,” says Peter Bibring , a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union in Southern California. “It’s a list and, at that point, the invasion of privacy depends on how the police go about their business.” In the early 2000s, the Forensic Science Service , a company now owned by the British government that provides forensic analyses to police forces, pioneered familial search methods for use in crime solving. The search method has helped solve infamous cold cases in England, including that of the so-called Shoe Rapist , named for a man who collected high heels from his victims. But the British have also used techniques that, for some, may raise concerns about privacy invasion. In the United States, for example, familial searches have used state databases that contain DNA profiles of convicted offenders. But in Britain, the national database collects DNA profiles of convicted felons, people who have been arrested but not convicted of a crime, and people who have been arrested but not charged — subjecting a wider swath of the population to genetic surveillance. Familial searches in Britain also often require a lot of bricks-and-mortar police work. Forensic scientists generate a list of people who are partial DNA matches to a suspect. But then they give the list to local constables, who may investigate and interview family members. “It’s very much soft intelligence,” said Cathy Turner, the lead consultant of cold-case reviews at the Forensic Science Service. “It’s like having an informant and the police investigate the informant’s information.” Would Americans stand for kinship searches if the police were given free rein to knock on the doors of people on a partial DNA match list, many of whom may not have anything to do with the unsolved crime? “I think here we’d be a little more concerned with privacy,” said Frederick R, Bieber , a medical geneticist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. California, under its attorney general, Jerry Brown, has developed a precise set of guidelines that limit the use of familial searching. A committee made up of forensic and legal experts must meet at each stage of the process to discuss the latest findings and decide whether the search should continue to the next step. The familial search in the Grim Sleeper case began at a lab of the state’s Bureau of Forensic Services in Richmond, Calif., where forensic scientists came up with a list of 200 partial DNA matches from a database that contains 1.3 million profiles. To narrow down their list of 200, they analyzed the Y chromosome, the male sex-determining chromosome that is passed from father to son. One person, a man who had recently been convicted on a felony weapons charge, was an exact match to the Y chromosome of crime-scene DNA. Next, using corroborating information like birth certificates and Google mapping, researchers figured out that the matching person’s father would be a viable suspect. Now, the committee had to vote on whether to give that name to police detectives. “We would all discuss, ‘Are we going to hand over that name?’ ” said Jill Spriggs, chief of the Bureau of Forensic Services. “In the Grim Sleeper case, we all voted to hand it over.” WITH this one case, California has become the model in the United States for how to conduct a kinship search. But the model is based on guidelines, not laws. Some advocates have suggested that each state enact its own regulations governing these kinship procedures. But the advent of familial searches raises important questions that may be better answered with a more sweeping authority: national mandatory standards governing the method and appropriate use of the technique.
|
Genetics and Heredity;DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid);American Civil Liberties Union;Crime and Criminals;Privacy
|
ny0135777
|
[
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] |
2008/04/06
|
Talk to Parents About Sex? Yeah, Right
|
ROSLYN, N.Y. ONE recent night, Logan Levkoff, a sex educator, met first with teenagers and then separately with parents here at the Sid Jacobson Jewish Community Center to talk about it. I hoped that sitting in on both sessions and comparing what was on the teenagers’ minds and what was on the parents’ minds might enlighten me. Since I have four teenagers myself, and have had limited success on this front, I thought I might get some ideas about the secret stuff they’re up to, as well as learn how to be more adept at discussing it with them. I didn’t want to inhibit anyone, so I promised not to use names unless I got permission afterward. Let me cut to the chase. While both the teenage and adult groups seemed to be full of decent humans striving for enlightenment, after three hours of listening, I found the prospects for any sustained open dialogue between teenagers and parents on sex pretty much devoid of hope. If I had to sum up the teenage view, it would be: “We’re definitely not going to talk to them about it, because they’re just going to tell us not to do it.” As for parents, they kept asking the same basic question, which didn’t seem to have an answer beyond, “Don’t give up.” A comment from a mother who’d been cleaning her “shy” ninth-grade daughter’s bedroom when she found a printout of an e-mail message discussing heavy petting moves was typical: “I tried talking to her,” the mother said. “But how do you talk to them when they don’t want to talk to you?” Ms. Levkoff is an Ivy League sex educator, with a master’s degree in human sexuality education from the University of Pennsylvania and a résumé full of talk-show appearances. She used the title of her recent book, “Third Base Ain’t What It Used to Be,” as a jumping-off point for both groups. According to Ms. Levkoff, the old third base was touching below the waist; the new third base is oral sex. The new definition seems to indicate sexual behavior inflation among today’s teenagers, since, as Ms. Levkoff pointed out, under the old scoring system, many would have counted oral sex as a grand slam. But as the teenagers explained to her from 5:30 to 7 p.m., and she then explained to their parents from 7:30 to 9 p.m., “they feel with oral sex they can still call themselves virgins.” In short, they feel safe at third. However, as Ms. Levkoff pointed out, things are not so safe at third, given the latest mind-boggling news for parents of teenagers: one-fourth of teenage girls in America have a sexually transmitted disease, according to a recently released federal study. This brought her to the major point of the night: the need for teenagers to consider protection from infection as well as from pregnancy when contemplating birth control. On this front, Ms. Levkoff was decidedly pro-condoms, making the point that they provide double-barreled protection that birth control pills do not. As for when teenagers are mature enough for sex, she told both groups that one good measure is when they’re ready to walk into a drugstore, and in a clear, crisp voice say, “I need a box of condoms now, please.” In the early stages of the teenagers’ discussion, it appeared that sexual behavior inflation might actually be hyperinflation when an eighth-grade girl said, “Probably most of the kids at our middle school aren’t virgins for sure, it’s kind of obvious.” (Being the father of an eighth-grade girl, this got me hyperfocused.) However, it gradually became clear that every other student in the room felt she was wrong. Indeed, two of the older teenagers, Ben Epstein, 17, a junior, and Perri Konecky, 16, a sophomore, said that while they know that some teenagers at Roslyn High are sexually active, they believe most are not. Within minutes, the eighth grader was backpedaling, first saying, “Well, maybe half,” and then retreating to: “By sexually active, it could be kissing, too.” This gave Ms. Levkoff the opportunity to say that one of the few things sexologists know for sure is that whether people are 15 or 55, it’s a good bet they’re not going to tell the truth about their sex life. With the teenagers, Ms. Levkoff discussed the double standards for boys and girls, how boys carrying condoms are considered cool, while girls get labeled easy. “If a condom fell out of a girlfriend’s pocketbook, how many of you would think she’s a slut?” Ms. Levkoff asked, and about a third of the 25 raised their hands. She asked how common it was for boys to carry condoms. “Most guys do,” Perri said. “Why?” Ms. Levkoff said. “They have high hopes,” Ben said. The teenage group discussed nitty-gritty information more than the adults, including how dental dams could be used for infection protection during oral sex and how the sugar-flavored condoms that were used for oral sex should not be used for vaginal sex because they can cause bacterial infection. When Ms. Levkoff asked where they got their information, many mentioned health courses at their middle and high schools as being very good. They also said they got information from the media, the Internet and friends. “Would any of you talk to your parents about sex?” asked Sheridan Gayer, the center’s teenage program director. Two said they might ask a parent a hypothetical question, but nothing personal. Ms. Levkoff and Ms. Gayer suggested that parents may be more understanding than they think, but the teenagers weren’t buying. “Something that bothers me,” said Ben, who described himself as very close with his parents. “People say you should talk to parents. Everyone’s parents feel like, ‘No, you’re not ready.’ Parents aren’t going to say, ‘You’re having sex, that’s cool.’ They’ll say, ‘No, don’t do that.’ ” In the days that followed, I spoke more with several people who had attended the discussions. The conversations sounded pretty much the same as the post-meeting talk I had with the Koneckys. Perri — an honors student, a lacrosse player, a leader in the Teen Council at the community center — and her mother, Joanne, 46, a social worker, described their relationship as very close. “She calls me on her cell all day long,” the mother said. “We talk about everything.” But not sex. “Mostly I get the general information from health classes,” Perri said. “And the specifics of things I get from my friends.” Parents? “For everyone, it’s a raw subject,” Perri said. “An awkward subject,” her mother said. “Nobody wants to think about their child having sex, and the children don’t want to think about their parents having sex.” Still, the parents felt an obligation, and last year, the father, Alan, a doctor, sat Perri down for a talk about medical issues related to human sexuality. “It was awkward,” Perri said. “But I managed.”
|
Sex;Families and Family Life;Children and Youth
|
ny0129447
|
[
"business",
"global"
] |
2012/06/09
|
Pressed to Take Bailout, Spain Tries to Measure Its Need
|
MADRID — Spain appears poised to seek a bailout of its ailing banks, a long-anticipated acknowledgment by the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the depths of Spain’s economic crisis. The only questions might be when, and how much. By some estimates, Spain’s banks might need as much as 100 billion euros ($125 billion). European leaders are said to prefer throwing a lifeline to Spanish banks now, though, rather than waiting for the banking problems to swamp Spain’s entire economy, which might require a full-scale bailout of the Spanish government that Europe can ill afford. But the bailout cannot begin until Spain formally requests it. And while some European leaders press Madrid to get on with the process, the Spanish government says it wants a fuller accounting of how much money it actually needs. Officials from around the euro zone on Friday were deflecting news reports that finance ministers would be conferring over the weekend to draw up a rescue package. On Friday, Spain’s deputy prime minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, suggested that her country would make no bailout request at least until after a banking audit expected Monday from the International Monetary Fund , as well as audits due June 21 from two independent consulting firms. Madrid evidently wants to avoid a miscalculation after significantly underestimating the problems at Bankia, a giant mortgage lender that was nationalized a month ago because of the mounting number of bad loans on its books. But there is increasing pressure from German and other European officials to force Spain to accept a banking bailout deal before June 17. That is the date of Greek parliamentary elections that could prompt Greece to seek an exit from the euro union, potentially beginning a disintegration of the common currency. Officials from other euro zone economies are trying frantically to increase pressure on Madrid to seek outside help “pre-emptively,” without waiting for those banking audit results, to remove one significant area of stress and uncertainty from the markets in case the Greek election “goes sideways,” according to two people close to the talks who were not authorized to speak publicly. “This doesn’t mean at all that you get agreement on all the details” right away, one of the people said. But it would allow euro finance ministers to “get a framework around the Spanish situation” and “free up human capital” to deal with any fallout from the Greek election, this person said. “It’s really designed to manage the Greece situation and try to tie up as many loose ends as possible.” Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, in a news conference on Friday, denied that Germany was applying pressure on Spain but said that help would be there if needed. “We have everything that is necessary for a stable development of the euro zone,” Ms. Merkel said, “and now it is, so to speak, up to the individual countries to turn to us. That has not happened yet. Therefore, Germany also won’t exert in any way any pressure here.” This week, the French finance minister, Pierre Moscovici, said Europe was ready to help Spain if needed. Until a few days ago, Mr. Rajoy had been delaying making the request in part because he reportedly hoped that the European Central Bank would step in, or that he could persuade other euro zone governments to agree to lend the money directly to the banks, to avoid adding to the Madrid government’s own debt load. But Mario Draghi, the president of the central bank, made clear during the last week that he was not going to intervene. And European officials have stressed that any bailout would have to go through the Madrid government, even if Europe imposed few conditions on Spain in return for such assistance. Since the start of the euro debt crisis more than two years ago, three governments — in Greece, Ireland and Portugal — have had to request bailouts. And those came with stringent budget and spending conditions imposed by the European Commission, the central bank and the International Monetary Fund. It is those conditions that have caused a political upheaval in Greece, where the Coalition of the Radical Left party, or Syriza, led by Alexis Tsipras, has vowed that if it comes to power it will refuse to live up to the nation’s bailout terms. But Spain may be able to avoid the strict fiscal oversight that Greece had to accept. The euro zone’s bailout fund was empowered last year to make loans to governments for the specific purpose of recapitalizing banks, with the conditions and payback terms focused largely on the financial sector and not the government’s fiscal autonomy. In another concession to make the move more palatable to Madrid, the I.M.F. would not be called in to help oversee the program, according to one of the people close to the discussions. Instead, the European Banking Authority would take its place, this person said. That, too, would give a bailout more of a bank focus, rather than the sort of broader jurisdiction over government finances that the I.M.F. typically demanded. While the people close to the conversations said there might be some talks over the weekend about the technical details of a bailout, “so far” there was no conference call scheduled for the full euro group of finance ministers. Asked about such a weekend conference call, Ms. Sáenz de Santamaría, the deputy prime minister, said Friday that European officials had not “at this moment” convened anything. “On a technical level, as far as I know, there’s nothing” planned either, she added. Since May 9, when the Spanish government drew attention to its banking problems by seizing Bankia, the country’s biggest mortgage lender, investor panic has raised Spain’s borrowing costs to near-record highs. Bankia received an emergency infusion from the government of 4.5 billion euros ($5.6 billion) and has since then requested an additional 19 billion euros to cover bad loans. Spain is expected soon to be saddled with the bad books of three other banks; the government had put them up for auction but failed to attract buyers. A European rescue deal limited to financing Spain’s banks, and not the government, would enable Mr. Rajoy to save face after he repeatedly denied that Spain needed any kind of bailout. But it would still be a serious blow for Mr. Rajoy’s conservative government, which was elected last November with a parliamentary majority by voters punishing the previous Socialist administration for perceived economic mismanagement. As recently as May 28, Mr. Rajoy had vowed that “there will be no Spanish banking rescue.” But in an indication of how quickly Madrid has had to shift its stance, Mr. Rajoy’s deputy refused Friday to say whether the government was working on a bailout request. “There are things that cannot be answered like in a test, with a yes or a no,” Ms. Sáenz de Santamaría said. Mr. Rajoy’s government is fighting a financial and economic crisis on several fronts. Spain has Europe’s highest unemployment rate, currently at 24.3 percent, and the European Commission recently forecast that Spain would be the only euro economy still in recession next year. Madrid is struggling to meet its budget deficit targets and impose stricter discipline upon its regions. On Thursday, Fitch Ratings raised red flags over Spain’s creditworthiness by downgrading the country’s debt by three notches, to BBB from A, leaving it just above junk status. After that downgrade, Spanish 10-year bonds traded to yield 6.12 percent Friday, up 0.08 percent, in stark contrast to the low interest rates investors are willing to accept to park their money in the euro zone’s safe harbor, Germany, whose 10-year bonds traded on Friday at 1.3 percent.
|
European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- );Spain;International Monetary Fund;Banking and Financial Institutions;Rajoy Mariano;Soraya Saenz de Santamaria;Politics and Government
|
ny0177795
|
[
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] |
2007/09/09
|
Mentors and Mileposts on a Run to Daylight
|
His sensational exploits are almost routine now — the sprints to the end zone, the surprising passes over stunned defensive backs. College football fans know all about Darren McFadden, the Arkansas tailback blessed with as much ability as anyone in the country. If only everyone knew how easily this story could have changed, then they might be more impressed with McFadden. “He had so many opportunities for really bad things to happen in his life,” said Leecie Henson, who taught McFadden in seventh grade. McFadden was once an undisciplined child who gave Henson nothing but grief, and his mother was battling a drug problem while trying to maintain a close bond with her son. Then there was the lapse in judgment last year, and the guilt McFadden felt after jeopardizing his career by staying out late and getting hurt — only weeks before the start of the season. Now McFadden is an all-American and a leading Heisman Trophy contender. In Arkansas, he is much more than that. He is perhaps the most popular player ever to suit up for his home state’s most popular team and a source of pride for a close-knit family that has been through many difficult times. “God spared me for a reason,” Mini Muhammad, McFadden’s mother, said. “He knew what my son was going to do.” McFadden began playing football when he was about 6, and he immediately fell in love with the sport. His talent was obvious, but it could have easily gone to waste. “If it wasn’t for Miss Henson, I wouldn’t be at this point I am now,” McFadden said. Their relationship was a rocky one at first. “It was one of those things, teacher-student,” McFadden said. “We didn’t get along at all. I guess we hated each other’s guts at the time — because I was bad. I wanted to do things my way, and she wanted it done her way. As time went, we just grew closer together. She’s just like another mother to me.” By the time McFadden reached ninth grade, his relationship with Henson, who taught him study skills, had improved. But he still had many challenges ahead. “He wasn’t doing well in his classes,” Henson said. “It wasn’t that he couldn’t do well, he just didn’t do well. He still was kind of getting in some fights. I had a conference with his dad and his stepmom. I just told them that I had been told that Darren had a real talent, and that he probably could play ball in college. I said he would not be able to go to college if he didn’t straighten up.” Henson — who now teaches at Springdale High School near Fayetteville — remains a mentor to McFadden, though he draws much of his strength from his family. McFadden is one of Muhammad’s 12 children. His father, Graylon McFadden, is not married to Muhammad — but both parents played a major role in their son’s life as he grew up in the Little Rock area. “I know a lot of folks grow up without their dads, ” Darren McFadden said. “I was very fortunate to have both my parents stay right in Little Rock, right near each other.” Henson described McFadden as intensely private. She said she found out only recently about some of the dangers he faced growing up. The two watched a documentary together about gang violence in Little Rock. “He said, ‘Oh, look, there’s Dad’s house,’ ” Henson said. “He said, ‘Oh, I remember him but he’s dead now.’ I just stopped it, and I said: ‘How did you make it? How did you survive?’ ” The credit, Henson said, goes to McFadden’s family, which did its best to shelter him from trouble. “His dad did everything that he possibly could,” Henson said. “That was his goal, to keep him out of those things.” McFadden has opened up a bit lately, shrugging off some of the shyness he said he felt when he was around people he does not know. Those close to him describe a maddeningly playful jokester — and there are plenty of stories to back that up. John Mayes, McFadden’s high school coach at Pulaski Oak Grove, remembers his star player dressing up as an old lady, wearing a skirt, boots and a wig. “That was one of the funniest parts of homecoming week,” Mayes said. “He was not afraid to have fun.” This is the man that strikes such fear into opposing defenses? Henson reveals another fun fact. “He’s Imelda Marcos; he’s got more shoes than I do,” she said. “He had to move to a bigger apartment, because he didn’t have enough closet space for his shoes.” Then there is the car McFadden drives around Fayetteville — a red 1996 Ford Crown Victoria that hovers above the ground on an absurdly oversized set of wheels. “Football is about having fun,” McFadden said when asked about his antics. “I know when to be serious and when not to be.” McFadden has had plenty of reasons to be serious over the years. Muhammad talks freely about her problems with crack and marijuana, which she says she overcame after being briefly jailed in 2002 on various traffic charges. “I was just tired, and I just told my children to let me stay in there,” Muhammad said. “I’ve been clean ever since.” McFadden said he was not aware of his mother’s struggle at first. “As I got older, I had suspicions and things, but I didn’t want to let her know or anything like that,” McFadden said. “So I just pretty much kept it to myself. She’s doing really great. I think she’s been clean five, six years. She’s doing great.” Last year, Muhammad and her son shared in his newfound success, traveling to New York for the Heisman Trophy ceremony. He finished second to Ohio State’s Troy Smith. Henson described a text message she received from McFadden during that trip. “He texted me and said, ‘I just want to thank you for everything. I love you so much,’ ” she said. “I cried through the whole thing. I thought nobody knows what a sweet kid this is.” McFadden still goes home to central Arkansas whenever he can. He had plans to make the trip from Fayetteville this weekend — the No. 18 Razorbacks have the weekend off before traveling to play Alabama. McFadden was back home last year when he dislocated his toe in a fight outside a Little Rock club. Details were sketchy, but McFadden had put himself in a precarious situation about a month before his team’s 2006 opener. “I felt like my whole world just went down the drain,” McFadden said. “I felt like I had let the whole state down, our family, friends, things like that. “They were all still supportive of me, but at the same time, I know they were very disappointed in me.” Henson recalled the immediate aftermath. “He was just sobbing and apologizing and apologizing,” she said. “He was sobbing when he went into surgery. He was sobbing when he came out of surgery. It took days to get him to come around.” McFadden recovered quickly, and the injury became an afterthought as he rushed for 1,647 yards last season. That and his ability to throw when taking direct snaps from center earned him attention from the Heisman voters. McFadden is now a junior, and his father said he had noticed a change after last summer’s injury. “I think he’s mellowed down a whole lot,” Graylon McFadden said. The younger McFadden concurs. “I guess I was a weekend person when the weekend came,” Darren McFadden said. “I’m not very much older, but I just feel like I’m 30 because I just like to sit back and relax. I really don’t go out much anymore.” McFadden has earned praise for his humility. Stardom does not appear to have gone to his head. Janet Forbess, a University of Arkansas faculty member, has had McFadden in several classes. “As he has got more and more famous, he doesn’t change in the classroom,” she said. As part of Forbess’s classes, McFadden has gone to area schools to teach physical education. Working with youngsters seems a natural fit. “If he can make you laugh, his day is made,” Henson said. “He’s done his job.” Behind the scenes, McFadden leaves an impression on people that is as memorable as one of his 60-yard runs. “He’s a sweet kid,” Henson said. “He tried really hard to not be. “For a long time, he didn’t want anybody to know that vulnerable side of him. But when you get to know him, you know that he’s very giving. He’s a very, very giving person.”
|
University of Arkansas;Football;College Athletics
|
ny0015161
|
[
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] |
2013/10/20
|
Winston Solidifies Stardom by Overwhelming Clemson
|
CLEMSON, S.C. — This was Jameis Winston’s introduction to stardom: silencing Death Valley on Saturday night, quarterbacking Florida State to a signature win over Clemson and making a firm case for the Heisman Trophy. Winston is electrifying college football as a redshirt freshman, just as Johnny Manziel did last season. Florida State fans call him Famous Jameis. Remember the name, they say. On his first big stage, against his first big opponent, Winston showed why. He and No. 5 Florida State smashed No. 3 Clemson, 51-14. Winston threw for 444 yards and accounted for four touchdowns, giving him 23 total touchdowns on the season. All that was missing was his Heisman pose. “He’s not a freshman,” Rashad Greene, a Florida State receiver, said, adding, “That’s a grown man.” No opponent has ever scored more points at Memorial Stadium. Winston kept Florida State’s national title hopes alive. But he had plenty of help in lifting the Seminoles, who are 4-0 in the Atlantic Coast Conference, to 6-0 over all for the first time since their 1999 championship season. His receivers — Greene, Kelvin Benjamin and Kenny Shaw, as well as tight end Nick O’Leary — made spectacular catches. His team’s defense was relentless and stingy. Winston, though, outplayed Tajh Boyd, a Clemson fifth-year senior, on a night when their quarterback matchup took center stage. ESPN’s “College GameDay” was here. Lee Corso dressed up like Chief Osceola, and the actor Bill Murray, whose son attends Clemson, playfully tackled him. Much was at stake, with two Heisman candidates at quarterback and two top-five teams from the A.C.C. Much had been expected from Clemson and Florida State in recent years. They were the cream of the crop, the standard-bearers for the conference. They were supposed to compete with the teams from the Southeastern Conference for national titles and college football supremacy. Neither did exactly that. But Boyd led Clemson to back-to-back wins over SEC powers, beating Louisiana State in the Chick-fil-A Bowl last season and Georgia in this season’s opener. And Florida State had Winston, which by itself seemed to give the Seminoles a chance. On Clemson’s first play, Boyd connected with tight end Stanton Seckinger, who fumbled as he went down. Three plays later, Winston lofted a 22-yard pass toward the 6-foot-5 Benjamin at the goal line. Benjamin was tightly covered, but the throw was perfect, high and to the outside. Benjamin turned and snatched the ball for a touchdown. Winston jogged off the field nonchalantly. After Boyd and the Clemson offense stalled, Winston led a 16-play, 77-yard drive that ended in a field goal. He looked like the senior, standing tall in the pocket. Death Valley was already quiet. Then Boyd faked a handoff near midfield, was drilled by Lamarcus Joyner on a cornerback blitz and fumbled. Defensive end Mario Edwards Jr. scooped up the ball and rumbled for a 37-yard touchdown and a 17-0 Florida State lead. Boyd tried to rally. He tossed a 3-yard touchdown pass to his star receiver, Sammy Watkins, and the Clemson defense intercepted Winston on the ensuing possession. But Winston responded, dumping a pass to Greene, who had found a pocket in the Clemson defense. As two defenders dived at Greene’s feet, he turned upfield and took off, outrunning everyone else for a 72-yard touchdown. Death Valley was silent by halftime, with Clemson (6-1, 4-1) trailing, 27-7. The night seemed reminiscent of Texas A&M’s win over Alabama last season behind Manziel, its dynamic quarterback. The Tigers were not the Crimson Tide, but like Manziel, Winston held everyone’s curiosity. He was young and clearly talented. But he had been portrayed as the anti-Manziel. He was a polished pocket passer, confident and composed, unafraid to challenge his teammates or make a big throw. He asked to be reprimanded if he ever had what he called the “Manziel disease.” Yet he was still every bit as exciting. In his collegiate debut, he completed 25 of 27 passes in a rout of Pittsburgh. Against Boston College, he broke two tackles and threw for a score on a 55-yard heave just before halftime. The next week against Maryland, he wiggled out of a tackle, rolled right and fired a 12-yard touchdown pass to the corner of the end zone. The ball was placed perfectly over a defender, but low enough to keep his receiver inbounds. It was a play typical of Manziel. Of course, the attention on Winston was only growing. T-shirts were made depicting him as Jesus, calling him “The Chosen One.” Winston is already the face of the Seminoles, and now, having throttled Clemson, he could be the best hope for the A.C.C. He will face two more real tests this season, in two weeks against Miami and in Florida State’s regular-season finale, against Florida. He will have time to grow and learn even more by then. The attention will grow, too. But it will surely be fun to watch. When Winston flipped a quick pass to Greene on their first drive of the second half and Greene scampered for a 17-yard touchdown, orange-clad fans started to file out of Memorial Stadium. They had seen enough.
|
College football;Clemson;Florida State University;Jameis Winston
|
ny0268230
|
[
"business",
"dealbook"
] |
2016/03/25
|
Senate Bill Would Limit Shareholder Rights
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Jason N. Ader is the chief executive and Eric Jackson the managing director of SpringOwl Asset Management. We were surprised to learn that two Senate Democrats – Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Jeff Merkley of Oregon – have introduced a bill that would restrict shareholder rights . The bill was co-sponsored by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Would these same Democrats favor restricting voter rights to make it more difficult for voters to express their views? Then why restrict shareholder rights? The bill seeks to shorten the number of days to two from 10 that shareholders have to disclose that they have bought more than 5 percent of a company, force shareholders to disclose derivatives and short positions they hold in a company, as well as redefine the rules about who has taken a 5 percent stake in a company to prevent “wolf pack” investing, which occurs when a lead fund tips off others that a disclosure is about to be made, giving them the opportunity to buy the same stock before the 10-day window is up. The bill is misguided. Its backers are unwittingly supporting entrenched and underperforming managers to restrict shareholders from having the right to oust them. Senator Baldwin took inspiration for this bill from an example of so-called shareholder short-termism when Starboard Value said in 2011 that the Wisconsin-based Wasau Paper should focus on its tissue paper business instead of its free-sheet printing paper business. Starboard made its case for change , arguing that the world was moving away from free-sheet printing paper and toward tissue paper. Essentially, Starboard said Wasau should focus more on its most profitable business and take resources from businesses where it was losing money. Wasau Paper argued that it should focus on both. Eventually, Wasau Paper decided to close a money-losing free-sheet printing paper plant in Brokaw, Wisc. One hundred jobs were lost. Local tax revenue was lost. It hurt that town’s economy. Hence, the name of this bill is the Brokaw Act. But let’s examine the facts here. Was Starboard wrong? No. A Wasau Paper competitor, Verso Paper, has maintained a focus on free-sheet printing. Verso just went into bankruptcy for the second time. The tissue paper-focused competitor Kimberley Clark, however, appears to be thriving. It’s stock price has increased more than 110 percent over the last five years. Was Starboard a “short-term” investor? No. Starboard held its Wasau Paper stake for more than four years until Wasau Paper agreed to be acquired by SCA in October. That’s hardly “short-term game playing,” as Senator Merkley called it. Did it act in a “wolf pack” with other investors? No. Do Senators Sanders and Warren favor companies running unprofitable lines of business until the entire company goes into bankruptcy and all jobs across the company are lost? If Brokaw had a large plant that made fax machines, no political bill would help save those jobs when the world stopped using fax machines. If a shareholder speaks up and suggests that management stop investing in fax machines, management should listen. Finally, let’s consider who the major investors in these kinds of funds are. They are teacher and police officer pension funds, municipal retirement systems, private pensions of large companies with thousands of employees and endowment funds of major academic systems. Are these pensioners, these former teachers, police officers and government workers trying to sell America short? Hardly. They simply want the pension that they are entitled to. This requires that their assets be invested profitably in profitable companies. If activist funds make wise investments, those pensioners will be well served. If they don’t, those pensioners’ representatives will invest their assets with funds that make wiser investments. Other shareholders do not have to listen to the views of one shareholder. May the best ideas rise to the top, whether they come from management or shareholders. But this bill allows management to ignore the voice of shareholders. That hurts pensioners and shareholders and makes American businesses weaker compared with competitors around the world. Our company, SpringOwl Asset Management, has run successful shareholder campaigns for change at midsize companies like IGT and BWIN.party and large companies like Yahoo and Viacom. In all four of these situations, when we spoke up and demanded changes from underperforming management, we were inundated with support from employees at each company. They thanked us for criticizing their bosses because they realized that their best hope to keep their jobs was that their company be run properly and competently by better management. We received calls and letters from shareholders thanking us for getting involved, giving them a collective voice, representing their interests — all things generally viewed as positives in any other situation. Shareholders do not cause bad management, just as voters do not cause bad politicians. The Democratic senators have put forward a bill that will keep poorly performing managers in power for longer while they drive American businesses into the ground. That’s not what American democracy and capitalism are about.
