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ny0147725 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2008/07/12 | For the Police, an Expo That’s Almost Like Christmas in July | Crowds of boys and their fathers, dressed in replica baseball jerseys and ball caps, streamed into the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan on Friday for Major League Baseball’s All-Star Fan Fest. They passed under giant posters of the Yankees’ Joba Chamberlain and Hideki Matsui that were hung in the metal rafters, and walked past posters advertising the confab’s motto: “Where baseball is everything.” But down a level, and literally in the shadows of the main event, was a spectacle for fans of men (and women) who wear uniforms of a different sort: the second annual New York Law Enforcement Expo. There, officers of all stripes — local, state and federal — shopped for the latest in law enforcement gadgetry. “I’m like a kid in a candy store when I come to a place like this,” said Sgt. Anthony Frasca of the Bedford Police Department in Westchester County, who was spending some off-duty time with a colleague, Officer Andrew Klein, playing with the cutting-edge police toys. The two men took in a vendor’s arrangement of bright red, hardened steel safety locks for handguns, then paused near a table that was flashing with the latest in rooftop lights for police cars. The new designs are sleeker, which the men said would give them an edge in traffic stops by making them stealthier, and they send powerful beams along greater distances, keeping officers safer by helping civilian drivers see them sooner and giving them more time to react during road emergencies. Behind tables, stretched in all directions, were men and women demonstrating gizmos and gadgets, giving the room a carnival feel. Officers tried on tinted goggles or sturdy gloves; others looked over clothing to be worn under bullet-resistant vests. In addition to all the serious items, there were tables displaying knickknacks and trinkets, T-shirts and patches. One vendor was even selling a baby’s pink onesie emblazoned with the New York Police Department logo. Around one corner, Ty Miller of Cutting Edge Tactical was swinging a giant tool with a hook made of titanium and aluminum that looked like a medieval weapon. It is designed to smash through doors or pry open mangled parts of wrecked cars or military vehicles. “This is my favorite,” he said. “It’s just mean-looking.” David Ortiz, an officer with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Department, was accompanied by his friend Henry Lallave, who is retired from the Port Authority police force. They tried out a device resembling a videocassette recorder that was outfitted with night vision and thermal imaging technology. The men said the device would be perfect for finding a suspect who disappears down a subway tunnel or for rescuing people from a stranded train during a blackout. “This is a concrete canyon jungle out there when you turn off the lights,” Mr. Lallave said. “It’s pitch dark out there.” Buying the devices, however, “depends on the budget,” said Officer Ortiz, who said he was on a reconnaissance mission of sorts for the agency. Lights were a large part of the exposition. Jon Neal, a police officer in Massachusetts, hated the flashlight options he and a colleague, Officer Glenn Bushee, had on their midnight shifts. So in their spare time, they devised a new kind of lightweight, waterproof flashlight made of aluminum, with a recessed switch to prevent accidental activation. The company the men started, Brite-Strike, has provided futuristic-looking flashlights to units in the United States Marine Corps and the Federal Bureau of Investigation . Elido Capella, a New York City police officer who was working in uniform at the Javits Center, looked at the Brite-Strike flashlights, but did not say much. He opened a snap on his gun belt and pulled out his flashlight. “It’s an old one,” he said, looking at it. “Maybe 10 years old.” One vendor, Ronald C. Balla, was inspired by the experiences of his brother, Chad J. Balla, an officer in St. Petersburg, Fla., who shared stories about the risks of apprehending suspects on the road. Ronald Balla founded CJB Group, named for his brother, who later died of cancer, and designed a trunk-mounted workstation with a light, a rail for handcuffing people and boxes to lock up evidence. Eight departments nationwide have the device so far, he said, and he is about to add Las Vegas to the list. The Law Enforcement Expo has expanded in its second year; it has a 40 percent larger floor plan, with 50 new companies participating. Still, few of the baseball fans outside the Javits Center seemed to notice it. Avery Salsberg and Tyler Sexton-Holtmeier, both 9, and Jonathan Thom, 8, who came with Avery’s father to celebrate the national pastime, were too busy pitching and stealing home and hitting balls in batting cages, among other things, to notice the gadgets for police officers. Nearby, a group of boys from a Staten Island baseball league, asked whether they wanted to work in law enforcement when they grew up, agreed that they did not. One even made a raspberry. Then, one of the boys rethought his answer. “I want to be a lawyer,” he said. | Police;Trade Shows and Fairs;Javits Jacob K Convention Center (NYC);Manhattan (NYC);New York Law Enforcement Expo;Metropolitan Transportation Authority;United States Marine Corps;Federal Bureau of Investigation |
ny0131056 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2012/12/20 | The Syria Report Survives as Independent Publication | ISTANBUL — Jihad Yazigi concedes that he owes a debt to Bashar al-Assad . Without the now-besieged Syrian president, there would have been no free-market reforms, no surge in foreign investment and no modern banks in Syria . As Mr. Yazigi acknowledges, there also would not have been The Syria Report, his weekly economic digest that is one of the country’s few successful independent publications. “My business thrived because there was an opening and I have to give Bashar credit,” Mr. Yazigi said during a recent conference in Istanbul, when asked to reflect upon the changes that awakened the Syrian middle class even as they enriched the elite. “The problem is he didn’t go deep or fast enough to head off the unrest. He didn’t reform the judicial system or encourage a free press, for example. These were red lines that could not be crossed.” Mr. Yazigi, the son of an exiled Syrian dissident, publicly called for democratic reform as early as 2004, most notably in a column headlined “The D Word.” At the same time, he applauded the government for stimulating free trade and foreign investment, liberalizing its currency, reforming its financial sector and removing subsidies on everything from cooking oil to farm equipment. Largely as a result, the country’s gross domestic product rose steadily; between 2005 and 2010 it achieved an annualized growth rate of about 5 percent, among the highest for developing countries at the time. Syria was not the only Arab country that aggressively deregulated its economy. Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan and Saudi Arabia all embraced similar changes which, by the end of the decade, had produced impressive growth but also high inflation, stubborn unemployment and yawning rates of income disparity. Was it free-market reforms that triggered the convulsions that continue to destabilize the region? Or regime kleptocrats who hijacked a badly needed reform process? “It makes it a lot more difficult for people to sacrifice for the sake of change when elites are profiting,” Mr. Yazigi said. “That said, there were more problems than just corruption.” In promoting service sectors like hotel construction and management over labor-intensive ones like manufacturing, Mr. Yazigi added, the government neglected a fertile source of jobs. It also exposed its industries to high quality, affordable imported goods when it signed a free trade deal with Turkey. The government withdrew price supports on farm equipment and produce too quickly, he said, sparking an exodus of laborers from an agriculture sector that once accounted for a quarter of total employment. “Many farmers ended up moving into urban slums,” Mr. Yazigi said, “and that led to a lot of stress and resentment in the cities.” Mr. Yazigi, a French citizen and Greek Orthodox Christian, is, like Mr. Assad, an outsider whose destiny lured him back to Syria. Both men are sons of plotters — though unlike Mr. Assad’s father, Hafez, an air force general who ruled Syria from 1970 until his death in 2000, Raja Yazigi was on the losing end of a 1961 coup he helped lead in Lebanon. After fleeing via Jordan, he settled in Ghana, where he established a carpentry business and started a family. At the age of eight, Mr. Yazigi was sent to France for his education. Like Bashar, who studied ophthalmology in Britain before he was fated by his elder brother’s death to lead the Assad ruling dynasty, Mr. Yazigi was obliged to interrupt his studies at the American University in Paris and run the family business when his father passed away in 1995. The building trade could never compete with Mr. Yazigi’s love of politics, and with the arrival of Bashar as president he sensed an opportunity to indulge a passion inspired by his father, who sent his children to Damascus every summer to improve their Arabic and learn the city’s political terrain. In October 2001, from Paris, Mr. Yazigi distributed an online translation of Syria’s then-fledgling financial press. He knew he was onto something just a few weeks later when The World Bank contacted him and asked for more. “The Internet had just started,” he said. “I felt like this was something I could do that I really loved and give something back to the country.” The Syria Report comes out each week with data and news gathered from a variety of sources, including Mr. Yazigi’s own reporting. Among his most precious resources is a database of hundreds of Syrian companies he compiled by soliciting such details as contact coordinates, names of board directors, financial returns and shareholder information. Extracting proprietary information from Syria’s secretive, family-owned businesses was not easy. Over time the database would evolve into a coveted tool for foreign investors and traders converging on Syria. Subscriptions rose in tandem with liberalization and growth. A one-year membership costs $600. Mr. Yazigi is coy about the number of paying readers, though he allows that sales grew by 30 percent in 2010, a record year for foreign direct investment in Syria, then declined significantly in mid-2011, when peaceful demonstrations against Mr. Assad’s brutality grew into war. Much of the sales he lost to a diminished foreign business community have been absorbed by interest among academics, journalists and aid workers. The heart of The Syria Report’s content is provided by the Syrian government, which despite the war still faithfully posts official economic data and tender offers. Between the stories about corporate earnings and the depreciating Syrian pound one can find the occasional reporting that is usually absent Syria’s state-controlled press. The government kicked out the country’s few accredited foreign correspondents not long after the violence began. Stories about multinationals quitting war-torn Syria, for example, or the simultaneous closings of several embassies, are rarely carried anywhere but in The Syria Report. “Jihad has been very engaged and bold,” said Peter Harling, a Syria specialist for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. “He’s taking principled but sophisticated positions just as other Syrians are becoming politically aware and acute in their analyses. This is what gives me hope for the future of Syria.” Although Mr. Yazigi has blogged critically about the Assad government, his commentary in an English-language online economic bulletin is too esoteric to attract the attention of the state’s security apparatus. His recent decision to move to Beirut, he says, had more to do with the perils of war than government spies. He still maintains an office and a staffer in Damascus to assemble data. In March 2011, when the regime responded to a first wave of protests by increasing public-servant pay, Mr. Yazigi scolded the government for political “gifts” that would impose “a severe drain on the Treasury and create serious inflationary risks.” In October that year, he disparaged as “nonsense” the government’s decision to ban imports to conserve foreign currency only to reverse its ruling in the face of opposition from the Aleppo business community. The episode confirmed the government “had no clear economic policy,” Mr. Yazigi wrote, and signaled a reversal of its commitment to free-market reform. One day, when peace is restored to Syria, Mr. Yazigi said, he would like to expand his existing consulting work. Before the war he applied for a license to host business conferences but was told, in effect, that others close to the government had a lock on the business. It was the kind of red line, he said, that ended up ensnaring the regime. | Syria;Yazigi Jihad;Syria Report The;News and News Media;Assad Bashar al-;Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- ) |
ny0014894 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/10/05 | Amid Questions, Town Welcomes a New College | WINGDALE, N.Y. — For 20 years, the 80 brick buildings of what was once the Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center have lain fallow, their weathered faces hidden by untamed vines, their windows buckling, their emerald lawns turning to weeds. Local residents have long been dismayed at the waste of such a handsome rustic property set in a green valley between two ridges. Then in the summer, the lawns were mowed, the ivy and brush stripped away, and bulldozers cleared land for a soccer field. A sign appeared: Olivet Center. Townspeople learned that the mysterious new owner of most of the 900-acre property was Olivet University, a small evangelical Christian college of about 250 undergraduates based in San Francisco. Olivet wanted to open a campus 65 miles north of New York City, not exactly the evangelical heartland, but perhaps a new frontier for attracting believers. Most residents in this Dutchess County hamlet of 4,275 have been excited about the newcomers — a university will bring scores of jobs and a spurt in retail sales to an area that lost hundreds of workers and a good deal of commerce after the hospital closed in 1994. “Those buildings were sitting empty for 20 years, and it was getting to be quite an eyesore,” said Tim O’Neill, 55, a plumber. “They’ve already put landscapers to work and there will be jobs in maintenance and construction and of course they’ll need teachers.” But even supporters were surprised by what they discovered about the college after it bought the property. A publication reported that the university’s founder, a Korean pastor named David Jang, was linked to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church, whom critics labeled the mastermind of a cult; that some of the Dr. Jang’s closest followers seemed to believe that Dr. Jang was a messiah-like figure; and that he did not directly contradict that belief. The claims were contained in a lengthy article last year in Christianity Today, a leading evangelical publication. In 1989, the article said, Dr. Jang had been an assistant professor of theology at a seminary of the Unification Church founded by Mr. Moon, who died last year . The article also claimed that Dr. Jang had given his followers the impression that he was “the Second Coming Christ,” not Christ himself but a messianic figure who would complete Jesus’ mission. “I thought I’d heard they’re connected with the Moonies,” Mr. O’Neill said. But, he added: “As long as they clean up the site, I’m all right with it. I get along with people.” Olivet officials deny any connection with the Unification Church. Olivet leaders said that the article had misrepresented Dr. Jang and the college, and that Christianity Today was envious of the success of a rival Web site, the Christian Post, which was started by alumni of Olivet. Olivet’s president, Tracy Davis, denied that Mr. Jang had ever told anyone he was a messianic figure. “People somehow insinuated that though no one explicitly told them,” she said. Ms. Davis and Olivet’s communications director, Anna Oh, said Dr. Jang never taught at the Unification Church, though; they said that Sun Hwa Theological Seminary was a Korean Methodist school where he taught Christian systematic theology, not Unification theology, and it was bought by the Unification Church. “Christianity Today is a respected holder of tradition, and we were surprised that we were targeted by them,” Ms Davis said. “It was not based on theological merit.” Dr. Jang did not respond to a request for comment. Christianity Today says it stands by its story. Although the school says it is part of the Presbyterian tradition, it is not affiliated with the mainstream denomination, the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., which has 1.8 million members and represents over 10,000 congregations. Image Buildings once used as a psychiatric center in Wingdale, N.Y., in Dutchess County, are being renovated to house a college. Credit Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times Instead, Olivet is affiliated with the Evangelical Assembly of Presbyterian Churches of America, a smaller, more conservative group. Olivet leaders said the denomination had 70 congregations, though some have only a small number of members. Olivet University also has no connection to Olivet College in Michigan. Last year, the school tried to buy a conference center in New Mexico that was owned by LifeWay Christian Resources, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. LifeWay asked the National Association of Evangelicals, the largest American umbrella group and one to which Olivet belongs, to examine Olivet’s pedigree, and after receiving the review issued a statement withdrawing from the deal. LifeWay never explained its reasons nor revealed what was in the report. Olivet also has various relationships with a company called IBT Media, which publishes the International Business Times Web site and in August bought Newsweek magazine. Ms. Davis is married to one of IBT’s co-founders, Johnathan Davis, who according to Ms. Davis held an advisory role in Olivet’s journalism program. The other co-founder, Etienne Uzac, is on Olivet’s board of trustees. IBT has also provided internship and job opportunities for Olivet students and graduates, she said. What is clear is that Olivet, named after the biblical Mount of Olives, has been looking to expand and has surveyed properties around the country, including one in Islip on Long Island and another in Northfield, Mass. It ultimately decided that the old mental hospital site here, which dates to 1924, was ideal, with buildings compatible as classrooms and dormitories. “I felt like this was an opportunity from God,” Ms. Davis said. The site was owned by the Benjamin Development Corporation, a real estate company, which had bought it from the state a decade ago. Years before, the state had been looking to sell or transform 33 hospitals because it had changed its approach to treating people with mental illness and wanted more patients to live on their own in community residences. (At its peak, the Wingdale hospital housed more than 5,000 patients.) Benjamin planned to develop the site as a housing and retail complex and spent more than $20 million on lawyers, engineers and environmental reviews, but gave up when the housing market collapsed. Olivet purchased 503 acres for $20 million with an option to buy the remaining 434 acres. Olivet administrators said they acquired the money through the generosity of alumni and their friends. The site has many virtues: the Wingdale train station on the Metro-North Railroad’s Harlem line is in the middle of the campus, an hour and 45 minutes from Manhattan. There are several buildings that can be used for retail shops or high tech offices and earn revenue. The site has a chapel with 10 arched stained-glass windows. There is even a golf course. Also important, administrators said, was the presence in the Hudson Valley of scores of evangelical churches. Administrators are putting together an application to the State Education Department, which must authorize its program of study. In San Francisco, Olivet offers undergraduate programs in theology, music, journalism, information technology, business administration and graphic design. A doctoral program in theology has 89 students. Olivet also claims 654 online students. The school’s mission is to produce graduates who will, as a brochure says, become “ministry-bound scholars and leaders.” In 2008, it opened a small satellite near the World Trade Center in Manhattan to offer a master’s in business degree. Ultimately, the information about Olivet’s origins did not inspire a local revolt. Ryan Courtien, supervisor of the town of Dover, which includes Wingdale, has been a staunch supporter of the project. “If you believe everything you read on the Internet, I’ll sell you a Web site, BrooklynBridge.com,” he said Tony Robustelli, the owner of Cousin’s Cafe on Route 22, has already noticed more people stopping in for his cinnamon rolls. Steven O’Connor, 50, who lives eight miles away, thought Olivet’s arrival was beneficial, even if it was sponsored by an uncommon religious group. “There’s no law restricting what religion you practice,” Mr. O’Connor said. “They are taking a failed institution and spending millions of dollars on it.” | Olivet University San Francisco Calif;Wingdale NY;College;Christianity;Unification Church;David Jang |
ny0237545 | [
"science"