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Shareholder Rights;SpringOwl;Tammy Suzanne Green Baldwin;Legislation;Jeff Merkley
|
ny0002532
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2013/03/12
|
House and Senate Work Simultaneously to Create Budgets
|
WASHINGTON — Congress this week will begin taking the first steps toward a more structured and orderly budget process, beginning what both parties hope is a move away from the vicious cycle of deadline-driven quick fixes. In the Senate, Democrats were putting the finishing touches on a budget they plan to introduce on Wednesday, their first in four years, while House Republicans were preparing to introduce a spending plan of their own on Tuesday morning. The two proposals, which would set spending targets for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, will be miles apart ideologically and difficult to merge. Democrats plan to rely heavily on closing tax loopholes that benefit corporations and the wealthy to produce new revenue, while Republicans will focus on slashing spending to balance the budget in 10 years. But the fact that both houses of Congress are working on their budgets simultaneously after years of impasse raised some measure of hope — albeit slight — that Democrats and Republicans might be able to work out some sort of compromise. Compromise between the two parties, however, is only half of a more complicated bargain. Democrats also have to bridge the divide among a politically diverse group of Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee. The committee chairwoman, Senator Patty Murray of Washington, said Monday that she expected all 12 members of her majority to vote in favor of the Democrats’ budget, even if some members so far remain uncommitted. “I have a really diverse committee,” Mrs. Murray said, adding, “They all recognize that we have some really common goals, and we have worked it out.” That diversity is one of the major reasons Senate Democrats have not written a spending plan of their own since 2009, given the challenge of bringing together senators from Oregon to Virginia to Vermont who do not always agree on issues like whether cuts should fall more heavily on military or nonmilitary programs, and which tax loopholes to eliminate. “Dealing with the difference of opinion is tough,” said Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont, an independent who has tried to ensure that the Democrats’ budget does not include an adjustment to the inflation rate that would calculate it in a way that would decrease federal benefits. Mr. Sanders said he was confident the inflation rate calculation would be untouched, but he was not prepared to sign on to Mrs. Murray’s plan until he sees the final document. “We’ve had long talks; we’ll see what happens,” he said. The committee is closely divided between 12 Democratic votes and 10 Republican votes. In another sign that both parties continue to look for ways to meet in the middle, President Obama is to visit Capitol Hill for four separate meetings this week with the Democratic and Republican conferences of both houses. The president and his aides have said that this rare display of bipartisan outreach, coming a week after Mr. Obama dined with a dozen Republican senators, is intended to help foster cooperation between the parties. Against this backdrop, the Senate Appropriations Committee was preparing to lay out a separate stopgap spending plan to keep the government financed through September. The House passed its plan last week. Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, who framed the Senate’s action as a first step in a longer process, said, “This week will offer another opportunity for the Senate to return to regular order, an opportunity for this body to legislate through cooperation, through compromise, as we used to do.” “This legislation,” Mr. Reid continued, “will be a test of the Senate’s good will. America’s economy is poised to grow and expand. The last thing it needs is another manufactured crisis such as a government shutdown to derail its progress.” The movement expected in Congress this week will draw attention to one of the more unusual aspects of business in Washington. When it comes to writing budget resolutions, the House and the Senate have worked on entirely separate paths. Senate Democrats, unable to always agree and not eager to take votes that could prove politically unpopular, have avoided drawing up large-scale a budget. House Republicans, meanwhile, have made the budget the focus of their efforts. And they have seized on the issue as a way of portraying Democrats as inept and unfocused. The National Republican Senatorial Committee snidely commented on Monday that Democrats had claimed “for more than 1,400 days that the dog ate their homework.” And Republican senators have churned out news releases noting what could have been accomplished since the Democrats last passed a budget, like 179 round-trip missions to the moon and 292 expeditions to the summit of Mount Everest. But even if Democrats do pass a budget in the Senate, it will mean little unless it can be merged with the House Republican budget and pass both houses of Congress. “I think because of all the attention on the failure to pass a budget in regular order, Democrats are at least obligated to,” said Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland, who was until recently a member of the Budget Committee. “But I don’t think there’s much optimism that we’re going to reconcile a budget with this House quickly,” he added.
|
US Politics;Federal Budget;House of Representatives;Congress;Senate;Congress
|
ny0204509
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2009/01/20
|
Ravens’ McGahee Expects a Complete Recovery
|
OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) — Ravens running back Willis McGahee joined his teammates Monday at Baltimore’s training complex after doctors told him he would make a full recovery from a fierce helmet-to-helmet hit in the American Football Conference championship game. He was carted off the field Sunday night. “I’m all right,” he told reporters as the Ravens cleared out their lockers. “Everything is O.K. The M.R.I. and the CAT scan checked out good. I was scared, but I didn’t know how serious it was. It was pretty intense.” McGahee said that he had a concussion and that his neck was sore. The play occurred in the fourth quarter of Pittsburgh’s 23-14 victory. McGahee had caught a pass and taken two steps before being met by safety Ryan Clark, who drove his helmet into McGahee’s face mask. McGahee’s head snapped back, and he lost the ball as he dropped to the ground. “I didn’t even see him coming,” McGahee said, adding: “I blacked out. I woke up when they were taking my face mask off.”
|
McGahee Willis;Concussions
|
ny0074895
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2015/04/24
|
An Optimistic Victor Cruz Says He Will Play in Giants’ Opener Against Cowboys
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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Victor Cruz leapt onto the stage at the auditorium inside the Giants’ headquarters Thursday afternoon in one explosive move, a 30-inch vault that ignored a staircase that would have made for a much easier ascent. Cruz turned and smiled. Just below the hem of his shorts, a dark surgery scar ran in a straight line beneath his right knee, the only apparent evidence of the reconstruction of Cruz’s torn patellar tendon. That injury ended Cruz’s season last October and cast his career in doubt. But Thursday, Cruz wanted to eliminate the uncertainty about his future. “There’s zero doubts that I’ll be playing in that first game,” Cruz said about the Giants’ regular-season opener at Dallas on Sept. 13. “I do feel like I can continue to be the same guy that I was before.” Cruz has been running in a straight line for about a month. Lateral moves and making the kinds of cuts he would while running pass routes is the next step in his rehabilitation. Cruz said he had gotten past the moment when he wondered if his knee would react and feel the same as it once did. “Mentally, I’m confident in my knee and I’m close to doing more things with it — I want to run faster, I want to start cutting,” he said. “But I have to be patient.” Jerry Reese, the Giants’ general manager, sounded a more cautious tone. “He’s running pretty good right now, and he’s scheduled to be back ready for the opener for us,” Reese said. “But until you get out there and turn it loose, you never know what a guy is going to do.” Reese conceded he had weighed the possibility that Cruz either would not be ready to play in September or might not be 100 percent healthy. “He looks great right now,” Reese said. “But I want to be prepared in case he’s not here.” To that end, the Giants could still use their first-round draft pick next week, the ninth selection over all, to take a wide receiver. Reese did not rule out any possibilities. Off the field, Cruz said fans were constantly telling him how excited they were about his playing alongside the second-year sensation Odell Beckham Jr. this season. “If I get another question out on the streets about how excited everybody is about myself and Odell, I might just jump off a building,” Cruz said. But when his Thursday news conference with reporters concluded, Cruz instead jumped off the stage, landing softly on both feet before he jogged out of the auditorium. BECKHAM MAKES A VOW Odell Beckham Jr. said that he had not drawn up a list of goals for the 2015 season, but that one objective was to be more in control of his emotions. Specifically, Beckham mentioned the incident late last year when he was hit out of bounds after a play and ripped off his helmet and tossed it to the ground when a penalty was not called. Beckham was fined by the N.F.L. for the outburst. “I’m learning to stay more composed,” Beckham said. “I don’t want to do anything to draw more attention to myself. You’re not going to get every call, and not everything is going to go your way.” Beckham said he was going to extend his warm-up period before games and practices in an effort to avoid the kind of hamstring muscle strain that derailed much of his season a year ago. And Beckham said the highlight of his off-season so far was meeting the former soccer star David Beckham. “Meeting a guy that I clowned about being a relative for so long was a thrill,” said Beckham, who played soccer as a youth. “He told me to keep the legacy going.” LOBBYING FOR A LINEMAN Justin Pugh, the Giants’ right tackle the past two seasons, said he would not object to being moved to guard this year. Shifting Pugh inside the offensive line formation has been discussed since Pugh was drafted in 2013, but the Giants have needed him at tackle. “When I came here I told them I would play anywhere,” Pugh said. “I’m loving right tackle, but I don’t mind playing guard. I’m here to win a championship wherever I have to play.” Pugh also lobbied for the Giants to use their first-round pick in next week’s draft on Iowa offensive lineman Brandon Scherff. “I like him,” Pugh said. “He’s a tough kid from what I’ve seen.” Thursday, General Manager Jerry Reese said of Scherff: “I think he can play guard, tackle — I think he can play somewhere.” Otherwise, Reese, in a news conference, said almost nothing about the Giants’ intentions in the draft. He said the team had evaluated the top two quarterbacks in the draft, Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota. Reese said he thought both were good players, then added: “Expect the unexpected in the draft. You can look up and some of those quarterbacks they think are going to be in the first couple picks could be not off the board until 15 or 20. You never know. Funny things can happen, so expect everything to happen.”
|
Football;Victor Cruz;Sports Drafts and Recruits;NFL; Super Bowl; Super Bowl 2015;Odell Beckham Jr.;Justin Pugh;Jerry Reese;Giants
|
ny0087231
|
[
"business",
"dealbook"
] |
2015/07/01
|
Willis Group and Towers Watson to Merge
|
LONDON — The insurance broker and risk management advisory firm Willis Group Holdings said on Tuesday that it had agreed to an all-share merger with the professional services firm Towers Watson that would create a company with an $18 billion market value. The deal would create a professional services, risk management and insurance brokerage firm with more than $8 billion in annual revenue and about 39,000 employees in more than 120 countries, the companies said. The combined company would operate under the Willis Towers Watson brand. The transaction is subject to approval by regulators and by the shareholders of both companies. It is expected to close by the end of the year. “This is a tremendous combination of two highly compatible companies with complementary strategic priorities, product and service offerings, and geographies that we expect to deliver significant value for both sets of shareholders,” John Haley, the chairman and chief executive of Towers Watson, said in a news release . “We see numerous opportunities to enhance our growth profile.” Mr. Haley will serve as chief executive of the combined company. James F. McCann, the Willis chairman, will serve as chairman of the combined company and Dominic Casserley, the Willis chief executive, will serve as president and deputy chief executive. The boards of directors of both companies have approved the deal. The combined company will be based in Ireland. After the deal, Willis shareholders will own about 50.1 percent of the combined company, while the remainder will be owned by Towers Watson shareholders, the statement announcing the agreement said. Under the terms of the deal, Towers Watson shareholders will receive 2.649 Willis shares for each share of Towers Watson they own. They also will receive a cash dividend of $4.87 a share. Willis said it expected to engage in a reverse stock split, subject to approval by its shareholders. Willis shareholders would receive 0.3775 share in the combined company for each share they owned, while Towers Watson shareholders would receive shares in the combined company on a one-for-one basis. The merger is not conditional on Willis shareholders’ approval of the reverse stock split. The companies expect to make $100 million to $125 million in annual cost savings after the deal. Founded in 1828, Willis is legally based in Ireland and maintains its executive headquarters in London. It offers risk management, insurance and reinsurance brokerage services. The company posted revenue of $3.8 billion for 2014 and employs more than 22,500 people worldwide. The Sears Tower in Chicago, one of the tallest buildings in the world, was renamed the Willis Tower in 2009 after the company signed a long-term lease for space in the building. Towers Watson is based in Arlington, Va. The company was formed in 2010 by the merger of Towers, Perrin, Forster & Crosby and Watson Wyatt Worldwide, but it traces its roots to 1865. It provides a variety of professional services, including human resources management, risk consulting and compensation advisory services. Towers Watson posted revenue of $3.5 billion for 2014 and employs about 16,000 people. Perella Weinberg Partners and the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges advised Willis, while Towers Watson was advised by Bank of America Merrill Lynch and the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
|
Willis Group Holdings;Personal finance;Watson Wyatt Worldwide;London;Arlington Va;Ireland;Mergers and Acquisitions;Commercial Real Estate
|
ny0272530
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2016/05/19
|
How Bad Are the Braves? So Far, 1962 Mets Bad
|
The Atlanta Braves have taken the path of so many bad teams and fired their manager, Fredi Gonzalez. But the Braves are not just another bad baseball team . At the moment, they are on a pace to be one of the worst teams ever. On Wednesday morning, the Braves sat at 9-29, a .237 winning percentage that, projected over a whole season, would put them at 38-124. That would be the worst record of the 162-game era. Should they keep up the abysmal pace, they would surpass the woeful 1962 Mets, who, despite their legendary inability to play the game, managed 40 wins. (The Braves did win Wednesday night, beating Pittsburgh by 3-1 to raise their winning percentage to .256.) It was not that long ago that the Braves were good; they won 96 games and made the playoffs in 2013. But after a disappointing 2014, the Braves remade their team, trading away Jason Heyward, Justin Upton and Craig Kimbrel. Andrelton Simmons was shipped out in the last off-season. Image Braves catcher A.J. Pierzynski mishandled the ball on a play at home Tuesday night as the Pirates spoiled Brian Snitker’s debut as Atlanta’s interim manager. Credit Justin K. Aller/Getty Images Yet despite the fire sale, the Braves’ batters have not gotten any younger. Six of their eight regular starters are in their 30s. Those veterans are just not hitting the ball at the moment. Catcher A. J. Pierzynski, 39, is hitting .207. Shortstop Erick Aybar, 32, is at .174. Outfielder Jeff Francoeur, 32, is at .226. Collectively, the team was slugging a pitiful .313 entering Wednesday, the worst mark in baseball, and had scored the fewest runs of any team. The Braves’ worst category by far is home runs. The team totals for homers in the rest of the major leagues ranged from 55 (Mets, Orioles and Rays) to 30 (Phillies) entering Wednesday. The Braves had 13. That matched the total hit by Nolan Arenado of the Rockies, the major league leader. Although the Braves’ pitching is better, it is not good. The team E.R.A., 4.70, was fourth worst in the National League. The Braves did rank first in one category: wild pitches, with 23. There are some bright spots, sort of. Unlike the batters, the pitching staff is young. Starters Matt Wisler and Julio Teheran, although a combined 2-7, both have solid E.R.A.s. Center fielder Mallex Smith, the youngster of the starting lineup at 23, is hitting a little, and first baseman Freddie Freeman, the other player in his 20s, at least has six homers. The Braves have also been a little bit unlucky. Their ratio of 123 runs scored to 193 given up entering Wednesday would be expected to produce 12 wins, rather than nine. Perhaps the biggest saving grace for the team is that it is not the only bad one out there. The Twins are now 10-29 as well. The Reds’ run differential, minus-72, is actually worse. It is not uncommon for teams in any sport to get out to extreme starts and then slip back to more reasonable performances as the season goes along. It certainly seems to be a reasonable guess to say the Braves will not maintain their torridly bad pace and the Mets’ record will be safe. Those 1962 Mets statistics make for ugly reading. Playing their first season in the league, with players mostly too old, too young or too untalented, they were last in baseball in both batting average (.240) and E.R.A (5.04). It was the type of season most baseball fans thought they would never see again. Maybe they were right. Maybe.
|
Baseball;Fredi Gonzalez;Braves
|
ny0003310
|
[
"sports",
"golf"
] |
2013/04/05
|
Matt Bettencourt and Peter Tomasulo Tied for Lead at Texas Open
|
Matt Bettencourt and Peter Tomasulo shot five-under par 67s to earn the surprising lead after the first round of the Texas Open in San Antonio.
|
Valero Texas Open;Golf;Matt Bettencourt
|
ny0136303
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2008/04/14
|
Firing Barbs, but Looking Like a Saint
|
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton showed no mercy at the “compassion forum.” Both Mrs. Clinton and Senator Barack Obama gave thoughtful, pious answers to questions about faith and moral values at the CNN event held at Messiah College near Harrisburg, Pa. But Mrs. Clinton, who spoke first, didn’t shrink from also going on the attack. In answer to a question, she decried what she called Mr. Obama’s lack of faith in American values, labeling a description he gave of “bitter” voters in small-town Pennsylvania as “elitist, out of touch and, frankly, patronizing.” And with a straight face, Mrs. Clinton simultaneously claimed the high ground, saying twice that she would allow Mr. Obama to speak for himself on the matter, noting “he does an excellent job of that.” When it was his turn, Mr. Obama tried to explain that his remark, which he said was “clumsy,” had been misunderstood by critics and distorted for political gain by Mrs. Clinton. (Last week, he told donors in San Francisco that some working-class people “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a way to explain their frustrations.) But the television camera has a way of zooming in on discomfort. Mr. Obama sounded defensive, and his explanations were stilted and uneven. Later, Mr. Obama proved just as fluent as Mrs. Clinton on the subject of his faith and the role of religion in American society, and he had no difficulty explaining once again why he has remained faithful to his former pastor, Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., despite Mr. Wright’s incendiary sermons. But Mr. Obama had to alternately assure viewers that he is not an alienated, race-obsessed African-American who speaks for the meaner streets and that he is not a Harvard-educated elitist who looks down at Main Street. And that gave Mrs. Clinton the advantage. Mrs. Clinton even placed Mr. Obama in the same upper-crust echelon as Al Gore and John Kerry, noting that even though both former Democratic presidential candidates were men of faith, “large segments of the electorate concluded that they did not really understand or relate to or frankly respect their ways of life.” It was a tour de force: Mrs. Clinton managed to take the shiv in chivalry and stick it to her opponent, all the while looking and sounding almost saintly. Some of her aplomb may have stemmed from her campaign’s sudden reversal of fortune: Mr. Obama’s “bitter” faux pas gave Mrs. Clinton an opening to turn the conversation away from her misstatements about her 1996 visit to Bosnia and keep Mr. Obama on the hot seat. But she also was in her element, a minisession of the kind of high-minded discussions about spirituality and public office that she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, used to conduct for fun at Renaissance Weekends on Hilton Head. Mrs. Clinton confidently addressed sensitive issues like abortion, weaving her personal opinion (she supports it but said she wants it to be both “safe and rare”) with reminders of her foreign policy experience, first in China, where women are forced to have abortions, and Romania, where in communist times abortion was treated as a crime. And she also described her faith in God in soft, humble tones — at times her eyes shone as if she were on the verge of tears as she described her reliance on God’s grace in times of trouble. She alluded to the Monica Lewinsky scandal without actually mentioning it. “Some of my struggles and challenges have been extremely public,” she told Jon Meacham, the editor of Newsweek, who was a moderator alongside Campbell Brown of CNN. “And I have talked about how I have been both guided and supported through those, trying to find my own way through, because, for me, my faith has given me the confidence to make decisions that were right for me, whether anybody else agreed with me or not.” At one point, however, Mrs. Clinton seemed almost to repent for political gamesmanship and came close to promising never to sin again if elected president. “But I hope I will never, ever find myself being defensive or abrupt and dismissive of people who disagree with me,” she said. “I regret that that often happens in politics, and maybe it’s because oftentimes the decision-making process is so exhausting.” She never looked less tired.
|
Clinton Hillary Rodham;Obama Barack;Television;Presidential Election of 2008;Cable News Network;Religion and Churches
|
ny0255276
|
[
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] |
2011/09/17
|
Amid Talk of Expansion, Top-Ranked Oklahoma Enters Spotlight
|
College football’s continuing turmoil has provided a protective cloak of sorts around the Oklahoma Sooners and their No. 1 ranking. Three weeks into less controversial seasons, the ranking surely would have sparked heated debates. Not that Oklahoma should have to defend itself from critics, who have been preoccupied with analyzing big-picture issues, including potential conference realignments and player suspensions. The Sooners, though, have played just one game, a 47-14 rout of Tulsa, followed by an off week that further pushed them from center stage. “If there isn’t all this other stuff, then they’re talking about No. 1 and No. 2 and let’s debate it,” Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops said. “It’s fair to say, with everything else that’s going on, you have a chance to fly under the radar.” The Sooners emerge from the shadows Saturday night for a showdown at No. 5 Florida State, where the spotlight also falls on the Seminoles as they look to redefine their program in the post-Bobby Bowden era. Revenge normally would be a spicy ingredient for F.S.U., which was beaten, 47-17, in Norman, Okla., last year. This game also features a bit of sibling rivalry, with Stoops facing his brother Mark, the Seminoles’ defensive coordinator. But any drama appears to be confined to Doak Campbell Stadium as both teams look to cement their early-season status. “You know more of your team,” Florida State Coach Jimbo Fisher said of the difference between this year’s game and last year’s. “Last year being the second game we played, it was still a very interesting thing going on the road, a big game on the road. We know our players better. I think they know us better, they know our scheme better. We know what they can do in our scheme better. So hopefully we will be able to coach them better and hopefully we have gotten better as a football team throughout that time, which I think we did as the year went on last year. And hopefully we will be better early this year.” Stoops, in his 13th season as Oklahoma’s coach, seemingly cannot create a distraction if he tried, even amid the upheaval surrounding the Big 12 Conference. The Sooners’ players and coaches remained conspicuously quiet about the issue, but the university’s regents plan to discuss conference realignment in a scheduled meeting in Tulsa on Monday. Stoops did allow a film crew to shoot “Training Days with the Sooners,” part of ESPN’s all-access series that also involved Florida and Texas, in what amounted to controversy-free exposure. Before the season, Stoops told boosters in Oklahoma City that the Sooners were overdue to win a national championship, comments that barely caused a ripple of backlash. “I know how it is here; we’ve won national championships through the decades, and it’s been over a decade,” said Stoops, who won a title in 2000, his second season in Norman. “It’s about time for us. That’s how our fan base is. I didn’t mean anything other than that. That’s just kind of how we’ve done it through the years, so hopefully we can do it again.” The Sooners appear so at ease that quarterback Landry Jones’s Heisman Trophy candidacy generates little if any talk around the locker room. Asked what might happen should Jones become a prominent candidate for the award, Stoops quickly mentioned Sam Bradford’s successful campaign in 2008. “Hopefully that’s a distraction, because in the end, it isn’t,” he said. “When Bradford won it, players aren’t just playing for him, they know they got a hand in that. Everyone around here takes pride in that if one of our guys is doing it, we’re all doing it.” Oklahoma was not faced with N.C.A.A. investigations in the off-season, but it did deal with adversity. Last spring, linebacker Austin Box, 22, was found dead in what authorities found to be an accidental overdose of prescription painkillers and an antidepressant drug. “Sometimes the scandals get more TV time than other things, but it doesn’t really bother us or upset us,” said Jones, who was 35 of 47 for 375 yards and one touchdown against Tulsa. “You want to fly under the radar, and have people work hard and be kind of a blue-collar team.” Oklahoma was at the top briefly last season, when it was No. 1 in the first Bowl Championship Series poll, but quickly lost, 36-27, at Missouri. “We really didn’t handle it that well,” running back Roy Finch said. “Last year, we had young guys, and being the No. 1 team in the country, we were just excited to be No. 1. We didn’t know what it takes to prepare week in and week out for our opponents and live up to that No. 1 ranking. This year, we’re very focused and confident in that No. 1 ranking and we’re going to go out and show it.” The spotlight at the top certainly does not seem as blinding this time, a notion Stoops and the Sooners already have coolly embraced. “Again, I say this in a humble way,” Stoops said. “We’ve been a target for quite a while now. No matter who we’re playing, we don’t sneak up much on anybody. So how much of a target do we really have?”
|
Football;University of Oklahoma;Big 12 Conference;Florida State University;College Athletics;Stoops Bob;Fisher Jimbo
|
ny0275548
|
[
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] |
2016/02/26
|
Complaint Focuses on Coach
|
Dave Hart, Tennessee’s athletic director, stood by his embattled football coach Thursday and said his department did not interfere with the university’s disciplinary process, two weeks after a lawsuit alleged that the college had mishandled sexual assault complaints against athletes. “I trust Butch Jones implicitly,” Hart said, referring to the football coach. “I know who he is. I know what his work ethic is. I know what he’s meant to this university, well beyond the department of athletics, and I know how he’s represented the university.” Jones was at the center of an amended complaint filed Wednesday. The complaint said that the former Tennessee football player Drae Bowles assisted a woman who said she had been raped by two other players and that he was later attacked by teammates and told by Jones that he had “betrayed the team.” The coach has said he only tried to assist Bowles.
|
College football;Butch Jones;Drae Bowles;Rape;Coaches;University of Tennessee;Title IX;College
|
ny0229175
|
[
"sports",
"cricket"
] |
2010/07/23
|
Ending on a High Note
|
Endings do not come much neater than the conclusion to the Sri Lankan bowler Muttiah Muralitharan’s test cricket career. The final out of India’s second innings in Muralitharan’s last five-day test, which finished Thursday, made him the first bowler ever to take 800 wickets in tests. The catch to dismiss India’s last man, Pragyan Ojha, was taken by Mahela Jayawardene. It was his 77th from the bowling of Muralitharan, more than 20 ahead of any other bowler-fielder combination (excluding wicketkeepers) in test history. And it happened at Galle, the coastal Sri Lankan ground whose restoration was among many projects Muralitharan helped drive in the aftermath of the devastating tsunami of 2004. It also avoided a ticklish debate about whether he should change his plans and play one more match — there are two to come in a series that Sri Lanka now leads, 1-0 — to reach the 800 landmark. That means he can go at the exact time and place of his choosing. As he said before the match: “I am going out in a good manner, because people are not asking me to go. They are asking me to stay.” Cricket is not always so accommodating to those chasing landmarks. England’s Jack Hobbs ended his major league-level career with 197 scores of 100 or more. Pakistan’s Inzamam Ulhaq finished three runs short of becoming his country’s all-time leading run scorer. Most famously of all, Australia’s Donald Bradman had a career test batting average of 99.94 runs per dismissal. Muralitharan, 38, had needed eight wickets to reach 800. For many good bowlers, eight wickets in a test would be a career highlight. For Muralitharan it was almost routine. He had previously taken 103 wickets in 14 tests at Galle, an average well above seven. Those 800 wickets were taken in 133 tests, averaging just over six. That happily rounded number should stay in the record books for a long time. Shane Warne, the Australian spinner who is second on the list with 708, said, “I don’t think anyone will ever get there.” Warne, who with Muralitharan and India’s Anil Kumble — third with 619 wickets — formed a modern spin holy trinity, is wont to respond warmly to the moment rather than analyze, but there is every chance that he is right. Muralitharan maintained a staggering strike rate — only four other bowlers with more than 200 test wickets average even five per match, and three of those just scrape over the line — with exceptional durability, playing in tests for 18 years. Greatness, though, is more than just statistics, however remarkable. Muralitharan changed the game. Memories of him will be dominated by debates over the legitimacy of a bowling action generated by a right elbow fused into a bent position and a double-jointed wrist, which were intensified by cricket’s moralizing propensity for labeling technically quirky bowlers as cheats. He was twice no-balled for throwing during Sri Lanka’s 1995-96 tour of Australia. These arguments led to intensive scientific analysis not only of his, but many other, bowling actions. The outcome was a change in the rules, setting permitted levels of flexion by the arm. Among cricket fans, the debate had an acid-test quality. Asians were likelier to believe in his legality than Australians, liberals and left-wingers usually better disposed than conservatives. It had a wider recent resonance in cricketing politics when Sri Lanka was among the countries to veto John Howard, who while prime minister of Australia had accused Muralitharan of throwing, when he was nominated to lead the International Cricket Council. Not least of Muralitharan’s attributes was staggering steadfastness under fire. He was much more effective after his action was questioned than before. He carried extraordinary responsibilities for his team, taking more than 40 percent of Sri Lanka’s wickets; only one other Sri Lankan bowler has managed even 100 test wickets. Weak support may have left more wickets for him to take, but also meant he lacked the pressurizing support from the other end that helps create dismissals. He was a Tamil in a Sri Lankan team dominated by the majority Sinhalese population during a period of violent civil conflict. While a fearsome competitor — the visual images left are flailing limbs, flashing, expressive eyes and prodigious spin — few great sportsmen have conveyed a stronger sense of personal warmth or the simple, unalloyed joys of playing a game well. An unfailingly cheerful and good-humored on-field demeanor was, teammates have confirmed, the true reflection of an animatedly genial personality. His contribution to tsunami relief efforts was intense, sustained and went far beyond the signing of checks. To proclaim records unbeatable or say of some retiring giant that “we won’t see his like again” is to give hostages to fortune. On both counts, though, Muralitharan appears to be a better bet than most.