] | 2010/06/21 | Hallucinations in Hospital Pose Risk to Elderly | No one who knows Justin Kaplan would ever have expected this. A Pulitzer Prize -winning historian with a razor intellect, Mr. Kaplan, 84, became profoundly delirious while hospitalized for pneumonia last year. For hours in the hospital, he said, he imagined despotic aliens, and he struck a nurse and threatened to kill his wife and daughter. “Thousands of tiny little creatures,” he said, “some on horseback, waving arms, carrying weapons like some grand Renaissance battle,” were trying to turn people “into zombies.” Their leader was a woman “with no mouth but a very precisely cut hole in her throat.” Attacking the group’s “television production studio,” Mr. Kaplan fell from his hospital bed, cutting himself and “sliding across the floor on my own blood,” he said. The hospital called security because “a nurse was trying to restrain me and I repaid her with a kick.” Mr. Kaplan’s hallucinations lifted as doctors treated his pneumonia. But hospitals say many patients are experiencing such inexplicable disorienting episodes. Doctors call it “hospital delirium ,” and are increasingly trying to prevent or treat it. Disproportionately affecting older people, a rapidly growing share of patients, hospital delirium affects about one-third of patients over 70, and a greater percentage of intensive-care or postsurgical patients, the American Geriatrics Society estimates. “A delirious patient happens almost every day,” said Dr. Manuel N. Pacheco, director of consultation and emergency services at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass. He treated Mr. Kaplan, whom he described as “a very learned, acclaimed person,” for whom “this is not the kind of behavior that’s normal.” “People don’t talk about it, because it’s embarrassing,” Dr. Pacheco said. “They’re having sheer terror, like their worst nightmare.” The cause of delirium is unclear, but there are many apparent triggers: infections, surgery, pneumonia, and procedures like catheter insertions, all of which can spur anxiety in frail, vulnerable patients. Some medications, difficult for older people to metabolize, seem associated with delirium. Doctors once dismissed it as a “reversible transient phenomenon,” thinking “it’s O.K. for someone, if they’re elderly, to become confused in the hospital,” said Dr. Sharon Inouye, a Harvard Medical School professor. But new research shows significant negative effects. Even short episodes can hinder recovery from patients’ initial conditions, extending hospitalizations, delaying scheduled procedures like surgery, requiring more time and attention from staff members and escalating health care costs. Afterward, patients are more often placed, whether temporarily or permanently, in nursing homes or rehabilitation centers. Older delirium sufferers are more likely to develop dementia later. And, Dr. Inouye found , 35 percent to 40 percent die within a year. “It’s terrible, more dangerous than a fall,” said Dr. Malaz A. Boustani, a professor at the Indiana University Center for Aging Research, who found that elderly patients experiencing delirium were hospitalized six days longer, and placed in nursing homes 75 percent of the time, five times as often as those without delirium. Nearly one-tenth died within a month. Experts say delirium can contribute to death by weakening patients or leading to complications like pneumonia or blood clots. Ethel Reynolds, 75, entered a Virginia hospital last July to have fluid drained that had been causing her feet to swell. She wound up hospitalized for weeks, sometimes so delirious that “she screamed constantly, writhed,” said her daughter, Susan Byrd. “I had to get in bed with her because she thought someone was coming and they were going to hurt us,” Ms. Byrd said. Ms. Reynolds ended up needing dialysis and surgery after an infection, and she died in September. “We got her death certificate, and the No. 1 cause of death was delirium,” said Ms. Byrd, an ophthalmology nurse. “I was just blown away. As a nurse, I was expecting a quote-unquote medical reason: kidneys, heart, lung, an organ that I could understand had failed, and it wasn’t. It was delirium.” Other triggers involve disorienting changes: sleep interrupted for tests, isolation, changing rooms, being without eyeglasses or dentures. Medication triggers can include some antihistamines, sleeping pills, antidepressants and drugs for nausea and ulcers . Dr. Inouye said that many “doctors don’t know how to appropriately use meds in older people, in terms of dosing” and compatibility with other medications. Earle Helton, 80, a retired chemist hospitalized after a stroke, ordered his family to “throw a rope over the hedge so he could escape,” said his daughter, Amanda. He tried removing his hospital gown, loudly sang “Lullaby and Goodnight,” and doctors had to tie down his hands to prevent him from leaving, said his wife, Ginnie. Only when Dr. Inouye stopped some medications that other doctors had prescribed did he become lucid. Delirium is sometimes treated with antipsychotics, but doctors urge caution using such drugs. Delirium can wax and wane, not always causing aggressive agitation . “It is often the person quietly in bed,” and the condition can linger for weeks or months, landing patients back in the hospital, said Dr. Julie Moran, a geriatrician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “We would have to build 100 more floors to keep everybody until they cleared their delirium. There are times when we could be working round the clock seeing patients with delirium.” Frequently, geriatricians say, delirium is misdiagnosed, or described on patient charts as agitation, confusion or inappropriate behavior, so subsequent doctors might not realize the problem. One study found “delirium” used in only 7 percent of cases; “confusion” was most common. Another study of delirious older emergency-room patients found that the condition was missed in three-quarters of them. People with dementia seem at greater risk for delirium, but many delirious patients have no dementia. For some of them, delirium increases the risk of later dementia. In such cases, it is unclear if delirium caused the dementia, or was simply a signal that the person would develop it later. Some hospitals are adopting delirium-prevention programs, including one developed by Dr. Inouye , which adjusts schedules, light and noise to help patients sleep, ensures that patients have their eyeglasses and hearing aids , and has them walk, exercise and do cognitive activities like word games. Dr. Moran’s hospital removes catheters, intravenous lines and other equipment whenever possible because they can make patients feel trapped, leading to delirium. She said nurses repeatedly assess cognitive function so patients “don’t have smoldering symptoms of delirium for days before they end up yelling and screaming.” Mr. Kaplan, a biographer of Mark Twain and Walt Whitman, later jotted notes about his hallucinations, including being in a police helicopter “tracking fugitives with enormous light.” “Exhilarating until I become one of the fugitives,” he wrote. “End up cold and naked in some sort of subway passage.” His fall bruised his elbow, leg and wrist, said his wife, the writer Anne Bernays . The next day, “he was gaga till about noon,” and even “looked me in the eye and said ‘I’m going to kill you,’ ” she said. “He didn’t know where he was and didn’t recognize me.” Fortunately, his delirium was discovered very quickly and he made a very good recovery, Dr. Pacheco said. “But,” he said, “delirium is very disruptive for the patient, family, hospital caregivers.” As Mr. Kaplan understated later, “It was a lot of unpleasantness.” | hospital delirium;Hospitals;Medicine and Health;Dementia;Elderly |
ny0294532 | [
"us"
] | 2016/06/13 | Was Orlando Shooter Really Acting for ISIS? For ISIS, It’s All the Same | PARIS — The revelation that the 29-year-old man who opened fire on Sunday in a gay nightclub had dedicated the killing to the Islamic State has prompted a now-familiar question: Was the killer truly acting under orders from the Islamic State, or just seeking publicity and the group’s approval for a personal act of hate? For the terror planners of the Islamic State, the difference is mostly irrelevant. Influencing distant attackers to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State and then carry out mass murder has become a core part of the group’s propaganda over the past two years. It is a purposeful blurring of the line between operations that are planned and carried out by the terror group’s core fighters and those carried out by its sympathizers. The attacker, Omar Mateen , told a 911 operator that he was pledging allegiance to the Islamic State. In the group’s nomenclature, that pledge is a central part of the ISIS protocol. The Orlando killing was the third time the loyalty pledge was known to be invoked in the United States. In December when a couple in San Bernardino, Calif. , left their home armed with assault rifles, they made sure to post their oath of allegiance on Facebook, where law enforcement agents later found it. And just minutes before he opened fire on a cartoon exhibit featuring images of the Prophet Muhammad in Texas in May 2015, Elton Simpson sent out a series of Twitter messages making clear where his allegiances lay. Image Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the Islamic State spokesman, called for killings abroad during the month of Ramadan. This public oath is about the only requirement that the Islamic State imposes on followers who wish to carry out acts of terror in its name. In an annual speech, the terror group’s spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, last month incited its supporters to carry out killings abroad during the holy month of Ramadan. No attack is too small, he advised, specifically naming the United States as a target. “The smallest action you do in the heart of their land is dearer to us than the largest action by us,” he said, “and more effective and more damaging to them.” Video A gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in an attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., early Sunday. As early as September 2014, Mr. Adnani made clear that anyone and everyone could, and should, carry out acts of terror in the group’s name. “Do not ask for anyone’s permission,” he said, and suggested that sympathizers who could not buy weapons should instead use rocks, knives or even cars to kill infidels. Since then, the group has worked hard to create a mechanism for inciting terror in situ. It floods the internet with gory propaganda, and employs an army of keyboard jihadists to push the deadly message on Twitter, Facebook and other social media. What Happened Inside the Orlando Nightclub Accounts of what happened from officials and witnesses. In this case, there was a stark resonance between Islamic State propaganda and the killer’s choice of target. The jihadist group has publicized its hatred of homosexuals, including releasing images of fighters killing people suspected of being gay by throwing them off tall buildings. Once the recruit is caught, or killed, law enforcement officials struggle to put the pieces back together. Yet the fact that there is often no direct link back to the core is intended to protect the organization in an age of surveillance. “I think what the Islamic State has done is very clever, and that is create a situation where someone can carry out an attack without any direct link to the organization,” said Charlie Winter, senior research associate at Georgia State University’s Transcultural Conflict and Violence Initiative. “They can pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before or during, and that catapults them from being a self-starter jihadist guy, or girl, to someone who can be lionized as a soldier of the Islamic State and regarded as a warrior.” On Sunday, after it was known that Mr. Mateen had invoked ISIS, the group’s official news agency issued a bulletin quoting “a source” confirming that Mr. Mateen was acting on the Islamic State’s behalf. Jihadists erupted in celebration on the internet. They shared screenshots of Mr. Adnani’s speech calling for lone wolf attacks during Ramadan. And in an act of tribute, several changed their profile pictures on Twitter to a photograph of the Orlando attacker. | Orlando Shooting;ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State;Omar Mateen;Orlando shooter;Orlando;Terrorism |
ny0144573 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2008/10/21 | At Funeral for Family Killed in Fire, the Anguish Hits | Three gold-trimmed white coffins were carried down the center aisle toward the altar. In the pews Monday morning at St. Elizabeth’s Roman Catholic Church in Washington Heights, the mourners stifled tears. Then came two more coffins, and a gasp from the congregation — these two were so much smaller than the others. Inside were the bodies of the two youngest victims of the fire that had trapped them all in their Manhattan apartment on Oct. 11. One, Ruth Joa Balbuena, was 15 months old. The other, Bet-el Joa Balbuena, was 3. In the three larger coffins were the bodies of their mother, Delkis Balbuena, 34; their brother, Gonzan Joa Balbuena, 10; and their sister, Nancy Joa Balbuena, 8. The children’s father, Maschay Joa Valdez, 40, had a separate funeral over the weekend. Gonzan was the only person to be pulled out of the fire alive, but he died last week at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx. All told, the six victims made the fire the city’s deadliest since a March 2007 blaze that killed 10 people, including nine children, in the Bronx. A Fire Department spokesman said later that the blaze appeared to have been started by a child playing with a lighter or matches. A smoke detector in the apartment had been disconnected from the wiring of the building, at 401 West 18th Street in Chelsea, and its backup battery was gone. Delkis Balbuena’s younger sister Nelly sobbed as she followed the coffins down the aisle of the church, leaning on Awilda Cordero, a family friend, and Olga Balbuena, an aunt. Ms. Cordero said later that the full force of the loss had not hit the family until they arrived at the church for the funeral. “We lost Gonzan but we know he’s still here,” and he will live on because his organs were donated, Ms. Cordero said. “We’re all pulling together, everyone in the community, to tell everyone to please put smoke alarms in apartments.” The pastor, the Rev. Osiris Salcedo, said the Mass in Spanish. He said the tragedy might prompt some people to question where God is. He said the children — and Delkis Balbuena — were with God, the children “like little angels.” After the service he used a Spanish word, congoja, to describe the feeling at the wake, held on Sunday at the Ortiz Funeral Home in Washington Heights. Congoja means deep sadness, he said. The three girls were dressed in white Communion dresses with matching white gloves, and Gonzan was dressed in a suit. “It’s very hard, very sad,” Father Salcedo said. “I told them, ‘God is compassionate and merciful and never abandons those who trust him.’ ” More than 100 people attended the funeral, which was followed by burials at St. Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx. Hastagracia Matos, 82, a retired factory worker, wiped her eyes as the coffins were carried out of the church, with Leonel Balbuena, Delkis Balbuena’s younger brother, leading the procession, carrying the first tiny coffin. Ms. Matos did not know the family. She lives near the church and said she felt she had to be there. “We have to come together as a community,” Ms. Matos said. “It’s such a tragedy.” The church’s music director and organist, Richard Eikenberry, has been playing at weddings and funerals at St. Elizabeth’s for 22 years. He said he had dreaded playing at this service and was “still a little bit stunned from the experience.” “The whole thing seemed unreal to me,” he said. “It was very hard to accept the fact that there were five there.” | Fires and Firefighters;Chelsea (NYC);Death and Dying;Balbuena Delkis;Accidents and Safety |
ny0035715 | [
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] | 2014/03/27 | Florida State Advances in N.I.T. | Aaron Thomas scored 14 of his 21 points in the second half, and Okaro White had 14 first-half points as host Florida State defeated Louisiana Tech, 78-75, to advance to the National Invitation Tournament semifinals. ■ Yale beat host Columbia, 72-69, in an all-Ivy quarterfinal of the Collegeinsider.com tournament. (NYT) | National Invitation Tournament;College basketball;Florida State University;Louisiana Tech University |
ny0212901 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2010/03/03 | Britain Grapples With Debt of Greek Proportions | LONDON — As Greece’s debt troubles batter the euro , Britain has done its utmost to stay above the fray. Until now, that is. Suddenly, investors are asking if Britain may soon face its own sovereign debt crisis if the government fails to slash its growing budget deficits quickly enough to escape the contagious fears of financial markets. The pound fell to $1.4954 on Tuesday, its lowest level against the dollar in nearly 10 months. The yield on 10-year government bonds, known as gilts, slid as investors fretted that Parliament would be too fragmented after a crucial election in May to whip Britain’s messy finances back into shape. The slide in the pound followed a sharper decline on Monday after polls released over the weekend indicated that the opposition Conservatives had lost their clear lead in the election race. Without a strong political majority to tackle Britain’s lumbering fiscal problems, investors could start to make it greatly more expensive for the government to raise funds, setting the stage for a potential double-dip recession , if not worse. “If you really want a fiscal problem, look at the U.K.,” said Mark Schofield, a fixed-income strategist at Citigroup. “In Europe, the average deficit is about 6 percent of G.D.P. and in the U.K. it’s 12 percent. It is only just beginning.” Since the Labour government’s intense fiscal intervention in 2008 and 2009, yields on British government debt have soared to among the highest in Europe. And on a broader scale, which includes the borrowing of households and companies, the overall level of debt in Britain is the second-largest in the world, after Japan’s, at 380 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, according to a recent report by the consulting company McKinsey. In recent weeks, the focus has been on debt scofflaws in Europe like Greece, Portugal and Spain, countries where borrowing costs have shot up in line with their growing deficits as investors demanded higher rates to compensate them for the added risk of lending the governments money. But the recent plunge in the value of the pound below $1.50 and the gradual move upward of Britain’s benchmark 10-year borrowing rate on gilts to above 4 percent suggest that investors are now getting ready to reassess the country’s fiscal condition. Britain is not in the 16-nation euro zone and, unlike Greece and other struggling countries that use the currency, it retains control over its monetary policy. As a result, it has benefited so far from a huge bond-buying program undertaken by the Bank of England — proportionally, the largest in the world — that has kept mortgage rates and gilt yields at unusually low levels. That means the government and its citizens have been able to continue to borrow at interest rates that do not reflect their true financial situation. Indeed, the increase in private and government debt here contrasts sharply with the deleveraging that has been going on in the United States. British household debt is now 170 percent of overall annual income, compared with 130 percent in the United States. In an echo of the United States’ rush into subprime mortgages with low teaser rates, millions of homeowners in Britain have piled into variable-rate mortgages that are linked to the rock-bottom base rate. As for the British government, it has been able to finance a budget deficit of 12.5 percent of G.D.P. — equal to Greece’s — at an interest rate more than two full percentage points lower only because the Bank of England bought the majority of the bonds it issued last year. “It’s not just ‘basket cases’ like Greece that can be considered candidates for sovereign crises,” said Simon White of Variant Perception, a research house in London that caters to hedge funds and wealthy individuals. “Gilts and sterling will continue to come under pressure as scrutiny of the U.K. fiscal situation intensifies.” Adding to this concern is the precarious condition of the British consumer. As interest rates have hit new lows, the popularity of variable-rate loans has grown. At the end of December, 40 percent of new mortgages were tracking the government’s base rate. Despite comments from Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, that he might restart his quantitative easing program in light of current economic weakness, the view among investors is growing that interest rates here will rise further, along with higher inflation and Britain’s increased risk profile. In a speech this year, Andrew Haldane, the executive director of financial stability at the Bank of England, warned about how vulnerable Britain was to a rate increase, pointing out that an increase of one percentage point would cause debt service costs relative to income to double, to 13 percent. “This is a ticking time bomb,” said Nick Hopkinson of Property Portfolio Rescue, a company that assists overleveraged homeowners. “There are over 400,000 people who are in arrears with their mortgage rates the cheapest they have ever been. When rates increase, a lot of people will be tipped over the edge.” As a result, those counting on the British consumer to take up the slack from any scaling back of government borrowing could be in for a shock. Consider Sheridan King, a sales manager who is struggling to pay off his £32,000 ($47,075) in nonmortgage debt. Far from thinking about going shopping, his first priority is keeping clear of his creditors. And even though his variable mortgage of about £100,000 carries a very low rate, interest costs are already chewing up a substantial portion of his pay, and he is deeply worried about the future. “If rates go up, it will be a very dangerous situation for me,” Mr. King said. “It might lead me to consider bankruptcy.” For the time being, at least, the British government faces no such threat. Despite its borrowing and spending excesses, Britain still maintains a triple-A credit rating and much of its debt is long term. But with 29 percent of British bonds held by foreigners, Britain, like Greece, remains highly vulnerable to the vicissitudes of outside investors. Since early this year, foreign holdings of British bonds have fallen from 35 percent, a trend that has tracked the pound’s decline and contributed to the increase in the yield on its 10-year gilts. As to which political party he thinks is best placed to handle these challenges, Mr. King takes a skeptical view. “We are just struggling to get by with all this debt,” he said. “It’s time the government got its house in order.” | Great Britain;Economic Conditions and Trends;Debt;Budgets and Budgeting;British Pound (Currency) |
ny0098407 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2015/06/26 | Colombia: 2 Crash Survivors Are Found | A woman who survived a plane crash with her baby was rescued after four days lost in the jungle, Colombia’s air force and rescuers said Thursday. The woman, Maria Nelly Murillo, and her young son were aboard a small plane that crashed Saturday in a remote area of western Colombia shortly after taking off from Quibdó, the air force said. The pilot was killed, but rescuers said a heavy load of fresh fish in the cabin absorbed much of the crash impact, allowing Ms. Murillo and her son to survive. Apparently disoriented, she wandered in the jungle carrying her child, surviving on coconut water, said Acisclo Renteria, the Red Cross volunteer who eventually found her. | Colombia;Rescue;Plane Crash;Maria Nelly Murillo;Red Cross |
ny0209686 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2009/12/09 | In India, Anxiety Over the Slow Pace of Innovation | BANGALORE, India — In the United States and Europe, people worry that their well-paying, high-skill jobs will be, in a word, “Bangalored” — shipped off to India. People here are also worried about the future. They fret that Bangalore, and India more broadly, will remain a low-cost satellite office of the West for the foreseeable future — more Scranton, Pa., in the American television series “The Office,” than Silicon Valley. Even as the rest of the world has come to admire, envy and fear India’s outsourcing business and its technological prowess, many Indians are disappointed that the country has not quickly moved up to more ambitious and lucrative work from answering phones or writing software. Why, they worry, hasn’t India produced a Google or an Apple? Innovation is hard to measure, but academics who study it say India has the potential to create trend-setting products but is not yet doing so. Indians are granted about half as many American patents for inventions as people and firms in Israel and China. The country’s corporate and government spending on research and development significantly lags behind that of other nations. And venture capitalists finance far fewer companies here than they do elsewhere. “The same idea, if it’s born in Silicon Valley it goes the distance,” said Nadathur S. Raghavan, a investor in start-ups and a founder of Infosys, one of India’s most successful technology companies. “If it’s born in India it does not go the distance.” Mr. Raghavan and others say India is held back by a financial system that is reluctant to invest in unproven ideas, an education system that emphasizes rote learning over problem solving, and a culture that looks down on failure and unconventional career choices. Sujai Karampuri is an Indian entrepreneur who has struggled against many of these constraints. His Bangalore-based company, Sloka Telecom, has developed award-winning radio systems that are more flexible, smaller and less expensive than equipment used by phone companies today. Mobile phone companies and larger telecommunications equipment suppliers are buying and testing his products, but he has not been able to interest Indian venture capitalists. For the last five years he has run his firm on $1 million he raised from acquaintances. “I can only afford to trial with one customer at a time and that takes three months to materialize,” said Mr. Karampuri, who has considered moving the company to the United States to be closer to venture capitalists who specialize in telecommunications. “You are always worried about paying next month’s salary to people. Should you keep the money for this trial or next month’s salary?” Companies like Sloka Telecom are important, analysts say, because they are more likely to create the next wave of jobs than large, established Indian technology companies, many of which are experiencing slower growth. These companies could also help offset some of the outsourcing jobs the country will likely lose because of greater automation and competition from countries where costs are even lower. There are historical reasons that starting a business in India is difficult. During British rule, imperial interests dictated economic activity; after independence in 1947, central planning stifled entrepreneurship through burdensome licensing and direct state ownership of companies and banks. Businesses found that currying favor with policy makers was more important than innovating. And import restrictions made it hard to acquire machinery, parts or technology. Inventors came up with ingenious ways to overcome obstacles and scarcity — a talent Indians used the Hindi word “jugaad” (pronounced jewgard) to describe. But the products that resulted from such improvisation were often inferior to those available outside India. “We were in an economy where, forget innovation, expansion was discouraged, creating wealth was frowned upon, there was no competition to speak of,” said Anand G. Mahindra , who heads the Mahindra & Mahindra business group and has spoken about the need for more innovation . Indian leaders began embracing the free market in the 1980s and stepped up the pace of change in 1991 when the country faced a financial crisis. Those changes increased economic growth and made possible the rise of technology companies like Infosys and Wipro, which focused on providing services for American and European corporations. Yet, the government still exerts significant control, especially in manufacturing, said Rishikesha T. Krishnan , a professor at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore. “To start a services company it really takes you just two or three days to get going,” said Mr. Krishnan, whose book, “From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation: The Challenge for India,” is to be published next year. “The moment you are looking at manufacturing, there are hundreds of inspectors and regulations.” Raising money is one of the biggest challenges entrepreneurs face. Venture capital funds have flocked to India in recent years, but they are more likely to invest in established businesses than young firms. In the United States, Israel and elsewhere, the initial, or seed, capital for many start-ups comes from rich individuals known as angel investors. But most rich Indians prefer to invest with family members or close friends because its considered safer and provides assurance that the lender will be able to borrow from relatives in the future. “If you want to raise $3 to $4 million, it’s doable,” said Sumir Chadha, who co-heads Sequoia Capital’s Indian operations. “But it’s difficult if you want to raise $300,000 or $400,000,” a typical investment at the early stages of a company’s life. When Cellworks Group, which has most of its operations in Bangalore, was looking to raise money last year, executives talked to venture capitalists here and abroad. But the company raised all of the money it needed in the United States, because most local investors did not have the expertise to evaluate the biotech firm, said Taher Abbasi, the chief executive. Cellworks has planted its corporate headquarters and a small staff near San Jose so it can be close to investors and American universities for research collaboration on cancer drugs. “To really kick off entrepreneurship without local money is very difficult,” Mr. Abbasi said. Still, he said, India has its advantages. Engineers and biologists are plentiful, though they need to be trained more than their counterparts elsewhere. And operating costs are a lot lower than in the San Francisco Bay Area, which was critical more than two years ago when he and his partners started the company with their own money. There may yet be hope for Indian innovation. Some are looking to fill the venture fund vacuum. A group called Mumbai Angels holds Saturday meetings every two months at which entrepreneurs pitch ideas to affluent investors. Members of the group have invested in about 20 companies, said Prashant Choksey, a co-founder. Separately, N. R. Narayana Murthy, the chairman of Infosys, recently sold $38 million worth of shares in his company to start a new venture capital fund. Mr. Raghavan, the former Infosys executive, has invested about $100 million in start-ups like Connexios Life Sciences, which is developing drugs to treat diabetes and other diseases. Many Indian universities have also started entrepreneurship programs and classes. Vivek Wadhwa , a former technology entrepreneur who now researches innovation, said the climate for start-ups in India was a lot better than it was a few years ago. It should continue to improve, he said, in part because companies like General Electric have hired tens of thousands of engineers in India to work in research and development. “Once they have been working on these projects for a few years they will outgrow the companies that they are working for,” he said. “They will hook up with these entrepreneurs that failed” on previous start-up attempts and create new companies. Another change may augur well. Until early this decade, the Indian market was too small and isolated to make it very lucrative for businesses to develop products here, so most technology companies focused on selling services to the West, said Girish S. Paranjpe, joint chief executive of Wipro’s information technology business. “That will change dramatically because the Indian market has become bigger,” he said. In the last eight years, the size of the Indian economy has roughly doubled along with the importance of foreign trade. There could still be something to envy and fear. | India;Entrepreneurship;International Trade and World Market;Outsourcing;Bangalore (India) |
ny0245344 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2011/04/19 | As British Royal Wedding Approaches, Opinions Differ on Future Roles of Kate Middleton and Camilla | LONDON — When 1,900 invited guests take their coveted places in Westminster Abbey next week for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton , one of the most uneasy seats in the 13th-century Gothic church may be the one occupied by Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall , the longtime lover of Prince Charles , and since her marriage to the heir to the throne in 2005, the stepmother to William, Charles’s older son. One of the most compelling themes of the April 29 wedding will be Britain ’s odd-couple pair of “queens-in-waiting,” Ms. Middleton and Camilla. Though more than 30 years apart in age, both have come to their marriages as what are known in Britain as commoners, and stand, on their husbands’ ascent to the throne — Camilla first, and later Kate — to take their places as the highest-placed women in the land. There, mostly, the similarities end. Kate, glamorous and young — 29, five months older than Prince William — is seen by many in Britain, along with her future husband, as the potential savior of a monarchy whose luster has been deeply tarnished in the past 30 years. For all the public acclaim for Queen Elizabeth II, who turns 85 this week and celebrates her 60th anniversary as monarch next year, the story of the other members of the royal family has been one of serial divorces, personal indiscretions, extravagance at taxpayers’ expense and suspicious financial dealings that have made lurid copy for Britain’s tabloid press. Camilla, once cast by the tabloids as the most hated woman in the country for her role in dooming Prince Charles’s marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales , has gone some distance toward redeeming herself in recent years, to judge by polls that show sharply reduced levels of personal antipathy toward her. She has been embraced by Diana’s two sons, William and Harry, who have said publicly that they love her, not least for the happiness she had brought their father. The sense of her having achieved insider status in the family, at least with the younger generation, was enhanced when she was photographed this year emerging from a tête-à-tête lunch with Kate in a London restaurant, where she was overheard amid peals of laughter urging the bride-to-be to follow royal tradition — and Diana’s precedent — by wearing a jeweled tiara at the wedding, something Ms. Middleton apparently thought was too fusty for her taste. But the process of rehabilitation appears to have advanced nowhere near enough — at least not yet — for Camilla, 63, to overcome the widespread opposition polls have shown to her ever being formally proclaimed queen if, and when, Charles, 62, becomes king. For years, the polls have shown 50 to 60 percent of those surveyed in favor of skipping a generation in the succession, relegating Charles and Camilla to a leisured country retirement and jumping straight to William and Kate while they are still relatively young. Partly, the polls reflect a concern that Charles may be too old to become king — in his 70s, perhaps even his 80s — if his mother lives as long as her mother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother , who died at the age of 101 in 2002. Already, he is seen as a fogy, with his passion for double-breasted suits on occasions that cry out for something more casual, and an awkward personal manner that can incline to the pompous and patronizing. But the problem is not Charles’s alone. The polls that show a majority favoring his stepping aside in William’s favor after Queen Elizabeth dies have captured only anemic levels of support — 14 percent in a Harris poll last November — for Camilla’s becoming queen even if Charles does succeed his mother. Against this background — and the hints of a possible constitutional crisis that it carries — the wedding has emerged partly as a story of reconciliation, a stage for the royal family to showcase how far they have progressed in healing the wounds of the past. What more striking demonstration of that could there be than the sight of Camilla seated in the abbey only a few places from the queen, who is said to have described her at the height of the turmoil over Charles and Diana as “that wicked woman”? Friends of Camilla’s interviewed for this article say the public resistance is deeply unfair to a woman who has put barely a foot wrong since marrying Charles. From the start, they say, she and Charles understood that winning public acceptance would be a lengthy process — “the pursuit of a gradual acquiescence,” as one friend put it. One acknowledgment of that came with Camilla taking her titles, Duchess of Cornwall in England and Duchess of Rothesay in Scotland , from Charles’s lesser entitlements, instead of Princess of Wales, the normal title for the wife of the next in line to the throne. Another was Buckingham Palace ’s announcement on the occasion of the couple’s marriage in 2005 that Camilla would take the title of princess consort, not queen, when Charles takes the throne. Friends say that one of Camilla’s strengths has been the stoicism with which she has borne the wounding barbs thrown at her by an unfriendly press which, like much of the public, remains wedded to an iconic image of Diana despite some of the unflattering revelations that have emerged about her since her death in a Paris car crash in 1997. The newspaper The Observer once described Camilla as “an older woman with no dress sense and bird ’s nest hair,” while other newspaper critics have said she “packs the stylistic punch of a Yorkshire pudding,” and have described her variously as an “old boiler,” “old trout,” “hatchet face” and “frump.” Her resilience has been leavened with self-deprecating humor. She has made fun of Diana’s embittered nickname for her, answering the telephone at her country home west of London, “Rottweiler here!” She has never disguised her fondness for a drink, though she gave up a 30-cigarette-a-day smoking habit at the insistence of Charles. After her first, long-delayed meeting with Prince William, in 1998, she is said to have turned to a friend in relief, saying, “I really need a gin and tonic.” Friends note, too, that while she has a reputation for holding strong and often unfashionable views, and an impatience with pomposity or pretension, she has been unusually successful in this generation of royals in not bleeding those views into the public domain. Above all, friends say, she has resisted the temptation to offer a public riposte or even the mildest self-defense against her detractors, as Charles and Diana did by confiding in biographers and television interviewers as their marriage disintegrated. In a country that holds a special contempt for whingers — those inclined to incessant complaint, a shortcoming many have discerned in Prince Charles — she has won praise for what one of her biographers, Rebecca Tyrrel, describes as an attitude of “You just bloody well get on with it.” That view finds wide support. “She’s done a lot in a quiet way,” said William Shawcross, an author and journalist who was a childhood friend of Camilla’s in the rolling hills of West Sussex. “She has grown into her role in a steady and wise manner.” In practice, the potential situations that favor Charles’s giving way to his son, or taking the throne as king without Camilla as his queen, seem likely to collide with political and constitutional reality. For one thing, the royal family has an established aversion to the idea of abdication. King Edward VIII’s decision to quit the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson remains a grim shadow in the royal memory, especially for Queen Elizabeth, who is said to remain haunted by the trauma her father, King George VI , suffered when he was forced to take the throne. In an interview for this article, Richard Drayton, a professor of history at King’s College, London, said that bypassing Charles would face forbidding obstacles, including “an act of Parliament, and probably a decision by Charles himself to abdicate.” Constitutional experts have said that nothing in Britain’s constitutional tradition or common law provides for the wife of the king’s not becoming queen, and that Camilla would, in practice, be Britain’s queen, whatever title she carried. How much Camilla cares is a matter of debate. Some of her friends believe her concern is mostly for Charles, who has always said that he sees it as his destiny to become king, and has worked restlessly to that end, with a schedule of public duties that far outstrip any other royal family member, including his mother. Others say Camilla herself is not as come-what-may about the issue as she has sometimes suggested to friends, and would like one day to be back in the abbey, seated beside Charles, as crowns are placed on their heads. Twice in recent months, the couple has hinted that they remain hopeful of turning the tide of public favor their way on the issue of Camilla’s becoming queen. In an interview in November with Brian Williams of NBC , Charles answered hopefully when asked whether Camilla would ever be the queen. “You know, I mean, we’ll see,” he replied, as if ambushed by the question. “That could be.” In February, it was Camilla’s turn. “Are you going to be queen one day?” a little girl asked her on a visit to a children’s center in the Wiltshire town of Chippenham. “You never know,” Camilla replied, smiling. | Camilla Parker Bowles;Royal family;Great Britain;Weddings and Engagements;Marriage |