|
Cricket (Game);Sri Lanka;India
|
ny0012605
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2013/11/16
|
To a Philosopher-General in Israel, Peace Is the Time to Prepare for War
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ON THE ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER When he arrived here two years ago to command the Israel Defense Forces in the northern Galilee region, Brig. Gen. Herzl Halevi was certain that Israel’s next war with Lebanon would break out on his watch. As General Halevi prepares to leave his post on Nov. 28, he is even more convinced it will happen during his successor’s tour. “I don’t think there is the war or the operation that will solve the problem,” General Halevi explained during a recent tour of the border his troops patrol. “The interesting issue is how you create a longer gap between the wars.” “It’s not going to be a simple one,” he added. “There are no simple wars. We are ready to pay this price to make a very decisive and strong war to make the gap as long as possible.” For all the hard-line talk from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders about the Iranian nuclear threat, the enemy that consumes the Israeli military is Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia with which it fought a bloody, 34-day battle in 2006. Hezbollah is seen as Iran’s proxy and the Palestinians’ enforcer, the boots on the ground in global terrorist attacks and the likeliest to retaliate for Israeli aggression anywhere in the world. Military officials from the chief of staff on down talk ominously in public speeches and tactically in private briefings about the group’s swelling arsenal of more than 100,000 rockets — and about Israel’s meticulous preparation for a quick, intense campaign in Lebanese cities and villages where, as one recently put it, “houses consist of a living room and a missile room.” The point of that particular spear has lately been General Halevi, 45, a triathlete and father of four who said his university studies in philosophy proved more salient to military leadership than courses in business administration. Considered a top candidate to someday lead the military as chief of staff, General Halevi is a former paratrooper and commander of the elite Sayeret Matkal reconnaissance unit who last year declined an offer to become Mr. Netanyahu’s military attaché. In 2002, during the second Palestinian intifada, the concerns General Halevi raised about a planned operation to capture Yasir Arafat, then president of the Palestinian Authority, from its headquarters in Ramallah, where Mr. Arafat was under siege, led to its cancellation. He is admired as a creative thinker and beloved for attending annual memorials for fallen soldiers. Some, though, find him aloof, square or self-righteous, with a quiet leadership style that can befuddle young recruits. “People used to tell me that business administration is for the practical life and philosophy is for the spirit,” General Halevi said. “Through the years I found it is exactly the opposite — I used philosophy much more practically.” “Philosophers that spoke about how to balance, how to prioritize principles in a right way,” he added, citing Plato, Socrates and Maimonides. “This is something that I find very helpful.” Standing at a border lookout on the Biranit base, his division headquarters, General Halevi pointed out Bint Jbeil, a city of perhaps 25,000 Shiites in southern Lebanon that endured some of the toughest battles in 2006, and, next to it, Maroun al-Ras, which he described as “a vacation village built by Iran” to hide a “post for monitoring what’s going on in Israel.” To the left was Ayta ash Sha’b, home to perhaps 7,000 Lebanese and “hundreds of rockets, missiles, I.E.D.s,” he said, referring to improvised explosive devices. “We cannot shoot toward Ayta ash Sha’b because it is a village,” the general said. “This is a problem we somehow have to solve. The stronger the weapons, the stronger our response will be.” He is responsible for a 75-mile border known as the “blue line” for the color of the barrels that mark the 2,700-square-mile area that has been patrolled by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon since 1978. Israel’s side is protected by a high-tech fence and countless cameras, but is still seen as porous: Part of the adjacent road is unpaved so troops can track footprints. An M-16 rifle at his feet, General Halevi drove to the spot where two soldiers — Sgt. Eldad Regev and Sgt. Ehud Goldwasser — were abducted, and said simply, “July 12, 2006, 8:30 a.m.” “Hezbollah was here on two sides, on the left in the bushes and just in front of us on that ridge,” he said. “When the patrol got to the road just beneath us, they opened fire.” The first Israeli vehicle was attacked with machine guns, the second with a missile. Then, the general said, the enemy used explosives to blow through the fence and an iron gate. “Here started the Second Lebanon War,” he added. Israel’s prosecution of that war was widely panned. General Halevi, who was commanding a brigade in the West Bank at the time, said preparations for the next round began immediately afterward, with the continuous development of a thick book — he declined to share it, of course — of operational plans, though he said the chance that they would be carried out exactly was “pretty low.” General Halevi was named for an uncle, also a paratrooper, who was killed the day Israel recaptured the Western Wall during the 1967 war. His mother’s family goes back 14 generations in Jerusalem; his father’s parents immigrated from Russia. He grew up religious and still attends synagogue on the Sabbath, but he no longer wears a skullcap daily. He did not plan a military career, but decided to stay after his mandatory service “as long as it is important for the state of Israel, as long as I think I do it in a good way, and as long as it is interesting for me.” So far, 27 years. Col. Avi Bluth, one of his battalion commanders during Israel’s 2008-9 Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, said General Halevi, known as Herzi, was “smarter than most of the officers in the Israeli Army,” humble and as likely to talk about history, philosophy or the Bible as “about how to beat the enemy.” The colonel added, “He doesn’t think that all the truth is with him.” Some who have served with him say General Halevi struggles to connect with soldiers. “He’s not a man of men, he is not the center of the party, and there are voices saying that he’s too complicated,” said one former colleague, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to do so frankly. “He is too political, too much involved with who will be nominated to where, and not all the considerations were only professional. Some of it was, ‘Does he belong to my tribe or not?’ ” Lior Lotan, a fellow squadron commander in Sayeret Matkal in the 1990s, praised General Halevi’s later warning that the proposed Arafat operation might harm or kill the Palestinian leader and cause a diplomatic disaster. “This is not easy for a commander of a unit to do because you are judged only by your manner of running forward,” noted Mr. Lotan, now a businessman and lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. “The fact that he put it on the table, he was only a lieutenant colonel, is something which is not usual. It’s a real maturity, it’s a real risk.” Next, General Halevi will run the Staff and Command College, a must-stop for Israel’s senior officers. He will be training them in large part for the next war with Hezbollah, which he imagines could start in one of three ways: a terrorist attack like the bombing of an Israeli tour bus in Bulgaria that killed six last summer, only “something maybe a little bigger”; a deterioration in the Syrian civil war; or an Israeli strike if Hezbollah managed to smuggle chemical weapons from Syria into Lebanon. “As a commander, our mission is not to calculate the probability,” he said. “Our mission is to understand that the probability is high enough to be prepared for very well.”
|
Herzl Halevi;Israel;Lebanon;Military
|
ny0093843
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2015/08/25
|
Man Charged in Pellet Shooting of Officer Outside Gracie Mansion
|
The pop of an air gun came from above as two members of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s security detail stepped from an unmarked Ford Interceptor sedan outside Gracie Mansion at about 7:15 on Sunday evening. A pellet struck one in the back, causing a minor injury. The plainclothes officers looked up at the large luxury apartment building across the street, the police said. A single window, on the 10th floor, was open. A silhouette could be seen inside. In a city where fatal shootings are a regular weekend occurrence, the potshot with a pellet gun — bought at Walmart and previously fired in the Hamptons, the police said — garnered more than the usual attention because it happened outside Mr. de Blasio’s official residence and because the person struck was a New York City police officer charged with protecting him. It was, the police later said, the culmination of several weeks in which pellet gunfire rained down on the usually quiet avenue that runs alongside the mayor’s doorstep. Two windows were shattered. A Consolidated Edison worker was struck. Mr. de Blasio was not home at the time of the episode on Sunday, the police said. The officer, Kelly Briant, was treated at Lenox Hill Hospital later that night and released. Both officers hustled into the apartment building, at 170 East End Avenue, where a doorman directed them to Apartment 10C, sold in 2010 for $6.75 million, according to city records. There, the police said, Michael Verbitsky, 19, opened the door and told the officers they would need a search warrant. He shut the door. Image The pellet was shot from 170 East End Avenue, across the street from Gracie Mansion. Credit Michael Appleton for The New York Times The officers went back downstairs, the police said. A doorman alerted them to live surveillance camera images that showed Mr. Verbitsky and a young woman leaving the building through a back entrance. By that time, more officers had arrived. The two were stopped and detained on East 88th Street. At the 19th Precinct station house, the police said, Mr. Verbitsky told detectives that he had been playing with the pellet gun, a Crosman 760 Pumpmaster air rifle, and that he had been aiming at the nearby park. He told them he was surprised it had gone off. It was not clear whether Mr. Verbitsky had seen the two people stepping from the unmarked car, and prosecutors said there was no evidence suggesting they had been targeted because they were officers. After hours of searching, officers found the .177-caliber gun hidden above an air duct inside the sprawling, roughly 4,500-square foot apartment, which a law enforcement official described as “filled with Persian rugs, ornate clocks, original artwork, gilded ceilings, fabric wallpaper.” The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing, said Mr. Verbitsky had been staying in the apartment with the woman, Gabrielle Gleyberman, 19, of Brooklyn. She said she was asleep at the time of the shooting and was released on Monday without being charged. Mr. Verbitsky’s listed address is in Hyde Park, N.Y., where he was a student at the Culinary Institute of America. He was to vacate the Manhattan apartment, which the official described as furnished but unoccupied, on Aug. 31. The owners of the apartment declined to talk when contacted by a reporter. Mr. Verbitsky was arrested and charged with second-degree assault, a felony, and several misdemeanors, including reckless endangerment, criminal possession of a weapon and two counts of criminal mischief. The latter charges stemmed from two episodes days before in which residents of 170 East End Avenue reported that their windows had been shattered, apparently by the pellet gun, the police said. The police said a Con Edison worker reported on Monday having been struck the week before by something that left a red welt on his shoulder. He came forward after seeing news reports about the officer hit by a pellet near the same spot he had been working, the police said. Image A police officer outside Gracie Mansion on Monday, the day after an officer on Mayor Bill de Blasio's security detail was hit in the back by a pellet gun outside the home. Credit Michael Appleton for The New York Times Mr. Verbitsky arrived at Manhattan Criminal Court on Monday morning and was arraigned that night. Judge Heidi Cesare set bail for Mr. Verbitsky at $20,000, but agreed to a $10,000 bail advance in cash, paid for by the defendant’s family members, who were in attendance. They refused to comment. The police said Mr. Verbitsky had prior arrests, including for a 2012 robbery in which he and two others took a handbag from another teenager in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, and for a graffiti episode in 2011. Pellet air guns are illegal to possess in New York City without a license . They present dangers and challenges for police officers who, over the years and in cities around the country, have occasionally mistaken those made to look like genuine firearms with the real thing, in some cases with deadly consequences. This year, the police in San Francisco killed a 32-year-old man who brandished an air gun during a brief confrontation. In New York, a man wielding a pellet gun was fatally shot by Queens detectives in 2012. At an unrelated news conference in Queens on Monday, Mayor de Blasio said he had “tremendous faith” in the Police Department’s security protocols, suggesting the episode had not caused concern for his safety. ”I think my security and my family’s security is being handled very well,” he said, adding that he had spoken to the injured officer, who was “in fine shape.” “We all understand what we signed up for and obviously my family is the center of my life,” he continued. “But we have absolute faith in the NYPD. They’re the security experts, and we know they’ll take care of the situation.” Residents of the apartment building said officers swarmed East End Avenue on Sunday night. “We had no idea what was going on,” Shannon Weinhaus said. “I just immediately felt very sad for his family, because I knew he’d be in loads of trouble.” She said she did not know Mr. Verbitsky, but that her husband, Fred Weinhaus, recognized his face. A few weeks earlier, the two had shared the elevator, Mr. Weinhaus said on Monday while standing outside the building. When they arrived in the lobby, Mr. Weinhaus let him out first, without receiving a thank you. He said “You’re welcome” as Mr. Verbitsky left, but the teenager never turned around.
|
Attacks on Police;Michael Verbitsky;Upper East Side Manhattan;Bill de Blasio;NYC;BB guns;air guns;pellet guns
|
ny0221048
|
[
"sports",
"olympics"
] |
2010/02/21
|
Jenny Potter Handles a Hockey Stick and Her Children
|
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — She had not been consistent, and Jenny Potter’s 3-year-old son, Cullen, called her on it. “You didn’t score, Mommy,” he said. “Why?” Potter, a forward on the United States women’s hockey team, was rendered speechless, as often happens when parents are reminded that their actions do not go unnoticed. In the Americans’ first two games, Potter became the first Olympic player to register back-to-back three-goal games. In their third, a 6-0 victory against Finland, she was shut out on 12 shots, and her son wanted an explanation. How much can a 3-year-old absorb about sharing the puck or the final score being more important than individual statistics? Potter redirected his attention. She allowed Cullen to climb into her arms, then pretended to drop him repeatedly while he clutched her blond ponytail with his right hand and shrieked with delight. Most hockey teams have an alternate captain, but Potter, a four-time Olympian, is the rare female player in the Vancouver Games who is an alternate parent, squeezing in time with her daughter Madison, 9, and Cullen when she is not fulfilling her hockey duties. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us every four years,” Potter said, adding: “Sometimes I feel pulled both ways. My husband does a great job, obviously, when I’m not around.” The Americans (3-0) play a semifinal on Monday against Sweden (2-1), the team that upset them in the same Olympic round in 2006. On Friday, when the United States squad was given a day off to rest, Potter, 31, met her family at the Procter & Gamble House, a gathering place for Americans near the waterfront. It was not exactly a day at the spa, although a room on the top floor offered massages and manicures. Potter never got that far. Stepping into the elevator with her husband, Rob, daughter and son, Potter pointed to a “C” button. “Cullen,” she said, “what is this letter?” He did not answer correctly, and she gently persisted. “What is the first letter in Cullen?” she said. “C!” he cried out jubilantly. They stepped out on the third floor and entered the Pringles Bar — imagine shelves lined with canisters of chips in every flavor imaginable (and a few, like cheeseburger, that are incomprehensible). In helping Cullen amass piles of dill-pickle-flavored chips, Potter had a workout. He was up and down, up and down, like a 30-pound barbell that Potter kept lifting and lowering. He would squirm through her fingers and run away before coming back for more cuddles and kisses. Potter is the second-swiftest skater on the United States team behind 23-year-old Erika Lawler. When one watches her chase Cullen, it is clear how she keeps her fast-twitch muscles sharp. At 31, Potter continues to improve as a player. “The drive’s always been there,” Rob Potter said, “but through maturity you learn how to handle the different pressures. You learn what to focus on and what to let go. I think Jenny’s emotionally more on an even keel. That allows your performance to be consistent.” Potter played Connect Four with Rob, Cullen and Madison, who declared victory, then sulked when Potter triumphantly pointed out the row of four she had completed one move earlier. Teammates say they look at Madison and see Potter, and as mother and daughter locked horns over who had won, one could understand what they mean. Madison, a third grader in Coon Rapids, Minn., is nearly as tall as Potter, who is 5 feet 4 inches, and she wore a gray U.S.A. Hockey T-shirt and a pair of her mother’s sneakers. Weary of being asked if she was going to follow her mother into hockey, Madison has almost willfully shied away from the sport, as if she had no desire to fill boots that big. She is a competitive swimmer, as her mother was at the same age. “She likes to play,” Rob Potter said of Madison. “She has a grin from ear to ear every time she goes out onto the ice. I see what’s going on. I think she’s saying, ‘I need to express my independence.’ ” Potter and her husband, who run a summer hockey camp called Potter’s Pure Hockey , do not push it. Potter did not start playing organized hockey until eighth grade. At 19, she was on the United States team that claimed the first Olympic gold medal awarded in women’s hockey in 1998 in Nagano, Japan. At the University of British Columbia’s Thunderbird Arena, a fan during the Americans’ game against Finland held up a sign that read, “Jenny Potter, Super Hockey Mom.” On days like Friday, when Potter is torn between her desire to rest and her parental diligence, she feels decidedly less than super. Madison was so sullen that her father escorted her from the Pringles room to have a talk. After they returned, he said: “That’s not her normally. She wasn’t very happy. I think she wants some personal attention from her mother.” A little while later, Madison was feeding grapes to her mother and brother, her spasmodic laughter a more welcome tension release for Potter than any masseuse’s touch. By taking her children to the Olympics, Potter hoped to drive home the family mantra: all good things come to those who sacrifice and work hard. “The Olympics is pretty special,” she said. “I think there are a lot of people who could make it here, but the ones who do make it here are the ones that are willing to do what no one else will do.”
|
Olympic Games (2010);Potter Jenny;Hockey Ice
|
ny0047162
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2014/11/11
|
All 43 Works From Bunny Mellon’s Collection Sell at Sotheby’s Auction
|
Rachel Lambert Mellon, better known as Bunny, spent her lifetime collecting whatever caught her eye, from antique porcelains and shaker baskets to abstract paintings by Rothko and Diebenkorn. Her legendary taste and style, from an era long gone, proved irresistible for scores of collectors who descended on Sotheby’s York Avenue salesroom on Monday night to see 43 “masterworks,” as the auction house called them, bringing prices that were well past anyone’s expectations. “History, legend, taste — you had everything tonight,” Lionel Pissarro, a great-grandson of the painter Camille Pissarro and a Paris-based art dealer, said after the auction. Artwork spanning 400 years attracted bidders from 32 countries and four continents. The evening brought $158.7 million, topping a high estimate of $121 million. All 43 works sold. Among the stars: a 1970 abstract canvas by Mark Rothko of intense blues and greens that brought nearly $40 million, twice its high estimate, and several paintings and drawings by Richard Diebenkorn, including “Ocean Park No. 89,” which sold for $9.6 million, below its high estimate of $12 million. The auction on Monday was the first in a series devoted to the art and objects that Mrs. Mellon, and her husband, Paul Mellon, had lived with and loved. Mrs. Mellon, who died in March at 103, and her husband, the son of the financier Andrew W. Mellon, were celebrated philanthropists. The couple had either donated or bequeathed world-class artworks to many museums such as the National Gallery of Art in Washington, which received more than 900 works, including Cézanne’s “Boy in a Red Waistcoat.” But there was still a lot left over, and on Monday night Sotheby’s was selling a personal selection of artwork that decorated the couple’s five homes, including Oak Spring Farms, the 2,000-acre estate in Upperville, Va., where Mrs. Mellon spent the last years of her life. The next Mellon auctions will feature everything from a blue diamond pendant to furniture, porcelains, baskets and even a fire truck. Throughout her life, Mrs. Mellon was a passionate supporter of Rothko. Besides the canvas of blues and greens the sale also featured one from 1955, “Untitled (Yellow, Orange, Yellow, Light Orange).” Eight bidders competed for the painting, which had been estimated to bring $20 million to $30 million and sold to the Nahmad Gallery for $36.5 million. (Final prices include the buyer’s premium: 25 percent of the first $100,000; 20 percent from $100,000 to $2 million; and 12 percent of the rest. Estimates do not reflect commissions.) Diebenkorn was another artist Mrs. Mellon championed. Eight examples of his work — paintings as well as works on paper — were up for sale. Among the best of them was “Ocean Park No. 89,” a 1975 painting from the artist’s celebrated series, this one an abstract image of a sunset. Valentino, the fashion designer who was sitting in the front row, snapped up the painting for $9.68 million. It had been estimated to sell for $8 million to $12 million. Mrs. Mellon was known for her love of blue — in her choice of porcelains, wall coverings and furniture, but also paintings. Lucio Fontana’s “Concetto Spaziale (Blu)” from 1968 was estimated at $300,000 to $400,000 but was bought by a telephone bidder for $965,000. It had hung in the bedroom of Mrs. Mellon’s 70th Street townhouse in Manhattan. A spare painting of a barn that Georgia O’Keeffe painted during a 1932 visit to Canada that adorned Mrs. Mellon’s Virginia dining room was bought by another telephone bidder for $3.1 million, above its high $2.5 million estimate. Mrs. Mellon was a well-known horticulturalist who redesigned the White House Rose Garden at the request of her friend Jacqueline Kennedy in the early 1960s. Many works had a botanical theme, like a tiny still life of flowers by the Dutch Golden Age painter Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, which sold for $4.6 million, above its high $4 million estimate. The auction included several examples of furniture by Diego Giacometti (brother of the famous sculptor Alberto Giacometti), whom Mrs. Mellon met through her friend, the fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy. She commissioned him to make bronze furniture and sculptures for her homes. Not fond of his usual bronze patina, she asked him to paint them off-white especially for her. Two coffee tables that featured birds were in hot demand. One, from 1970 that was expected to bring $200,000 to $300,000, sold for $1.7 million; another that was expected to sell for $150,000 to $200,000 was purchased for $1.4 million. “It’s all in a name,” Rachel Mauro, a Manhattan dealer, said as she was leaving the sale. Many other dealers hope that names like Warhol, Twombly and de Kooning — which fill the mega contemporary art auctions later this week — will have as much allure.
|
Sotheby's;Auction;Art;Rachel Lambert Mellon,Bunny Mellon;Wills and Estates;Richard Diebenkorn;Georgia O'Keeffe;Mark Rothko
|
ny0258285
|
[
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] |
2011/01/26
|
Seton Hall Outshoots No. 9 Syracuse
|
Jeremy Hazell led a long-range Seton Hall barrage with 28 points and the visiting Pirates stunned No. 9 Syracuse, 90-68, on Tuesday night. Syracuse (18-3, 5-3 Big East) had lost two in a row to top-10 conference foes, on the road at Pittsburgh a week ago and at home to Villanova on Saturday. “I think when you lose a couple of games, you lose a little confidence,” Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim said. In those games, the Orange fell behind early, and that trend continued against Seton Hall (9-12, 3-6). The Pirates, the worst-shooting team in the Big East Conference, torched Syracuse’s zone defense for seven 3-pointers in the first half, four by Hazell. “He hit a couple of deep ones early and really loosened everything up,” Seton Hall Coach Kevin Willard said. Seton Hall finished 10 of 17 from beyond the arc and shot 54.1 percent from the field; Syracuse was 5 of 21 and shot a season-low 36.1 percent. Jordan Theodore shot 7 of 10 and had 19 points for the Pirates. Kris Joseph led Syracuse with 17. The last time these teams met — a 61-56 Syracuse victory on Jan. 8 — the Pirates missed all 17 3-point attempts in the first half. On Tuesday, Seton Hall hit its first three, two by Hazell, and led by 26-15 on a 3 by Theodore eight minutes into the game. In the final six minutes of the half, Seton Hall slowed the pace to a crawl and kept making long-range shots. Hazell made two 3s from the wing, the second at the shot-clock buzzer, Theodore followed with another and the Pirates led by 43-30 at halftime. Meanwhile, the Orange missed its first six 3-point tries. Joseph, Syracuse’s top scorer, missed all of his four shots in the first half and did not get his first basket until there were 8 minutes 32 seconds left. By then, Syracuse trailed, 63-46. “We missed a layup to start the second half,” Boeheim said. “You just can’t do that.” CONNECTICUT 76, MARQUETTE 68 The freshman Jeremy Lamb had 24 points as No. 5 Connecticut won at Marquette. The Huskies (17-2, 5-2 Big East) have won three of five on the road after going 2-10 last season. Connecticut was tough down the stretch, holding Marquette (13-8, 4-4) without a field goal for nearly 10 minutes. Kemba Walker, who came into the game second in the nation in scoring average with 25, finished with a season-low 14 points, and shot 5 of 16. Jimmy Butler scored 21 points for Marquette. OHIO STATE 87, PURDUE 64 William Buford had 19 points and Jared Sullinger added 17 and No. 1 Ohio State played almost flawlessly at home against No. 12 Purdue. Jon Diebler had 13 points and a career-high 8 rebounds for the Buckeyes (21-0, 8-0 Big Ten), who are 62-4 when ranked No. 1. JaJuan Johnson had 22 points for Purdue (17-4, 6-2). Ohio State shot 55 percent from the field and made 11 of 19 3-pointers. KANSAS 82, COLORADO 78 No. 6 Kansas built a lead with 3-pointers, then scored its last 9 points from the free-throw line at Colorado as the Jayhawks (19-1, 4-1 Big 12) beat the Buffaloes for the 16th straight time. Alec Burks led Colorado (14-7, 3-3) with 25 points. FLORIDA 104, GEORGIA 91 Chandler Parsons took control by scoring 9 of his 18 points in the second overtime as No. 24 Florida won at Georgia. The Gators (16-4, 5-1 Southeastern Conference), who squandered an 8-point lead with three minutes to play in regulation, forced a second overtime when Erving Walker made a long 3-pointer with a second left. It was all Florida after that. The Gators scored the first 9 points in the second overtime as Georgia (14-5, 3-3) turned it over on consecutive possessions. After Parsons made a 3 from the corner, he flew in for a putback that made it 96-88 with 1:40 left. PLAN FOR GAME TAKING OFF North Carolina and Michigan State are closing in on a deal to play a game on an aircraft carrier on Veterans Day next season. Larry Gallo, a senior associate athletic director at North Carolina, said, “We feel as though all systems are go.” SPARTANS’ LUCIOUS GONE Michigan State dismissed the junior guard Korie Lucious from the team for “conduct detrimental to the program.” Women GEORGETOWN 65, W. VIRGINIA 60 Sugar Rodgers scored 30 points, including a driving layup as she fell with 50 seconds to play, as No. 19 Georgetown won at home against No. 8 West Virginia. The Hoyas (16-5, 4-3 Big East) won despite committing 28 turnovers. That made them only marginally more careless than the Mountaineers (19-2, 5-2), who had 23. The game had more turnovers (51) than made field goals (40).
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Seton Hall University;Syracuse University;Basketball;College Athletics
|
ny0022073
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2013/09/26
|
Free Tickets Offered After Bobble in Rivera Doll Giveaway
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Bobblehead peace reigned at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday, one day after Mariano Rivera dolls did not quite show up on time, creating long lines when they finally did arrive and plenty of grumbling fans. On Wednesday, the free gifts were Charlie Brown bobblehead dolls, and they were stacked in crates at the entrances to the stadium hours before the gates opened and were distributed without incident, just the way they were supposed to be. However, a Charlie Brown doll — as a lovable comic strip loser, Charlie Brown does not quite fit with the Yankees’ legacy — is not nearly as cherished an item for Yankee fans as a Rivera doll is. The Yankees, mindful that people were unhappy with how the Rivera dolls were distributed, announced before Wednesday’s game that they would offer a free ticket to a 2014 regular-season game, excluding opening day and Old-Timers’ Day, to anyone who held a ticket to Tuesday night’s game. (The Yankees lost, 7-0, making all those irritated fans even unhappier.) The Yankees had planned to hand out free bobblehead dolls with Rivera’s likeness to the first 18,000 fans at Tuesday’s game, but the dolls did not arrive until almost 15 minutes before the first pitch because of transportation problems, the Yankees said. So the Yankees improvised by keeping the gates closed for an additional 30 minutes while they printed up 18,000 vouchers. But the distribution of the dolls in exchange for the vouchers did not go smoothly. “Although a perfect storm of circumstances beyond our control led to the delay in the distribution of last night’s promotional item, the fact remains that our fans were inconvenienced,” Lonn Trost, the Yankees’ chief operating officer, said. “It matters little why — only that they were. We take last night’s event seriously and apologize to our fans.” Rivera was in the Yankees’ clubhouse Tuesday night when he saw on the television broadcast of the game that long lines were forming for the dolls. “I was listening to it, and I could hear the fans were upset,” he said. Rivera noted that he had nothing to do with the bobblehead giveaway, but added with his wry smile that if he had, the distribution of the dolls would have gone without a glitch. “If I was, it would have been done,” he said. The Yankees said that anyone who had a ticket to Tuesday’s game but lost it should e-mail [email protected] , and that season-ticket holders should contact their ticket representative for assistance.
|
Baseball;Yankees;Mariano Rivera;Souvenir
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ny0209578
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2009/12/07
|
Suozzi Has $2 Million Left in War Chest
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A campaign war chest that is still well stocked after a lost election is normally lined with regrets or padded for the future. For Thomas R. Suozzi , the Nassau County executive, both may apply. Mr. Suozzi, who ran for governor in 2006, officially conceded the election for county executive last week to a virtual unknown, Edward P. Mangano. Mr. Mangano, a Republican, won by 386 votes. But the more surprising number? The $2.05 million that Mr. Suozzi, a Democrat, left in the bank, according to a post-election filing released last week. It was not as though Mr. Suozzi had shut down his campaign after the summer: He spent $1.64 million in the four months leading up to the election, compared with the $623,000 that Mr. Mangano spent. And polls showed Mr. Suozzi with a comfortable lead. But by leaving such a surplus, Mr. Suozzi underscored the notion that the campaign had miscalculated how close the race was, and invited suggestions that he had intentionally left money to campaign for a higher office. “If I try and think of all the different things I could have done, I’ll probably drive myself crazy,” Mr. Suozzi said in an interview on Thursday. “We spent the amount of money we thought we needed to spend.” As for the unused campaign money, he said that he intended to “hold on to it for a while and hopefully use it for another race some day.” Mr. Suozzi, 47, was hardly the only incumbent in the November elections who failed to address the voters’ pre-election despondency and anger over the economy. Longtime officeholders lost their seats around the nation, and even those who had seemingly insurmountable leads going into the polls found themselves in tight races. In New York City, for example, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg spent a staggering $102 million to win by fewer than five percentage points. “Just like Bloomberg had to spend a fortune to win, sometimes you do have to spend money,” said Judy Jacobs, a Nassau County legislator. “When people are angry, when people are hurting, you have to clarify the message.” She added: “We don’t build a war chest and say, ‘I’m going to be left with money.’ ” Mr. Suozzi sent six mailings, appeared on radio programs during commuter rush hours, made live and robo-calls, and spent more than $700,000 in television ads alone. “I don’t think you measure the success by how much money you spend,” said Jay Jacobs, the Democratic Party chairman of Nassau County. “It’s not as though Tom ran a lean campaign; he was just a voracious fund-raiser.” Mr. Suozzi said he was well aware of concerns over property taxes, and said he had talked to voters “every single day of my life for the last 16 years.” Yet Mr. Jacobs acknowledged, “I think we could have found more opportunities to get Tom and others directly in front of small groups.” Perhaps in the back of voters’ minds, however, was Mr. Suozzi’s failed Democratic gubernatorial bid in 2006, when he lost the primary election to Eliot Spitzer. “It just looks like Nassau is on the back burner,” said Kevan Abrahams, a county legislator who campaigned alongside Mr. Suozzi and was re-elected. “That is the perception, but not the reality.” Perceptions tend to hold sway among the electorate, however. “The discussions of his statewide future and ambitions distracted from his real accomplishments,” said Robert P. Zimmerman, a member of the Democratic National Committee. To thank his supporters, Mr. Suozzi is giving a holiday party at the Garden City Hotel, asking each guest for a token $50 donation, with the proceeds going to charity. It will not increase the Friends of Tom Suozzi surplus. Election laws allow Mr. Suozzi to donate money to other candidates, pay for a future campaign, or form a political action committee, which he said he would probably do. He declined to detail his political future. “I have no plans right now,” he said.
|
Suozzi Thomas R;Elections;Campaign Finance;Politics and Government;Democratic Party;Nassau County (NY)
|
ny0067556
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2014/12/20
|
Padres Acquire Justin Upton in Trade With Braves
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Landing another of baseball’s top power hitters, the San Diego Padres acquired Atlanta outfielder Justin Upton in a trade that sent four prospects to the Braves. The Padres had already acquired the slugger Matt Kemp from the Los Angeles Dodgers and Wil Myers, the former American League rookie of the year, from Tampa Bay. Upton, who will earn $14.5 million in the final year of his contract, had 29 homers and 102 runs batted in last season.
|
Baseball;Justin Upton;Matt Kemp;Padres;Braves
|
ny0189344
|
[
"sports",
"golf"
] |
2009/05/18
|
Let Your Warm-Up Be Your Guide, Woods and Kim Say
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How do you warm up for a round of golf? Is squeezing the ketchup bottle over a hot dog the closest thing to an athletic movement before your typical 18 holes? While attending a golf clinic that Tiger Woods conducted last year with his friend and fellow professional Anthony Kim in attendance, I wondered how these top players prepared to play a competitive round. Not surprisingly, Woods is methodical. First, he hits his sand wedge, then his 8-iron and his 4-iron. He typically moves to a fairway wood, then his driver. The last thing he does before he leaves the practice range is hit the club he knows he is going to use on the first tee, whether it’s his driver or a 2-iron. It all sounded so meticulous, but the major revelation was somewhat the opposite. It was revealing how much pro golfers adapt their games based on how their warm-up sessions are going. “In any warm-up on the range, you should see what shots you have that day,” Woods said. “If you’re hitting fades, don’t fight it, go out and play fades.” Kim said: “You have to play with what you got that day. You don’t do it right away, but if you see a trend, I’ll adjust my stance, my ball position, my aim — whatever — to the ball flight I’m seeing off the club.” The warm-up session, Woods said, is no time to work on swing technique. It is a warm-up, not a lesson, and not a practice session. “I might be hitting 10-yard hooks or 10-yard fades, but I’m going to go with it for as long as that’s the pattern,” he said. Woods, of course, does not hang around too many public course ranges, where the question would be: how do you play with a 50-yard slice? (Although it is true that Woods has been hitting some inexact shots out there lately.) Still, his point is well taken. The warm-up session is like a mini-test drive of the car you’re renting for the day. It’s no time for an engine overhaul. For a visual, and comic, reminder on how not to warm up, view today’s On Par video at nytimes.com/sports .
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Golf;Woods Tiger;Kim Anthony;Pennington Bill
|
ny0288168
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2016/08/31
|
Christie Vetoes Minimum Wage Bill, Calling Raise to $15 ‘Really Radical’
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When it comes to the subject of raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, the gulf between the governors of New Jersey and New York is much wider than the Hudson River. On Tuesday, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey reminded low-wage workers of the breadth of that divide when he vetoed a bill that would have raised his state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour over five years. Had Mr. Christie signed the legislation, New Jersey would have joined New York and California as the only states with plans to lift lowest wages so high. Instead, he appeared at a grocery store in Pennington, N.J., and explained his opposition to the measure, which he called a “really radical increase” that “would trigger an escalation of wages that will make doing business in New Jersey unaffordable.” Statements like those place Mr. Christie, a Republican, near the conservative end of the political spectrum on the subject. Even the main voice of big business in the state, the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, said its opposition was to the pace of the increases, which it called “too much, too fast.” Still, that schedule would have left New Jersey well behind New York, where the minimum wages for employees of most companies in New York City will rise to $15 an hour by 2018 under a state law enacted by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo , a Democrat, in April. Mr. Christie’s veto means that Democratic leaders in Trenton will again turn to the ballot to try to circumvent Mr. Christie’s opposition. Stephen M. Sweeney, the State Senate president, and Vincent Prieto, the State Assembly speaker, said the Democrats would introduce an amendment to the State Constitution to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2021. The Democrats took a similar tack in 2013, when they arranged a referendum on raising the state’s minimum wage by $1 an hour and then adjusting it annually to cover increases in the cost of living. After voters approved the initial increase to $8.25 an hour, the wage rose to $8.38 in 2015. Image Gov. Chris Christie called the legislation to increase the state’s minimum wage “really radical.” Credit Cooper Neill for The New York Times But because the inflation gauge used in calculating the annual increases did not rise, the minimum wage in New Jersey held at $8.38 an hour. Meanwhile, labor leaders and liberal activists were staging rallies around the country as part of a movement known as the “Fight for $15.” Mr. Cuomo, after initially dismissing calls for a $15 minimum wage in New York City, eventually embraced the idea. He stirred up momentum for the idea in Albany by convening a panel known as a wage board to study the potential costs and benefits of such a big increase in entry-level wages. The wage board recommended that fast-food workers in New York City be paid at least $15 an hour. So, by 2018, those workers on the Manhattan side of the Hudson could be earning $6 an hour more than their peers on the New Jersey side. “At $8.38 an hour, the current minimum wage is a poverty wage,” said Joseph Vitale, a Democratic state senator who sponsored the Senate version of the bill that Mr. Christie vetoed. He said that full-time wage translated into an annual income of $17,400, an amount that is “impossible to get by on.” Analilia Mejia, director of New Jersey Working Families Alliance, said the proposed increase in the minimum wage would have raised the pay of about 975,000 New Jersey workers. “Him vetoing this is not shocking,” Ms. Mejia said of the governor. “It’s Chris Christie at his worst.” She disputed the view that a higher minimum wage would simply push up prices and accelerate the automation of many jobs. She said low-wage workers would have more money to spend, increasing the revenue of retailers and other businesses. Brandon McKoy, an analyst at New Jersey Policy Perspective, said he believed voters would approve another measure raising the minimum wage because the issue “polls very well.” He said that voters appreciated how expensive it was to live in New Jersey and that there were “almost one million workers in this state who are unable to afford even halfway-decent living on their wages.”
|
Wages and salaries;Minimum wage;Chris Christie;New Jersey;Andrew Cuomo;Republicans;Jobs
|
ny0050893
|
[
"sports"
] |
2014/10/26
|
South African Runner Killed in Auto Accident
|
The former world 800-meter champion Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, 34, was killed in a car crash in South Africa, the International Olympic Committee said.
|
Track and field;Mbulaeni Mulaudzi;Car Crash;South Africa
|
ny0081316
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2015/11/04
|
Verizon and N.B.A. Form Partnership for Go90 Content
|
Verizon Communications has signed a content and marketing partnership with the National Basketball Association that will bring daily league highlights, new original series and access to some live games to its new mobile video streaming service Go90. The deal, to be announced Wednesday morning, also establishes Verizon as the official wireless provider of the N.B.A. As part of the agreement, Verizon will become the title partner of the NBA All-Star Slam Dunk contest and a partner of the NBA Draft . Terms were not disclosed. While some marketing elements are exclusive, the deal is not an exclusive content agreement, giving the N.B.A. the ability to strike other deals in the space. Verizon introduced Go90 about a month ago with a lineup of live events, prime-time television and original web series from networks including Comedy Central, Food Network, ESPN and the NFL Network. Aimed at 18- to 34-year-olds, the free, ad-supported service is available to all mobile users regardless of whether they subscribe to Verizon. Increasing the availability of sports programming is an important next step for Verizon as it seeks to build an audience for the new service. Verizon also is trying to distinguish Go90 in a competitive field of streaming services. “We have the opportunity here in the mobile world to go in and work with the leagues, and work with certain networks to bring just the live sports,” said Brian Angiolet, senior vice president for product and marketing for Go90. “People ask why Go90 is different than Comcast’s Watchable, YouTube, Netflix and Hulu. Live sports is one major reason why.” Mr. Angiolet said that Go90 was off to a strong start, but did not provide use or audience statistics. Live sporting events continue to draw mass audiences that tune into advertisements, unlike other television programming, which people are more likely to watch on delay. Yet the availability of live sports outside the traditional cable and satellite bundle is more limited. That has not reduced demand to watch live sports, especially on mobile. About a third of sports fans want to watch sports live on mobile devices, up from about 20 percent in 2010, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. Through the new partnership, Go90 viewers can watch some live games not being played in their market; the two sides did not specify how many. Viewers also can buy live game packages through the NBA League Pass offering, including single games, team passes or the full season package, which includes access to nearly 1,000 out-of-market games. Other programming includes daily highlights and a handful of original series that are still in the works. Those could include stories about players or behind-the-scenes access to events like the slam dunk competition. “Go90 is really targeted at the young, millennial, tech-savvy subscriber, and that is something that we are also hoping to reach,” said William S. Koenig, president of global media distribution for the N.B.A. He added that while the N.B.A. was popular among millennials, many of those fans do not subscribe to traditional pay television. “We’re really trying to get our games out there to people on whatever device they want to consume them.”
|
Verizon Communications;NBA;Video Recordings; Downloads and Streaming;Basketball;Telecommunication;Wireless;Computer and Video Games;ESPN
|
ny0120736
|
[
"business"
] |
2012/07/06
|
U.S. Files Trade Complaint Against China on Vehicles
|
WASHINGTON – The United States filed a trade complaint against China on Thursday for new duties it imposed on American-made cars and trucks. The move came as President Obama kicked off a campaign bus tour through the manufacturing heartland of Pennsylvania and Ohio. The Ohio-built Jeep Wrangler is among the cars affected. China levied the duties, which the administration said cover about $3.3 billion worth of auto exports to China, after the Obama administration bailed out General Motors and Chrysler in the wake of the financial crisis in 2008. “As we have made clear, the Obama administration will continue to fight to ensure that China does not misuse its trade laws and violate its international trade commitments to block exports of American-made products," Ron Kirk, the United States trade representative, said in a statement confirming the trade case against China . “American auto workers and manufacturers deserve a level playing field and we are taking every step necessary to stand up for them.” There was no immediate reaction from the Chinese government, which typically waits a day or two before responding publicly to American trade policy moves. The automotive case is the latest in a long series of trade cases brought by the United States against China. Previous cases include a challenge at the World Trade Organization against China's restrictions on exports of rare-earth minerals, in a case filed in March with the European Union and Japan, and challenges to Chinese policies on other products as varied as zinc, certain kinds of steel and various chicken parts. Mr. Obama has used his administration’s saving of the auto industry as a calling card in the industrial Midwest, particularly in Ohio, which is seen as a bellwether in presidential elections. In a recent survey by Quinnipiac University, Mr. Obama was leading his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, in Ohio by 47 percent to 38 percent – his largest lead in recent polls, which have consistently showed a close race. Mr. Romney opposed the administration’s bailout, and Mr. Obama loses few opportunities to remind voters in Ohio, Michigan and other states with automotive factories that his opponent advocated allowing Detroit to go bankrupt. Taking a tough line toward China on trade issues is a tried-and-true strategy during election years. The administration’s action builds on a complaint filed in March against China for its alleged hoarding of rare-earth minerals, which are used to manufacture a range of sophisticated technology products. Mr. Romney has called for much tougher steps against China on issues like intellectual property and currency policy. He has said he would label China a currency manipulator – a step that the Obama administration has steadfastly resisted. The Obama campaign is calling this tour, which will wind from industrial areas outside Toledo to near Cleveland and on Friday to Pittsburgh, the “Betting on America” bus tour. Jeep Wranglers are manufactured in a factory in Toledo.
|
International Trade and World Market;United States;China;Automobiles;Presidential Election of 2012;Protectionism (Trade)
|
ny0048693
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2014/11/24
|
Israeli Cabinet Approves Nationality Bill
|
JERUSALEM — The Israeli cabinet on Sunday approved contentious draft legislation that emphasizes Israel ’s Jewish character above its democratic nature in a move that critics said could undermine the fragile relationship with the country’s Arab minority at a time of heightened tensions. The promotion of a so-called nationality law has long stirred fierce debate inside Israel, where opponents fear that any legislation that gives pre-eminence to Israel’s Jewishness could lead to an internal rift as well as damage Israel’s relations with Jews in other countries and with the country’s international allies. The vote on Sunday also highlighted political fissures within the governing coalition amid increasing talk of early elections. The bill, a proposal for a basic law titled “Israel, the Nation-State of the Jewish People,” passed 14 to 6, with two centrist coalition parties opposing it. Parliament still has to approve the bill for it to become law. Answering critics who have questioned why such legislation is necessary 66 years after the founding of the state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the push for legislation. “There are many who are challenging Israel’s character as the national state of the Jewish people,” he said before the cabinet vote. “The Palestinians refuse to recognize this, and there is also opposition from within.” He added, “There are those — including those who deny our national rights — who would like to establish autonomy in the Galilee and the Negev,” referring to areas of Israel with large concentrations of Arab citizens, who make up more than 20 percent of the population. Mr. Netanyahu is expected to amend the draft before any final vote in Parliament to ensure, as he put it, the principle of “equal individual rights for every citizen.” But Ahmad Tibi, a veteran Arab member of the Israeli Parliament, said there had long been tension between the halves of the term “Jewish democracy,” as Israel defines itself. Speaking by telephone from New York, where he was attending a conference at the United Nations, Mr. Tibi said the proposed legislation “confirms that the Jewish and democratic state is fiction.” He described Israel instead as a “Judocracy” that would never recognize the collective rights of a minority that has long suffered discrimination. Adding to the rancor surrounding the vote, many here saw it as a cynical political maneuver intended by Mr. Netanyahu to buy the loyalty of hard-line members of his conservative Likud Party ahead of party primaries. Image Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended a bill stressing Israel’s Jewish character. Credit Pool photo by Jim Hollander Among other things, the initial drafts promoted as private initiatives by right-wing lawmakers and approved on Sunday relegate Arabic from an official language to one with a “special status.” In what appeared to be a political deal, Mr. Netanyahu promised government support for the hard-line versions of the bill in a first reading in Parliament this week on the condition that the law would be moderated before any final approval. Israeli legal experts said such legislation would be superfluous, at best, and in its more radical form, undemocratic. “It is an unnecessary piece of legislation because Israel’s Jewish and democratic nature is established in judgments and parliamentary legislation and in the Declaration of Independence,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan research center in Jerusalem, and a former member of Parliament. Avinoam Bar-Yosef, president of the Jewish People Policy Institute, another Jerusalem research center, said in a statement that any distortion of the balance between Israel’s Jewish and democratic character “may stain Israel in the eyes of the free world and distance diaspora Jews who are counted as supporters of the Zionist project.” Israel has no constitution; instead its constitutional character is made up of basic laws, judgments and the Declaration of Independence of 1948, which enshrines the right of the Jewish people to their own sovereign state and also pledges to “uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens.” Yair Lapid, the minister of finance and the leader of Yesh Atid, one of the coalition parties that opposed the preliminary bill, said he had spoken on Sunday with the family of Zidan Saif, a Druse police officer who was killed while protecting Jewish worshipers from two Palestinians who attacked a Jerusalem synagogue with butchers knives and a gun last week. “What will we say to him? What will we say to them?” Mr. Lapid asked. “That the deceased is a second-class citizen in the state of Israel because there are primaries in the Likud?” Tzipi Livni, the centrist justice minister, also opposed the bill and posted a copy of the Declaration of Independence on her Facebook page . The stormy cabinet debate came against the background of heightened Muslim-Jewish tensions over a revered holy site in Jerusalem, protests and a recent wave of deadly Palestinian attacks against Israelis in the city and beyond. The fatal police shooting of an Arab man in a village in northern Israel set off days of rioting. In response, Mr. Netanyahu said he was pushing for new legislation to revoke the rights of residents who “participate in terrorism or incitement against the state of Israel,” including the throwing of stones and firebombs. Mainly referring to Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, he said those who attack Israel, and their families, should not enjoy welfare benefits. Separately, an Israeli border police officer was charged with manslaughter on Sunday in a case involving the fatal shooting of two Palestinian teenagers during a West Bank protest in May. The Justice Ministry said evidence suggested that the officer deliberately fired a live bullet at one of the teens, despite orders to use only rubber-coated bullets. And in Gaza, a Palestinian man was killed by Israeli Army fire as he approached the border fence. It was the first such fatality since an August cease-fire that ended 50 days of fighting between Israel and Hamas, the Islamic militant group that dominates Gaza.
|
Israel;Judaism;Legislation;Arabs;Palestinians;Likud Party Israel;Benjamin Netanyahu
|
ny0284072
|
[
"sports",
"tennis"
] |
2016/07/13
|
A Cinderella Story at Wimbledon, Minus the Athlete
|
LONDON — I was late for the ball. O.K., it wasn’t a ball, exactly, it just felt that way as I stood in a locker room at the All England Club trying on gowns. I had received a last-minute news media invitation for Sunday night’s Wimbledon champions dinner, a black-tie party on the last night of the tournament. At 139, Wimbledon is the oldest of the Grand Slam events, and the most committed to pageantry and tradition. The champions dinner has been held since 1977. I was woefully underdressed for the occasion, having shown up for work Sunday afternoon in beige capri pants, a J. Crew T-shirt and sneakers, carrying an overstuffed red backpack. I had, in fact, not brought anything to England that was suitable for this occasion. I wasn’t alone. Many of the players who had won titles over the weekend did not have formal wear handy, either. At a news conference after winning the junior boys’ singles championship , Denis Shapovalov was asked if he knew the arrangements for the party since “you’re not supposed to wear what you have on right now,” which was Nike athletic wear. “Yeah, I’m going to go get suited,” he said. Being underdressed for tennis prom is not a problem at the All England Club. Just go to the locker room, I was told, and they’ll set you up. Sure enough, there were racks of gowns, rows of high-heeled shoes and a pile of accessories like clutches, bracelets and earrings. A woman was doing hair and makeup nearby. Image Andy Murray, the Wimbledon men’s singles champion, with his wife, Kim, at the champions dinner. Credit Pool photo by Karwai Tang The locker-room operation was being run by a group of women from Having a Ball Dress Hire, who had been doing this for years. It took them about five minutes to discern the proper dress for me. It was a midi-length red lace dress in 1950s A-line style, paired with nude pumps. It may have been my favorite outfit I’ve ever put on. I still had work to do, so my assembled ensemble was set aside, and I was told to come back in an hour to get it. When I came back, my dress was gone. In the hubbub of dressing so many players and their guests, my dress bag had disappeared. The women in the locker room could not find it and did not know who had taken it. Oh, what a hardship: I would have to try on more gowns. The problem then was that it was 8:30 — the time when the dinner, 10 miles away at Guildhall in London, was supposed to start. A new dress was found in short order: a floor-length black dress with beaded cap sleeves. There was only one pair of shoes left in my size, but luckily they were black and sort of fit. I finally headed to the dinner around 9:30, but by the time I got to Guildhall, after some wrong turns and road closures, it was about 10:45. I glamorously rushed up the red carpet wearing a raincoat over my dress, still hauling that overstuffed backpack, but the gathered photographers had no interest in me. When I got to the door of the dining room, the gatekeepers could not find my name on the list. I stood awkwardly outside the hall, at one point holding the door open for Ivan Lendl and part of Andy Murray’s entourage. Still unable to find my name, they sat me at an empty table in the back of the hall. I was at the losers’ table. But, hey, at least I had beaten Murray there. He made his entrance about 15 minutes after I did, posed for pictures with his trophy and went on his way to one of the V.I.P. tables in the front of the hall. I had arrived just before the main course. When it showed up, I was still sitting alone at a table. But the wait staff still dutifully set 12 plates of halibut on the table. “Are they all for me?” I joked. “Yes, madam,” one of the servers said with a smile, playing along. I shrugged and went about eating the halibut — just my plate — but I must have looked pathetic, because an official-looking woman with a headset finally sat down next to me to figure out what had gone amiss. At this point, I was halfway through my halibut with truffle mash, asparagus and Champagne foam. It turned out there had been a seat with my name card on it at the next table with other journalists. When I arrived at my new table, there was an untouched plate of halibut with truffle mash, asparagus and Champagne foam at my seat, so I ate that one, too. I’d missed a course, after all. Eventually, around midnight, it came time for the speeches. Philip Brook, the Wimbledon chairman, recapped the two-week tournament and introduced all the champions before ceding the stage to Murray and Serena Williams. They answered some questions from the newscaster Trevor McDonald, the evening’s M.C., and posed for more pictures with their trophies. Shortly afterward, the party broke up. In the cloakroom, I joined several other women in collecting our matching pink “Having a Ball” dress bags. Everything I was wearing would have to be returned on Monday. The clock had struck midnight, and my time as Cinderella was done. I didn’t see anyone at the party in my missing red lace dress.
|
Tennis;Wimbledon Tennis,Wimbledon;Party
|
ny0273871
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2016/05/25
|
Siri Has an Attitude
|
Dear Diary: I stepped out of the York Street station on Jay Street in Brooklyn one afternoon and realized I had been too optimistic about seeing my destination as soon as I emerged. Nothing looked like the image I had seen online. After asking a few people, who just shook their heads or directed me back to Manhattan, I realized the digital thing to do was to pull out my iPhone and ask Siri. And remembering how very smart she is, I knew I didn’t even need to tell her where I was. “New York Media Center, address,” I said with authority, and Siri promptly showed me a map and a flag a couple of miles away in Midtown. I never know quite how much to tell Siri, but I thought I should narrow it down a little for her with a bit more information. “New York Media Center address, Dumbo ,” I said. “That’s rude,” she replied, and hung up.
|
Dumbo Brooklyn;iPhone
|
ny0209228
|
[
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] |
2009/12/28
|
A Seesaw Day in a Groping for Balance
|
One of the most poignant moments of the Urban Meyer resignation-unresignation as Florida coach came Christmas Day. After weeks of soul searching, prompted by a trip to a hospital, he told his family that night that he would be leaving his job, Meyer said to The New York Times. Meyer said that upon hearing the news, his 18-year-old daughter hugged him and said, “I get my daddy back.” A day later, Meyer was gone again. Not completely gone. He announced Sunday that after a day away to think about things, he had decided to stay put. He is merely taking a leave of absence. Jeremy Foley, Florida’s athletic director, made it clear — to fans and to recruits — that order had been restored in Gator Nation. “He is the head coach taking a leave of absence,” Foley said. In 24 hours, we went from the perfect holiday story to a tale about the relentless pull of the coaching profession. The king leaves his throne for his family and then decides — or is convinced — that the throne was not so bad after all and announces that for a time he will be the power behind the throne. What do we make of this bizarre drama? Taken at face value, one of the nation’s most successful college coaches, faced with health issues related to the stress of the job, decided to step away. A day later, as business ramifications — recruiting the core of the program — kicked in, Meyer announced he was not resigning after all. During Sunday’s news conference, Meyer said he wanted the focus to be on his players. If Meyer did not want to create a distraction, why announce the resignation before the Sugar Bowl? Many of us struggle with balancing family and work. If you are a college football head coach, the job can be an insatiable beast that requires “every fiber,” as Foley said during Sunday’s news conference. Meyer said: “I’m a person of faith and I wanted to make sure I had my priorities straight. A lot of times, coaches do not have their priorities straight. You put business before God and family, you have a problem.” Meyer is routinely described as a family man, a dedicated husband and father. He is also a coach who once was king of the hill in the Southeastern Conference. Being king is a powerful force that consumes everything in its path. Meyer wanted to get out of the game, but the game lured him back. He said he was conducting practice Sunday and looked around at his team and his coaches. Perhaps a voice screamed: “Have you lost your mind? You can’t leave this ; this is yours. You built it.” Voice or no voice, Meyer said he pulled out his cellphone, called Foley and, well, here we are. “When you sat back and watched those young guys go at it today and that coaching staff, and the program we built, to not try would not be the right thing to do,” Meyer said. Meyer’s father said that his son did not take losing well. Meyer repeated as much Sunday, when he told the news media how personally he took losing. This may go a long way in explaining this turn of events. Would we be having this very public moment had Florida defeated Alabama in the SEC championship game? Had Meyer been preparing to play Texas for the national championship rather than Cincinnati in a meaningless Bowl Championship Series exhibition game, we might not have had this moment. Florida’s convincing loss to Alabama was as significant a tipping point in Meyer’s coaching life as it was in shifting the balance of power in the SEC. The loss signaled a changing of the guard, Florida to Alabama, Meyer to Nick Saban. Saban has Alabama playing for the national title in his third season as coach. Alabama’s recruiting class is ranked third behind Florida and Texas. Who knows how Saturday’s stunning announcement and Sunday’s modification will affect recruits? During Sunday’s news conference, Meyer and Foley continually referred to how they had to “Keep the engine rolling” and “keep this thing going.” But Florida quarterback Tim Tebow is leaving, and the defensive coordinator has already left. Perhaps Meyer thought about all the heart and soul he put into the regular season only to be trampled by Alabama in the SEC championship game. If Alabama defeats Texas to win the national championship, the power shift will be consummated. What will it take for Florida to catch up with Alabama and keep up? The Alabama engine may be so far ahead that the mere thought of trying to catch up may have left Meyer fatigued — and stressed. If ever there was a time to resign, now is the time. All this is speculation, of course. What we know for certain is that on Christmas Day, Meyer told his family that he was “coming home,” that Dad was back. Being at practice reminded Meyer that he had another family: the Gators football family. Meyer talked about being so wrapped up in coaching that he found himself e-mailing recruits in church. The ultimate irony for a man of faith. In announcing his decision Saturday, Meyer, referring to his physical problems, said that God had told him to stop. University officials apparently whispered, “You don’t have to stop — just slow down.” On Sunday, Meyer announced that he was slowing down. What a powerful force this football engine has become.
|
Meyer Urban;Coaches and Managers;University of Florida;Southeastern Conference;College Athletics;Football
|
ny0142518
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2008/11/30
|
Pakistan Denies Any Role in Mumbai Attacks
|
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Apprehensive about potential reprisals by India over the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the Pakistani government insisted Saturday that it had not been involved. It pledged to take action against Pakistan-based militants if they were found to be implicated. “Our hands are clean,” the Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said at a news conference. “Any entity or group involved in the ghastly act, the Pakistan government will proceed against it.” The government called a crisis cabinet meeting on Saturday, a day after Indian officials suggested that a militant group with Pakistani ties, Lashkar-e-Taiba , was responsible for the attacks. Similar accusations after an attack on the Indian Parliament by another group, Jaish-e-Muhammad, brought the two governments to the brink of war in 2002. But while the civilian leaders, including President Asif Ali Zardari, called for calm on Saturday, Pakistani security officials warned that they were preparing to move troops toward the border if need be. The security officials, speaking at a press briefing in which the ground rules prohibited identifying them by name, said that if the situation worsened, troops stationed in western Pakistan could be moved within 72 hours. “We’re ready for any contingency,” one security official said. The security officials also noted that such a move would be likely to upset the United States, because it would mean resources were being moved away from the fight against Islamic militants in the western areas bordering Afghanistan. Even Mr. Qureshi, at his news conference, suggested that conflict could not be ruled out. “We should hope for the best, plan for the worst,” he said. At the center of the Pakistan’s concern is the suggestion by Indian officials that Lashkar-e-Taiba, which originated in Kashmir, was responsible for the Mumbai attacks. American intelligence and counterterrorism officials have also said there was mounting evidence that the group had been involved. Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has a track record of attacks against India, has received training and support from Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence , or ISI, according to widespread intelligence reports. The United States has contended that Pakistan has turned a blind eye to Lashkar-e-Taiba training camps in Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan territory over which India and Pakistan have fought two wars. The group, along with Jaish-e-Muhammad, was banned in 2002 by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who was president at the time, and the links between the ISI and the groups were sharply reduced, according to United States intelligence officials. But members of Lashkar-e-Taiba joined other groups and moved much of their activity from Kashmir to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda operate, Pakistani experts on the groups said. Now, Lashkar-e-Taiba militants operating as Al Badar and under other names participate in training camps in the tribal region and cooperate with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, they said. Even though Mr. Musharraf banned Lashkar-e-Taiba and apparently severed official connections, the group was able to flourish in other incarnations in part because until early this year, Islamist parties supported by Mr. Musharraf controlled the North-West Frontier Province, next to the tribal areas. What particularly worries the Pakistani government is the prospect of a repeat of the high tension between India and Pakistan when the two nuclear-armed countries mobilized troops on their borders and remained on the brink of war for much of 2002, after the attack on Parliament. In that situation, Pakistan, under the leadership of General Musharraf, refused to accede to India’s demands to hand over the leaders of Jaish-e-Muhammad for trial, a refusal that pushed India to mobilize one of its biggest military operations. In contrast to its stance then, however, the civilian Pakistani government now seems eager to avoid a military confrontation.The new government has participated in talks to improve relations with India, including joint efforts to counterterrorism and to build trade. Mr. Qureshi, sounding almost impassioned at times in his news conference, noted that he was in India when the Mumbai attacks unfolded Wednesday night and that he stayed until Friday night. While in India, he pleaded with the Indian news media to be “responsible” and to stop the accusations of Pakistani “without complete evidence,” he said. It is important, he said, that so far the Indian government has not blamed the government of Pakistan for the attacks. “They are suspecting perhaps groups or organizations that could have a presence here,” he said. The Pakistani government also faces opposition at home in its handling of the crisis. When Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani promised Friday to dispatch the chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency to India to confer with the investigators there, the opposition parties in Pakistan immediately objected. The parties accused the government of capitulating to the Indians, who had asked for the intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, to go to New Delhi. Much was made in Pakistan of a headline in The Times of India that said the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, had “summoned” General Pasha. The Pakistani Army objected to General Pasha’s visiting India, and by late Friday, the government announced it had changed its mind, saying that a lower-level intelligence official would go to India in connection with the Mumbai investigation at an undetermined time in the future.