ny0083555 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2015/10/07 | Taliban Gain Advantage in Tug of War in Kunduz | KABUL, Afghanistan — A day after Afghan security officials described making major progress in retaking the northern city of Kunduz from Taliban forces, the insurgents on Tuesday once again seem to have seized the upper hand. The Taliban’s white flag was once again hanging on the flagpole over Chowk Square, and half of the city was reported to be under Taliban control. The insurgents continued to fight pitched street battles against Afghan forces, according to residents and some security officials, and the Taliban were pressing into service armored Humvees and pickup trucks they had seized from the troops. The reports from Kunduz contradicted testimony by the American military commander, Gen. John F. Campbell, before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington on Tuesday. He told the panel that most of the city had been retaken from the Taliban , and that the continued fighting had been relegated to isolated pockets in the city as the insurgents “for the most part melted away, left the city.” Public assessments issued by Afghan leaders on Tuesday mostly lined up with General Campbell’s portrayal. “The enemy was pushed out of the city yesterday, the Afghan security forces, especially the Afghan National Army, recaptured the city yesterday,” said Lt. Gen. Afzal Aman, director of operations for the Afghan Ministry of Defense. But the accounts of many Kunduz residents on Tuesday greatly differed, as did details from senior Afghan military officers who spoke off the record because they did not want to publicly contradict government spokesmen who were also claiming improvement in the city. A New York Times reporter returning to Kunduz on Tuesday morning saw a steady stream of Kunduz residents taking advantage of a relative lull in the fighting to flee along the highway to the south, many with their whole families and with cars, trucks and even motorized rickshaws stuffed with their furniture and belongings. Traffic on the highway going the other way, back into Kunduz, was scant, despite government claims that life in Kunduz was returning to normal. “Residents of Kunduz yesterday managed to come out of their homes in a secure environment to buy necessary household items and take a peaceful breath,” said Sediq Sediqqi, the spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, at a news conference in Kabul. However, a military officer stationed in the center of Kunduz said that claim was inaccurate. “None of the streets in the south or north of the city are secure enough for our security forces to walk on,” he said. “As soon as they go out on the street, they get attacked.” Residents, as a result, were staying indoors in most of the city, he said. There was a lull in the morning on Tuesday, but later in the day the Taliban pressed a counterattack, winning back territory they had conceded the day before , in a seesaw that has characterized the past eight days since the Taliban overran all of Kunduz except the airport area in the south on Sept. 28. “We are not even able to sneak out,” said one head of a family living in the central Bandar Khan Abad area. “As soon as we looked out of the gate, we drew fire from Taliban and Afghan forces as well.” The colors on the flagpole over Chowk Square, the city’s central square, have changed four times since the fall of the city, according to local officials, as the front line moved back and forth, ending up with the Taliban’s white flag Tuesday, according to residents in the area reached by telephone. Cinema Square, a short distance away, which formerly had marked the front line, now is firmly under Taliban control, residents said. Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, the police spokesman in Kunduz, claimed that an Afghan flag was now hoisted over the square. “There are no serious threats so far,” he said on Tuesday. “The security clearance operation is still underway and hopefully the enemies will be kicked out soon.” Residents in the center of the city, as well as security officials stationed near Chowk Square, disputed that, saying the insurgents had not only put their own flag back up, but had regained control of the northern part of the city. They said the Taliban were carrying out attacks even in the southern part, and fighting there was reported near the Afghan Police Headquarters and the airport. A senior Afghan military officer blamed a lack of American airstrikes over the past two days for the Taliban advance on Tuesday, in the wake of the American airstrike that destroyed the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz on Saturday and killed 22 people, mostly hospital staff and patients. “The U.S. airstrikes are halted since yesterday evening,” said the officer, who confirmed that the city remains divided between the insurgents and government forces, with some fighting on Tuesday even in the Sare Dawra neighborhood, close to the airport, where the Afghan Army and American Special Operations troops have headquarters. “Until the airstrikes resume, it will be hard to have any progress in the fighting against the Taliban,” he said. The senior officer also blamed a lack of coordination among Afghan units. “There are 10 generals from different organs, and they aren’t under the command of one person who should lead the fighting,” the officer said. “This way, it is unlikely for the Afghan security forces to achieve anything so quickly. The fighting might last for months and Kunduz city may not be retaken.” | Taliban;Kunduz;Afghanistan;John Campbell;Military |
ny0124461 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/08/05 | A Review of the Blue Oar Restaurant, in Haddam | FOR a summertime meal with a Caribbean vibe, it’s hard to do better than the Blue Oar, on the banks of the Connecticut River. Customers pull up in cars or dock their boats at the adjacent Midway Marina, then dig into sandwiches, hot dogs, burgers and more formal entrees at outdoor picnic tables painted in tropical hues. Some dishes seem a bit pricey, but the cash-only restaurant’s B.Y.O.B. policy keeps the bill reasonable. And the view is spectacular. The Blue Oar is owned by Jody and Jim Reilly, who split their time between the riverside restaurant and their second business, Simon’s Marketplace in nearby Chester. Before 1997, marina owners were using the Blue Oar building, which is on stilts, for storage. Ms. Reilly and her husband cleaned it out, painted it yellow, and installed a home refrigerator and grill, opening for business that summer with Mr. Reilly as chef. Customers ate outside at the marina’s few picnic tables. When business grew with word of mouth, the couple expanded the tiny kitchen, installing a professional stove, grill and refrigerators, and set up more tables. It’s first come first served at the Blue Oar, and by 7 p.m. on a sunny Wednesday evening in early July, the place was almost full and my party was lucky to snag a table. All have fine views of the river, but arriving earlier might have guaranteed a front-row seat. Customers take full advantage of the B.Y.O.B. policy to bring wine and more: we saw people setting tables with their own tablecloths, glassware, cutlery, and even flower arrangements. I joined the line that climbed upstairs to the restaurant, read the handwritten menu on the blackboard inside and gave my order at the counter. Customers can choose from bottled water, sodas and other soft drinks in a cooler, take a number and return to their tables, where young waitstaff will deliver the food. A salad of baby lettuces, watermelon and goat cheese was a refreshing appetizer. (It arrived without dressing but a word to one of the roving staff members produced a very sweet balsamic vinaigrette). The Blue Oar’s version of gazpacho, a tomato juice base seasoned with vinegar and garnished with bits of chopped vegetables, was less fresh-tasting than the thicker, more rustic style I’m used to. Three large appetizer scallops were perfectly seared, and translucent inside; the accompanying fresh corn salad, made with coconut milk, was sweet and a little bland. An entree portion of grilled salmon with pesto was moist while a grilled swordfish steak, topped with a tasty, chunky garnish of tomato, artichoke and capers, suffered from overcooking. Sautéed shrimp in coconut sauce with slivered bell peppers was a hit. All were served with jasmine rice — slightly undercooked — and grilled zucchini. At $22 to $26 for these dinner entrees, which despite their prices were not quite up to great restaurant fare, I was happier with the more casual food we’d ordered for a late Sunday lunch in June. A burger and hot dog were terrific, as was the lobster roll, served warm and soaked in butter. A barbecued beef sandwich made with sliced deli meat was more interesting than a very plain, if tender, chicken cutlet sandwich. A large mandarin orange salad with walnuts and blue cheese, a plate of chunky guacamole and a cup of not-too-thick, well-seasoned New England clam chowder rounded out the meal. Don’t miss the beautiful desserts, made by Nancy’s Creations in Middletown. Some tasted as if they’d sat too long in the refrigerator, but the majority were excellent. Individual fruit crumble tarts were cased in crisp, sweet pastry. Assorted mousse cakes were delicate concoctions, thin rounds of cake layered thickly with creamy mousse tasting of Frangelico, chocolate, toasted almond and other flavors. Chocolate brownie and carrot cakes were delicious, dense and chewy. The Blue Oar is open from Mother’s Day to Columbus Day, weather permitting. (With the river rising to within about a foot of the porch during last year’s hurricane, the Reillys packed up at the end of September.) Call ahead if the weather looks inclement; they close for storms and heavy rain. But if you manage to catch a squall, as we did that Sunday afternoon in June, huddled under the eaves, it’s a magnificent sight. The Blue Oar 16 Snyder Road Haddam (860) 345-2994 WORTH IT THE SPACE Outdoor dining on plastic plates at colorful picnic tables at Midway Marina, with a breathtaking view of the Connecticut River. A handful of tables are nestled under the eaves of the restaurant’s porch; a free-standing shelter protects a few more. Bathrooms up the hill. Wheelchair access; ask the staff to bring menus to the table. THE CROWD A festive crowd of all ages arrives by car and boat in picnic attire. Ideal for children, couples, family get-togethers and small groups. THE BAR Bring your own wine and spirits. Restaurant will provide cups, and sells non-alcoholic drinks, $2 to $2.50. THE BILL Appetizers, $5.95 to $12; sandwiches, hot dogs, burgers, and lobster rolls, $4.50 to $16.95; dinner entrees (served after 5 p.m.), $22 to $26. Cash only. WHAT WE LIKED Guacamole, mandarin salad, watermelon salad, New England clam chowder; cheeseburger, lobster roll, barbecued beef sandwich, hot dog; salmon with pesto, grilled swordfish with artichokes, tomato, and capers; shrimp with coconut; apple and blueberry crumb tarts; Frangelico, toasted almond, tiramisù, chocolate and chocolate-raspberry mousse cakes; carrot and brownie cakes. Menu changes daily. IF YOU GO Open seven days, Mother’s Day through Columbus Day, weather permitting. Lunch, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; some sandwiches, salads and burgers available 3 to 5 p.m.; dinner, 5 to 9 p.m. No reservations. Parking in graveled lot out front. RATINGS Don’t Miss, Worth It, O.K., Don’t Bother. | Restaurants;Connecticut;Blue Oar (Haddam Conn Restaurant);Haddam (Conn);Blue Oar (Haddam Conn) |
ny0145311 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2008/10/24 | Drills Heighten Brazil-Paraguay Tensions | RIO DE JANEIRO — Tensions between Brazil and Paraguay , already high because of land invasions of Brazilian-controlled farms inside Paraguay, intensified this week after Brazil’s army began exercises in the border region. Paraguay’s president, Fernando Lugo, responded sternly, warning Brazil in a news conference in Asunción, Paraguay’s capital, that “not even one millimeter of the territorial sovereignty of the country can be bothered.” If that happens, he added, “the Paraguayan reaction will be swift.” Paraguayan television this week showed armed Brazilian troops occupying the “Friendship Bridge” separating the countries at Ciudad del Este. It was a chilling scene for Paraguayans, who are bitterly aware of how their country was torn apart by Brazilian invaders in a war 140 years ago. Brazil’s maneuvers come as the Paraguayan countryside has become increasingly violent. Newspapers have been filled with accounts of deadly conflicts between the police and peasants and between peasants and armed militias controlled by Brazilian farmers. The issue is complicating the countries’ relationship and the nascent presidency of Mr. Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop and a champion of the poor. A senior Brazilian diplomat in Brasília denied Thursday in an interview that the military operations, being carried out in the state of Alto Paraná, were related to the land confrontations involving peasants. The diplomat said periodic exercises took place in the border area, which is known for illicit commerce. “The last thing the Brazilian government is going to do is use its troops to intervene in an internal Paraguayan issue,” the diplomat said. Still, Brazilian officials expressed concern. A statement by the Brazilian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said the landless peasants’ movement “threatened to unleash violent actions against communities of Brazilians living in Paraguay.” The statement added that the “threats” by the peasants had been the subject of “apprehension on the part of Brazilian authorities,” and that Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, had mentioned the concern last month in a meeting with Mr. Lugo. The Paraguayan peasants say that land is being occupied illegally by Brazilian farmers and that corrupt officials have allowed the outsiders to acquire it for decades. The election in April of Mr. Lugo, who spent 11 years working with landless peasants in the countryside, has emboldened them to invade farms controlled by Brazilian soybean producers. Mr. Lugo acknowledged this week that Paraguay’s sovereignty had not been violated. But he underscored that the military operations had touched a nerve in Paraguay, which was devastated in the 1865-1870 War of the Triple Alliance, which led to years of Brazilian military occupation. While Mr. Lugo is seemingly beholden to the peasants who believe in him, he also must show he can enforce the rule of law. And a key part of his platform involved efforts to renegotiate contracts with Brazil for the Itaipú hydroelectric plant, along the two countries’ border. Paraguay wants more money for power that is produced at the jointly owned plant. Fears were heightened last weekend when Paraguayan news outlets replayed an interview from July with the commander of Brazilian border forces, Gen. José Carvalho Siqueira. Referring to a hypothetical occupation of hydroelectric plants by a foreign social movement, the general was quoted as saying that the Brazilian Army existed to “carry out whatever mission in whatever part of the national territory; if the president determines that an action should be undertaken, then it should be carried out.” | Paraguay;Brazil;International Relations;Politics and Government |
ny0244275 | [
"science"
] | 2011/04/03 | Japan’s Nuclear Crisis Is Seen Clearly From Afar | For the clearest picture of what is happening at Japan ’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, talk to scientists thousands of miles away. Thanks to the unfamiliar but sophisticated art of atomic forensics , experts around the world have been able to document the situation vividly. Over decades, they have become very good at illuminating the hidden workings of nuclear power plants from afar, turning scraps of information into detailed analyses. For example, an analysis by a French energy company revealed far more about the condition of the plant’s reactors than the Japanese have ever described: water levels at the reactor cores dropping by as much as three-quarters, and temperatures in those cores soaring to nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to burn and melt the zirconium casings that protect the fuel rods. Scientists in Europe and America also know from observing the explosions of hydrogen gas at the plant that the nuclear fuel rods had heated to very dangerous levels, and from radioactive plumes how far the rods had disintegrated. At the same time, the evaluations also show that the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi escaped the deadliest outcomes — a complete meltdown of the plant. Most of these computer-based forensics systems were developed after the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island, when regulators found they were essentially blind to what was happening in the reactor. Since then, to satisfy regulators, companies that run nuclear power plants use snippets of information coming out of a plant to develop simulations of what is happening inside and to perform a variety of risk evaluations. Indeed, the detailed assessments of the Japanese reactors that Energy Secretary Steven Chu gave on Friday — when he told reporters that about 70 percent of the core of one reactor had been damaged, and that another reactor had undergone a 33 percent meltdown — came from forensic modeling. The bits of information that drive these analyses range from the simple to the complex. They can include everything from the length of time a reactor core lacked cooling water to the subtleties of the gases and radioactive particles being emitted from the plant. Engineers feed the data points into computer simulations that churn out detailed portraits of the imperceptible, including many specifics on the melting of the hot fuel cores. Governments and companies now possess dozens of these independently developed computer programs, known in industry jargon as “safety codes.” Many of these institutions — including ones in Japan — are relying on forensic modeling to analyze the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi to plan for a range of activities, from evacuations to forecasting the likely outcome. “The codes got better and better” after the accident at Three Mile Island revealed the poor state of reactor assessment, said Michael W. Golay, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These portraits of the Japanese disaster tend to be proprietary and confidential, and in some cases secret. One reason the assessments are enormously sensitive for industry and government is the relative lack of precedent: The atomic age has seen the construction of nearly 600 civilian power plants, but according to the World Nuclear Association, only three have undergone serious accidents in which their fuel cores melted down. Now, as a result of the crisis in Japan, the atomic simulations suggest that the number of serious accidents has suddenly doubled, with three of the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi complex in some stage of meltdown. Even so, the public authorities have sought to avoid grim technical details that might trigger alarm or even panic. “They don’t want to go there,” said Robert Alvarez, a nuclear expert who, from 1993 to 1999, was a policy adviser to the secretary of energy. “The spin is all about reassurance.” If events in Japan unfold as they did at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, the forensic modeling could go on for some time. It took more than three years before engineers lowered a camera to visually inspect the damaged core of the Pennsylvania reactor, and another year to map the extent of the destruction. The core turned out to be about half melted. By definition, a meltdown is the severe overheating of the core of a nuclear reactor that results in either the partial or full liquefaction of its uranium fuel and supporting metal lattice, at times with the atmospheric release of deadly radiation. Partial meltdowns usually strike a core’s middle regions instead of the edge, where temperatures are typically lower. The main meltdowns of the past at civilian plants were Three Mile Island in 1979, the St.-Laurent reactor in France in 1980, and Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986. One of the first safety codes to emerge after Three Mile Island was the Modular Accident Analysis Program. Running on a modest computer, it simulates reactor crises based on such information as the duration of a power blackout and the presence of invisible wisps of radioactive materials. Robert E. Henry, a developer of the code at Fauske & Associates, an engineering company near Chicago, said that a first sign of major trouble at any reactor was the release of hydrogen — a highly flammable gas that has fueled several large explosions at Fukushima Daiichi. The gas, he said in an interview, indicated that cooling water had fallen low, exposing the hot fuel rods. The next alarms, Dr. Henry said, centered on various types of radioactivity that signal increasingly high core temperatures and melting. First, he said, “as the core gets hotter and hotter,” easily evaporated products of atomic fission — like iodine 131 and cesium 137 — fly out. If temperatures rise higher, threatening to melt the core entirely, he added, less volatile products such as strontium 90 and plutonium 239 join the rising plume. The lofting of the latter particles in large quantities points to “substantial fuel melting,” Dr. Henry said. He added that he and his colleagues modeled the Japanese accident in its first days and discerned partial — not full — core melting. Micro-Simulation Technology, a software company in Montville, N.J., used its own computer code to model the Japanese accident. It found core temperatures in the reactors soaring as high as 2,250 degrees Celsius, or more than 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to liquefy many reactor metals. “Some portion of the core melted,” said Li-chi Cliff Po, the company’s president. He called his methods simpler than most industry simulations, adding that the Japanese disaster was relatively easy to model because the observable facts of the first hours and days were so unremittingly bleak — “no water in, no injection” to cool the hot cores. “I don’t think there’s any mystery or foul play,” Dr. Po said of the disaster’s scale. “It’s just so bad.” The big players in reactor modeling are federal laboratories and large nuclear companies such as General Electric, Westinghouse and Areva, a French group that supplied reactor fuel to the Japanese complex. The Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque wrote one of the most respected codes. It models whole plants and serves as a main tool of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Washington agency that oversees the nation’s reactors. Areva and French agencies use a reactor code-named Cathare, a complicated acronym that also refers to a kind of goat’s milk cheese. On March 21, Stanford University presented an invitation-only panel discussion on the Japanese crisis that featured Alan Hanson, an executive vice president of Areva NC, a unit of the company focused on the nuclear fuel cycle. “Clearly,” he told the audience, “we’re witnessing one of the greatest disasters in modern time.” Dr. Hanson, a nuclear engineer, presented a slide show that he said the company’s German unit had prepared. That division, he added, “has been analyzing this accident in great detail.” The presentation gave a blow-by-blow of the accident’s early hours and days. It said drops in cooling water exposed up to three-quarters of the reactor cores, and that peak temperatures hit 2,700 degrees Celsius, or more than 4,800 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s hot enough to melt steel and zirconium — the main ingredient in the metallic outer shell of a fuel rod, known as the cladding. “Zirconium in the cladding starts to burn,” said the slide presentation. At the peak temperature, it continued, the core experienced “melting of uranium-zirconium eutectics,” a reactor alloy. A slide with a cutaway illustration of a reactor featured a glowing hot mass of melted fuel rods in the middle of the core and noted “release of fission products” during meltdown. The products are radioactive fragments of split atoms that can result in cancer and other serious illnesses. Stanford, where Dr. Hanson is a visiting scholar, posted the slides online after the March presentation. At that time, each of the roughly 30 slides was marked with the Areva symbol or name, and each also gave the name of their author, Matthias Braun. The posted document was later changed to remove all references to Areva, and Dr. Braun and Areva did not reply to questions about what simulation code or codes the company may have used to arrive at its analysis of the Fukushima disaster. “We cannot comment on that,” Jarret Adams, a spokesman for Areva, said of the slide presentation. The reason, he added, was “because it was not an officially released document.” A European atomic official monitoring the Fukushima crisis expressed sympathy for Japan’s need to rely on forensics to grasp the full dimensions of the unfolding disaster. “Clearly, there’s no access to the core,” the official said. “The Japanese are honestly blind.” | Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (Japan);Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (2011);Nuclear Energy;Japan |