|
Mumbai (India);Pakistan;Terrorism;International Relations;Lashkar-e-Taiba;Inter-Services Intelligence
|
ny0044511
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2014/02/02
|
An Unconventional Path to Scripting the Broncos’ Offense
|
Between plays on the field, Peyton Manning appears just a bit unhinged. The body language is manic, an eruption of gesticulating arms, twiddling fingers and fidgeting, stamping feet. It is as if he hears voices in his head. And for several seconds between each play, through tiny speakers in his helmet, Manning is listening to someone. It is a big responsibility to be the person talking in Manning’s ear. That person calls the plays that could decide Sunday’s Super Bowl for the Denver Broncos. It is a job that would seem to take on-field experience. But Adam Gase, the 35-year-old offensive coordinator who instructs Manning between plays, never played professional or college football. On his high school team, he was an average player. And this season is the first time he has called plays at any level. Oh, yes, and in 2013 Gase designed and directed an offense that scored more points in a season than any other team in N.F.L. history. In a macho, hyperorchestrated league that lives by a gladiator code and also aspires to leave nothing to chance, how did someone like Gase get the keys to the castle? Gase, who is about 6 feet 1 inch and 185 pounds and looks like the insurance salesman he almost became , may be the hottest coach in the N.F.L., having recently spurned two head-coaching overtures. Manning has called Gase “the smartest guy I know.” Denver Coach John Fox said Gase was “a master of innovation.” The team’s president, John Elway, went the furthest: He used the word genius. Who gave Sheldon from “The Big Bang Theory” a sideline headset? Gase’s ascent to the top echelon of his profession is far from routine, but it is not unprecedented. In rare cases, there have been expert coaches who hardly ever played the game, like Charlie Weis, who was a head coach or assistant for teams like Notre Dame, the New England Patriots, the Jets and the Giants. But it is not the easiest road, and it takes an ability to quickly prove yourself in an intimidating environment because N.F.L. players consider their workplace a world apart from any other level of the sport, including Division I college — let alone high school. And let’s face it, Gase is also not working hand-in-hand with any N.F.L. player. He is working with Peyton Manning, perhaps the most cerebral and productive player of his generation. “But it’s not about Adam’s playing résumé,” Manning said last week. “It is about what he can do to make me and the offense better. Adam has a lot of experience and knowledge in that arena.” Gase’s career path not only is an inspirational story for those who dream of working in football but lack bulging biceps or a 4.3 40-yard dash time, but it also yields some insight into how Manning thinks and operates. Because in Denver this season, Manning and the analytical Gase have developed a bond so close, they function as if of one mind. In Marshall, Mich., the small town where Gase played tight end in high school, no one seems surprised by his success. “As a junior in high school, he prepared flow charts, spreadsheets and broke down all the tendencies of our opponents on his own,” said Rich Hulkow, who was Marshall High’s football coach and athletic director at the time. “He was always in my office looking at film. He saved me a ton of work.” Hulkow described Gase as “a typical high school athlete.” But it was his tactical skills that everyone noticed. When he was the Marshall basketball coach, Dan Coddens once asked Gase to scout an opponent. “He turned in an immaculate, exhaustive report with details on the opponent that were incredible,” Coddens said. “I was shocked that a teenager could do that.” Gase said his interest in game preparation was natural and not planned. “I enjoyed the numbers of a sport,” Gase said Tuesday as the Broncos prepared for Sunday’s game with the Seattle Seahawks. “And there was something special about football, probably because there was so much time between games. I loved analyzing and planning for a game — 10 hours of work felt like one.” Video The Denver Broncos quarterback spoke to the media about the team's offensive coordinator, Adam Gase. Credit Credit Video by Justin Sablich/The New York Times; Photos by Associated Press When Gase graduated from high school in 1996 and headed to Michigan State, Hulkow, who had played there, recommended him to the coach, Nick Saban. Saban, renowned for wearing out his assistants, gave the 19-year-old Gase a heavy load of grunt work. Gase threw himself into the job, happy to be learning any part of coaching. Year to year, though he was still a student, his responsibilities increased. Saban said last week that Gase had a natural instinct for football. “It was a conceptual thing with Adam, he just understood how things worked and he was willing to work and start from ground zero,” Saban wrote in an email. “It wasn’t like this was a star player who had played a lot of football. He wanted to be a coach and he was willing to invest as much time as it took.” In 2000, when Saban left for Louisiana State, the only assistant he took with him was Gase. “That got everyone’s attention in Marshall,” said Bill Dryer, a former high school football assistant who has remained friends with Gase. “Adam had a mentor who had a protégé.” At L.S.U., Gase was studying for his master’s degree, and Saban more than kept him busy, too. Many times in his travels, he continued to be asked: “So where did you play your college ball?” Some of Gase’s undergraduate student loans were coming due, and with a salary of about $8,000, he was struggling financially. Gase was growing unsure about his unconventional career path. He was going to accept a job selling insurance, but three of his college buddies talked him out of it. “They said, ‘You’re the only one of us who likes his job,’ ” Gase said. He walked away from the insurance gig, and with Saban’s help returned to Michigan in 2003 to work in the Detroit Lions’ scouting department. Two years later, he talked Lions Coach Steve Mariucci into putting him in charge of offensive quality control, a low rung on the pro coaching ladder. “I have a soft spot for the underdog because I got my start with the same job in 1985 with the Los Angeles Rams,” Mariucci said last week. “Sometimes, you just need a break.” Before long, Gase was the quarterbacks coach under the Lions offensive coordinator Mike Martz, who had been the mastermind of the St. Louis Rams’ brilliant offensive schemes and who had helped the Rams win the Super Bowl in the 1999 season. Video There is a lot you can learn about the Super Bowl in just over two minutes. Here are the most important figures to know about the big game. Credit Credit Rick Osentoski/Associated Press “Adam just grinds, and good people are drawn to him,” said Josh Heppner, a high school teammate who visits Gase regularly. “And these people find out how proficient he is. I call him the silent assassin. He doesn’t say much, he just figures out how to beat you.” After a season as an assistant in San Francisco, Gase landed in Denver and by 2011 was the quarterbacks coach who helped Tim Tebow lead the Broncos into the playoffs. Manning arrived a year later, and Gase was named the offensive coordinator before this season. “Adam is a lot like me in that he’s always thinking of how we can do something better or different — or both,” Manning said. “And he has an almost photographic memory. He can recall a defensive scheme we saw from eight games back and remember our exact formation and the play called.” Manning and Gase text and email continually, revising and altering each game plan. Over time, Gase has become Manning’s sideline alter ego. But there are limits to their synchronicity. Gase imposed a texting ban on Friday nights. That is when he spends time with his wife and three children. In the end, the greatest measure of Gase’s success may be that it has been years since someone asked where he played college ball. “Being an ex-player can be an asset in the locker room initially,” said Brian Billick, a former Baltimore Ravens coach and now a Fox and NFL Network analyst. “But that lasts about as long as the second practice. Players want to know what you know that can help them. That’s what matters.” Gase shrugged last week when asked about his limited playing career. “It does matter to some people, and believe me, I wish I had been a better player, but I wasn’t,” he said, smiling. “I worried about it a little in the beginning, but I never think of it now. “When we’re in the red zone trying to score a touchdown, all Peyton wants to know is what I’ve got to say. He wants a play called. He doesn’t need me to go out there and do it.”
|
Football;Broncos;Peyton Manning;Adam Gase
|
ny0105922
|
[
"sports",
"baseball"
] |
2012/04/20
|
Maybe Red Sox Just Aren’t Very Good
|
BOSTON The Boston Red Sox will celebrate a century at Fenway Park on Friday when they host the Yankees . The teams will wear vintage uniforms. The Boston Pops will perform the national anthem. Every living person who has played for, coached or managed the Red Sox has been invited, and even some reluctant participants, like the ousted former manager Terry Francona, will be here. For all that history, though, the current Red Sox would rather not reflect. Their recent history is too bleak. Even an encouraging example from last season, when the team overcame a dreadful start to play well for four months, is no help. Kevin Youkilis, the maligned third baseman, rejected the comparison after a Wednesday loss that dropped the Red Sox to 4-8. “We don’t look at that,” Youkilis said. “We just go out and play each game. You can’t change the past.” Youkilis hit his first home run on Wednesday but is batting just .184. He spouted the one-pitch-at-a-time cliché before pivoting to a startlingly modest goal. “We’re going to have that attitude for the rest of the games,” he said, “and hopefully that will get us going and get us above .500, and then hopefully get more wins than losses.” More wins than losses? The Red Sox surely expect to win more than just 82 games. But they have to start somewhere, and lately, a simple winning record has been elusive. After losing five of six on their opening trip, the Red Sox thumped Tampa Bay three times by a combined score of 31-8. But they have fumbled the three games since, one to the Rays and two to the Rangers , and Bobby Valentine ’s clubhouse feels just as gloomy as the one Francona left after last season’s epic collapse. Since the start of last September, the Red Sox have lost 28 of 39 games. They have given up at least 10 runs three times this season. Their starters have a 6.17 earned run average, the same bloated figure as their relievers. Mark Melancon, acquired last winter to be the lead setup man, was sent to Class AAA on Wednesday, his E.R.A. a ghastly 49.50. Andrew Bailey, acquired to be the closer, is out until midseason with a thumb injury. Center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury is out with a shoulder injury, and left fielder Carl Crawford is still recovering from wrist surgery. Darnell McDonald, Jason Repko and Cody Ross formed the starting outfield Wednesday against the Texas left-hander Derek Holland. Their combined batting average is .178. “We just have to figure out a way to be consistent,” said Ross, a former San Francisco Giant. “It’s tough for our pitchers when we’re scoring 14, 15 runs, and then we’ll get shut out and maybe score one run the next couple of nights. But that has a lot to do with the pitching, too. They’re throwing out some really good pitchers.” Fair enough; in the Rays’ James Shields and the Rangers’ Colby Lewis and Derek Holland, the Red Sox have faced strong pitchers this week. They will face the Yankees’ Ivan Nova, Freddy Garcia and C. C. Sabathia this weekend, with Clay Buchholz, Felix Doubront and Daniel Bard lined up for Boston. Doubront and Bard have more strikeouts than innings, but neither would be in the rotation if the Red Sox were at full strength. John Lackey and Daisuke Matsuzaka are on the disabled list with elbow injuries, consuming more than $25 million of the payroll. For all the expectations that come from their recent success, these Red Sox just might not be very good. Boston reached the playoffs in six of seven seasons through 2009, but finished third in the A.L. East in each of the last two. The current team was no match for the Rangers, who remain the league’s strongest. Despite their own uneven start, the Yankees offer another test. The sight of their uniform — the 1912 model or the 2012 version — sends a different sort of buzz throughout Fenway. “Whatever it is, I hope it’s good for us,” Valentine said. “I believe it will be.” Valentine has been more subdued since questioning Youkilis’s effort in a television interview Sunday, a slight for which he apologized. Normally candid, he now seems inhibited, if not by the Youkilis fallout, then by the stiffness of the setting. The formality of the interview room, the standard place here for pre- and postgame manager briefings, makes Valentine seem caged and reduced to platitudes. “We’ll get some little things going our way, and we’ll get a nice streak going,” he said after Wednesday’s loss. Asked about the wobbly bullpen, he said: “It’s challenging, but I think we’re O.K. We’re in a good place in the bullpen.” Deep down, Valentine probably knows better. But these are delicate times for a new manager, with his team undermanned and underperforming, and a fan base always locked in the grip of history.
|
Baseball;Bobby Valentine;Kevin Youkilis;null
|
ny0054816
|
[
"sports",
"football"
] |
2014/07/23
|
N.F.L. Concussion Settlement Divides Former Players
|
Class-action settlements are often messy. When enough aggrieved people are thrown together, it is natural that some of them will be unhappy with a deal that is a result of a negotiation between parties trying to avoid a long, expensive trial with an uncertain outcome. The proposed settlement in the case brought by more than 4,500 retired N.F.L. players who claim the league hid from them the dangers of concussions is similar. Asking 10 retired players what they think of the settlement might elicit 10 opinions. In the coming weeks, though, the 20,000 retired players and their beneficiaries will have to make a final decision to accept the proposed deal, which includes an unlimited number of cash awards for a small set of severe neurological conditions; to opt out and perhaps sue the league for more; or to object and possibly appeal the settlement. To make informed choices, retired players will have to pore over the settlement, consult their lawyers and doctors and consider their own health and financial needs. They will also have to weigh a host of arguments for and against accepting the plan. Jeff Nixon, who played for the Buffalo Bills from 1979 to 1982, is among those who view the settlement as the best of several bad options. Going to trial, he said, was no slam dunk because the players would have to clear several significant legal hurdles, most notably the league’s argument that the collective bargaining agreement governed player injuries. “The lawyers fought as hard as they could and got as much as they could from the settlement,” said Nixon, who writes a blog about the settlement. “To continue litigation was pretty risky.” The settlement, he said, will get money into the hands of the former players who are in the worst shape, such as those with Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s disease, and will act as an insurance policy for players whose health might deteriorate. “We didn’t get everything we wanted, but we got the N.F.L. to say, ‘We’ll give you guys money if you have symptoms,’ ” he said. “The bottom line is if you’ve got impairments and symptoms, you’ll get paid.” There are many retired players, though, who say the settlement is irreparably flawed, and seven of them took the unusual step Monday of asking a federal appeals court to intervene to correct what they see as deficiencies. Sean Morey, Alan Faneca and five other former players argued that most retirees would never see any money because many of their ailments would not be covered by the settlement. “The class, as certified, is doomed,” they wrote in their filing. They noted that players who had been found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., a degenerative brain disease closely related with Alzheimer’s disease, and who had died before the settlement was finalized, could receive up to $4 million. Anyone with a diagnosis of C.T.E. after the settlement was finalized could not receive an award. Christopher Seeger, one of the lead lawyers for the plaintiffs in the class action, said the objectors had misread the settlement. The families of dead players who were found to have C.T.E. might receive awards because the players could no longer receive a diagnosis. C.T.E. was not included for living players because the settlement would cover those symptoms if they were to develop. “Going forward, any retired player who is sick with a qualifying condition will get compensated, as C.T.E. cannot be currently diagnosed in living people,” he said. “Whether you have C.T.E. or not, or whether or not you can prove you have C.T.E., if you have symptoms of a qualifying condition, you will be compensated.” Susan Owens, whose husband, R. C. Owens, played for the San Francisco 49ers, the Baltimore Colts and the Giants and died two years ago from Alzheimer’s disease, raised another potential inconsistency. Under the settlement, younger retired players would receive larger awards than older players on the presumption that head trauma from playing football, and not old age, had contributed to their severe neurological conditions. But Owens pointed to research by the Mayo Clinic and others who found that people with early-onset Alzheimer’s often get the disease because it runs in their families. Other research , though, has shown that moderate or severe brain trauma may raise the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Owens said her husband might have had Alzheimer’s disease years before he received a diagnosis because he did not want to admit he was losing his memory. If he had received a diagnosis earlier, he might have been eligible for more money. “My husband would never admit to anything,” said Owens, who has said she might file an objection. “He was an expert at not letting people know how he was.” Retired players will also have to consider Article XI of the settlement, which essentially says that state and federal governments have the right to recover expenses associated with treatment for a player’s illness. If a player were eligible for a $500,000 award and Medicare had paid $200,000 to treat his condition, the player would receive only $300,000. The problem for players is figuring out how much the government has spent. A liens administrator will be appointed to determine those amounts, but players may not get answers until after the settlement has been completed. That means they may not know what they could receive until it is too late, said Michael Kaplen, a lawyer who represents clients with traumatic brain injuries. “Unless they know what the numbers are, then how can they decide whether to opt out?” he asked. Seeger, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, said that in other settlements he had worked on, he negotiated a fixed deduction that was drastically lower than the amount that the recipients owed. The government, he said, prefers the certainty of receiving small amounts from every recipient rather than spending years trying to claw back money from many people. “The government likes these deals because rather than chasing these people individually, they can receive a fixed amount for each disease,” he said. Seeger said he was actively negotiating deductions now.
|
NFL; Super Bowl; Super Bowl 2015;Concussion;Football;Lawsuits;Chronic traumatic encephalopathy
|
ny0004605
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2013/04/21
|
Italian Lawmakers, After Stalemate, Re-elect President to Second Term
|
ROME — In a bid to quiet growing political chaos, Italian lawmakers on Saturday elected President Giorgio Napolitano to a second term, turning to him as the last best hope to break a profound deadlock. The move raised the possibility that Mr. Napolitano, 87, could preside over the creation of a broad-based coalition after national elections in February split Parliament into three intractable factions and failed to yield a government even as Italy’s economy, the third-largest in the euro zone, continued to stumble. The election of Mr. Napolitano, supported by both the main center-left and center-right parties, suggested that the two sides would now be more willing to negotiate the formation of a government. But it also infuriated the anti-establishment Five Star Movement of Beppe Grillo, which won a quarter of the recent parliamentary vote. While he cannot prevent a grand coalition, one including both major parties, from forming, Mr. Grillo could complicate matters by stirring renewed anger against the old political establishment, which is in upheaval. After Mr. Grillo called on his supporters to take to the streets, hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the Parliament building, many holding placards in support of Five Star’s candidate, Stefano Rodotà, a legal expert and former leader of the center-left, which nonetheless did not back him. Mr. Rodotà is “not part of the old guard,” said one protester, Anna Maria Vatrella, an unemployed social worker. “All the left knows how to do is to hold on to the power they have. They have no interest in change. They have no idea what it means to live as normal people do.” Mr. Napolitano’s current seven-year term is up in May. Lawmakers on Saturday implored him to run for president after failing to agree on a candidate acceptable to a majority of Parliament in two days of voting, and after the implosion on Friday of the center-left Democratic Party. “I cannot dismiss my responsibility toward the nation,” Mr. Napolitano said before the vote, which made him the first second-term president in Italy’s 67-year-old republic. He added that he expected the political parties that had called on him to show “a corresponding sense of responsibility.” “We must look at the difficult situation of the country, the problems of Italy and Italians and the image and the institutional role of this country in the world,” he said in a televised statement after the vote and a meeting with the presidents of the lower house and the Senate. Although a testament to the respect he commands among all parties, Mr. Napolitano’s re-election was a controversial solution that underscored the profound difficulties that Italy’s established parties face in adapting to new economic and social realities. It was “not a sign of health of the Italian political system, even if the effect could be positive,” said Antonio Polito, a political commentator. “Our system is no longer able to produce a stable government. The parliamentary system is broken, and it has not been able to fix itself.” Image President Giorgio Napolitano in February. He will become the first second-term president in Italy’s 67-year-old republic. Credit Markus Schreiber/Associated Press Mr. Napolitano said in his statement that a possible government had not been discussed, but political analysts said a grand coalition was likely. Such a government is most likely to exist as long as it takes to push through urgent economic measures and some critical reforms, including a new electoral law. If the currently antagonistic parties do not come together, Mr. Napolitano could also dissolve Parliament and call a vote, though analysts said that was less likely because new elections would probably produce a similar result unless the electoral law was changed. In November 2011, Mr. Napolitano helped orchestrate the rise to power of the current caretaker prime minister, Mario Monti, after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi stepped down during a period of intense market turmoil. Mr. Monti’s yearlong technocratic government ended in December when Mr. Berlusconi’s party withdrew support. In the February elections, the Democratic Party won a majority in the lower house but not in the Senate, and its leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, rejected Mr. Berlusconi’s proposal for a grand coalition. But in a dramatic defeat, Mr. Bersani stepped down late Friday evening after rebels broke ranks and voted against the two presidential candidates proposed by the Democratic Party leadership. His resignation may produce leaders more open to sharing power with Mr. Berlusconi’s party, a prospect that has split the left. Some analysts believe that the issue of immunity for Mr. Berlusconi, who is facing trials on accusations of corruption and paying for sex with a minor, was also a factor in the left’s split over the choice of presidential candidates. A president has the power to make Mr. Berlusconi a senator for life, allowing him to keep parliamentary immunity. The Democratic Party backed as its first choice a former labor union leader who had the support of Mr. Berlusconi, a decision that prompted significant disapproval because it was perceived as a step toward an accord with the center-right. Polls show that if parliamentary elections were held tomorrow, Mr. Berlusconi’s coalition would receive the most votes, although Parliament would remain split into three blocs. Policy experts said that even with the profound political crisis, Italy had largely escaped greater market turmoil because of the European Central Bank’s decision last summer to create a mechanism to pump liquidity into the market and stabilize the euro. Still, the political turmoil is preventing leaders from taking steps to right the economy, which is struggling to emerge from the longest recession since World War II. Unemployment is above 11 percent, and the national debt has risen to 130 percent of gross domestic product, the second-highest ratio of debt to G.D.P. in the euro zone after Greece. Since January, 4,468 Italian companies have gone out of business and 79 have defaulted, Guido Gentili, a commentator, wrote on Saturday in the economic daily newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. “The way the political system has behaved over the last few weeks showed that the idea the country is on a bad equilibrium hasn’t really sunk in,” said Federico Fubini, an economics commentator at Corriere della Sera, the country’s leading daily newspaper. “They say they understand, but they don’t really understand.” One protester, Alessandrane, a computer programmer who supported the Pirate Party, hinted, jokingly, at desperate measures. If things continue as they have, “it won’t be long before I jump on a dinghy and make my way to Africa,” she said. “I am sick and tired of Parliament ignoring the will of the people because of economic reasoning.”
|
Italy;Giorgio Napolitano;Election;Euro Crisis;Legislature
|
ny0262539
|
[
"technology"
] |
2011/12/03
|
Virtual Assistants Raise New Issues of Phone Etiquette
|
Is talking to a phone the same as talking on it? The sound of someone gabbing on a cellphone is part of the soundtrack of daily life, and most of us have learned when to be quiet — no talking in “quiet cars” on trains, for example. But the etiquette of talking to a phone — more precisely, to a “virtual assistant” like Apple ’s Siri, in the new iPhone 4S — has not yet evolved. And eavesdroppers are becoming annoyed. In part, that is because conversations with machines have a robotic, unsettling quality. Then there is the matter of punctuation. If you want it, you have to say it. “How is he doing question mark how are you doing question mark,” Jeremy Littau of Bethlehem, Pa., found himself telling his new iPhone recently as he walked down the street, dictating a text message to his wife, who was home with their newborn. The machine spoke to him in Siri’s synthesized female voice. Passers-by gawked. “It’s not normal human behavior to have people having a conversation with a phone on the street,” concluded Mr. Littau, 36, an assistant professor of journalism and communication at Lehigh University. The technology behind voice-activated mobile phones has been around for a few years — allowing people to order their phones around like digital factotums, commanding them to dictate text messages, jot down appointments on their calendars and search for nearby sushi restaurants. Apple, though, has taken it to another level with Siri. “Happy birthday smiley face,” was what Dani Klein heard a man say to his phone on the Long Island Rail Road , using the command to insert a grinning emoticon into a message. “It sounded ridiculous,” said Mr. Klein, 28, who works in social media marketing. Talking to your phone is so new that there are no official rules yet on, say, public transportation systems. Cliff Cole, a spokesman for Amtrak , said the train line’s quiet-car policy applied to any use of voice with cellphones, though it explicitly bans only “phone calls,” not banter with a virtual assistant. “We may have to adjust the language if it becomes a problem,” Mr. Cole said. Voice-activated technology in smartphones first appeared a few years ago when mobile phones running Google ’s Android operating system and other software began offering basic voice commands to do Web searches and other tasks. Apple’s Siri, introduced this fall , is a more sophisticated iteration of the technology; it responds to natural-sounding phrases like, “What’s the weather looking like?” and “Wake me up at 8 a.m.” Apple gave Siri a dash of personality, too, reinforcing the impression that the iPhone’s users were actually talking to someone. Ask Siri for the meaning of life, and it responds, “I find it odd you would ask this of an inanimate object.” Technology executives say voice technologies are here to stay if only because they can help cellphone users be more productive. “I don’t think the keyboard is going to go away, but it’s going to be less used,” said Martin Cooper, who developed the first portable cellular phone while at Motorola in the 1970s. Another irritant in listening to people talk to their phones is the awareness that most everything you can do with voice commands can also be done silently. Billy Brooks, 43, was standing in line at the service department of a car dealership in Los Angeles recently, when a woman broke the silence of the room by dictating a text message into her iPhone. “You’re unnecessarily annoying others at that point by not just typing out your message,” said Mr. Brooks, a visual effects artist in the film industry, adding that the woman’s behavior was “just ridiculous and kind of sad.” James E. Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers, said people who use their voices to control their phones are creating an inconvenience for others — noise — rather than coping with an inconvenience for themselves — the discomfort of having to type slowly on a cramped cellphone keyboard. Mr. Katz compared the behavior with that of someone who leaves a car’s engine running while parked, creating noise and fumes for people surrounding them. While Apple has tried to enable natural-sounding conversations with Siri, they are often anything but. Nirav Tolia, an Internet entrepreneur, was riding a crowded elevator down from his office in San Francisco recently when a man tried to use Siri to find a new location of a cafe, Coffee Bar. The phone gave him listings for other coffee houses — the wrong ones — forcing him to repeat the search several times. “Just say ‘ Starbucks ,’ dude,” another passenger said, pushing past the Coffee Bar-seeker when the elevator reached the ground floor. When talking to their cellphones, people sometimes start sounding like machines themselves. Jimmy Wong, 24, was at an after-hours diner with friends in Los Angeles recently when they found themselves next to a man ordering Siri to write memos and dictate e-mails. They found the man’s conversation with his phone “creepy,” without any of the natural pauses and voice inflections that occur in a discussion between two people. “It was very robotic,” he said. Yet the group could not stop eavesdropping. People who study the behavior of cellphone users believe the awkwardness of hearing people in hotels, airports and cafes treating their phones like administrative assistants will simply fade over time. “We’ll see an evolution of that initial irritation with it, to a New Yorker cartoon making fun of it, and then after a while it will largely be accepted by most people,” said Mr. Katz from Rutgers. But, he predicted, “there will be a small minority of traditionalists who yearn for the good old days when people just texted in public.”
|
iPhone;Etiquette;Speech recognition
|
ny0259027
|
[
"business",
"global"
] |
2011/01/24
|
Renault Chief Defends Handling of Espionage Case
|
PARIS — Carlos Ghosn , the chief executive of Renault , insisted in a French newspaper interview published Sunday that his company had acted correctly in its internal investigation of an industrial espionage case and said he had personally followed the inquiry. In the interview, with the Journal du Dimanche, Mr. Ghosn sought to calm doubts that had emerged since Renault fired three employees this month and lodged a criminal complaint on Jan. 13 for “organized industrial espionage, corruption, breach of trust, theft and concealment.” The parties were not identified in the complaint. Mr. Ghosn said he learned about the suspected espionage at the end of August, when Christian Husson, Renault’s general counsel and compliance officer, along with the head of the company security office, reported “very disturbing information” about certain high-level executives. “I was surprised and shocked,” Mr. Ghosn told the newspaper. “Among other things they gave me the name of a member of the management board, someone who reported directly to Odile Desforges, the engineering director, who sits on the executive board. So from the start it was a grave affair.” Renault has said that its investigation found that an “organized international network” was behind efforts to obtain confidential data related to the company’s electric car program, into which it and its Japanese ally, Nissan Motor, were pouring €4 billion, or about $5.4 billion, in a bid for global leadership. Government officials in France and French intelligence services have criticized Renault for not alerting them to the case until the automaker had already suspended the three men on Jan. 3. Renault has not publicly described the evidence that led it to fire the employees, but the men say the company has asserted that they received illicit funds in exchange for secrets. All three strongly protest their innocence and have begun to publicly fight back, filing criminal defamation complaints and appealing to the French labor court for reinstatement. The news media, meanwhile, have begun to treat the affair more skeptically, with some commentators questioning the legality of Renault’s internal investigation. “Renault has very precise procedures for this sort of thing,” Mr. Ghosn told the French newspaper in explaining why he chose not to alert the authorities from the start. “I decided we would use the normal process. I said: ‘Carry out the investigation, get management involved, and keep me in the loop about where this is going.”’ He added, “I personally followed the progress of the investigation step by step.” Renault’s behavior, he said “was irreproachable with respect to the law.” “My priority is to protect the Renault group, our assets and our intellectual property,” he added. “The French counterespionage service opened an investigation last week. I repeat: They have all the elements of the case. Today, we’re waiting for justice to run its course.” Mr. Ghosn declined to discuss the central question in the case, that of who might have been behind the espionage. It is not the company’s role “to go out and find who is responsible,” he said, but rather an issue for the prosecutor. The spies, who appear to have gotten information on the business plan but not technological data, had good reason for pinpointing Renault’s electric car program, he said. “We launched the project in 2006 in an atmosphere of total skepticism,” Mr. Ghosn told the Journal du Dimanche. “Today, we’re the only one in the world to make batteries, motors and chargers, to produce the entire system.” “By 2012,” he added, “we’ll be — and by a large margin — the biggest maker of electric cars. When a producer has a technological edge, don’t be naïve: That interests a lot of people.” Caroline de Gezelle, a Renault spokeswoman, said Sunday that she had no further comment.
|
Ghosn Carlos;Renault SA;Industrial Espionage;Automobiles;Electric Vehicles
|
ny0047185
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2014/11/11
|
Coalition Challenges Selection of Judges in Same-Sex Marriage Case
|
WASHINGTON — When a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in California struck down bans last month on same-sex marriage in Idaho and Nevada, it was no surprise. The panel included two of the court’s leading liberals. A group opposing same-sex marriage said the composition of the panel was also no coincidence. In an unusual accusation in a recent court filing , the group said the two judges served on a disproportionate number of cases involving gay rights. The odds of this were 441 to 1, according to a brief filed by the group, the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage . It asked the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to rehear the Nevada case “to cure the appearance that the assignment of this case to this particular three-judge panel was not the result of a random or otherwise neutral selection process.” Peter Renn , a lawyer with Lambda Legal , which represents the plaintiffs in the Nevada case, said, “This conspiracy theory is more believable as the plot to a John Grisham novel than a credible legal argument substantiated by evidence.” “Holding a losing hand does not mean that the deck has been stacked,” he said. “This conspiracy theory is frivolous and sad, and it reeks of desperation. It is embarrassing that the other side has stooped to attacking the integrity of our federal judiciary, rather than accept their loss with an ounce of grace.” The Ninth Circuit has 29 active judges. Since 2010, the coalition’s brief said, the court has heard 11 gay rights cases. Judge Marsha S. Berzon sat on five of them, and Judge Stephen Reinhardt on four. Eighteen of the court’s active judges served on none. “Something is amiss,” the coalition told the Ninth Circuit. Peter H. Irons , an emeritus professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, questioned the group’s selection of cases and noted that the decisions of panels including Judge Berzon and Judge Reinhardt were not uniformly in favor of gay rights. “The allegation of panel rigging based on a supposed statistical analysis is completely bogus and totally unsupported by any facts,” he said. Mr. Renn echoed the point. “If there was a conspiracy, it apparently wasn’t a very good one,” he said, “given that the accused judges voted against the lesbian and gay litigants in a full third of the cases deemed suspicious by the other side.” Image Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Credit J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times Monte Neil Stewart, a lawyer for the coalition, said that “the legal test here is one of appearance” and that “the appearance of panel-packing in the Nevada and Idaho marriage cases is strong.” He added that his client had posted a document on its website “addressing misunderstandings.” Cathy A. Catterson, the Ninth Circuit’s top administrator, said panels were indeed created at random. And that process, she said, takes place long before particular cases are assigned to panels. “We just literally sent out the panel assignments for all of 2015,” she said last week. “They have no idea what cases they’re getting.” Until recently, though, the court used a different procedure for assigning cases on a fast track, like the marriage case. They were assigned to the available panel with the most senior presiding judge, said the Ninth Circuit’s chief judge, Alex Kozinski. Judge Reinhardt, who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, is one of the most senior active judges and so was disproportionately likely to be the presiding judge. That procedure was changed to ensure “more randomness,” Ms. Catterson said. Chief Judge Kozinski said the court’s staff had used a neutral principle in assigning the expedited cases. “Having worked with our staff in San Francisco for three decades,” he said, “I have full confidence in their professionalism and objectivity.” The possibility that courts might sometimes bend the rules in assigning cases is not completely implausible. In the civil rights era, the Fifth Circuit steered cases involving racial equality to more liberal panels. A 2012 article in the University of New Hampshire Law Review looked at how the chief judges of federal appeals courts choose visiting trial court judges to sit on appeals panels. It found “clear and consistent evidence that chief judges, in making designation decisions, tend to choose individuals with similar ideologies.” Still, if the Nevada coalition’s charge is that the Ninth Circuit actively rigged the process, its evidence is quite thin. At the same time, a new study by two law professors supports the idea that many federal appeals courts are not selecting their panels perfectly randomly. “We found strong evidence in the majority of circuits that they’re not using a random assignment process to form their panels,” said Marin K. Levy , a law professor at Duke and one of the study’s authors. The study considered more than 10,000 three-judge panels that heard arguments in federal appeals court over five years, comparing the real ones to three billion randomly generated artificial panels. Adam S. Chilton , a law professor at the University of Chicago and the study’s other author, said there was only a two percent probability that the real panels were generated by pure chance. He said one court’s practices are particularly questionable. “If any of the 12 circuits are using a nonrandom process,” he said, “it’s most likely to be the Ninth Circuit.” Professor Levy and Professor Chilton were not looking at the same question as the group in the Nevada case. They explored how panels were composed, not how cases were assigned to panels. “There’s no indication that any of these results were deliberate,” Professor Levy said. “It’s also important to remember that there are many good reasons for courts to depart from strict randomness.” On the Ninth Circuit, for instance, judges can block out weeks in which they do not want to sit and can sometimes swap assignments with other judges. They get sick. They are recused because of conflicts. Whatever the reasons, the study shows, the mix of judges on Ninth Circuit panels does appear to be the product of something other than pure chance. That is notable, Professor Chilton said, given other research showing that the political affiliations and backgrounds of judges can help predict their votes. “We know for a fact that the composition of panels affects the outcomes of cases,” Professor Chilton said. “The reason we’re O.K. with this is because the process is supposed to be perfectly random.”
|
Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage;United States courts of appeals;Nevada;California;Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund;Stephen Roy Reinhardt;Marsha Berzon;Alex Kozinski
|
ny0177241
|
[
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] |
2007/09/16
|
Capturing a Landscape That Won’t Stand Still
|
Back in 1996, the British landscape photographer Jem Southam began photographing an unassuming pond on the edge of the village of Upton Pyne, which is near his home in Exeter, in Devon. He returned at regular intervals over the next five years, recording seasonal changes and attempts by local inhabitants to improve the surrounding, largely derelict landscape. Twenty-one colorful, large-format photographs of the pond are showing at the Yale Center for British Art . This entrancing exhibition, assembled by Scott Wilcox, curator of prints and drawings at the center and touring nationally, represents about half of the total number of images in the series. The exhibition also celebrates the center’s recent acquisition of a pair of Mr. Southam’s photographs. Mostly, though, it tells a story — about time and transformation and human impact on the environment. It is a familiar tale, echoing Henry David Thoreau’s book “Walden,” published in 1854, which detailed the two years he spent in a cabin on Walden Pond near his family in Concord, Mass. While Thoreau was a natural history philosopher, social critic and early vocal environmentalist, Mr. Southam has more modest goals. He is a witness, nothing more, parachuting to a small, intimate patch of the planet at intervals and then relaying back, with a certain flourish, what he finds through his glossy color photographs. Of course, that does not mean his photographs are just pretty pictures. Mr. Southam’s serial portraits of seasonal and environmental change are infinitely more complicated than that. He gets beyond black and white in the bitter debates over human environmental stewardship, presenting nature as a dynamic, living entity that is constantly changing and adapting to different forces. A human narrative is only one piece of the story that he wishes to convey. When Mr. Southam first chanced on the pond (basically a water-filled pit left over from mining), it was being used as a casual rubbish dump. But with permission of the landowner a local resident took it over, intending to clean and reshape it into his vision of a perfect garden. Mr. Southam decided that he would document the transformation from dump to Arcadian realm. He liked to visit and take pictures early in the morning, when there was nobody about. Over the six years that Mr. Southam photographed the pond, the site underwent considerable change. The first couple of images here depict a trash- and weed-choked pond surrounded by an overgrown mass of trees. There are also derelict-looking buildings and pieces of rusted machinery nearby. Over all it is a fairly unappealing scene. But the more you look at these images the more you start to see. In fact, they are teeming with little details like hidden wild flowers, birds of all kinds and raking rays of light that gradually reveal to us the density and complexity wrapped up in the site. In some ways, these early pictures of the pond in its raw state invite us to consider ideas of beauty in the landscape. Human beings have long transformed the natural landscape to fit their own notions of beautiful (formal gardens are a good example of this). But nature exists in a somewhat chaotic state, at least to human eyes. The technical virtue of these photographs is that Mr. Southam finds and records great beauty in a disregarded, neglected piece of earth. The very early diptych “January 1997” provides staggeringly eloquent testimony to the pond’s untouched natural beauty. It is winter, the trees are bare and sinuous, and a light layer of frost covers the ground. There is trash all over the place, but it dissolves into the landscape under the yellow glow of light that falls over the scene, illuminating the pond whose perfect stillness radiates a sense of a restless world finding momentary balance. It is perfectly lovely. Over time, through the series of photographs assembled here, the trash is removed, trees and other foliage are cut back, a lush lawn is cultivated, fences are erected, buildings are restored, and the entire area begins to take shape as part of a suburban garden for the residents whose homes back onto the pond. But in this remarkable transformation, something, you can’t help but feel, is also lost.
|
Photography;Art;Yale Center for British Art
|
ny0150558
|
[
"sports",
"golf"
] |
2008/08/03
|
Mickelson, Singh and Westwood Tied for Bridgestone Lead
|
AKRON, Ohio — Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh fought to a standoff Saturday at Firestone Country Club, trading birdies and bogeys — but no pleasantries — for nearly four hours before winding up tied for the lead going into Sunday’s final round of the W.G.C.-Bridgestone Invitational. And they were no longer alone. For the first time in the history of this or any other World Golf Championship event, there is a three-way tie for the lead after 54 holes. Mickelson shot 68 and Singh 69, but Lee Westwood of England birdied the first three holes to jump into the fray. He finished with a birdie at the 17th for a 67 and a 54-hole total of eight-under-par 202 and a share of the lead. The Australian Stuart Appleby , with a round of 67, is just one stroke back at 203. The list of potential winners just doubled. What looked like a two-man race when the day began turned into a four-man free-for-all. In all likelihood, the winner will come from the final two groups: Singh and Westwood are in the final pairing; Mickelson and Appleby are in the next-to-last pairing. “I don’t think all four of us are going to come back to them,” Mickelson said. “So they’re going to have to go make birdies to catch us, I believe.” Singh said: “I’d like to play like this tomorrow. I think I’ve got a good chance if I do this tomorrow.” Appleby added: “There’s some pretty good players, but I’ll just go do my thing and see if that’s enough, really. I’ve enjoyed it up to this stage, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it whatever happens tomorrow. I think there’s a good chance that I can turn this year around now.” And Westwood, who has not won in the United States since his only victory here, in the 1998 Freeport-McDermott Classic in New Orleans? “It would mean a lot,” he said. “These are a rung down from the major championships, obviously, but I haven’t won a World Golf Championships, so that’s obviously missing on my C.V., so it would mean a lot, and obviously give me a massive amount of confidence going into next week, too.” With a freshening wind sweeping across the course, blowing away whatever moisture remained from rains that had fallen earlier in the week, sometimes boisterous crowds of fans traipsed after Singh and Mickelson for most of the day, drawn by the dramatic tension of their much-publicized animus. For the record, Mickelson did compliment Singh on his 330-yard tee shot that split the fairway at fourth hole. Singh, who had birdied the par-5 second hole with a 4-footer and the third with a downhill chip-in, said nothing. But he did bogey the fourth, failing to get up and down from the edge and missing a 4-footer. That was the extent of any byplay, but there were many more exchanges, with the best coming at the 15th and 16th holes, which Singh and Mickelson each birdied. The 16th hole, where the tee was moved up some 47 yards so the par 5 played at 620 rather than 667 yards, provided the highlight reel for the day. Mickelson blasted a 363-yard drive and had just 254 yards in to the green. Singh drove his ball a mere 348, and hit a 202-yard layup, leaving a 68-yard wedge shot. As Mickelson studied his lie and contemplated whether to go for the green, Singh stood in the right-hand rough waiting, taking a step or two toward the green with each Mickelson practice swing. Finally, Mickelson ripped his 3-wood into the heart of the green, where it bounced once and rolled into the back bunker. Singh then spun his wedge shot dead around 12 feet from the hole. Mickelson responded with a bunker shot to 5 feet. Singh poured his birdie putt in and Mickelson did the same. The large gallery erupted with whoops for Mickelson’s third straight birdie and for the two players who were tied at nine under par. Singh’s bogey at the 17th briefly gave Mickelson the lead by himself, but Mickelson handed it back when he bogeyed the 18th with a wedge. He hit a tree next to the green with his second shot and failed to get up and down from just short of the green. “I don’t know what happened on the wedge shot,” said Mickelson, who was buoyed by an alignment adjustment he made at the 14th tee after a bogey at 13. “I’m excited. I’m a little tired tonight, so I’ll have a practice session tomorrow with Butch just to make sure that things are back in order, but I was excited heading into the tournament because I had been playing well, and it was just a little fraction off throughout the round today.” The final four have history on their side Sunday. Only one player has come from behind to win this event — Tiger Woods. He did it three times, but he is not here.
|
Golf;Mickelson Phil;Singh Vijay;Appleby Stuart
|
ny0022789
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2013/09/24
|
I.R.S. Official Linked to Tea Party Scandal Retires
|
Lois Lerner, an official at the center of the Internal Revenue Service’s Tea Party scandal, is retiring, the agency said Monday. Ms. Lerner, who led the division that handles applications for tax-exempt status, was placed on paid leave in May after the agency acknowledged that agents improperly targeted Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. She refused to answer questions at a Congressional hearing, citing her right not to incriminate herself.
|
IRS;Retirement;Internal Revenue Service Political Profiling;Tea Party movement;Tax Credits Tax Deductions Tax Exemptions
|
ny0055031
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2014/07/13
|
Chronicling the Monumental
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Five years ago in “Mannahatta,” Eric W. Sanderson imaginatively envisioned the natural landscape that Henry Hudson would have witnessed when he sailed into New York Harbor. Now Ted Steinberg, a Brooklyn-born history professor at Case Western Reserve University, engagingly explores what happened to that natural environment in the four centuries since in “Gotham Unbound: The Ecological History of Greater New York” (Simon & Schuster). A fourth of Upper New York Bay was reclaimed and the Island of Many Hills was largely leveled — so much so that 97 percent of Manhattan’s natural landscape was obliterated by buildings, sidewalks, streets, parking lots, playgrounds and other “artifacts of civilization.” Professor Steinberg accessibly traces the harbor’s natural history from the booming colonial market in underwater (literally) property and the prescient Manhattan grid plan, both of which fueled development, to the lessons delivered by Hurricane Sandy. He challenges the conventional arguments that geography is destiny and that New York is an “infinite proposition” — a perpetually renewable resource. And he makes the strong case that for all the ecological advantages of urban living, hyperdensity by itself is not necessarily a sound environmental strategy. “There must be, in short,” he writes, “some owning up to the limits imposed by life in an estuary.” Image The head of the Statue of Liberty was displayed at the 1878 World’s Fair in Paris. Credit Library of Congress It might have wound up in Prospect Park, Central Park, Boston, Philadelphia — even Egypt. It didn’t celebrate immigration until decades after it was dedicated. Originally, it was supposed to be a lighthouse. Thomas Edison intended to equip it with a disembodied voice that would boom as far as Upper Manhattan. And when it was unveiled, suffragists protested that the giant female figure undermined their lament that women still lacked the liberty to vote. In “Liberty’s Torch: The Great Adventure to Build the Statue of Liberty” (Atlantic Monthly Press), the journalist Elizabeth Mitchell recounts the captivating story behind the familiar monument that readers may have assumed they knew everything about. “The place is decidedly what I think is needed,” the sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi wrote after visiting Bedloe’s Island in 1871, “but how much pain and exasperation must be endured to realize a thing that, if it succeeds, will make the same people enthusiastic.” Little did he know. At the dedication in 1886, a toast to Bartholdi invoked the birth of Minerva after Jupiter had a headache and Vulcan split his head with an ax. “I have now had that headache for about 15 years,” Bartholdi replied. “And if I had not received the most kindly and beneficent support, I believe that no ax would have opened my head enough to bring out the Statue of Liberty.” Speaking of statues, the Port Chester, N.Y., man who has been described as the chief carver of the monumental presidential countenances on Mount Rushmore finally gets his due in “Carving a Niche for Himself: The Untold Story of Luigi Del Bianco” (Bordighera Press), by Douglas J. Gladstone. “If being the chief carver at Mount Rushmore is not the American dream for an immigrant to these lands,” Mr. Gladstone writes, “what is?”
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Ted Steinberg;Elizabeth Mitchell;Statue of Liberty;NYC;Mount Rushmore;Douglas J. Gladstone;Books
|
ny0066722
|
[
"us"
] |
2014/06/14
|
Massachusetts Democrat Wins Over Voters; Her Party Is a Different Story
|
BOSTON — It was a cringe-worthy moment for Massachusetts Democrats. Martha Coakley, who was running in 2010 for the Senate seat long held by Edward M. Kennedy, spoke dismissively of the campaign ritual of shaking hands with voters at their beloved Fenway Park. That moment came to epitomize all that critics said was wrong with her candidacy, and she went on to lose the race, turning over “Teddy’s seat” to Scott P. Brown, a Republican. This year, she is running for governor. And after her announcement tour in September last year, a chastened Ms. Coakley made a campaign stop at Fenway. She shook hands, chatted with fans and posed for photographs, hoping to signal that she would run a better campaign this time around. On Saturday, she will face her first big political test since 2010, when 6,000 Democratic activists meet at the state party convention in Worcester to endorse a candidate for governor. Ms. Coakley, 60, the state’s attorney general since 2007, holds a substantial lead in polls of voters, running way ahead of her four rivals. But in an unusual dynamic, she appears not to have won over party insiders. Indications are that despite her popularity with voters, Ms. Coakley will not win her party’s endorsement. The endorsement will almost certainly go to Steve Grossman, 68, the state treasurer, who lags far behind her in the public opinion polls. Analysts explain the situation this way: Ms. Coakley leads among voters in part because she has the highest name recognition. And she lags among party activists because of their lingering concern from 2010 that she will not be able to fire up the troops sufficiently to keep the governor’s office in Democratic hands. (Gov. Deval Patrick is not seeking a third term.) Mr. Grossman leads among convention delegates because he is a longtime party insider; he is a former chairman of the state and national Democratic Parties, a fund-raising stalwart who is calling in his chits. He has not caught on with voters because he has an insider image and voters do not know him. Ms. Coakley minimizes the importance of the convention, calling it just one step in the process toward November. She has been tamping down expectations about her potential delegate haul, saying she wants only to emerge with at least 15 percent, the minimum to earn a spot on the Sept. 9 primary ballot. Video Martha Coakley, the attorney general of Massachusetts, is running as a Democrat for governor, after a failed run for Senate in 2010. Credit Credit Katherine Taylor for The New York Times Her focus, she says, is meeting people and reassuring them, when asked, that she has learned from the mistakes in 2010, including that she was too aloof. “The lessons learned are that people want to see you’re committed and they want to see you and they want to be able to talk to you and pinch you and ask you questions,” she said during an interview in a restaurant in Salem last weekend after a campaign meet-and-greet event. She said she was receiving a noticeably friendlier reception this time. Voters, she said, are telling her that “you got back up on your feet, you worked hard for us, you’ve earned this, and we’re going to help you this time.” In addition to the stop at Fenway, her new strategy includes knocking on doors. (“Talk about a one-on-one experience!” she said.) She is also talking at public events about her brother , who committed suicide in 1996 at age 33. “I just feel it’s important for people to know who I am, where I come from, what my experience has been and also to relate that to what it means to be a good governor,” she said. “I’ve been through this. I know how tough it is.” Voters at the Salem event said they liked her, but a few expressed reservations about her campaign. Tom Buonaugurio, a retired teacher, said he supported her but wanted her to show a little more verve in the manner of Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat who defeated Mr. Brown in 2012. “I know people think women should have some decorum, but Martha needs to be more like Warren, who didn’t let Brown get away with anything,” he said. Leslie Schwartz, also a retired teacher, agreed, saying she liked Ms. Coakley’s views, “but she needs to pick up the ball and run with it.” Ms. Schwartz’s husband, Alan, an engineer, who is undecided, said he wanted Ms. Coakley to raise her energy level, but he appreciated that her campaign had called him to come to the event. “They seem more serious this time,” he said. Dale Orlando, a retired psychologist, is also undecided. “Martha has done a fantastic job as attorney general, and it’s time for the state to have a woman governor,” she said. Image Mr. Grossman. Credit Matt Stone/The Boston Herald, via Associated Press But she said she did not like Ms. Coakley’s recent agreement to allow Partners HealthCare, the state’s largest hospital and physician network, to acquire three more hospitals. The deal has been criticized for potentially raising health care costs and putting some hospitals out of business. The five Democratic candidates have differed little on major policy questions facing the state, which is enjoying a relatively healthy postrecession economy. This has muted interest in the race, and the candidates have had a hard time distinguishing themselves. Ms. Coakley has dominated all public opinion surveys. A poll released June 9 by Suffolk University and The Boston Herald showed her with 44 percent of the Democratic primary vote; Mr. Grossman had 12 percent. Behind them were Donald Berwick, a former federal Medicaid and Medicare administrator; Juliette Kayyem, a national security specialist; and Joseph Avellone, a biotech executive. The poll also showed Ms. Coakley leading Charlie Baker, the likely Republican nominee, in November; she was the only Democrat ahead of him. Still, Mr. Grossman has been making an issue of what he says is Ms. Coakley’s “passion gap,” her failure to stir excitement among party activists. He told The Herald that if she had a poor showing Saturday, she needed “to do a lot of soul-searching.” Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic strategist, said that voters were likely to be puzzled that Ms. Coakley was supposedly the front-runner and yet could not win her party’s endorsement. The crucial factor, Ms. Marsh said, will be how Ms. Coakley is able to frame her convention performance afterward and “whether she reassures voters or whether she reinforces their concerns about her.” Scott Ferson, another Democratic strategist, said Ms. Coakley might be able to turn a weak delegate haul at the convention into a plus among regular voters. “They don’t expect her to be the consummate political insider who should have all this wrapped up,” he said. In any case, the candidates are expected to turn to Twitter early and often during the convention to start putting their own spin on the narrative that will drive the race to the September primary.
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Martha Coakley;Gubernatorial races;Massachusetts;Democrats;Political endorsement;Steve Grossman
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ny0058663
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2014/08/02
|
China: Blast at Work Site Kills Dozens
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An explosion killed between 40 and 65 people Saturday at a workshop in an eastern Chinese city, China state media reported. State broadcaster CCTV said the blast in Kunshan left 65 people dead. The official Xinhua News Agency said more than 40 people died and at least 120 were injured. Officials were investigating the cause of the blast, which occurred at a car polishing workshop of a metal products company.
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Bombs;Explosions;China;Fatalities,casualties
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ny0166112
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2006/08/11
|
Pakistani Militant Under House Arrest
|
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan , Aug. 10 — Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant Islamic group that India accuses of sending hundreds of Pakistanis to fight in Kashmir, was put under house arrest on Thursday. India has repeatedly blamed Lashkar-e-Taiba for violence, and specifically for an attack on its Parliament building in 2001 that renewed tensions between the nations. Indian officials have also said they suspect there are ties between the group and the plotters of the July 11 bomb attacks on trains in Mumbai, formerly Bombay. More than 180 people died in the coordinated blasts. Mr. Saeed, who leads a charity group called Jamaat-ud-Dawa was put under house arrest for a month by police officers who arrived at his home in the eastern city of Lahore early on Thursday, a spokesman for the group said. Jamaat-ud-Dawa was formed after Pakistan declared Lashkar-e-Taiba banned it as a terrorist group. Yaha Mujahid, a Jamaat-ud-Dawa spokesman, said by telephone from Lahore that Mr. Saeed was accused of violating an ordinance that prohibits speech that causes or is likely to cause fear or alarm or that may compromise public order or safety.
|
Pakistan;Islam;Terrorism;Kashmir and Jammu (India);India;Lashkar-e-Taiba
|
ny0119364
|
[
"sports",
"olympics"
] |
2012/07/27
|
British Soccer Team Has a Lackluster Start
|
MANCHESTER, England — With a lost lead and a muddling 1-1 tie against Senegal on Thursday, the British men played their first Olympic soccer match since 1960. The concept is so alien that the official program listed midfielder Joe Allen as English, which no doubt surprised and perhaps irritated his family, given that he is a native of Wales. Apologies were issued, along with promises that the program would be returned to the printer for correction. Britain’s 52-year Olympic absence also will come as news to many, considering that modern soccer was invented in England. And Britain won gold medals at the 1908 and 1912 Summer Games. But it has not attempted to qualify since the early 1970s for complicated reasons of national identity and regional rivalry. As the host country, the 2012 Olympic entry came free, like a coupon in the Sunday paper. In the World Cup and the European Championships, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales compete separately. But the International Olympic Committee recognizes only the combined entity of Britain for all sports. That was O.K. with English officials, who decided that failure to field a soccer team at the London Games would be as embarrassing as Canada’s entering the Winter Games without a hockey team. The soccer federations of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales were not so sanguine. They opposed a combined team and tried to discourage their players from participating. This might be the United Kingdom in name, but a true sense of Britishness often remains elusive. No one seems sure even what Olympic cheers would be catchy and appropriate. If they surrendered their autonomy for these Games, officials from the smaller nations feared, they might also lose their independent status for the World Cup and European Championships. They also feared losing their seats on a committee that decides soccer’s bylaws. It hardly mattered that FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, gave pledges to the contrary. This is soccer, after all, where emotion and tribalism often trump assurance. Eventually, 13 English players were chosen for the British team, along with five Welsh players who ignored official reluctance, including the 38-year-old captain Ryan Giggs. In the 20th minute Thursday, Giggs curled a free kick that was deflected toward another Welsh player, Craig Bellamy, whose bouncing shot provided the opening goal. Pointedly, the Welsh players did not sing “God Save the Queen” before the match, an anthem that suggests to them English domination and oppression. Still, Giggs never qualified for the World Cup or the European Championships with Wales, so he is eager to secure an Olympic medal for Britain. And it was surely alluring to play at Old Trafford, the renowned home of his club team, Manchester United, for whom he has won 12 Premier League titles. “To get a chance to play in a tournament at such a late stage in my career is obviously one I’m excited about,” Giggs said. “I’ve enjoyed every bit of it.” A soccer player does not grow up dreaming of winning an Olympic medal, but rather league titles and European championships and World Cups, Giggs said beforehand. But, he added, “This is different.” A medal “will rank highly,” he said. “This would be up there.” Old Trafford drew an expectant crowd of 72,176 Thursday, but Britain’s chances of a decisive opening victory disappeared in the 82nd minute with a defensive breakdown and a chip shot by Senegal’s Moussa Konaté. Over all, soccer has been a relatively tough sell at these Games, and this disappointing result is not likely to whip up fervor. Some 500,000 tickets for the men’s and women’s competitions went unsold, organizers said, and seating capacity will be downsized at some stadiums. While women field their full national teams, men’s Olympic soccer is an under-23 tournament, with three over-age players allowed per team. FIFA imposes the age restriction because it does not want the Olympics throwing a competitive shadow over the World Cup. The Summer Games also arrive just as many in this soccer-mad nation are taking a brief holiday from an otherwise consuming game. The European Championships just concluded and another Premier League season is about to begin. Jim White wrote in The Telegraph that anticipation for the Olympic soccer tournament lingers “somewhere between bemused indifference and wholesale apathy.” When Stuart Pearce, Britain’s manager, held a news conference Tuesday, only seven reporters bothered showing up. “We could have done this in my bedroom,” he said. The relative unimportance of the Olympics was illustrated by the disappearing act of the Welsh midfielder Gareth Bale. Having once proclaimed great anticipation for these Games, Bale withdrew, complaining of problems with his back. Then he turned up with his club team, Tottenham Hotspur, for an exhibition in California on Tuesday, drawing fire for putting club before country. Britain made a baffling mistake in not selecting David Beckham for the team. Apart from his reliable free kicks, Beckham would have sold countless tickets on his celebrity alone. He worked passionately to secure the London Olympic bid, as was acknowledged in a video tribute here Thursday. A more thoughtful tribute would have been to put him on the team. “It’s outrageous,” said Kevin Durell, 27, a fan from London. “He’s a national hero.” However these Games turn out, they might be Britain’s last Olympic soccer appearance for the immediate future. There is some appetite to compete at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but qualification would be required. And many, including Sepp Blatter, FIFA’s president, doubt whether the four constituent countries could muster sufficient and collective enthusiasm to do so. “I don’t think it is likely,” Blatter said.
|
Olympic Games (2012);Olympic Games (2016);Olympic Games;Soccer;Great Britain;Senegal
|
ny0052797
|
[
"world",
"middleeast"
] |
2014/07/05
|
Yemen: At Least 6 Die After Saudi Border Post Is Attacked
|
At least six people, including a suicide bomber and two security officers, were killed at a Saudi-Yemeni border crossing on Friday in attacks that highlighted the threat posed by militants to the security of both nations. Gunmen killed the commander of a border patrol on the Saudi side of the Wadia border post and security forces then killed three of the attackers in an ensuing firefight, said the Saudi state news agency SPA. A Yemeni official said the gunmen, believed to be Al Qaeda militants, had escaped into Saudi Arabia after their attack. Separately, Yemen’s state agency Saba reported that a suicide bomber had driven a car filled with explosives into the Yemeni side of the Wadia border crossing, killing himself and one soldier and wounding another. Saudi Arabia has long viewed its 1,100-mile border with Yemen as a major security challenge and since 2003 has been building a fence to deter militants and criminals, but work has often been interrupted by protesting tribesmen who say it prevents them accessing pastures for their livestock. In May, Saudi Arabia said it had detained 62 people suspected of links to radicals in Syria and Yemen who were plotting attacks in the kingdom.
|
Saudi Arabia;Yemen;Terrorism;Al Qaeda;Fatalities,casualties;Military
|
ny0219590
|
[
"world",
"asia"
] |
2010/05/12
|
Karzai Visits Washington, With Smiles All Around
|
WASHINGTON — Beneath twinkling chandeliers and amid tables of pastry and crudités, the Obama administration set out Tuesday to charm President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, rounding up cabinet members and other V.I.P.’s to welcome him and his ministers at a State Department reception. The party capped a day of meetings meant to showcase the breadth and durability of the relationship between the United States and Afghanistan — one that is more often characterized by the testy back-and-forth between this administration and the mercurial Afghan leader. “We have told President Karzai that the United States will be there as a partner and a friend long after the combat troops have left,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared , with Mr. Karzai smiling at her side. “Our commitment is one that is enduring and durable.” Mr. Karzai returned the sentiment, describing Afghanistan as a “friend and an ally” of the United States. He spoke with emotion of his visit earlier in the day to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he met with American soldiers wounded in the war — some who had “lost arms and legs” — and said he found it difficult to summon up the right words to express his gratitude. The Afghan president brought a delegation of 15 cabinet ministers with him to Washington for three days of meetings, which the administration clearly hopes will put the relationship between the United States and the Afghan government on a better footing after weeks of sniping. At one point, relations were so bad that Mr. Karzai accused the West last year of manipulating Afghanistan’s presidential elections, which were widely considered to have been riddled with fraud. He was quoted as threatening to join the Taliban if the United States did not stop pressuring him. On Tuesday, there was a lot of talk about “strategic partnership,” and no one interviewed at the reception veered from the upbeat script. “I feel very welcomed,” said the defense minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak. Jacob J. Lew , the deputy secretary of state, said he took part in a meeting with Afghanistan’s ministers of finance and mining, in which the Afghans discussed how the United States could help boost the competence and efficiency of the government in Kabul. The issue of corruption came up, Mr. Lew said, but in the relatively narrow context of keeping officials in these ministries accountable. Administration officials said in advance that they did not plan to hector Mr. Karzai about corruption during this visit, concluding that their earlier “tough love” approach had only made him resentful. Several Afghan officials appeared to be thrilled by the velvet glove treatment. “There has been a profound listening on the part of the United States,” said Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister and former presidential candidate who is now a senior adviser to the government on economic issues. “Today made the strategic plans more concrete. Now the ball is in the Afghan court.” On Wednesday, Mr. Karzai will spend much of the day at the White House, where President Obama plans to accord him a rare joint news conference. Mrs. Clinton referred obliquely to the tense days after the Afghan presidential election, acknowledging that the United States and the Afghan governments will not always agree. But she tried to cast those disputes in a positive light. “The ability to disagree on issues of importance to our respective countries and peoples is not an obstacle to achieving our shared objectives,” she said. “Rather, it reflects a level of trust that is essential to any meaningful dialogue and enduring strategic partnership.” Mrs. Clinton ticked off a list of accomplishments in Afghanistan under Mr. Karzai, including the fact that Kabul now has its own American Chamber of Commerce. She lamented that these achievements are not reported as widely as Afghanistan’s well-known problems. Mr. Karzai picked up on that, saying, “Perhaps we should do a better job of talking to the media, or — if I may say — of managing the media.”