ny0105005 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/03/15 | In Albany, Lawmakers Approve Pension Cuts and Redistricting | ALBANY — Lawmakers on Thursday morning approved a hard-fought measure to cut the retirement benefits for future public employees in New York City and across the state, dealing a defeat to labor unions at the end of a dramatic all-night session. The pension changes were less drastic than those sought by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo , applying to fewer employees and saving less money than he had hoped. But they reflect a blow to the state’s public-employee unions, which are enormously powerful in Albany and have been frequent sparring partners for Mr. Cuomo as he has sought to rein in costs. “This bold and transformational pension reform plan is a historic win for New York taxpayers and municipalities,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. “Without this critical reform, New Yorkers would have seen significant tax increases, as well as layoffs to teachers, firefighters and police.” The pension changes were part of a policy package approved overnight that resolved several of the thorniest issues facing lawmakers this year. Working through the night, the Legislature approved a reconfiguration of the state’s Assembly and Senate districts, the language of a proposed constitutional amendment to legalize casino gambling and the creation of one of the most extensive criminal DNA databases in the nation. The governor and legislative leaders first allowed the public to see the details of the pension legislation at 3 a.m. Thursday. The Republican-controlled Senate approved the measure an hour later, despite the absence of most of the chamber’s Democrats, who had walked out over redistricting. Democrats argued that the pension vote was invalid because there was no quorum present for the vote; Republicans insisted that a quorum had been met for the pension vote. The Democrat-controlled Assembly approved the pension changes shortly after 7 a.m. The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver , a Manhattan Democrat, had kept the voting open for nearly two hours as he called in lawmakers who had gone to sleep in a tense effort to muster the votes for passage. In the end, the Assembly approved the measure by a comfortable margin. The pension deal comes as state and local governments around the country take similar steps to reduce retirement costs, often prompting pitched battles with labor unions. From 2009 to 2011, 43 states enacted major changes to retirement plans for public employees and teachers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. “The message is, the traditional package of retirement benefits has become unaffordable,” said Ronald Snell, a senior fellow at the conference. Mr. Snell said the deal approved in Albany was similar to measures passed in other states, in that it reduced the benefits offered to some public employees instead of overhauling the structure of the pension system itself. Mr. Cuomo had significantly scaled back the most contentious portion of his pension proposal, which would have given new public workers the option of forgoing a traditional pension and instead choosing a defined contribution plan, similar to a 401(k) . He and lawmakers agreed to offer the defined contribution option, but only to new state workers who earn $75,000 or more and are nonunionized. In another concession by Mr. Cuomo, the deal did not make significant changes to the retirement benefits of New York City police officers and firefighters. But state and city officials said the measure would still save more than $80 billion for the state and local governments in the next 30 years — including $21 billion for New York City — by reducing the benefits promised to new workers. For example, the legislation raises the minimum retirement age to 63 from 62 for state workers. It will also require most workers to increase the portion of their salaries that they contribute to the pension system from the current 3 percent to as much as 6 percent for the highest earners. Reining in ballooning pension costs topped the legislative wish-list for a parade of municipal leaders around the state, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg , who said Mr. Cuomo “has got to get an A-plus” for persuading lawmakers to resist pressure from labor unions and approve the changes. “This is real reform, and for the taxpayers of the state gives them a better deal for their money,” Mr. Bloomberg said in a telephone interview. “It does not hurt any of our current employees or any of our current retirees, and down the road, if people don’t want to come to work for the city or the state, they don’t have to. But I think this is still a phenomenally generous plan.” Mr. Cuomo’s efforts have infuriated labor leaders. Danny Donohue, the president of the state’s largest union of public workers, the Civil Service Employees Association, said that the pension deal was “shoved down the throat of state legislators fixated on their own self-preservation.” “This deal is about politicians standing with the 1 percent — the wealthiest New Yorkers — to give them a better break while telling nurses, bus drivers, teachers, secretaries, and laborers to put up and shut up,” Mr. Donohue said after the vote approving the pension changes. Overnight, lawmakers also approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow full-scale commercial casinos. The state has nine racetrack gambling parlors and five American Indian casinos; the amendment, which would have to be approved once more by the Legislature and then by voters, would authorize up to seven Las Vegas -style casinos. Lawmakers also completed their part of a contentious redistricting compromise with Mr. Cuomo. He had pledged during his campaign for governor not to approve maps unless they were drawn by an independent body, but he reversed his position because, he said, approval of the maps drawn by the Legislature enabled him to get long-term redistricting reform. In exchange for Mr. Cuomo’s approval of the maps, lawmakers agreed to support a constitutional amendment that would create a bipartisan redistricting commission after the 2020 census. In an effort to ensure that the Legislature follows through with its pledge to approve the constitutional amendment two years in a row, Mr. Cuomo insisted that it pass a law that would grant the governor greater power over redistricting if the Legislature abandoned the amendment. The Assembly and the Senate approved the lawmaker-drawn maps and the constitutional amendment late Wednesday night, and the backup law early Thursday. The maps approved by the Legislature were for legislative districts only; lawmakers have been unable to agree on how to reduce the number of Congressional districts in the state to 27 from 29 and have left that task to a federal court. Mr. Cuomo’s compromise on legislative redistricting drew criticism from Senate Democrats, who departed the chamber en masse rather than participate in the vote, held just before midnight. Government watchdog groups are pressing the governor to veto the maps, which they described as gerrymandered to protect incumbents and as unfair to minority voters. The Senate minority leader, John L. Sampson , a Brooklyn Democrat, questioned whether Mr. Cuomo had dropped his opposition to the redistricting maps in exchange for passage of his pension proposal. “I would expect this if a Republican was governor,” Mr. Sampson said. He added, “Governor Cuomo always talks about how Albany has changed. Albany hasn’t changed. Albany has changed for the worst.” Former Mayor Edward I. Koch , who had pressed legislators to pledge during the last election season that they would support independent redistricting, said the deal struck by Mr. Cuomo “puts off reform for a decade and forces the voters to endure 10 more years of the undemocratic way the Legislature’s district lines are drawn.” “I am disappointed that the governor compromised,” Mr. Koch said. The DNA database expansion was resolved more amicably. The state now collects DNA from all convicted felons and some misdemeanants; the measure approved by lawmakers will allow it to collect samples from anyone convicted of a crime. The legislation also attempts to address concerns raised by defense lawyers about wrongful convictions . It allows people convicted of a crime to petition a judge to force the prosecution to turn over all evidence from the case. And it permits defendants to ask a judge to allow testing of DNA samples from that evidence against the state’s database. Also, people convicted of misdemeanor marijuana possession will not have to give a DNA sample if they have no prior criminal record. The all-night session in Albany resolved many of the most prominent issues facing the Legislature. Lawmakers have not yet reached an agreement on a state budget for the fiscal year that begins April 1, but legislative leaders have expressed confidence that they would reach a deal within days. | Pensions and Retirement Plans;Redistricting and Reapportionment;Andrew Cuomo;New York;Casino;State legislature;Politics;House races;Civil service |
ny0028508 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2013/01/23 | Four More Years, Yes, but It’s the First One That Really Counts | WASHINGTON — The Constitution may promise President Obama another four years in the White House, but political reality calls for a far shorter time frame: he has perhaps as little as a year to accomplish his big-ticket goals for a second term. As the president begins promoting his agenda of tackling gun control, immigration and climate change, even while bracing for yet another deadline-driven fiscal debate with Republicans, his advisers are scrambling to prioritize his ambitions to avoid squandering precious time. Tensions are already emerging between the White House and some Democrats about how much emphasis the president and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. should give their gun control measures and whether a drawn-out debate over the Second Amendment could imperil the rest of the party’s initiatives, particularly on immigration. The mass shooting last month in Newtown, Conn., elevated gun control on the administration’s agenda, suddenly competing with plans to push for sweeping changes in the nation’s immigration laws. Faced with a choice after his re-election in 2004, President George W. Bush chose to pursue a Social Security overhaul before an immigration bill and, amid partisan rancor over the Social Security fight, ended up getting neither. For all of the revelry surrounding the president’s second inauguration this week, Mr. Obama, his aides and Congressional allies know that their window of opportunity narrows with each passing month. “You hope and plan for a year, with the understanding that it could be several months less or several months more,” said Robert Gibbs, the former White House press secretary and longtime adviser to Mr. Obama. “It does require having a step-by-step plan for the year because you have a finite amount of time.” The tenor of the president’s Inaugural Address on Monday, where he delivered a forceful argument for pursuing an ambitious liberal agenda, signaled that Mr. Obama might try to approach Republicans with a sterner hand than he did in his first term. Already, he has signed executive orders on gun control and, at least for the moment, forced a Republican retreat on raising the debt ceiling. Yet some of Mr. Obama’s most ambitious goals still require action from Congress, and Republicans still control the House. Even the Republicans’ decision to agree to an effective three-month extension on the debt ceiling creates complications, by keeping the budget fight high on the agenda. Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, expressed the uphill climb with fiscal matters looming over the Capitol Hill, declaring: “We have to do a budget. We aren’t going to do anything of consequence here until the budget is done.” The State of the Union address that Mr. Obama will deliver to Congress on Feb. 12 will offer the most definitive road map yet for how the White House will set priorities in his second term as well as how it intends to avoid becoming mired in a heated debate over one contentious topic to the detriment of the full agenda. “There’s no doubt you want to get off to a strong start, and we’ve got a pretty big dance card,” said David Plouffe, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama who is leaving the White House this week. He ticked through a list of agenda items that included guns, immigration and fiscal issues, but he disputed the suggestion that one item would overtake the others. “We clearly have this moment where we can get immigration done,” Mr. Plouffe added. “If we don’t get it done, then shame on us. We’ve got to seize this opportunity.” The president has been studying the experiences of previous second-term administrations, aides said, including how Mr. Bush decided to put his plans to overhaul Social Security ahead of immigration in 2005. The failed fight over creating privatized Social Security accounts fractured Republicans, energized Democrats and complicated the rest of Mr. Bush’s term. Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff to Mr. Bush for six years, said the failure to pass immigration legislation stands as a lesson to second-term presidents, including Mr. Obama, that “you can’t get everything that you want — that’s an unfortunate reality.” The first year of a second term is about accomplishment and legacy, Mr. Card said, and should be planned carefully before the attention starts shifting away from the president. “It is the agenda year,” Mr. Card said in an interview. “He will command attention, respect — and probably vitriol — for probably the next three years. After that, he’ll have to adjust to the klieg lights starting to shine on somebody else.” Mr. Obama, like all presidents in their second term, will surely have to fight to stay relevant at some point, even if his advisers believe that moment is still well in the future. The phrase “lame duck” ultimately creeps into every White House, former administration officials say, regardless of a president’s stature. A gradual slide is likely to begin after the 2014 midterm elections, the outcome of which will help shape the last two years of Mr. Obama’s presidency. “There will be a new leader of the brand,” said Sara Taylor Fagen, the political director in the Bush administration’s second term. “And you are not going to enact major reform the year before a presidential race.” To extend the power of the Oval Office, the president has also already signaled that he intends to try to leverage his authority more fully through executive actions that do not require Congressional approval. He has instructed his legislative aides and the legal team in the White House Counsel’s Office to review all avenues, as he did with gun control measures last week, to pursue priorities that would otherwise be met with resistance from Republicans on Capitol Hill. “You can’t just sit there and kind of fantasize about what would be great to do,” Mr. Plouffe said. “In a lot of these areas, there are limits. “But I think it’s fair to say that we are going to continue to audit every idea and every possibility where we can do things on our own where Congress won’t act.” | Barack Obama;US Politics |
ny0223240 | [
"science",
"space"
] | 2010/11/19 | Comet Hartley 2 Is Spewing Ice, NASA Photos Show | A peanut-shaped comet was spewing hundreds of pounds of fluffy ice chunks every second as a NASA spacecraft swung by it two weeks ago. “To me, this whole thing looks like a snow globe that you’ve simply just shaken,” Peter H. Schultz, a Brown University professor working on the mission, said Thursday during a news conference. The Deep Impact spacecraft passed within 435 miles of Comet Hartley 2 two weeks ago, producing a series of photographs that showed bright jets coming off a rough surface. What fascinated the mission scientists most was that the chunks of water ice in the jets were not being lifted off the surface by the force of water vapor heated by the sun, but rather by jets of carbon dioxide. This was the first time that such carbon dioxide jets had been observed at a comet. Frozen carbon dioxide — dry ice — turns to carbon dioxide gas at a temperature of about minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Water ice stays frozen until it reaches much higher temperatures. Thus, it appears that the carbon dioxide gas on the comet is blowing apart the still-frozen water ice, along with dust particles, and sending it into space. The scientists who analyzed the photos of Hartley 2 said that the frozen carbon dioxide within the comet must date from the beginnings of the solar system, because once it turns to gas, it disperses into space. “If it’s there, it’s primordial,” Lori M. Feaga, another member of the science team, said in an interview. While the bright specks seen in the images ranged in size from golf balls to perhaps basketballs, the spacecraft did not suffer any damage as it flew through the storm at a speed of 27,000 miles an hour. From the absorption of light by the specks, the scientists deduced that the chunks were not solid ice. “We’re not seeing hail-size softballs or even ice cubes,” said Jessica M. Sunshine, a deputy principal investigator on the mission. “What we’re seeing are fluffy aggregates of very small pieces of ice. And so, they’re akin more to maybe a dandelion puff that is very empty air that can be easily broken apart.” The carbon dioxide jets are coming off the two lobe-shaped ends of the comet, which is just three-quarters of a mile long. The spacecraft also found large amounts of water vapor — and not carbon dioxide — emanating from the central narrow waist region between the two lobes. This may mean that, for reasons not yet deciphered, the middle part of the comet does not contain much carbon dioxide, and thus the water ice in it can warm into vapor. “We wouldn’t expect this at all,” Dr. Sunshine said. “This comet is doing two things at once.” The Hartley 2 findings differ significantly from what the Deep Impact spacecraft found when it visited Comet Tempel 1 five years ago. At Tempel 1, Deep Impact found water vapor emissions similar to those coming from the middle of Hartley 2, but no carbon dioxide jets and no visible chunks of water ice. After the Tempel 1 visit, NASA decided to reuse the spacecraft, which still had ample maneuvering fuel left, to head to a second comet. The mission was renamed Epoxi , an amalgamation of two acronyms: Epoch, or Extrasolar Planet Observation and Characterization, which has been using one of the spacecraft’s cameras to look at stars known to have planets, and Dixi, or Deep Impact Extended Investigation, for the second comet fly-by. “It has emphasized how different comets are from one another and how understanding them is a much more complex problem than the rather simplistic approach I like to normally take,” said Michael F. A’Hearn, Epoxi’s principal investigator. | Comets;Ice;National Aeronautics and Space Administration;Carbon Dioxide;Space;Science and Technology |
ny0092443 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2015/08/26 | Morocco: 14 Arrested in Joint Antiterrorism Raids | At least 14 people were arrested Tuesday in Morocco and Spain on suspicion of belonging to a cell that recruited fighters for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the authorities said. Morocco’s Interior Ministry said 13 people had been arrested in raids in several cities across the country, including Nador and Al Hoceima on the Mediterranean coast, and Fez and Casablanca. Spain’s Interior Ministry said one person had been arrested in the town of San Martín de la Vega, southeast of Madrid. Both governments said the cell was aimed at recruitment and at carrying out militant attacks in the two countries. The Moroccan and Spanish authorities have previously carried out joint operations focused on Melilla and Ceuta, Spain’s enclaves in North Africa, and the surrounding Moroccan cities. | Terrorism;Islam;ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State;Morocco;Spain |
ny0254251 | [
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] | 2011/07/17 | Former Coach Accused of Fraud | Jim Donnan, the former head coach at Georgia, has been accused of making millions of dollars from a Ponzi scheme . Federal documents filed this week in bankruptcy court in Ohio contend that Jim Donnan and his wife, Mary, attracted investments for GLC Ltd., which filed for bankruptcy in February. Donnan’s attorney, Ed Tolley, has denied allegations of wrongdoing. | Coaches and Managers;College Athletics;University of Georgia;Ponzi and Pyramid Schemes;Donnan Jim;Football (College) |
ny0065623 | [
"business"