|
Afghanistan War (2001- );Karzai Hamid;Clinton Hillary Rodham;Obama Barack;United States International Relations
|
ny0135533
|
[
"sports",
"golf"
] |
2008/04/09
|
Woods Favored, but Others Like Their Chances
|
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Tiger Woods , contrary to popular perception, is not unbeatable on a golf course. He is not indomitable even at Augusta National Golf Club, where he has won 4 times in 13 appearances and where he is the even-money favorite to win the 72nd Masters , which begins Thursday. As Woods has taken pains to point out many times, golfers lose far more often than they win. This is true even for him. Despite his well-documented belief that he can win every time he tees it up, Woods has 64 victories in 234 tournaments for 12-plus seasons on the PGA Tour. At the same point in his career, Jack Nicklaus’s total was 40 in 234, including two British Open victories the PGA Tour did not yet count as official wins. Even though Woods’s winning percentage is easily the best of any golfer — 27 percent — the notion that none of the other 93 players in the field this week have a reasonable chance of slipping on the green jacket is a bit much. Raise your hand if Zach Johnson was your first pick in the Masters pool last year. Not you, Mrs. Johnson. It is worth considering who here may be capable of derailing the Woods Grand Slam Express, which is widely expected to begin its journey into history. As the last golfer to beat him when Woods held or shared the third-round lead, Johnson is a good place to start. Johnson, the defending Masters champion, shot a final-round 69 last year, which was good enough to hold off Woods’s 72 to win by two strokes. He pondered what it would take to beat Woods again. “A couple things,” he said Tuesday. “First and foremost, I didn’t look at the scoreboard until 16 tee, and I didn’t know where he was. I knew he made eagle on 13 just based on the roars, but I didn’t know where he stood relative to where I was. I didn’t know if I was in the lead until 16 tee. “Part of that was just ignorance. On this type of golf course, there’s not much risk-reward for me here, so I just play my game and hopefully make some putts. Outside of that, what does it take? I think it’s the attitude that, first of all, Tiger — and maybe even some of the other guys, top guys — are supposed to win. I’m not supposed to, so the pressure is off me. Why not go out and give it all and see what happens?” Geoff Ogilvy, whose victory three weeks ago at the W.G.C.-CA Championship at Doral stopped Woods’s worldwide winning streak, employed a similar strategy of ignoring Woods until the final few holes of the tournament. “I wasn’t really interested in beating Tiger today,” Ogilvy said last month after his first-round 63 at Doral. “I would like to beat him after four rounds. No, I don’t really give it any thought to him. I just want to give thought to how good can I play and can I win this golf tournament.” That makes two golfers who have recently shown they can beat Woods. Others who have won events in which Woods finished second are Phil Mickelson (four times), Vijay Singh (three), Ernie Els and Jim Furyk (two each), and Ángel Cabrera, Michael Campbell, Stewart Cink, Retief Goosen, Trevor Immelman and Mark O’Meara (all one). With the exception of O’Meara, the 1998 Masters champion who is a long shot at 51 years old, those golfers are in their primes or close to their primes and should, at the least, be given some consideration. Mickelson has not displayed the form this season that helped him to win his two Masters titles (2004 and 2006), which were won with Woods in the field. But he has to be taken seriously because of his length off the tee and his demonstrated mastery of the Augusta greens. “I don’t think it really matters if you’re favored or not or what people expect,” Mickelson said. “I think that nobody expected, let’s say, last year’s winner, but yet we as players knew what a good player Zach Johnson was and he was going to contend and continue contending in majors. “I love this golf course; I love this tournament and I love when I get here, how you don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to hit everything perfect to be able to score well. You have to be able to miss it in the proper sides of the greens, and you have to have a great short game. I think that those have always been the areas of my game that I feel the most comfortable with, which is probably why I always believed before I had won a major that this would be my best opportunity to win one.” Others not to be ignored this week include Aaron Baddeley, Stephen Ames, Sean O’Hair, Ian Poulter, Andrés Romero, Adam Scott, Henrik Stenson and Boo Weekley. Time and again, Woods has demonstrated his ability to seize the big moment and squeeze the drama out of it by turning it into a clinic. It is easy to forget that when he won his first Masters in 1997, Woods was the youngest champion at 21, and that among the 20 Masters records he set were margin of victory (12 strokes), lowest 72-hole score (270, 18 under par) and largest lead through 54 holes (nine strokes). He did all that after playing his first nine holes in 40 strokes, or four over, which is still the worst start by a champion. He made that up in short order, shooting 31 on the back nine for a 71. His career stroke average at the Masters is 71, best in tournament history. Which is tough to bet against. And tougher to beat. But not impossible.
|
Woods Tiger;Masters Golf Tournament;Golf;PGA Tour Inc
|
ny0281289
|
[
"technology"
] |
2016/10/12
|
Earth-Rattling Times at Samsung and Twitter
|
Samsung and Twitter are not tech companies whose names are often uttered in the same breath. But they are connected right now by the theme of explosions. Image O.K., the connection might be somewhat tenuous. But Samsung is struggling at the moment because one of its products, the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, has at times literally exploded in flames — in fact, even the replacement products that were meant to be safe have been doing so, write Daisuke Wakabayashi, Choe Sang-Hun and Vindu Goel. That has led Samsung to halt production of the device and to ask its partners to stop selling the product . On Tuesday, Samsung killed the Note 7 entirely. Twitter, simultaneously, is grappling with the exploding of potential deal talks to sell itself — or, wait, is that an implosion? The company is still in discussions with at least one suitor, Salesforce.com, and Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, is more amenable to a potential sale now than he was last month, writes Mike Isaac . At the same time, Twitter is continuing with plans as if it will be an independent entity, showing how uncertain any outcome might be. The Samsung and Twitter situations underscore how fickle the tech world can be with once-hot products or services that can, in what seems like a flash, lose popularity. Then it’s out of the frying pan and into the fire — and an exploding fire at that.
|
Smartphone;Salesforcecom;Samsung;Jack Dorsey
|
ny0096029
|
[
"world",
"europe"
] |
2015/01/06
|
Fueled by Rotten Eggs, an Annual Mock Coup Mirrors Spain’s Mood
|
IBI, Spain — Wearing a top hat and surrounded by supporters mostly dressed in outlandish military uniforms, Vicente Candela stormed the town hall here briefly last month and proclaimed himself mayor of Ibi’s 24,000 residents. It was, Mr. Candela said, “a coup d’état with humoristic violence,” over in about eight hours. He then handed power back to Ibi’s official mayor, while street cleaners removed the debris of a pitched battle between Mr. Candela’s rebels and his opponents, during which they pelted each other with flour and rotten eggs, amid the deafening noise of firecrackers. This day of playful, ritualistic political upheaval is held in Ibi every Dec. 28, and traces its origins back as far as the role reversal in the Roman Empire’s festival of Saturnalia, when masters provided table service for their servants, according to José Vicente Verdú, a lawyer who has researched Ibi’s history. But in modern Spain , the satire has been imbued with outsize significance as scores of corruption scandals have forced the ouster of several mayors and helped plunge support for Spain’s mainstream parties to record lows. Ibi is in the province of Alicante, where the mayor of the provincial capital resigned on Dec. 23 after being charged in two corruption investigations relating to Spain’s once-booming construction sector. Ibi’s own mayor resigned in late 2013, after members of her team were charged with fraud relating to public work contracts. Image The battle between mock rebels and their opponents, during which they pelted one another with flour and rotten eggs. Credit Samuel Aranda for The New York Times “Dictatorship is a chance to clean up this place, and I can guarantee that today will be a corruption-free day in Ibi,” an excited Mr. Candela said shortly before starting his mock coup. For his part, Rafael Serralta Vilaplana, the real mayor of Ibi, recognized that, however symbolic Ibi’s festival, “Spain really needs political regeneration.” The mock coup, he acknowledged, had taken on special resonance, given the sudden popularity of the insurgent political party Podemos , “which is also something that nobody expected, but which should serve as a clear reminder that all of us politicians must be more transparent and in touch with the people.” Just two months after it was founded last March, Podemos, a leftist party, won 8 percent of the Spanish vote in elections to the European Parliament , helping deny the governing conservative party and the opposition Socialists a majority of votes for the first time since the country’s return to democracy in the late 1970s. Since then, Podemos has made even more gains in opinion polls, raising the prospect of a three-horse race in Spain’s next general elections, due around November. The coup in Ibi is staged on the Day of the Holy Innocents, Spain’s equivalent of April Fools’ Day. It is a blend of carnival and anarchy, albeit carefully orchestrated. Image After their battle, the groups agreed to a cease-fire, during which they visited bars and shops around Ibi, introducing random laws while jailing or imposing fines on those who disobeyed them. Credit Samuel Aranda for The New York Times The night before the coup, the 20 or so conspirators, known as Els Enfarinats (The Flour Men), drove around the town in a truck, reciting diatribes mostly targeting politicians and local businessmen. At dawn on Dec. 28, they assembled in their headquarters, put on their makeup and uniforms and gathered their ammunition — flour bags, egg boxes, fire extinguishers and firecrackers. Around 9 a.m., they assaulted the town hall and ousted the mayor. A mock “opposition” group of residents rapidly formed, and challenged the rebels on Ibi’s church square. After their battle, both groups agreed to a cease-fire, during which they visited the bars and shops around Ibi, introducing random laws while jailing or imposing fines on those who disobeyed them. The mock fines, which are noted in a ledger in purposefully illegible writing, are used as charitable donations, earmarked for a local home for older adults. “I prefer to pay this fine than my normal taxes, which are just too high,” said Elena Otych, owner of the Maseros bar, after she was fined by Mr. Candela because her bar counter was deemed to be too high. Mr. Candela, a building entrepreneur, was leading a motley group of conspirators “without any hierarchy and from every social class,” he said. Some residents of Ibi, who watched rather than join the coup, suggested that somebody like Mr. Candela could perhaps manage the town hall better than the elected politicians. “These people should be in power not just for one day but for the whole year, because we’ve reached a point where anything is better than what we’ve had in our real politics,” said Isabel Romero, a factory employee. “These people are collecting money for the elderly, rather than robbing public money like what our politicians have been doing.” Still, Mr. Serralta Vilaplana, Ibi’s conservative mayor, said his administration managed to cut his town’s debt in two years from 12 million euros, or about $10 million, to €8 million. The budgetary improvement was “better than what this dictatorship could do,” he argued playfully, and should help him get re-elected as mayor in May, when Spain holds municipal elections. As Spain enters this crucial election year, Spanish judges are set to rule on about 150 fraud cases, in which more than 2,000 people have been charged. While Spain’s judiciary has been struggling to keep up with the caseload, some of the more prominent prosecutions are expected to reach trial soon. One of the most prominent is a tax fraud case against Jordi Pujol , the patriarch of Catalan politics who ran its regional government for 23 years. Mr. Pujol will go before a Barcelona court, alongside other members of his family, on Jan. 27. “Corruption and other problems really start when any politician holds onto power for too long,” said Rubén Barea, a member of Ibi’s town hall administration, who switched sides to join the rebels on the day of the mock coup. Mr. Candela said that however much he enjoyed becoming mayor, his interest in political power was limited to that one day. “As far as I can tell, politicians are shameless,” he said, “so really being one of them isn’t my ambition.”
|
Spain;Ibi;European Parliament;Podemos;Election
|
ny0066841
|
[
"business"
] |
2014/06/22
|
Held Captive by Flawed Credit Reports
|
When companies are found to have violated the law and harmed consumers, they typically pay a penalty to regulators and agree to reform their practices. Whether or not they actually follow through on those vows, however, is another matter entirely. The consumer credit reporting industry is a case in point. These companies collect and distribute information about consumers’ credit history to lenders, employers and others with an interest in these matters. The reports can make or break a consumer’s mortgage application, car lease or, in the case of military personnel, a security clearance. But inaccuracies often show up in consumers’ credit reports, and these errors have real consequences, like increasing borrowing costs or barring people from financing a home or renting an apartment. And once an error is found, getting it fixed can take months of exasperating work. Because of these problems, credit-reporting bureaus have been sued repeatedly by regulators and consumers and have paid millions in fines and settlements. And yet the inaccuracies continue, consumers and their lawyers say, making them wonder if these companies view the penalties they pay as simply a cost of doing business. Patricia Armour, 73, of Olive Branch, Miss., said she spent two years trying in vain to correct information on her Experian credit report. A second mortgage that had been discharged when she filed for bankruptcy in 2007 popped up as an unpaid debt of around $40,000 in 2011, she said. Even though she repeatedly supplied proof of the discharge to Experian, she said, it refused to fix the error. “I sent them everything, and I got nowhere,” Ms. Armour said in an interview last week. “They wrote a letter saying there was nothing they could do because their records were correct. I was at my wits’ end.” Only after she called the Mississippi attorney general’s office did Experian correct her report. The three largest credit reporting companies — Equifax, Experian Information Solutions and TransUnion — issue more than three billion consumer reports a year and maintain files on more than 200 million Americans. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act , these agencies are supposed to have procedures assuring “maximum possible accuracy” of consumers’ information. The law allows consumers to check the reports for errors and requires credit bureaus to investigate consumers’ error claims. The agencies are also supposed to deliver to creditors all information relating to those errors so they can be corrected. That’s what the act says, anyway. But in a lawsuit filed last month against Experian, Jim Hood, the Mississippi attorney general, said the reality was quite different. “Experian has, over more than two decades, engaged in an unyielding pattern and practice of violating state and federal law,” the complaint said. The company has paid tens of millions of dollars in judgments and settlements to consumers across the country, the complaint added, but it has “refused to take the steps necessary to conform its conduct to the law.” Officials in Mr. Hood’s office spent more than a year interviewing former employees and reviewing complaints about Experian from state residents. Investigators found that the company routinely mixed up reports of consumers who have the same name, allowed erroneous information to be included on credit reports and would not correct the errors that consumers had identified. The company also failed to investigate disputed data as required, the complaint said, and accepted creditors’ findings about the disputed information even if it was contradicted by canceled checks or other proof. The results of these practices were dire for many consumers, the suit said. Some were denied credit or forced to pay higher rates for loans they did receive; others lost job opportunities. A spokeswoman for Experian said the company rejected the allegations in the Mississippi lawsuit. “This lawsuit is clearly designed to be sensational,” the spokeswoman said in a statement. “To say we ‘knowingly’ — as the A.G. claims — put errors on reports is false. Contrary to the allegations, credit reports are used millions of times every day to accurately and quickly assess risk in lending and speed the process of making credit readily available to consumers.” She added that Experian believes its database is 98 percent accurate, and that it invests heavily to help improve the number. That may be, but there is no doubt that erroneous information on credit reports remains an enormous problem. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission found that 5 percent of consumers — or an estimated 10 million people — had an error on one of their credit reports that could have resulted in higher borrowing costs. The F.T.C., which oversees the industry along with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has been busy bringing cases in this arena. Since 2000, it has filed 18 enforcement actions against reporting bureaus; 13 were district court actions that generated $25.7 million in penalties. Consumers have also won in the courts, on occasion. Last year, an Oregon consumer was awarded $18.4 million in punitive damages by a jury after she sued Equifax for inserting errors into her credit report. But the fines, settlements and judgments paid by the larger companies are not even close to a rounding error. Experian generated $4.8 billion in revenue for the year ended March 2014, and its after-tax profit of $747 million in the period was more than twice its 2013 figure. Examine these companies’ business models and it’s easy to see why they are resistant to change. For starters, consumers are not the primary source of revenue for the reporting bureaus — credit providers are. They pay for the information every time a consumer applies for a loan, lease or mortgage. Because consumers are not their true customers, the bureaus have little incentive to treat them well. The Mississippi complaint says former Experian employees told investigators they were pressured to meet “production” quotas and given no more than five minutes to handle each consumer call. These employees also described internal competitions for speedy call-handling, bonuses for meeting quotas and probation for those with low production numbers. Another barrier to better treatment: Consumers are captive to the Big Three credit bureaus, whose reports are ubiquitous. This means consumers cannot hold the rating bureaus accountable by choosing to do business with other companies. The problems with this business model are identical to those of mortgage loan servicers, an industry that ran roughshod over borrowers for years and where companies have paid billions in regulatory penalties. Thirty-three other state attorneys general are investigating the three major credit bureaus. And both the F.T.C. and the consumer protection bureau have rating companies on their radar screens. Rightly so. Companies that are recidivists can be liable for civil penalties of $16,000 a violation per day, according to the F.T.C. But as long as the companies can shrug off such penalties and keep consumers in their grip, not much about the business is likely to change. As a result, regulators and other overseers will have to raise their game.
|
Personal finance;Consumer protection;Credit score;Regulation and Deregulation;Experian Group;TransUnion;Equifax
|
ny0181983
|
[
"business"
] |
2007/12/02
|
For the 2008 Race, Google Is a Crucial Constituency
|
LAST century, General Motors assembly plants were a regular stop on the itineraries of presidential candidates. This election cycle, Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., has become a favorite destination. Hillary Rodham Clinton made the pilgrimage in February. Then came John McCain , Bill Richardson , John Edwards , Ron Paul , Mike Gravel and most recently, Barack Obama . In terms of theatrical symbolism, the trip to Google is similar to the G.M. plant visit. In both cases, the visits gave the candidate the chance for a photo opportunity at the most technologically advanced edge of the economy, “signaling identification with the future,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. On a more mundane level, candidates in the pre-mass-media era were concerned with reaching as many prospective voters as possible in one place, and any large factory would do. At Google, the number of employees who can see the candidates in person is limited: the largest space at the Googleplex holds only a few hundred people. Everyone in the 16,000-employee company can watch the event in real time over the company’s internal network in their offices scattered around the globe. But Google employees, like almost everyone else, prefer the live version. At Senator Obama’s talk last month, the atrium and overhanging balcony filled well in advance, and streams of employees poured into the building and then had to be turned away. The politicians visiting auto plants could control what was said during the event. Today, candidates must place themselves at the tender mercies of the audience. Those who go to Google sit exposed on the stage, without the protective lectern provided in a debate, answering questions for 45 to 60 minutes. But without the escape hatch of a timekeeper’s buzzer, and as the only speaker, the candidate cannot evade uncomfortable questions. Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chairman and chief executive, for example, asked Senator Obama for his views on Iran, Pakistan, and Guantánamo — and that was a single question. The proceedings at Google are not unremittingly serious affairs. Mr. Schmidt asked Senator McCain, “How do you determine good ways of sorting one million 32-bit integers in two megabytes of RAM?” Immediately signaling that the question was asked in jest, Mr. Schmidt moved on. Six months later, Senator Obama faced the same question, but his staff had prepared him. When he replied in fluent tech-speak (“A bubble sort is the wrong way to go”), the quip brought down the house. Among the seven visiting candidates, only Senator Obama used his Google visit to announce details of policy proposals related to technology. Until his visit, he and Senator Edwards were widely viewed among technology bloggers as the two candidates who had the strongest positions on Internet neutrality, expanded broadband access and other technology issues. With his Google visit, however, Senator Obama succeeded in drawing attention to his plans for using technology to make government more accessible and transparent with, for example, live Internet feeds of all executive branch department and agency meetings. This was old-school campaigning, organized around a company visit, done well. Though all of the candidate sessions at Google are available on YouTube, they are not YouTube-like: they require an investment of time that, by YouTube viewer standards, is inconceivable. A 43-minute video of Senator Clinton’s Google session has been available since February and has drawn only about 54,000 “views,” which count as soon as the video is begun but leave unknown the more interesting number: completed views. Senator Edwards’s and Senator Obama’s videos, both of which run longer than an hour, have not been up as long and have still fewer viewers. The biggest draw has turned out to be Representative Ron Paul, whose July visit has been viewed, or at least started, more than 350,000 times. For perspective, consider the numbers that short-form videos of a less serious nature draw. Search for “Barack Obama” on YouTube and you will find that the most-viewed video is titled “I Got a Crush ... on Obama.” It lacks narrative, content and anything other than a young woman with large breasts lip-synching, but it has tallied more than four million views. The most-viewed video that turns up for a “Hillary Clinton” search is “Vote Different,” a dark parody of Apple’s “1984” commercial that portrays the senator most unflatteringly, as a giant TV image that is shattered. It is also approaching four million views. YouTube has a separate section, “YouChoose ’08,” that gives each candidate a protected space for more serious discourse, similar to the way the broadcast networks give Sunday mornings over to civic uplift. YouChoose also provides access to last Wednesday’s CNN/YouTube debate with the Republican candidates , and the earlier one in July with the Democrats . Professor Jamieson credits YouTube with broadening the range of questions in the debates, making them more memorable by having users submit the questions in the form of personal videos, and making everything searchable afterward. In the past, she said, “if you missed a debate, you missed it.” The ability to select for playback any question in the debate and the candidates’ responses provides easy, precise access to the contents, sliced and diced, that was never possible before. But it also contributes to a shortening of our collective attention span. THIS is hardly new — we’ve already come a long way from the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 for a Senate seat, which held the audience rapt, on one occasion, for three hours — then everyone dispersed for dinner and came back for the four-hour rebuttal. The contrast with the public’s attenuated attention in the age of television, which Neil Postman pointed out in his 1985 book “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business,” was great. The contrast is all the greater today, with the advent of the short, nonlinear clips of YouTube. It is easy to forget that this is YouTube’s first presidential campaign: the company was founded in only 2005 and acquired by Google in 2006. By the time the next campaign cycle rolls around in 2011, YouTube’s influence on the culture may be so complete that a 45-minute linear video of a question-answer session will seem to most people to be about 43 minutes too long. A midcampaign trek to Google headquarters in Silicon Valley may soon seem no less quaint than one to a G.M. plant in Flint, Mich. The candidates need not seek out the cameras — from now on, the cameras will always find them.
|
Presidential Election of 2008;Google Inc;Clinton Hillary Rodham;McCain John;Richardson Bill;Edwards John;Paul Ron;Gravel Mike;Obama Barack
|
ny0202460
|
[
"sports",
"soccer"
] |
2009/08/20
|
With Big Money at Stake, Rich Clubs Dominate
|
The last stage of the battle for places in the new season’s Champions League is all about money. The bigger the club, the more is at stake, and the first leg Tuesday of the two-match playoffs emphasized this financial imperative as Arsenal, Stuttgart and Olympiakos all gained emphatic, 2-0 victories at less wealthy opponents. Arsenal beat Celtic in Glasgow, Stuttgart outshot the Moldovan champion, F.C. Sheriff, and Olympiakos put down Politechnica Timisoara in Romania. Arsenal’s goals were brushed with outrageous strokes of fortune, one a deflection off the back of its defender William Gallas, the other an own-goal by Celtic’s captain, Gary Caldwell. Yet that was as far as the luck stretched, because in oppressive humidity, Arsenal’s passing skills ran the home players to a standstill. “It is not a level field,” said Gordon Strachan on Sky television, where he was doing what unemployed coaches do, giving opinions on a team he left as recently as May. “Arsène Wenger’s got a machine gun, Tony Mowbray has a water pistol.” His reference was to the spending power that Wenger possesses as Arsenal manager, against the money at the disposal of Celtic’s new coach, Mowbray. It is not a question of being able to draw a crowd. Celtic Park, once a fortress in the European Cup, was filled to capacity. Its 58,000 more than doubled any other attendance in the Champions League on Tuesday. But Glaswegians are canny fans. They knew that, while no English team had beaten their “bhoys” at this ground in a quarter of a century, Arsenal fields a global lineup without an Englishman in sight. Controlled by Cesc Fàbregas in midfield, led by Robin van Persie in attack, secured by Thomas Vermaelen, a defender bought this summer for £10 million, or $16.4 million, at the back, Arsenal was two goals and more the better team. Its luck simply rubbed in the reality that for every cent Celtic could earn from the Champions League, Arsenal could at least double it. The London club anticipates that reaching the group stage will bank it at least £26 million, from television, prize money and marketing. Big gets bigger in European soccer, and Arsenal is not in the league of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea or Manchester City and United when it comes to cash. Arsenal is built on stable management and the high prices it can charge simply by being a London club. What the match Tuesday emphasized was Wenger’s commitment to style, to passing and to convincing his young players that they should be elevated, not cowed by a passionate away crowd. He asked them to believe they were superior and to put on a display in one of soccer’s true homes. Meanwhile, Aleksandr Hleb, a player who regrets having left Arsenal a year ago, showed that he still has the feel for the big occasion even if his ambitions are somewhat on hold. The Belarussian overreached when he left Arsenal for Barcelona last summer. He was never going to usurp Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta or Thierry Henry in the lineup. Barcelona has lent him back to Stuttgart, where his foreign adventure began. On Tuesday, Hleb scored an imperious goal. He zipped past four defenders, the ball at his command, drew the Timisoara goalie and scored with a flick of his foot. The goal was born of instinct and control, by a player who has found his level. Alberto Gilardino is also such a player. The big Italian has looked a fine prospect ever since his junior days, yet his moves from Piacenza to Verona to Parma, Milan and Florence suggest a restless search for a permanent home. Maybe Fiorentina is that place. Its coach, Cesare Prandelli, has reunited the partnership of Gilardino and Adrian Mutu that he coached at Parma. Last season they became Italy’s most prolific duo. The goal Gilardino scored in Lisbon in a 2-2 draw with Sporting demonstrated again that he is probably his country’s most adaptable finisher. He controlled a high cross on his chest, and as it dropped volleyed it with the outside of his right foot. Try it sometime, and try to imagine the dexterity of balancing a 6-foot-2, or 1.88-meter, frame over the left leg while poking the ball toward the opposite side of the goal with the other foot. Some have that dexterity, and some, like Gilardino, simply need a mentor to trust in them. The goal squared a feisty contest that also had a fabulously driven goal from Sporting’s Miguel Veloso. As good and controlled as those scorers were, one other player overheated in Lisbon. Simon Vukcevic, Sporting’s striker from Montenegro, scored his team’s first goal in the 58th minute. That was the end of his night; having foolishly earned a yellow card for joining in somebody’s else’s fight, Vukcevic took off his shirt to celebrate. It might be a crass law of soccer that a player is punished for baring his chest, but it is a crasser fellow who forgets it and is sent off for two trivial offenses. Vukcevic’s departure left his team a man short. It means Sporting travels to Florence with a diminished chance of advancing to the pot of gold.
|
Soccer;Europe
|
ny0085458
|
[
"us"
] |
2015/07/02
|
Federal Judges’ Rulings Clear Hurdles to Same-Sex Marriages
|
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Wednesday told judges in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas to wrap up same-sex marriage cases in their states in line with last week’s United States Supreme Court ruling. The court had heard arguments in appeals in those states, but had not ruled. Also Wednesday, Judge Callie Granade of Federal District Court in Mobile ordered a few Alabama counties that refused to issue licenses to same-sex couples to abide by the justices’ decision. Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, writing for the three-judge panel in New Orleans, told federal district judges in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas to issue final rulings by July 17 at the latest. United States District Judge Carlton Reeves in Jackson quickly issued a final order overturning Mississippi’s constitutional and legal bans on same-sex marriage. United States District Judge Orlando Garcia in San Antonio had lifted the stay blocking his injunction last week. A spokesman for Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana said the governor still wanted a final ruling from United States District Judge Martin Feldman on the Louisiana case.
|
Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage;Supreme Court,SCOTUS;Louisiana;Mississippi;Texas;Judiciary
|
ny0069767
|
[
"us",
"politics"
] |
2014/12/14
|
Montana Dress Code Has Female Legislators Sporting New Look: Clenched Jaws
|
Montana has never been known as a black-tie place. Governors wear cowboy boots and bolo ties, and people joke that a tuxedo is a pair of black jeans and a sport coat. But this winter, when lawmakers arrive at the State Capitol, they will have to abide by a new dress code: No more jeans. No casual Fridays. And female lawmakers “should be sensitive to skirt lengths and necklines.” Republican leaders who approved the guidelines say they are simply trying to bring a businesslike formality to a State Legislature of ranchers, farmers and business owners that meets for only four months every other year. But the dress code has set off a torrent of online mockery , and is being pilloried by Democratic women as a sexist anachronism straight from the days of buggies and spittoons. “The sergeant-at-arms could be standing there with a ruler, measuring hemlines and cleavage,” said Jenny Eck, a Democratic House member. Ms. Eck said she was leaving a health care forum in Helena, the capital, on Monday when one of her Republican colleagues peered at her and told her that he was glad to see she was dressed appropriately. “It just creates this ability to scrutinize women,” Ms. Eck said. “It makes it acceptable for someone who’s supposed to be my peer and my equal to look me up and down and comment on what I’m wearing. That doesn’t feel right.” About a third of the state legislatures in the country had written rules for how lawmakers, staff members and visitors were supposed to dress when they were on the statehouse floor, according to a 2006 survey by the National Conference of State Legislatures , the most recent nationwide look at the issue. Others had unwritten codes for what not to wear. Most simply called for business attire, but some were quite particular, according to the survey. New Jersey asked state senators to wear suits, not sport coats. Pennsylvania let House members take off their jackets on the floor, but they had to put them on again to speak. Women in Ohio could not wear sleeveless shirts, but short sleeves were fine. In Georgia, suit coats for men and “dignified dress” for women were expected. Things do ease up at the week’s end. Oregon lets Senate pages wear navy polos on Fridays, and lawmakers in Hawaii are allowed to wear Hawaiian shirts on Aloha Fridays. Montana’s one-page list of fashion guidelines (officials say they are not formal rules) were handed down Dec. 5 in what Representative Keith Regier, the House Republican majority leader, said was a response to questions from newly elected lawmakers about what to wear on the floor. “We do hold decorum at a high standard,” Mr. Regier said. “What we’re saying is: Be appropriate in what you wear. Don’t wear something that could be a distraction from the legislative process.” The seven-point list covers men’s attire, calling for a suit or a jacket and tie, dress slacks and shirt, and “dress shoes or dress boots.” But the guidelines for women are a little longer and more detailed, and had many female lawmakers rolling their eyes. The list includes what kinds of footwear they should avoid (flip-flops, tennis shoes and open-toe sandals), declares that leggings are not considered dress pants, and encourages modesty on skirt lengths and necklines. “It’s like something out of ‘Mad Men,’” said Representative Ellie Hill, a Democrat from Missoula, referring to a television drama set in the 1960s. “The whole thing is totally sexist and bizarre and unnecessary.” The Cowgirl Blog , a liberal Montana political website, said the new dress guidelines were the latest in a series of tone-deaf and insensitive remarks by male public officials. The other recent offenses include remarks by Mr. Regier comparing women with pregnant cattle, regarding a bill that would criminalize offenses involving the death of an unborn child, and an elected judge’s remarks that blamed a teenager whose teacher had been convicted of raping her. Representative Carolyn Pease-Lopez, a Democrat, said she was in a committee meeting when a male colleague leaned over and told her he loved her perfume, and that he wanted to buy a bottle for his girlfriend. “The way he said it is what gave me the creeps,” she said. But Lindsey Grovom, the chief clerk who worked with House leaders to develop the new attire guidelines that Republicans ultimately proposed, said she had been taken aback by the uproar. She said there was nothing overtly or covertly sexist about asking for professional attire from elected representatives. In fact, before this blew up, she said, her biggest concern had been the decision to scrap Montana’s tradition of allowing jeans during Saturday-morning sessions.
|
Montana;Fashion;Women and Girls;US Politics;Legislation;Democrats
|
ny0187563
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2009/04/10
|
NBC Places Article on Front of Los Angeles Times
|
IN a move that raised questions about how far newspapers would go to please advertisers, The Los Angeles Times ran a front-page ad on Thursday that resembled a news column. The ad, for the new NBC show “Southland,” was written and designed to look like a news article, chronicling the “Southland” protagonist’s patrol in Los Angeles. The promotion ran on the lower half of the paper’s left column, with the headline, “Southland’s Rookie Hero.” Forming an L, a horizontal ad for the show ran across the bottom of the page. The top of the column was labeled “Advertisement,” and included NBC’s peacock logo. It is the first time the newspaper has run a mock news column on its front page as an ad, although the paper has been running front-page ads since 2007. The newspaper business is in trouble — the Tribune Company, which owns The Los Angeles Times, filed for bankruptcy in December , and newspapers including The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Rocky Mountain News have stopped printing in the last few months. Even against the backdrop of severe problems for the industry, the advertisement provoked debate about whether The Los Angeles Times had gone too far to attract advertising revenue. The idea for the imitation article came from The Los Angeles Times’s advertising department, said Adam Stotsky, the president of entertainment marketing for NBC. “What was great about this ad unit is it gave us a quote-unquote ‘editorial voice,’ ” Mr. Stotsky said in an interview. “The more relevant you can make your advertising, the more contextualized you can make your advertising, we find the more engagement can be created, and ultimately the more effective your marketing can be,” he said. There was no intent to fool readers, Mr. Stotsky said. He said the ad used fonts that differed from the standard Los Angeles Times fonts, and it included the NBC logo. NBC staff wrote the ad, and The Times’s business staff approved it; the editorial side was not involved, he said. “I think most consumers will recognize that this is an ad,” Mr. Stotsky said. Whether readers knew this was advertising or not was beside the point, said Geneva Overholser, director of the school of journalism at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication. “Some people say readers are smart and they can tell the difference, but the fundamental concept here is deeply offensive,” she said. “Readers don’t want to be fooled, they don’t like the notion that someone is attempting to deceive them.” “Newspapers are facing a really remarkable economic challenge, but to me, this is exactly the wrong way to go about surviving,” Ms. Overholser said. “This breaks perhaps the most important bond that newspapers have with their readers, which, to me, is a bond of trust.” The editor of The Los Angeles Times, Russ Stanton, called a meeting with employees Thursday afternoon and asked the publisher, Eddy W. Hartenstein, to discuss the ad with the editorial staff. About 100 employees had signed a petition protesting the ad on Thursday, according to Reuters . In a statement, The Times said that the ad was one of several “innovative approaches” it was trying. “That includes creating unique marketing opportunities for our advertising partners, and today’s NBC ‘Southland’ ad was designed to stretch traditional boundaries,” the statement said. The stretching of boundaries is occurring throughout the newspaper business. The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The New York Times are also running front-page ads (some other large papers, including The Washington Post, have so far held off on them). The American Society of News Editors has no guidelines on where ads should run and how they should be marked. That has led to original advertising units, including L-shaped ads like the “Southland” ad. Newspapers have also been selling ads in the shape of an upside-down T, ads that form a U across the sides and bottom of a page, “fireplace” ads — in which the text wraps around a rectangle of advertising at the bottom of the page, resembling a fireplace — and “checkerboard” ads , covering opposite corners of a page. Some newspapers are offering the “skyboxes” or “ears” of a paper, the spaces to the left and right of a paper’s name on the front page. Newspapers “are doing all kinds of things to say, we want to be more valuable to the advertisers,” said Randy Grunow of Mediaspace Solutions, which buys newspaper ads. Occasionally, that means papers are selling the front page altogether. On Tuesday, the student paper of the University of California, Los Angeles ran a Häagen-Dazs ad as its front page. The editorial board of the paper, The Daily Bruin, apologized for the ad on the day it ran, in an April 7 editorial , but said the budget demanded it. Papers are facing challenges, and accepting ads in untraditional spots makes some sense, said Dan Kennedy, an assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern University and a media critic for the British newspaper The Guardian. “When you don’t need to do this, then maybe you shouldn’t, but given that we’re in pretty desperate times,” he said, “far better that The L.A. Times do this than say no to the revenue and end up having to cut back on their actual news coverage. “If we’re going to have front-page ads, I don’t really see that this one is worse than the others, except it’s worse in one way: it’s ugly,” he said. “It looks like the kind of thing that says ‘Sell Us Your Gold’ inside the paper or something.”
|
Los Angeles Times;Advertising and Marketing;Newspapers;News and News Media
|
ny0137234
|
[
"nyregion"
] |
2008/05/16
|
A School Succeeds With Extra Study and Little Homework
|
George Leonard, the principal of the Bedford Academy High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, used to take a straightforward approach to ensuring that students at the school he founded showed up for after-school tutoring when he or their teachers thought they needed it. “We’d block the exits,” Mr. Leonard said. His background as a star educator qualified him for the job of principal; his hulking six-foot frame qualified him for the job of reverse bouncer, a position he would still have if Bedford Academy hadn’t relocated shortly after its first year in 2003, moving to a building where the doors outnumber the teachers who could block them. Mr. Leonard is a man of many solutions, many of them innovative, many of them, apparently, also effective. In New York City, only about 50 percent of students manage to graduate in four years. At Bedford Academy, 63 percent of the students qualify for free lunch, a majority are being raised by a single mother and another significant number are being raised by someone other than a parent. Yet close to 95 percent of students graduate, and virtually every one of those goes on to college. Mr. Leonard does not achieve those results by stocking the school full of nothing but high-testing students, an option he has had since 2004, when thousands of students started applying for just over 100 slots at the school each year. To the contrary, he has committed to keeping a third of the entering slots open for students who previously tested in the city’s bottom half on statewide math and reading exams. “I wanted to prove that no matter what the competency — special ed, regular ed — a child could still be successful,” said Mr. Leonard, dressed in French cuffs and suspenders, a wall full of college acceptance letters decorating his Bedford Academy office. Mr. Leonard first made a name as an educator in the late ’80s, when he took a group of typical elementary students enrolled in an after-school science program in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, and decided he could teach them to pass the Regents exam in biology, which is normally given in the ninth grade. He succeeded, and then repeated the experiment in later years. That convinced him that there was no reason for any disciplined high schooler to achieve less. “Whatever a student’s competency, it couldn’t be less than the third graders I taught,” he said. As all-powerful and bureaucratic as the Department of Education appears to so many parents, it allows room for carefully chosen educators to call their own shots, particularly in Empowerment Schools like Bedford Academy, where principals have an unusual amount of control over budget matters. For Mr. Leonard, that autonomy means insisting that all entering students spend their Saturday mornings in preparatory classes the summer before they enroll. “We tell them they can’t enroll in the fall unless they come over the summer,” said Mr. Leonard. “It’s not true, but we lie anyway.” Autonomy also means an automatic weeklong suspension for any student who “disrespects a female,” said Mr. Leonard. It means requiring struggling students, in the weeks before the Regents exams, to attend studying sessions on Saturday from 9 in the morning until 9 at night. It means the most senior, experienced teachers, including Mr. Leonard, teach not the school’s academic jewels, but the most struggling students. AND it means the school’s teachers administer almost no homework. “We found it was a waste of time for the teachers and the students,” said Mr. Leonard. Instead, they emphasize after-school tutoring where the teachers can keep a better eye on whether the student is actually grasping the material. Quality control is all — quality of the teaching, that is, not the students. The exacting Mr. Leonard has let half his teaching staff go every year. His mandatory teaching technique involves constant testing, not to keep the students on their toes, but to let teachers know whether they’re getting through. “Quiz them to death,” Mr. Leonard was advising a group of prospective principals in his office this week. “You need ways to monitor their progress that don’t depend on what they’ll just tell you. A kid can go to school all day and not remember a thing he’s learned except what he had for lunch.” Of the students arriving with lower test scores, Mr. Leonard says he is not looking for the students with the highest grades, or even the best behavior (“We can work with bad behavior,” he says). He’s looking for the ones with caregivers who understand his basic mission of discipline and respect, and are willing to commit to his regimen. It sometimes seems as if there is something mysteriously unfixable about New York City’s public schools, some intractable problem that has held them back even as parks have blossomed and markets have boomed and crime has faded. Mr. Leonard’s model obviously isn’t replicable everywhere, but it suggests that there is some formula that can take a school out of its history of academic failure: passionate leadership, parents who respect that, and long hours all around. “I tell parents at orientation, just stay out of my way and let me create the scholar, because you’re usually the problem,” he said. “I’ll see you at graduation.” When they do commit, he said, he can make it happen, and make his point — that every child has inherent teachability. He wants fellow educators to see he’s had remarkable success even though “this man is taking children who are not considered the elite,” he said. “He’s just taking humans.”
|
Education and Schools;Principals (School);Leonard George;Bedford-Stuyvesant (NYC)
|
ny0232138
|
[
"us"
] |
2010/08/02
|
High Drama Looms in U.S. Tax Fight
|
WASHINGTON — For the past three decades in America, there have been heated fights over federal taxes. Politically, Republicans usually win. This autumn, on the eve of an election in which the Democrats are struggling, Congress faces an epic political and economic fight over extending President George W. Bush’s tax cuts and other tax measures, including the controversial estate tax . This time, the Democrats may hold the upper hand. The tax cuts, scheduled to expire at the end of 2010, were enacted during Mr. Bush’s first term. President Barack Obama and congressional Democratic leaders want to extend them only for couples making less than $250,000 and individuals making less than $200,000; Republicans have said they will only go along with a measure that also includes breaks for the top 2 percent to 3 percent of U.S. income earners. “Raising taxes in this economy is a bad idea,” says Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the Republicans’ leading economic policy authority in Congress. “We like this argument,” Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said in an interview. “We stand for middle-class tax cuts; the Republicans are willing to hold that hostage on behalf of the top 2 percent.” This isn’t a slam dunk for Democrats. By allowing the tax cuts for upper-income Americans to expire, opponents charge the party would be jeopardizing an economic recovery and engaging in class warfare. Some Democrats are defecting. The Republicans’ difficulties are deeper. Out-of-control deficits have become a staple of the party’s midterm strategy; all but a handful of Republican lawmakers opposed extending unemployment benefits, demanding that Democrats find a way to pay for the $34 billion one-year cost. Extending the upper-income tax cut would add more than $40 billion to the deficit the first year; if permanent, it would cost an estimated $800 billion over the next decade. Yet proponents are resisting paying for these taxes. Thus Republicans are in the position of championing a provision that benefits only the wealthiest Americans and adds to the already huge deficit, which the Obama administration forecasts will be $1.47 trillion this year and $1.42 trillion next year. The more articulate Republican advocates, including Mr. Ryan, argue that the top tax brackets chiefly affect small businesses. Actually, fewer than 2 percent of small businesses fall into these brackets, according to the reputable Tax Policy Center in Washington. And many of those have to do with business income, partnerships and royalties related to billionaires, athletes, lawyers and entertainers. There are few corner stores or job-creating little ventures. The case that these tax cuts are central to economic growth also falls apart, according to expert analyses. The Congressional Budget Office examined 11 different ways to stimulate the economy, and found that extending the high-end Bush tax cuts provides the least bang for the buck. Channeling funds to states to avoid service cuts and higher taxes would generate three times the economic activity, the C.B.O. reported. Goldman Sachs similarly estimates that state and local assistance would increase economic growth by about twice as much as extending the tax cuts for wealthier Americans. Almost certain to be thrown into the mix will be the estate tax. At the start of the decade, opponents of this tax imposed on only the richest of estates deployed budgetary gimmicks; the estate tax was eliminated entirely this year and then comes back in 2011 at the highest rate in years. Democrats want to impose a 45 percent estate tax only after exempting $3.5 million for an individual and $7 million for a couple; this is the level that prevailed in 2009. Republicans, with some supporting Democrats, want to exempt up to $10 million for a couple and reduce the rate to 35 percent, arguing they’re doing it to preserve small family businesses and farms. Two facts: At the 2009 rates, only one in every 400 estates paid any levy and, according to the Tax Policy Center, there were only about 100 genuinely small business or family farms among these. The more generous Republican proposal would create about $7 billion more red ink than the 2009 rates in the first year and more than $15 billion over two years. The Democrats come to the table with two other strong suits. One is congressional budgetary rules, which allow for simple extension of the middle-income tax cuts. Simultaneously, there is a requirement that an extension of the upper bracket tax cuts must be offset with other tax increases or spending cuts. For the $40 billion extension, proponents then would have to find massive spending cuts to finance lower taxes for the wealthiest Americans or waive the budget rules. That’s a fight Democrats would relish. The same budget rules require offsets for any estate-tax relief beyond the 2009 levels. Moreover, the Democrats have politically attractive fallbacks if the argument that a tax increase will impede economic progress resonates. They could make the middle-income tax cuts permanent, while only extending those for the upper-income for a year. Privately, some Republicans acknowledge that would be the death knell for the upper-bracket cuts, as they only have political juice when joined with overall tax cuts. Alternatively, the Democrats could kill those tax cuts for the affluent and substitute a combination of assistance to hard-strapped state and local governments and a dose of deficit reduction. That would head off some tax increases from those places and help them avoid laying off police officers, firefighters and teachers. The Democrats have the better of this argument on deficit reduction, stimulus and politics. This will culminate in high political drama when lawmakers return in September. The measure probably will be considered initially by the Senate. Inaction, always a favorite strategy of politicians when there are tough fights as an election looms, is difficult; these politicos would be facing the voters with a massive tax increase on the horizon or the prospect of an unruly post-election congressional session. The election calendar adds one more element to the Democrats’ rare upper hand in a tax fight.
|
Taxation;Federal Taxes (US);Income Tax;Inheritance and Estate Taxes;United States Politics and Government
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ny0283416
|
[
"business",
"media"
] |
2016/07/08
|
Gretchen Carlson Suit Against Fox News Head Forces Network to Face Changing Mores
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At a time of fast-moving social change, Fox News can at times be viewed as a port in a storm for traditionalists who pine for the way we were — for the days when there was no gay marriage; no terms like “gender fluidity”; no doubt about the roles men and women were supposed to play and certainly no talk about the liberties men might take with female subordinates behind closed doors. With the gender discrimination suit filed against the network’s chairman, Roger Ailes, this week, Fox, too, is being carried by the same gale force that is sweeping through Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue, bringing into the open generations-old patterns and behaviors that were never O.K., but were for so long abetted by silence. Fox News has strenuously denied the allegations by Gretchen Carlson, a former host, that Mr. Ailes offered a smoother path at the network in return for sex, portraying her as a former employee with an ax to grind. And Ms. Carlson’s legal team will have the burden of proving the veracity of the accusations, along with its claim that other women are considering stepping forward as well. (As of Thursday night, none had.) Mr. Ailes will have to defend himself not only against Ms. Carlson’s legal challenge, but also against an outside law firm that Fox News’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, is expected to hire to conduct its own internal investigation, the results of which it may or may not make public. Even if Mr. Ailes wins, the developments — especially the way it was handled by the new generation of Murdochs now gaining control of 21st Century Fox — signal a big shift for Mr. Ailes and a network that has avowedly refused to go along with what so many of its commentators dismiss as political correctness and feminism run amok in the name of progress. Respect and equality in the workplace don’t represent political correctness anymore, if they ever did. They are the cornerstones of modern human resource policies used by sophisticated companies. Mr. Ailes is not just bumping up against an annoyance he can wave away, he’s confronting a new world order, something Rupert Murdoch and his sons, James and Lachlan, understood when they issued a statement about the lawsuit saying, “We take these matters seriously’’ and would conduct an internal review. Wrapped up in all of it is the future of Mr. Ailes, who through his own cunning, mastery of television and, in a former life, politics, has made his network a singular force within the Republican Party and, therefore, in the national political dialogue. Mr. Ailes’s very approach to television — as the quintessential visual medium — has stood as a rebuke to those who might be sensitive to signs of female objectification. His sets are famous for their translucent desks, which show the legs of his female stars who are so often in skirts. It was Ms. Carlson who once said that when she was a host on the set of “Fox & Friends,” the network’s morning program, “ pants were not allowed .” Fox News has denied any such rule. A great surprise in the news on Wednesday was that, at a casual glance, Ms. Carlson could seem like the symbol of gender norms that no longer seem so normal or acceptable. When Jon Stewart parodied her in 2009 , one of his gripes was that Ms. Carlson was playing the role of Chrissy from the 1970s sitcom “Three’s Company” — the flighty blonde role Suzanne Somers had — when Ms. Carlson in fact attended Stanford and Oxford, and won the Miss America crown in 1988 with a masterful violin rendition of “Zigeunerweisen” by Sarasate. Gretchen Carlson’s Lawsuit Against Roger Ailes Ms. Carlson, the Fox anchor, says that Roger Ailes, the chairman of Fox News, fired her from the network after she refused his sexual advances. A video mash-up that Bloomberg Politics put together this week shows repeated instances in which male counterparts commented on Ms. Carlson’s appearance on air. At times, she plays along. But if you watch carefully, you will notice a piqued expression on Ms. Carlson’s face as she deadpans in one clip “all women should be reading bra stories” and jokes that she will report her colleague Brian Kilmeade to human resources for calling her “a skirt.” She was not alone at Fox in venting such frustration. Not long after Ms. Carlson walked off the “Fox & Friends” set in 2012 — after a sexist joke by Mr. Kilmeade — the Fox News host Megyn Kelly made a splash by eviscerating the conservative commentator Erick Erickson for saying that in nature “the male typically is the dominant role.” By this past May, Ms. Carlson was writing on the Fox News website that the actress Robin Wright deserved praise for demanding the same pay as her co-star Kevin Spacey on the Netflix show “House of Cards,”’ calling it “a great message for girls and women of any age,” and boys and men, too. Viewers could watch cultural norms at Fox changing in real time, but that’s not the behind-the-scenes environment Ms. Carlson described in her suit. Fox News executives rejected Ms. Carlson’s depiction of Mr. Ailes as they began their defense Wednesday night and Thursday, portraying her as a jilted television talent who was retaliating after being let go — at least partly for committing the cardinal sin of losing to CNN in June in the ratings for the demographic group advertisers covet. On Thursday, several Fox News stars questioned Ms. Carlson’s motives. “She’s disgruntled she didn’t get her contract renewed and the timing is very suspicious,” the Fox host Greta Van Susteren said in a telephone interview. Asked about the behavior Ms. Carlson described, Ms. Van Susteren said, “I’ve been here 15 years I haven’t seen it and frankly I’m rather outspoken and I don’t think I’d stick around for it.” In a similar vein, a Fox News weekend host, Jeanine Pirro — a former prosecutor and judge who has known Mr. Ailes for 30 years — told me, “This is something that is totally inconsistent with the man I’ve known probably longer than most people who work in that building.” Fox News shared with me handwritten thank-you notes they said Ms. Carlson wrote after the meeting in which, she says, Mr. Ailes propositioned her. In one of them she tells Mr. Ailes, “I’d love to stay at Fox.” But for all that, there were a couple of articles in the last two days quoting former female staff members — albeit anonymously — echoing Ms. Carlson’s descriptions of Mr. Ailes’s behavior and the overall climate at Fox. A few years ago, Mr. Ailes might have been free to defend himself with the unquestioned support of his like-minded longtime patron, Mr. Murdoch, who has stood by him as Mr. Ailes has brought in huge revenue — an estimated 20 percent of the total profits for 21st Century Fox for fiscal 2016, according to Anthony DiClemente, an analyst with Nomura Securities. But Mr. Murdoch’s sons have different political and corporate sensibilities than their father. They began taking increasing control of the family’s publicly traded business after it took steps to move the corporate culture away from the pirate-ship mores for which it was known, before a phone-hacking scandal at its newspaper division in Britain threatened its future. Mr. Ailes had initially appeared to balk at reporting to the sons instead of to the father, and in his last contract agreement in 2015, 21st Century Fox said he would report to all three men. Their approval of an independent investigation of Ms. Carlson’s allegations is an acknowledgment of the new era in which Mr. Ailes and the elder Mr. Murdoch now find themselves. So the world is changing. The question now is how Fox News and Mr. Ailes change with it.
|
News media,journalism;Fox News Channel;Roger E Ailes;Gretchen Carlson;Discrimination;Workplace;Sexual harassment;Lawsuits
|
ny0236551
|
[
"us"
] |
2010/06/02
|
Utah: Stay of Execution Is Denied
|
A judge has denied a stay of execution for an inmate set to die by firing squad. Lawyers for the man, Ronnie Lee Gardner, sought the stay on May 4 after filing a petition for a vacated death sentence and a new sentencing. Judge Robin Reese dismissed the petition to vacate the sentence on Friday and issued a ruling on Tuesday denying a stay. He said a stay would have been necessary only if there had been insufficient time to address the petition before Mr. Gardner’s scheduled June 18 execution.
|
Capital Punishment;Gardner Ronnie Lee
|
ny0155748
|
[
"business"
] |
2008/06/20
|
Court Upholds Ruling on Health Benefits
|
Employees whose benefits claims are denied are entitled to a fuller day in court than they tend to get now, the United States Supreme Court decided Thursday, in a case that examined the conflicts of interest underlying most benefits decisions. Until now, employees who felt wrongly deprived of benefits could expect little help in court unless they could show that their plan administrators had behaved in an arbitrary, capricious or unprincipled way. Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the majority, eased that requirement, but stopped well short of setting out specific new rules for when and how employees could challenge adverse benefits decisions. Employers said it was a ruling they could live with. “This is going to put the thumb on the scale in the employees’ favor,” said Lonie A. Hassel, a partner at the Groom Law Group in Washington who represents companies in employee benefits litigation. “But I think it’s only going to make a difference in close cases.” But others were deeply disappointed. “We had hoped the court would give greater clarity and guidance in these cases,” said John H. Langbein, a Yale law professor who is an authority on employee benefits law. “But they did not move the ball at all.” The Supreme Court issued its 6-to-3 ruling in favor of Wanda Glenn, an Ohio woman who worked for 14 years as a supervisor in the women’s department of a Sears store. She suffered from heart disease and took a leave of absence in 2000, providing extensive documentation from her doctor that she could not return to work. Sears offered employees long-term disability insurance as a benefit, but the plan administrator, MetLife, said Ms. Glenn did not qualify. She sued, and the trial court rejected her complaint because she had not shown that MetLife behaved arbitrarily. But the Appellate Court for the Sixth Circuit found in Ms. Glenn’s favor, saying that MetLife had acted under a conflict of interests. The Supreme Court’s affirmed that ruling, and Ms. Glenn will receive her benefits. The conflict the Supreme Court observed in MetLife’s role is one that employers, employees and insurance companies have been struggling with ever since Congress enacted a landmark employee benefits law in 1974. The law requires the officials who make decisions about employee benefits, known as plan administrators, to act solely in the interest of workers, yet they are usually hired by the company that pays for the benefits, and thus share the employer’s interest in keeping costs down. A 1989 Supreme Court decision acknowledged this potential conflict but stirred up confusion about how to address it. In the 1989 decision, the court decided that when district courts reviewed benefits disputes, they should review all the facts afresh, something called a de novo review. Employers feared this would undercut their plan administrators’ decisions and make the plans a legal battleground. But the opinion said that if companies explicitly gave discretionary authority to their plan administrators, then judges should generally defer to the plan administrator. Companies quickly began inserting clauses into their plans making the administrators’ decisions “final,” “conclusive,” and “binding.” But the 1989 decision also said that employees could sometimes win by showing that the plan administrator had acted under a conflict of interest. In his majority opinion, Justice Breyer wrote that it would be inappropriate for district courts to stop treating administrators with deference, or to give every dispute a full-blown de novo review. Instead, he called for something in between, requiring district judges to bear the administrator’s conflict in mind and factor it into their thinking. In a dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia called the majority opinion “painfully opaque, despite its promise of elucidation.”
|
Decisions and Verdicts;Courts;Health Insurance and Managed Care
|
ny0051057
|
[
"us"
] |
2014/10/07
|
Supreme Court Delivers Tacit Win to Gay Marriage
|
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday let stand appeals court rulings allowing same-sex marriage in five states, a major surprise that could signal the inevitability of the right of same-sex marriage nationwide. The development cleared the way for same-sex marriages in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. Gay and lesbian couples started getting married in those states within hours. The decision to let the appeals court rulings stand, which came without explanation in a series of brief orders, will have an enormous practical effect and may indicate a point of no return for the Supreme Court. Most immediately, the Supreme Court’s move increased the number of states allowing same-sex marriage to 24, along with the District of Columbia, up from 19. Within weeks legal ripples from the decision could expand same-sex marriage to 30 states. That means nearly two-thirds of same-sex couples in the United States will soon live in states where they can marry, according to the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law. Should the court then take up a same-sex marriage case next year or in another term, the justices may be reluctant to overturn what has become law in the majority of American states, said Walter E. Dellinger III, who was an acting United States solicitor general in the Clinton administration. Image Protesters outside the Supreme Court. Opponents of same-sex marriage expressed frustration. Credit Alex Wong/Getty Images “The more liberal justices have been reluctant to press this issue to an up-or-down vote until more of the country experiences gay marriage,” Mr. Dellinger said. “Once a substantial part of the country has experienced gay marriage, then the court will be more willing to finish the job.” There is precedent for such an approach: The court waited to strike down bans on interracial marriage until 1967, when the number of states allowing such unions had grown to 34, even though interracial marriage was still opposed by a significant majority of Americans. But popular opinion has moved much faster than the courts on same-sex marriage, with many Americans and large majorities of young people supporting it. Opponents of same-sex marriage expressed frustration with the development. John C. Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University, said it was “beyond preposterous” for federal courts rather than the democratic process to define the meaning of marriage. Supporters of traditional marriage vowed to continue their fight, noting that several federal appeals courts are yet to be heard from. “The court’s decision not to take up this issue now means that the marriage battle will continue,” said Byron Babione, a lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom. “The people should decide this issue, not the courts.” Monday’s orders specifically let stand decisions from three federal appeals courts striking down bans on same-sex marriage in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. Those three courts, which together have jurisdiction over six additional states that ban same-sex marriage — Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming — will almost certainly follow their own precedents to strike down those other bans as well. That would bring the number of states with same-sex marriage to 30. Other appeals courts are likely to rule soon on yet other marriage bans, including the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, which has jurisdiction over nine states, five of which still have same-sex marriage bans. If that court rules in favor of same-sex marriage, as expected, it will be allowed in 35 states. The justices had earlier acted to stop same-sex marriages in Utah and Virginia, issuing stays to block appeals court rulings allowing them. Other appeals court decisions had been stayed by the appeals courts themselves. The nearly universal consensus from Supreme Court observers had been that the stays issued by the justices indicated that they wanted the last word before federal courts transformed the landscape for same-sex marriage. But in recent remarks, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said there was no urgency for the court to act until a split emerged in the federal appeals courts, which recently have all ruled in favor of same-sex marriage. Justice Ginsburg has often counseled moving slowly, a lesson she said she had learned from the backlash that followed Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. “It’s not that the judgment was wrong,” she has said, “but it moved too far, too fast.” Proponents of same-sex marriage were confident they would have prevailed in the Supreme Court had it agreed to hear one of Monday’s cases. They took the unusual step of urging the justices to step in though they had won in the lower courts. Even as they welcomed Monday’s developments, some expressed frustration that the court had not acted more forcefully. “The court’s delay in affirming the freedom to marry nationwide prolongs the patchwork of state-to-state discrimination and the harms and indignity that the denial of marriage still inflicts on too many couples in too many places,” said Evan Wolfson, the president of Freedom to Marry. The justices last agreed to hear a constitutional challenge to a same-sex marriage ban, California’s Proposition 8, in December 2012. But a majority of the justices said in June 2013 that the case was not properly before the court. That move indicated that the Supreme Court wanted to stay out of the fray until more states allowed same-sex marriage. Video Two of the plaintiffs in a case challenging Utah’s ban on gay marriage, Moudi Sbeity and Derek Kitchen, discussed why they were pursuing the lawsuit. Credit Credit Jim McAuley for The New York Times If the court took pains to avoid a resolution of whether there was a constitutional right to same-sex marriage in the California case, Hollingsworth v. Perry , it set the groundwork for a definitive answer in a second decision issued the same day. That ruling, United States v. Windsor , struck down the part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that barred federal benefits for same-sex couples married in states that allowed such unions. The decision was based on a muddle of rationales. In his dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia challenged readers of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s majority opinion to follow its “disappearing trail” of “legalistic argle-bargle.” But lower courts seemed to have no trouble understanding what the Windsor decision had to say about a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. In a remarkable and essentially unbroken line of about 40 decisions, state and federal courts have relied on Windsor to rule in favor of same-sex marriage. In his own dissent in the Windsor case, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. cautioned that the decision was a limited one, buttressing his assertion with a quotation from the majority opinion. “The court does not have before it, and the logic of its opinion does not decide, the distinct question whether the states, in the exercise of their ‘historic and essential authority to define the marital relation,’ may continue to utilize the traditional definition of marriage,” he wrote. “We may in the future have to resolve challenges to state marriage definitions affecting same-sex couples,” he added. “That issue, however, is not before us in this case.” But lower-court judges seemed inclined to agree with Justice Scalia’s assessment of where things were heading. “By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency,” Justice Scalia wrote, “the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition.”
|
Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage;Supreme Court,SCOTUS;Indiana;Oklahoma;Utah;Wisconsin;Virginia
|
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