] | 2014/06/07 | G.M. Lawyers Hid Fatal Flaw, From Critics and One Another | DETROIT — To the legal department at General Motors, secrecy ruled. Employees were discouraged from taking notes in meetings. Workers’ emails were examined once a year for sensitive information that might be used against the company. G.M. lawyers even kept their knowledge of fatal accidents related to a defective ignition switch from their own boss, the company’s general counsel, Michael P. Millikin. An internal investigation released on Thursday into the company’s failure to recall millions of defective small cars found no evidence of a cover-up. But interviews with victims, their lawyers and current and former G.M. employees, as well as evidence in the report itself, paint a more complete picture: The automaker’s legal department took actions that obscured the deadly flaw, both inside and outside the company. While Mr. Millikin survived the dismissals this week of 15 G.M. employees tied to the delayed recall, his department was hit hard. At least three senior lawyers are among the employees who lost their jobs as a result of the investigation conducted by the former United States attorney Anton R. Valukas. Mr. Millikin was absolved of wrongdoing in the report. But the very secrecy that his department valued kept him from knowing about a safety crisis that has rocked the company, the report said. One of the lawyers dismissed this week was William Kemp, who had been orchestrating G.M.’s legal strategy and in-house investigations of the defective ignition switch for more than two years before the recall. Yet it was not until early February, days after a high-level committee finally ordered the switch recall, that Mr. Kemp informed Mr. Millikin of the deadly consequences of the flawed part. G.M. has linked 13 deaths and 54 crashes to the defect. In his report, Mr. Valukas said he interviewed Mr. Kemp about his failure to tell Mr. Millikin that people were dying in G.M. vehicles because of the switch. “He could not explain why he did not raise it with Mr. Millikin earlier,” Mr. Valukas wrote. “And in hindsight says he probably should have.” That seemingly casual response to a life-threatening safety problem is at the heart of what G.M.’s chief executive, Mary T. Barra, denounced as a “pattern of incompetence and neglect” at the company that allowed a defective part to exist in its vehicles for more than 10 years. The legal department’s role in the switch crisis is expected to be a prime topic of congressional hearings on the recall. While legal departments seek to defend a corporation, that mission appeared to go too far in G.M.’s case — to the point that the department’s actions ultimately worked against the automaker. At a hearing in April, Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, said she hoped to question G.M. lawyers, including Mr. Millikin, about the testimony of the chief switch engineer, Raymond DeGiorgio, in a wrongful-death lawsuit last year. Mr. DeGiorgio testified under oath in the case that he did not order improvements to the switch in 2006. But internal G.M. documents given to federal investigators later revealed that he did approve a change to the switch but kept it secret by retaining the part identification number. His actions, according to Mr. Valukas’s report, prevented others at G.M. from discovering that the original, faulty switch could suddenly cut engine power and disable air bags. Moreover, the case involving Mr. DeGiorgio was settled by G.M. lawyers when an engineer hired by the victim’s family proved that the switch had indeed been changed. That revelation prompted one G.M. lawyer, Philip Holladay, to call the case a “very poor trial candidate” and say it “needs to be settled.” Image Michael Millikin, G.M. counsel, and Mary Barra, chief executive, testified on Capitol Hill in April. Credit Kevin Lamarque/Reuters And, according to the internal investigative report, it led to a meeting last Aug. 7 of Mr. Kemp and three other G.M. lawyers on the company’s “settlement review committee.” The case, Mr. Valukas wrote, was settled for $5 million, which was the maximum amount allowed “without the approval of the general counsel.” It was the fifth settlement made by G.M. lawyers of a fatal accident case tied to the switch. Last month, federal regulators imposed a $35 million penalty, the maximum allowed, on the company for its failure to report the defect in a timely manner. Mr. Kemp’s dismissal is an indication of the legal department’s role in helping keep the switch problems secret from the public and regulators, said Richard Zitrin, a professor of legal ethics at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law. “That says to me that the G.M. lawyers were involved in keeping the ignition failure secret case by case,” said Mr. Zitrin, who has helped draft new federal legislation that would make it difficult for corporations to enter into confidential settlements. Mr. Valukas’s report details multiple meetings in 2012 and 2013 in which G.M. lawyers took a lead role in the company’s futile investigations of the switch. Mr. Kemp chose certain executives to “champion” inquiries into the switch problems and air bag issues, the report said. Beyond that, Mr. Valukas said employees he interviewed told him they had refrained from taking notes in safety meetings “because they believed G.M. lawyers did not want notes taken.” Mr. Zitrin said banning note-taking was not a standard practice in corporate law offices. The secrecy factor extended to how some employees kept or discarded old emails. According to two former G.M. officials, company lawyers conducted annual audits of some employees’ emails that could be used as evidence in lawsuits against the company. The audits were part of a larger program called “information life-cycle management,” used primarily to downsize data in the company’s computers, a common practice in companies. A G.M. spokesman, Greg Martin, declined to comment on the program and the legal department’s involvement in it. The impact of Mr. Valukas’s report on the department has been swift and severe. A person briefed on the employee dismissals said they included Mr. Kemp and Lawrence Buonomo, head of product litigation. A third lawyer, Jennifer Sevigny, was also dismissed. All three lawyers were part of the team that handled the confidential settlement in which Mr. DeGiorgio, who has also been fired, was involved. Even after being expunged from G.M., the lawyers are keeping quiet about the events leading up to the ignition-switch recall in February. Mr. Kemp could not be reached for comment, and Mr. Buonomo did not return a call at his home. When reached by telephone, Ms. Sevigny declined to confirm or deny that she had been fired, and asked that any further questions be directed to her lawyer. In the report, Mr. Kemp looked back on one of the settled cases with a certain regret. Years before, a police trooper in Wisconsin identified the switch defect and filed documents to prove it with G.M.’s legal department. They sat on the company’s servers as early as February 2007. For seven years, nobody read them. When asked last month about that evidence and how G.M.’s legal department overlooked it, Mr. Kemp said, it is “always disappointing when someone outside the company knows more about your product than you do,” according to Mr. Valukas’s report. | GM;Lawsuits;Automobile safety;Mary Barra;Anton R Valukas;Raymond DeGiorgio;Michael Millikin;Bill Kemp;Recalls and Bans |
ny0064553 | [
"sports",
"worldcup"
] | 2014/06/18 | World Cup 2014: Belgium Defeats Algeria With Second-Half Goals | Belgium opened its World Cup Group H campaign with a 2-1 comeback win over Algeria in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, on Tuesday, relying on second-half goals from two substitutes. Marouane Fellaini’s strong, glancing header in the 70th minute with his back to goal came from a Kevin De Bruyne cross. Fellaini had only entered the game five minutes earlier and was Coach Marc Wilmots’s last of three substitutions. Ten minutes later, Dries Mertens’s shot beat Algeria goalkeeper Raïs M’Bolhi from close range after Eden Hazard set him up for the decider. Mertens came on at the start of the second half. “We knew it would be tough, that there would be no space,” Wilmots said. “We made one error and we paid for it. The bench made the difference. We showed mental strength and we came back.” Algeria midfielder Sofiane Feghouli converted a penalty in the first half after he was dragged down in the penalty area by Belgium left back Jan Vertonghen. Algeria was on course to produce another upset of a major team, as it did in 1982 when it beat West Germany in its first group match in Spain. But the Algerians were tired by the end, after having started the game brightly. Belgium is billed as the favorite in Group H, which also includes Russia and South Korea. But Algeria dominated possession in the opening minutes, surging forward and moving the ball with flair. Belgium eventually settled down and regained control, ending the match with 65 percent possession. Before Belgium’s comeback, the Algeria defense held firm, setting up bulwark in the final third of the field. When Belgium had the ball, Algeria defenders allowed them little room to maneuver. Algerian defenders at times doubled up on Hazard, shutting down space for him to operate down the left. Defensive midfielder Axel Witsel had Belgium’s best two opportunities in the first half — powerful 25-yard shots parried by the Algeria goalkeeper in the 21st and 34th minutes — and also snuffed out Algeria threats by protecting the back four and winning numerous aerial duels. Wilmots brought on Mertens for Nacer Chadli after halftime to give Belgium more of an attacking edge. He also took off the lone striker Romelu Lukaku, who was left stranded and had a disappointing match, and replaced him with Divock Origi in the 58th. He made his final substitution in the 65th when he brought on Fellanini for Moussa Dembele to give the team more of a physical presence. | 2014 World Cup;Belo Horizonte Brazil;Soccer;Marouane Fellaini;Dries Mertens;Belgium;Algeria;Russia;South Korea |
ny0173958 | [
"business"
] | 2007/10/11 | Stock Sales by Chief of Lender Questioned | The Securities and Exchange Commission has been asked to investigate stock sales made by Angelo R. Mozilo, chief executive of the mortgage lender Countrywide Financial , in the months before its shares plummeted amid the deepening mortgage crisis. In an Oct. 8 letter to the S.E.C. chairman, Christopher Cox, the state treasurer of North Carolina, Richard H. Moore, questioned changes Mr. Mozilo made to his arranged stock selling program, adjustments that allowed him to increase significantly his sales of Countrywide shares. After starting a plan in October 2006, Mr. Mozilo twice raised the number of shares that could be sold: once in December 2006, when Countrywide stock was $40.50, and again in February, when it hit a high of $45.03. He has had gains of $132 million since starting the October 2006 plan and expects to sell his remaining shares by the end of the week, a move that will generate millions more. “As an investor and a Countrywide shareholder, I was shocked to learn that C.E.O. Angelo Mozilo apparently manipulated his trading plans to cash in, just as the subprime crisis was heating up and Countrywide’s fortunes were cooling off,” Mr. Moore wrote. “The timing of these sales and the changes to the trading plans raise serious questions about whether this is a mere coincidence.” A Countrywide spokesman declined to comment yesterday. The S.E.C., as is its custom, declined to say how it would respond to Mr. Moore’s letter and whether it was examining Mr. Mozilo’s trades. But Linda Chatman Thomsen, director of enforcement at the commission, said yesterday at a conference of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals in San Francisco that the S.E.C. was taking a closer look at planned selling programs by executives. They are known as 10b5-1 plans for the section of the securities laws that allows them. “We are making sure that a rule designed to help executives with a legitimate purpose is not being used for illegitimate purposes,” Ms. Thomsen said. She declined to say if any specific investigation had advanced to the point where inquiry letters had been sent. Planned stock sale arrangements, the details of which do not have to be disclosed publicly, specify the number of shares to be sold regularly by an executive and are intended to protect against accusations of trading on inside information. Such plans last for a year and are typically renewed when they expire, securities lawyers said. Ms. Thomsen said that federal investigators were examining a range of issues involving automatic trading programs. They include improper disclosure, the appearance of unusually favorable dates to begin or halt selling, and plans where excessive discretion is used. Mr. Mozilo has sold shares through arranged schedules since 2004. But the pace of his sales, which have generated $300 million in gains for him since 2005, began to increase in October 2006 when he put a new program in place. Less than two months later, Mr. Mozilo began a second selling program, as The Los Angeles Times reported last month. This plan started on Dec. 12 and increased the number of shares he intended to sell each month to 465,000 from 350,000. Then on Feb. 2, Mr. Mozilo amended the second plan, according to regulatory filings, increasing the total number of shares to be sold each month to 580,000. “I’m steaming when I think of the schoolteachers, sanitation workers and firefighters who have taken a loss on this stock and he’s still cashing out,” Mr. Moore said yesterday in an interview. “Where is the sense of shared sacrifice?” North Carolina has several pension plans that own a total of 506,000 shares in Countrywide, or about $9.5 million at yesterday’s closing price. Mr. Moore serves as trustee of the state’s $87 billion in pension plans. Late Friday, Countrywide said that Mr. Mozilo would sell almost all of his remaining shares this week before his October 2006 selling program expires at the end of the month. As a result, each day this week he has exercised roughly 140,000 options with a strike price of $9.94 and sold the stock at prevailing market prices. Given that the stock has been trading around $19 this week — it closed yesterday at $18.80 — Mr. Mozilo has generated gains of roughly $4 million in the last three days. The options that Mr. Mozilo is exercising do not expire until 2011. But in a statement last Friday, Mr. Mozilo said that his trading plan, intended to diversify his holdings, forced him to sell. “The upcoming sales are driven by rules within the 10b5-1 plan that were established long ago,” he said, “and should in no way be viewed as any indication of my future outlook for Countrywide.” Regulatory filings show that Mr. Mozilo has about 500,000 shares remaining and 280,000 options. A year or so ago, he held 1.2 million Countrywide shares and 2.5 million options. Countrywide is scheduled to release its third-quarter earnings on Oct. 26. Analysts expect the report to be grim, reflecting a steep decline in mortgage lending and rapidly growing delinquencies and defaults among borrowers. | Countrywide Financial Corp;Mortgages;Securities and Exchange Commission;Mozilo Angelo R;Securities and Commodities Violations |
ny0060553 | [
"us"
] | 2014/08/23 | New Trial Sought in Death of Man Pulled From Cell | Lawyers for the mother of a mentally ill man who died in 2010 while being forcibly removed from his cell in a Nashville prison asked a federal court on Friday for a new civil trial against prison officials. The inmate, Charles Jason Toll, 33, suffocated while being removed from his cell by a team of corrections officers at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. The officers, wearing riot gear, handcuffed, shackled and carried Mr. Toll to a dark outdoor recreation yard. On a prison video, Mr. Toll could be heard saying, “I can’t breathe,” at least 12 times. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide and concluded, along with an independent forensic medical expert, that Mr. Toll died from force applied while he was in restraints during the cell removal. His death and the practice of forcibly removing prisoners from their cells, a procedure known as cell extraction, were the subject of an article in The New York Times in July. No disciplinary action was taken against the officers involved in the extraction, and no criminal charges were filed. But last year, a jury in a lawsuit brought by Mr. Toll’s mother, Jane Luna, found three defendants — Ricky J. Bell, the warden at the time; James Horton, the captain who led the cell extraction; and Gaelan Doss, a corrections officer — free of liability in the death. On Friday, lawyers for Ms. Luna filed a motion asking the United States District Court in Nashville to set aside the verdict and reverse a previous order denying a new trial. Jeff Roberts, one of the lawyers for Ms. Luna, said the motion was based on the resignation letter of an officer, William Amonette, suggesting that the internal investigation into the death was incomplete. In the letter, obtained by The Times and included in the July article, Mr. Amonette, who videotaped the cell extraction, wrote that he had been treated badly at the prison “ever since I asked questions in your office about the witnesses in the Charles Toll case that were not spoken to by Internal Affairs.” “I cannot work somewhere where asking questions or trying to do what is right is punished,” Mr. Amonette wrote. Mr. Roberts said that although the defense team had requested Mr. Amonette’s personnel file and all communications referring to Mr. Toll’s death during the discovery process, the letter was not included in the material produced by the state attorney general’s office before the trial. The motion, Mr. Roberts said, claims “that there’s newly discovered evidence and that fraud was committed, that they withheld a crucial piece of evidence.” “This clearly would have changed the way we would have worked the entire case,” he said. The Tennessee Department of Correction said it was unaware of the motion and could not comment. The attorney general’s office said that all of the personnel documents that the prison had turned over were given to Ms. Luna’s legal team, but it added that since it did not keep copies, “it cannot confirm that the resignation letter was part of the production.” | Prison;Charles Jason Toll;Nashville;Choking;Murders;Security guard;Lawsuits |
ny0178503 | [
"business"
] | 2007/08/03 | American Home Mortgage Says It Will Close | American Home Mortgage Investment, the troubled mortgage lender based in Melville, N.Y., will close today, making it the latest company to fail this year as loans made to home buyers, some even with solid credit histories, go bad. In a news release issued last night, American Home Mortgage said that that it would lay off all but 750 of its 7,000 employees “in light of liquidity issues resulting from disruptions” in the secondary mortgage market. “Conditions in both the secondary mortgage market as well as the national real estate market have deteriorated to the point that we have no realistic alternative,” Michael Strauss, the chief executive of American Home Mortgage said in a statement. The company said it was shutting down all but its thrift and servicing businesses “to preserve the value of its remaining assets.” On its Web site last night, the company said it was no longer taking any loan applications. Calls to A.H.M. offices and e-mail messages were not returned last night. While the problems facing A.H.M. were widely known, the speed of the company’s unraveling came as a surprise. Last Friday, the company halted its quarterly dividend payment in a last-ditch effort to come up with capital. Several big investment banks issued margin calls on the debt that the company used to buy mortgage-backed securities, which included its loans and those made by other lenders, and it said it was unable to finance mortgages. “The disruption in the credit markets in the past few weeks has been unprecedented in the company’s experience and has caused major write-downs of its loan and security portfolios,” A.H.M. said in securities filings. This “consequently has caused significant margin calls with respect to its credit facilities,” the filing said. Reports of A.H.M.’s plans to shut down were first reported on the Web site for Newsday. A.H.M. is the latest home lender to fall this year and comes as other companies in the mortgage business are sounding alarms. Yesterday, Accredited Home Lenders Holding, a San Diego-based subprime mortgage company being acquired by Lone Star Funds, said that its own sale was in jeopardy and that bankruptcy was possible. Its shares lost more than a third of their value. “Several of our competitors have recently stopped originating loans or sought protection under bankruptcy laws,” Accredited Home Lenders said in public filings. “We may suffer a similar fate.” Meanwhile, Michael Perry, the chief executive of IndyMac Bancorp, another mortgage company, told employees it was making “very major changes” to its lending standards in what he suggested would be a prolonged disruption in the secondary mortgage markets. Unlike previous ones that lasted few weeks or so, IndyMac has “to be prudent and assume that this present disruption, which appears broader and more serious, might take longer to correct,” he wrote. But the end of American Home came abruptly. Until recently, it was one of the fastest-growing and largest mortgage companies in the country. It specialized in adjustable-rate mortgages that in the first few years required borrowers to pay the interest or a minimum payment that was even smaller than that. It catered to homeowners with high credit scores and had an extensive network of retail branches, mortgage brokers and correspondent banks. California, Florida, Illinois, Virginia and New York accounted for 46 percent of the loans American Home Mortgage held for investment at the end of March. A third of the mortgages were pay-option loans that allowed borrowers to make less than the interest payment on the loan by adding the deferred payments to the principal amount of the loan. At the start of the year, A.H.M. seemed to defy the problems that were plaguing its industry. In the first three months, the company made $16.7 billion in home loans, up 27.2 percent from the same period in 2006. And as recently as late June, the company said it expected to pay a dividend even though it would lose money in the second quarter because of rising delinquencies on its home loans and demands by investors that it buy back defaulted mortgages. Those loans were popular with affluent borrowers and speculators during the housing boom, when rising home prices made them seem safe. Now, however, as home prices fall, defaults are rising. | American Home Mortgage Investment Corporation;Mortgages;Banks and Banking;Bankruptcies |
ny0212020 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2017/01/30 | Cuomo Champions Opposition to Trump’s Order on Refugees | ALBANY — Of all the voices of protests heard in New York over the weekend, at Kennedy Airport, in Battery Park and elsewhere, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo took care to make sure his would be heard. On Saturday, the governor blasted President Trump’s order to halt immigration from several predominantly Muslim countries, and as crowds swelled at J.F.K., he ordered the Port Authority police to keep the AirTrain to the airport open to protesters. On Sunday, he announced a toll-free line for the families of people believed to be detained and repeated that the state would “explore all legal options” for refugees at New York airports, a move he amplified with a blunt declaration of human rights. “As a New Yorker, I am a Muslim,” the governor said. “As a New Yorker, I am Jewish. As a New Yorker, I am black; I am gay; I am disabled. I am a woman seeking to control her health and choices because as a New Yorker, we are one community, the New York community comprised of all of the above.” As the governor of a state with a large immigrant population, and as the top-ranking Democrat in the Republican president’s home state, Mr. Cuomo has the prerequisites to be an outsize Trump opponent. And through his statements and gestures, it is clear that Mr. Cuomo intends to try to capitalize on the torrent of anti-Trump fervor and to try to be at the forefront of Trump opposition in New York. Yet it was still unclear how much influence the governor, or anyone else in Albany, could have over the immigration order. “We’re in uncharted territory,” said Alphonso David, the governor’s counsel. “But we do have the responsibility to protect the rights of all New Yorkers.” Immigration is largely a federal issue, but like many state officials opposed to the order, Mr. David was evaluating where the state’s power — and state law — could be used to thwart Mr. Trump’s plans. In practical terms, the state was offering to help connect detainees and their families with nonprofit and pro bono legal aid, but not to file cases for people. While the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has jurisdiction over the airport, its police are not permitted to enter the Customs and Border Protection area without the invitation of federal authorities. And no such invitation has been forthcoming, said Ron Marsico, an authority spokesman. The Port Authority Police Department “had no role in detentions,” he said. On Saturday night, a federal judge in Brooklyn gave lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union representing two Iraqi immigrants a partial stay of the president’s order, preventing the deportation of some arrivals. On Sunday, the state attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, who is helping refugees find legal aid, requested a list of people in custody and pressed the Department of Homeland Security to comply with the stay. Mr. Schneiderman’s office had not received any hard numbers on detainees by Monday, although it said the department had indicated it would comply with the stay. In Albany, legislative leaders were also taking stock of the weekend’s events. “I hope that him and his administration realize that they’ve gone too far,” Carl E. Heastie, the State Assembly speaker, said of Mr. Trump. Scott Reif, a spokesman for Senate Republicans, had no comment on Mr. Trump’s order on Monday, but the controversy had stoked a fire among Democrats, even among the eight-member Independent Democratic Conference, which collaborates with Republicans. The conference drafted plans for “a major initiative to protect immigrant communities,” including providing “legal services, resources and any assistance to immigrants and their families” out of each member’s office. Mainstream Democrats, led by Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Westchester County, pressed for more forceful action. They took to the Senate floor on Monday to push a proposal that would have prohibited the Port Authority “from supporting the federal effort in any way,” including the use of staff, money and facilities — even the use of electricity and air-conditioning in areas where detainees are held. But the effort was voted down by the Republicans and condemned by Senator Marisol Alcantara of Manhattan, a member of the Independent Democratic Conference. A precedent exists for localities not cooperating with federal enforcement in what are known as sanctuary cities. Janet Calvo, a professor of law at the City University of New York’s School of Law, said the 10th Amendment’s guarantee of states’ rights also lent Mr. Cuomo leeway to act. “Cuomo has control over state employees, state money, state policies, and is authorized and responsible for protecting health and safety of its residents,” she said. On Monday, Mr. Cuomo again spoke out, addressing a crowd of supporters of women’s reproductive rights in Albany and proposing an amendment to write Roe v. Wade into the State Constitution. And while the actual chances of that happening are unclear — previous proposals have not gotten past the Republican-controlled Senate — the governor seemed emboldened by anger over the president’s order, saying the Constitution was on New York’s side. “That piece of paper says that individuals have rights, the right to due process, the right to equal treatment under the laws,” Mr. Cuomo said. “And I want you to know that the State of New York is going to enforce every legal right of every person.” | Immigration;Refugees,Internally Displaced People;Donald Trump;Civil Unrest;New York;JFK Airport;Andrew Cuomo;Executive Orders |
ny0150769 | [
"business"
] | 2008/08/02 | In Lean Times, Whole Foods Tries for a Fresh Image | PHILADELPHIA — Shawn Hebb may have one of America’s toughest jobs: convincing people that Whole Foods Market can be an economical place to shop. This week, leading five customers through a store here, he breezed past the triple cream goat cheese, $39.99 a pound, and the fresh tuna, $19.99 a pound, to focus on the merits of beans, chicken thighs and frozen fish. Then he held up a $1.50 package of tofu. “It looks gross but it’s delicious,” he said. Whole Foods Market is on a mission to revise its gold-plated image as consumers pull back on discretionary spending in a troubled economy. The company was once a Wall Street darling, but its sales growth was cooling even before the economy turned. Since peaking at the beginning of 2006, its stock has dropped more than 70 percent. Now, in a sign of the times, the company is offering deeper discounts, adding lower-priced store brands and emphasizing value in its advertising. It is even inviting customers to show up for budget-focused store tours like those led by Mr. Hebb, a Whole Foods employee. But the budget claims are no easy sell at a store that long ago earned the nickname Whole Paycheck. Told of the company’s budget pitch by a reporter, some Whole Foods customers said they had not noticed cheaper prices; a few laughed. Walter Robb, the company’s co-president, acknowledged that Whole Foods was fighting strong consumer perceptions about the chain’s prices, and he added that some of that was deserved. But he said the company had made a strong effort to challenge its competitors on price. “I’m getting a little tired of that tag around our neck,” he said, referring to the nickname. “We are a lot more competitive than people give us credit for. We challenge anyone on like items.” Whole Foods’ makeover comes amid a tumultuous time in the grocery industry, as customers struggling to pay for higher-priced fuel and food are trading down to lesser products and discount-oriented stores. A July survey by TNS Retail Forward, of Columbus, Ohio, found that 20 percent of shoppers have changed where they buy groceries and household essentials because of the economy. The biggest beneficiaries have been dollar stores and discount grocers like Aldi and Save-a-Lot, which offer a limited selection at extreme discounts. The losers have been convenience stores, drug stores, health and natural food stores, and conventional supermarkets. In the last month alone, grocery chains like Safeway, Supervalu and Delhaize Group, whose stores include Hannaford Brothers and Food Lion, have lowered their earnings outlooks because of higher energy costs and consumer penny-pinching. On Thursday, Winn-Dixie executives said increased budget offerings in the most recent quarter had bolstered sales but hurt the company’s earnings. “The economy caught a lot of them off guard,” said David Orgel, the editor in chief of Supermarket News, a trade publication. He said that many grocers, aiming to compete with the likes of Whole Foods, have spent the last few years positioning their stores for a “more upscale experience.” They are suddenly scrambling to give consumers the budget items that they are demanding. Making matters worse for Whole Foods, consumer interest in organic food appears to be leveling off after several years of double-digit growth, according to the Hartman Group, a market research firm specializing in health and wellness. Laurie Demeritt, president of the Hartman Group, said core consumers for organic goods, about 15 percent of the population, are becoming even more committed. But people less attached to such items are continuing to buy organic dairy products, produce and meat, and are buying fewer organic goods among packaged items, like cereal and crackers, she said. “They don’t see those center-store categories as being so important,” she said. “The economy has only exacerbated that situation.” The downturn in the economy comes during an inglorious stretch in Whole Foods’ otherwise remarkable 28-year history. It was not long ago that Whole Foods was the toast of Wall Street and the envy of its competitors, with its gleaming stores stocked with organic produce, hormone-free meats and premium cheeses. But Whole Foods’ stock has been sliding for two and a half years, in part because it was not able to maintain the double-digit same-store sales growth that was once routine and because its margins have been hurt by an aggressive strategy for adding new and bigger stores. (The chain’s same-store sales increase, 6.7 percent in the second quarter, and its gross profit margin, 35 percent, remain among the best in the industry.) In the last earnings report, in May, Whole Foods executives said it was not clear how the weak economy was affecting sales. On Tuesday, the company will report earnings for the most recent quarter, one in which many other grocers struggled. “It’s becoming clear that this worsening economic environment is having an impact on consumers at all economic levels,” said Mitchell P. Corwin, an analyst at Morningstar. “The Whole Paycheck image can really hurt you.” Mr. Corwin said it would take time for Whole Foods to change that image. “When you walk into these big beautiful stores, it’s hard for a consumer to think that it is a value-oriented type of retailer,” he said. Andrew Wolf, an analyst for BB&T Capital Markets, said Whole Foods was “a tale of two stores.” He said the grocery items in the middle of the store are competitive if not cheaper than those at other stores offering the same products, mentioning items like Kashi cereal. But he said that Whole Foods was more expensive on the perimeter of the store, where it sells produce, meat, seafood and prepared foods, items that account for the majority of sales. “They’ll say the price is higher, but the quality is higher,” he said. “It’s kind of, ‘You get what you pay for.’ ” With the economy still deteriorating, a big question for Whole Foods is whether even its core customers will continue to pay prices like $6.99 a pound for all-natural, air-chilled chicken breast or $12 for a bag of cherries. “We’ve seen evidence of people being more careful with their choices,” said Mr. Robb, the co-president, who said that consumers were still buying items like wine and cheese, but perhaps buying cheaper varieties. Despite the economic turmoil, he said consumers remained intensely interested in health and the quality of their food, where he believes Whole Foods has an edge. The company’s budget strategy is on prominent display at its expansive store in Edgewater, N.J., which competes with a Trader Joe’s down the street. A tomato-colored “Weekly Buys” flier is clearly visible by the front door, and sale signs are sprinkled throughout the aisles. Burger patties were on sale recently for a dollar each, while value packages of fresh cod and salmon were a dollar a pound less than smaller amounts purchased at the fish counter. Still, it was hard to find a shopper who considered Whole Foods a bargain, though many raved about the store’s organic goods, produce, meat and fish. “It’s a great store, but I don’t see it as a value,” said Linda Martino, 41. But Susan Davis, 56, said she had noticed more sale signs. “I came for something else one day and was shocked to find the meat on sale, so I bought it and put it in the freezer,” she said. At the conclusion of the “Value Tour” in Philadelphia one recent evening, one participant, Katera Moore, said she thought it had been worthwhile because she had learned about a few bargains, like frozen fish fillets and domestically produced cheese. Even so, she said she considered Whole Foods expensive for average people. Ms. Moore, 34, said, “It was only cheap if you were a vegetarian willing to eat beans and tofu.” | Whole Foods Market Inc;Prices (Fares Fees and Rates);Retail Stores and Trade;Organic Food;Supermarkets;Sales;Economic Conditions and Trends;Discount Selling;Food |
ny0245099 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2011/04/28 | At 9/11 Trial, Lawyers Will Watch the Clock | For almost nine years, the family of Mark Bavis, a passenger on the second plane to hit the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, has been waiting for a trial in a wrongful-death lawsuit it filed against United Airlines and other defendants. The family, determined to prove what it believes was negligence, has resisted attempts to settle. Theirs is the last wrongful-death action still pending of more than 90 filed after the attacks. Thousands of other families avoided court and received payments through a victims’ compensation fund. But now, after this seemingly endless run-up, with a trial scheduled for later this year, the judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein of Federal District Court in Manhattan , has set a time limit. In a highly unusual move, Judge Hellerstein will restrict each side to the same number of hours — in one estimate, 50 to 60 — to present its case, and time the trial like a speed chess match. “The time is going to be expressed not in days, but in minutes,” Judge Hellerstein has said in court. Each side’s clock will start ticking whenever its lawyer rises to question or cross-examine a witness, or to argue before the jury — “everything the party wishes to do from openings through summations,” he said. Judge Hellerstein has said the trial, the only one stemming from the terror attacks, will last a month. The judge has made it clear that he is seeking to avoid the kind of trial that rolls on interminably as the details, minutiae and technical arguments pile up, and wants to keep the jury focused and interested. “You know that once the jury gets bored with your presentation,” he has told the parties, “you’ve lost significant power of persuasion.” But his approach has prompted grumbling among the lawyers on both sides in a case where, despite the passage of time, emotions remain raw. Donald A. Migliori, a lawyer for the Bavises, said limiting the trial to one month and dividing the time equally — he made the 50- to 60-hour estimate — was ambitious for a case of such magnitude, particularly for his client, the plaintiff, who bears the burden of proof. The lawsuit contends that the hijackers were able to board United Airlines Flight 175 in Boston because of negligence by United and other defendants, which include an airport security firm. “The person that is affected the most is my client,” Mr. Migliori said. “We’re talking about millions of pages of documents. We’re talking about distilling one of the most important stories in American history.” A lawyer for United, meanwhile, complained in a letter that splitting the trial’s time 50-50 between the plaintiff and the defendants “would be unfair” because separate defendants may make different arguments. The lawyer, Michael R. Feagley, proposed that the judge allocate 60 percent of the trial’s time to the defendants, which he said would still leave the Bavis family “far more time than any single defendant.” The judge, who declined to discuss his plan, has a reputation as a skilled jurist. He has overseen the litigation that followed the 9/11 attacks, including the resolution of thousands of health claims, and the other wrongful-death suits. In a hearing in February, he refused to alter his formula. “At the end of the day,” he said, a 50-50 split was as good “an approximation of justice as I could figure.” The timing of all aspects of a trial is rare. “I’m sure if I shared this with my friends who are litigators, they’d be horrified,” said Stephen L. Carter , the Yale law professor. Professor Carter said the judge’s idea sounded logical and might speed the pace of a trial. But, he said, he could imagine a situation in which one party’s burden was much greater than the other’s. “The judge would have to take care to ensure that what looks like equal time is actually not unfair to one side,” he said. Mr. Migliori, the family’s lawyer, said he anticipated hard decisions during the trial. “You may have to say, ‘I’ve got to drop this middle witness because I only have seven trial hours left.’ ” But he said his legal team was prepared to meet the time challenges. The United lawyer, Mr. Feagley, would not comment. Judge Hellerstein has said he once used the technique in a patent case. It was also used in the libel suit by Gen. William C. Westmoreland against CBS in the 1980s. In that case, Judge Pierre N. Leval, then of Federal District Court, gave each side 150 hours to present evidence, and two hours each for arguments in trial to the jury. “He had the stopwatch in his hand,” David M. Dorsen, a Westmoreland lawyer, recalled. “You could see him click it.” The case was ultimately resolved after about four months before it went to the jury. David Boies , the CBS lawyer, who has since been involved in a few other timed trials, said the technique tended to “force the lawyers to focus on what’s important.” Judge Leval, now an appellate judge, recalled that he set the time limits because of the huge number of potential witnesses in such an emotional case. “I feared that this might be a trial that would go on forever,” he said. In a 2004 trial over a city demolition, the imposition of time limits became an unsuccessful ground for appeal. The judge, Lewis A. Kaplan , had given both parties 11 hours to present their cases. He later gave each side three more. But when the plaintiff’s lawyer, Barry S. Gedan, with 47 minutes left, asked for more time so he could present a deposition and still have 30 minutes for a summation, Judge Kaplan said, “The answer is you have 47 minutes to use however you wish.” Fourteen minutes into Mr. Gedan’s reading of the deposition to the jury, the judge reminded him of how much time he had used. That meant he had only three minutes left — if he still wanted a 30-minute summation. “Judge, this is killing me,” Mr. Gedan replied. “I am going to have a heart attack trying to read that fast.” Mr. Gedan’s client, who had sought $3.1 million, was awarded only nominal damages. On appeal, Mr. Gedan cited, among other issues, “the disastrous impact” of the time limits. “Arbitrary time limits yield arbitrary justice,” he said recently. “Courtroom clocks should not supplant the right to a fair trial.” The case was affirmed on appeal, including the judge’s use of time limits. | 9/11,Sept 11;Lawsuit;Mark Bavis;Alvin K Hellerstein;United Airlines;Airlines;Terrorism |
ny0296395 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2016/12/06 | Rashaan Salaam, Heisman Trophy Winner With Colorado, Dies at 42 | Rashaan Salaam, a former running back who won the Heisman Trophy in 1994 but whose professional career never lived up to his promise, was found dead on Monday in Boulder, Colo. He was 42. Mr. Salaam’s body was discovered in a parking lot at Eben G. Fine Park, said Shannon Cordingly, a spokeswoman for the Boulder Police Department. The cause was being investigated, she said, adding that there were no signs of foul play. Rashaan Iman Salaam was born on Oct. 8, 1974, in San Diego. His father, Sulton Salaam, formerly known as Harold Washington, was a onetime Cincinnati Bengals running back who went by Teddy. His mother, Khalada Salaam-Alaji, who earned a master’s degree in education, founded a preparatory school for students from kindergarten through sixth grade. She enrolled him in La Jolla Country Day School, where Salaam became a star high school athlete and a highly sought-after college football recruit. He went on to play for the University of Colorado. In his Heisman year he rushed for 2,055 yards and was chosen over finalists like the quarterbacks Steve McNair and Kerry Collins and the defensive lineman Warren Sapp, all of whom would go on to successful N.F.L. careers. He was the first University of Colorado player to win the award. “Rashaan will be remembered as one of the greatest football players to ever wear a Buffs uniform, and his 1994 Heisman Trophy brought great prestige and honor to the university,” Philip P. DiStefano, the chancellor of the University of Colorado, said in a statement . Mr. Salaam was a first-round selection in the 1995 N.F.L. draft by the Chicago Bears, with whom he played three seasons. He became the youngest N.F.L. player to rush for 1,000 yards in a season, according to a biography on the Bears’ website. He played for the Cleveland Browns in 1999 and also for the Green Bay Packers and the San Francisco 49ers, although not in any regular-season games. He also briefly played for the Memphis Maniax in the short-lived X.F.L., and for the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League. But his professional career was cut short by injuries, fumbles and marijuana use, which he reflected on in an interview with The Chicago Tribune. “I had no discipline,” Mr. Salaam told The Tribune in 2012 . “I had all the talent in the world. You know, great body, great genes. But I had no work ethic, and I had no discipline. The better you get, the harder you have to work. The better I got, the lazier I got.” Before he joined the Bears, he said, “everything was perfect.” Mr. Salaam told The Tribune that he was “a bachelor for life” and spent the years after his departure from professional sports running a camp for young athletes in San Diego. Information on his survivors was not immediately available. | Obituary;Heisman Trophy;Football;Chicago Bears;College football;Rashaan Salaam;University of Colorado |
ny0013586 | [
"business",
"international"
] | 2013/11/08 | Balancing Act for India’s Top Banker | MUMBAI — Raghuram Rajan, the head of India’s central bank, began his career as an economic theoretician. But a willingness to delve into the mechanics of an economic system may prove to be a bigger asset as he tries to straighten out India’s economy. Randall S. Kroszner, a Federal Reserve Board governor during President George W. Bush’s presidency, recalls seeing Mr. Rajan’s data-driven analysis decades ago when he was writing economic journal papers in the early 1990s with Mr. Rajan, a fellow young economics professor at the University of Chicago. Mr. Rajan had written during his doctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about the merits of the Glass-Steagall Act separation of investment banking from other financial and commercial services. But after compiling voluminous data from the early 1930s together, Mr. Rajan and Mr. Kroszner concluded that the need for Glass-Steagall was much less clear-cut. “He was willing to move from grand theory and get down and dirty on the details of institutions,” Mr. Kroszner said. “That back and forth between cerebral theory and practice is quite unusual.” Like a longtime military academy strategist suddenly given an army to lead, Mr. Rajan, 50, a prominent University of Chicago business school economist, now finds himself running the Reserve Bank of India, one of the most important central banks in the developing world. His track record in his two months in office suggests a reluctance to embrace the monetarism for which the University of Chicago economics department has been known, while he has embraced limited financial deregulation. Along the way, he has avoided any signs of doctrine, preferring to see the results of each move before acting again. “I’m willing to be persuaded by the data,” he said in an interview at the central bank, in a wood-paneled reception room with one wall lined with the portraits of his predecessors. On monetary policy, Mr. Rajan has been quietly pushing down short-term market interest rates to restart the stumbling economy. He cloaks his interest rate moves with tough talk about inflation, now running at 9.8 percent for consumer prices. But he has been so cautious about saying that his policies are tilted toward monetary stimulus that even some investment bank economists have expressed confusion. Mr. Rajan said that he had sought to communicate clearly, but shunned being labeled dovish or hawkish. “We have to play it a little bit carefully,” he said. “We don’t want to kill an already weak economy, but we want to make sure everyone understands we have a very firm eye on inflation.” So far, he has shaken up the country’s insular banking establishment by moving quickly to begin issuing licenses for the establishment of new Indian banks. He has pushed banks and debt tribunals to remove influential business leaders during bankruptcy proceedings, instead of quickly writing off their debts. And on Wednesday, he issued new regulations making it possible for foreign banks to set up nationwide branch networks. In doing so, he is plunging into the messy intersection of business and politics that has bedeviled India’s economic development since its independence from Britain in 1947. Steep tariffs and extensive regulations have long protected the leading business families from foreign and domestic competitors alike. Mr. Rajan has given himself some political cover, however. He has named a special committee to oversee the banking license process, and brought Bimal Jalan, a prominent former Reserve Bank governor with close links to the political opposition. out of semiretirement to run it. Image Mr. Rajan tempers economic theory with the practical matters of institutions. Credit Chiara Goia for The New York Times Mr. Jalan said in a telephone interview that he was giving attention to widening the poor’s access to banking services. He expressed caution about allowing new banks to be closely affiliated with businesses active in other sectors of the economy. “There is a tremendous amount of concern after 2008 about banks moving into other areas,” he said. Financial markets have rallied since Mr. Rajan took office on Sept. 4, with the major stock index up 14 percent since then and the rupee rebounding 8.5 percent against the dollar. Part of the increase, however, reflects the decision seven weeks ago by the Federal Reserve in Washington to delay tapering its monetary stimulus. That has made emerging markets temporarily look more attractive. Mr. Rajan has twice raised the rate at which commercial banks borrow part of their funds. But he has also twice cut the interest rate that commercial banks use for the rest of their borrowing. Since this is the interest rate that determines the costs of extra borrowing that banks may do to finance new loans, it has a particularly strong effect on the economy and the availability of credit. Mr. Jalan said that the net effect of the Reserve Bank’s recent interest rate moves had been clear to him. “On the whole, it is equivalent to making credit easier,” he said. Some prominent Indian economists complain that Mr. Rajan is trying to control inflation expectations by talking tough even as he pushes down interest rates. His critics warn that investors may abruptly decide that interest rate moves like the one last week may rekindle inflation. Reducing the interest rate on incremental bank borrowing last week “was huge,” said Ajay Shah, an economist at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy in New Delhi, “but if you read the announcement, you would never know that — they should be speaking clearly.” Keeping inflation under control has long been more important in India than in many countries because so many very poor people in rural India barely earn enough to eat. Their mostly part-time jobs pay wages that are not indexed to inflation, leaving them extremely vulnerable to increases in prices for essentials like food. “They are at subsistence levels, so higher inflation could make the difference of life or very close to death in some cases,” Mr. Rajan said. While some tariffs have been reduced and administrative rules have been lifted in the last two decades, chronic corruption continues to pervade government dealings with industry in many sectors. That corruption has slowed the economy, but paradoxically, the growing risk of being accused of corruption in the last several years has paralyzed civil servants in many ministries, slowing further project approvals and deregulation. Few issues are more contentious than the issuance of new bank licenses in the coming months. Mr. Rajan said that he hoped transparency in the selection process — and a reliance on extensive comparisons of voluminous applications — would limit the acrimony. “These are important licenses, to those who get it and those who don’t,” he said. “People who don’t get the licenses I expect will be disappointed and will, presumably if the process is not transparent, want to muddy the process by questioning how it is done. And that is precisely why we need to be as clean and transparent as possible.” Further complicating the economic landscape for Mr. Rajan are national elections next spring in which the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party is widely seen as having a considerable chance of winning power. Before taking office in September, Mr. Rajan was the chief economic adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the ruling Congress Party. By tradition, Reserve Bank governors offer their resignation when there is a change of government, but then the new majority party declines the resignation and allows the governor to continue serving the balance of the three-year term. Changes of party can complicate the coordination of economic policy, however, as the governor is not politically independent in the Indian system and is supposed to work very closely with the finance ministry. Without commenting directly on his own future, Mr. Rajan noted that most of the Finance Ministry staff stays in place even when the finance minister changes with the forming of a new government, providing continuity in communications with the Reserve Bank. Asked if he might need to raise interest rates close to the election, given continued inflation, he replied, “I don’t have a timetable in mind, and I don’t look at the election calendar.” | India;Reserve Bank of India;Economy;Inflation;Interest rate;Raghuram Rajan |
ny0244403 | [
"sports",
"cycling"
] | 2011/04/04 | Belgian Captures Tour of Flanders | Nick Nuyens of Belgium won the Tour of Flanders classic in Meerbeke, Belgium, beating Sylvain Chavanel of France and Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, the 2010 winner, in a three-way sprint to the finish line. Nuyens won the 159-mile race over rolling hills and cobblestone roads in northern Belgium in 6 hours 1 minute 20 seconds. | Nuyens Nick;Bicycles and Bicycling |
ny0269528 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2016/04/19 | Argentina Re-Enters International Bond Markets | BUENOS AIRES — Argentina returned to global bond markets on Monday after a 15-year hiatus, unveiling the biggest sovereign issuance by an emerging-market nation in two decades as the government ends a prolonged feud with hedge funds in New York. The country was receiving offers from investors for its sale of $10 billion to $15 billion of bonds. Most of the cash raised will go toward paying off a small number creditors, including the hedge fund billionaire Paul E. Singer, who had rejected restructuring offers and took Argentina to court seeking full payment after it defaulted in 2001. Officials at the Economy Ministry have been courting investors in the United States and London over the last week, and Alfonso Prat-Gay, the finance minister, described demand for the bonds as “awesome.” The bond sale is one of the largest by a so-called emerging-market nation since Mexico raised $18.1 billion across several issuances in 1996, according to Dealogic, a finacial date provider. Although some investors remain cautious, the bonds are expected to attract broad interest. “It won’t be very problematic for the government to get the $15 billion,” Miguel Kiguel, an economist and former deputy finance secretary, wrote in El Cronista, a local business newspaper. The final hurdle to the issuance, which was limited by lawmakers who have grown wary of Argentina’s cycles of debt and default, was cleared last week with a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Creditors accepted 70 to 75 percent of their claims in agreements earlier this year. The bond sale was expected to close on Tuesday, with the creditors receiving their money by Friday. Payment to the creditors is expected to total about $10.5 billion, ending a decade of mudslinging after the new government of President Mauricio Macri sought to reignite a sluggish economy with policies intended to lure foreign investors. “The issuance of external debt is likely to have a significant impact on the economy over the medium term,” Edward Glossop, an economist who tracks Argentina for Capital Economics, an economic analysis firm in London, said in a research note. Still, domestic critics and international experts have questioned the ethics of ceding to the litigating creditors, saying it paves the way for them to extort other countries. Argentina has included clauses in the new bonds intended to protect it from similar lawsuits in the future in the case of another default. If a majority of creditors agree to a restructuring, in theory everybody must conform. Even though investors look favorably on Mr. Macri’s administration, Argentina is still viewed as risky. It therefore needs to pay higher rates on the bonds — about 7 to 9 percent — than some of its neighbors in Latin America have done in recent years. | Government bond;Mauricio Macri;Paul E Singer;Argentina |
ny0172301 | [
"business",
"worldbusiness"
] | 2007/11/09 | Chinese Bank to Open in New York | The Federal Reserve has approved the application by the sixth-largest Chinese bank to open an office in New York, its first branch in the United States. China Merchants Bank, based in Shenzhen, a commercial center in southeast China, will engage in wholesale deposit-taking, lending, trade finance and other services, the Fed said. The bank has $146 billion in assets and is indirectly controlled by the Chinese government. Under federal law, deposits at the branch will not be government-insured, so the branch will cater primarily to businesses, not individuals, said H. Rodgin Cohen, chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell, which advised China Merchants on the application. Chinese-American investment and trade will be the bank’s focus, he said. China Merchants is the first Chinese bank to be allowed to open a branch in the United States in two decades, Mr. Cohen said. In approving the application, the Fed said it had found that the Chinese government engaged in adequate oversight of the bank, including requiring annual audits. In 2003, the Chinese government created a bureau to combat money laundering and in 2007 joined the Financial Action Task Force, a group that develops and promotes policies to combat money laundering. | China Merchants Bank;Banks and Banking;China |
ny0269418 | [
"us"
] | 2016/04/10 | Oldest Condemned Man in Texas Dies of Natural Causes | HOUSTON — The oldest condemned man in Texas has died at age 78 of natural causes, Texas prison officials said. The inmate, Jack H. Smith, had been on death row since October 1978 for a fatal shooting during a $90 robbery of a Houston store. Only three among about 250 prisoners now awaiting execution in Texas have been on death row longer. Mr. Smith had been in poor health for years and was taken from death row to the medical facility a week ago. He died Friday afternoon at the medical facility at the Estelle Unit in Huntsville, said Jack Clark, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. In 2008, the Supreme Court refused an appeal from Mr. Smith after a federal appeals court rejected arguments by his lawyers challenging his 1978 conviction and death sentence. Mr. Smith had convictions for robbery-assault and theft in 1955 and another robbery-assault conviction in 1959 that earned him a life prison term. He also had a prison escape attempt in 1963. He was paroled from his life sentence on Jan. 8, 1977, after serving 17 years. One day short of a year later, on Jan. 7, 1978, Mr. Smith and an accomplice were arrested in the killing of Roy A. Deputter, who was shot to death while trying to stop a holdup at a Houston convenience store known as Corky’s Corner. The accomplice, Jerome L. Hamilton, received a life sentence and testified against Mr. Smith, who received a death sentence. Mr. Smith, a former welder who completed only six years of school, arrived on death row on Oct. 9, 1978, and remained there until his death. The Supreme Court rejected a previous appeal from Mr. Smith in 1985, but little happened in the case after that. Unlike procedures now in place, no deadlines then forced appeals to move through the courts. Lawyers suggested that the trial judge, who died in 1997, was inclined to move the case forward. In an interview with The Associated Press in 2001, Mr. Smith complained about the lack of progress. “I feel that the system is waiting for me to pass away of old age,” said Mr. Smith, who said his health problems included cancer. “I’m angry at the justice system, at the courts for wasting taxpayers’ money for giving me this hospitality.” He said he never was in the store where Mr. Deputter was killed. A witness identified Mr. Smith as one of two gunmen — one armed with a shotgun and the other with a pistol. Mr. Deputter, who lived behind the store and helped out the owner, walked in on the holdup, pulled his own gun and exchanged shots with the robbers. He was shot once in the heart and once in the head. Besides Mr. Hamilton, a cashier at the store also testified against Mr. Smith at his trial. Mr. Hamilton was paroled in February 2004. Mr. Smith said he was offered a life sentence before his trial but refused to plead guilty to a crime he said he did not do. | Texas;Jack H. Smith;Capital punishment |
ny0154716 | [
"business",
"worldbusiness"
] | 2008/01/01 | On a Remote Path to Cures | NINACACA, Peru — High in the Peruvian Andes, a shaman rubs a fluffy white rabbit all over Chris Kilham’s body, murmuring in Quechua, the language of these barren plains. Then she slits the animal’s throat and lets the blood run into a tiny grave. To Mr. Kilham, the offering — an appeal to the gods for a bountiful harvest of maca, a local tuber — is just another day at the office. Part David Attenborough, part Indiana Jones, Mr. Kilham, an ethnobotanist from Massachusetts who calls himself the Medicine Hunter, has scoured remote jungles and highlands for three decades for plants, oils and extracts that can heal. He has eaten bees and scorpions in China, fired blow guns with Amazonian natives, and learned traditional war dances from Pacific Islanders. But behind the colorful tales lies the prospect of money, lots of money — for Western pharmaceutical companies, impoverished indigenous tribes and Mr. Kilham. Products that once seemed exotic, like ginseng, ginkgo biloba or aloe vera, now roll off the tongues of Westerners. All told, natural plant substances generate more than $75 billion in sales each year for the pharmaceutical industry, $20 billion in herbal supplement sales, and around $3 billion in cosmetics sales, according to a study by the European Commission. Although the efficacy of some of the products the herbal ingredients go into is hotly debated, their popularity is not in doubt. Thirty-six percent of adults in the United States use some form of what experts call complementary and alternative medicine , CAM for short, according to a 2004 study published by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health. Mr. Kilham believes multinational drug companies underutilize the medicinal properties in plants. They pack pills with artificial compounds and sell them at huge markups, he says. He wants Westerners to use the pure plant medicines that indigenous peoples have used for thousands of years. “People in the U.S. are more cranked up on pharmaceutical drugs than any other culture in the world today,” Mr. Kilham said. “I want people using safer medicine. And that means plant medicine.” Easy going and earnest, Mr. Kilham, 55, caught the plant bug after taking an herb walk at an organic farm in Natick, Mass., in 1971. A self-described hippie, he was already into “yoga, natural foods and meditation” and the discovery that plants had medicinal properties had a profound effect. He created a course in holistic health at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he is now on the faculty, and made his first overseas trip — to India — to track down exotic flora. Now he can identify unusual plants by their Latin names and he proudly regales the uninitiated on their individual properties. Shortly after leaving Lima on a trip taking French businessmen to the Peruvian Andes, he stopped the van and enthusiastically explained how the tropane alkaloids in a dusty plant he spotted by the side of the road are used by ophthalmologists to dilate pupils for eye examinations. Such properties are often well known by indigenous peoples. So-called bioprospectors can make their fortunes by bringing those advantages to the attention of companies who identify the plant’s active compound and use it as a base ingredient for new products that they patent. Some 62 percent of all cancer drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration come from such discoveries, according to a study by the United Nations University, a scholarly institution affiliated with the United Nations. “Latin American nations, especially Amazonian nations, have extremely rich and diverse flora, so the potential for commercial applications appears great,” said Tony Gross, a Brazil-based researcher at the university. “They say that in one in 10,000 you get something interesting. So it is not a gold mine, but when you do hit on something that does become a market leader you can make enormous amounts of money from it.” In Peru, Mr. Kilham is betting on maca, a small root vegetable that grows here in the central highlands — “a turnip that packs a punch,” he says, adding “it imparts energy, sex drive and stamina like nothing else.” That view is supported by studies carried out at the International Potato Center, a Lima-based research center that is internationally financed and staffed. Studies there show maca improves stamina, reduces the risk of prostate cancer and increases the motility, volume and quality of sperm. Some peer reviewed studies published in the journal Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology backed up those findings. For centuries, maca has been a revered crop in this austerely beautiful region 155 miles northeast of Lima. Inca warriors ate it before going into battle. Later, Peruvians used it to pay taxes to Spanish conquistadors. Today, locals consume it boiled alongside dried vicuña meat in soups; or diced with carrots, peas and cauliflowers in salads. Maca flour is used to make sponge cake. Flavored with chocolate, it is made into maca puffs. Villagers offer visitors maca drinks and maca juice; airports sell maca toffees. Mr. Kilham first heard about the tuber in 1996. Two years later, he went to Peru to find out more. There he formed a partnership with Sergio Cam, a Peruvian entrepreneur who invested much of the money he made as a construction worker in California from 1984 to 1999 to start Chakarunas Trading. The company is named after the Quechua word for men who build bridges between cultures. Today, Chakarunas organizes local growers to sell their maca to the French firm Naturex, which extracts it into concentrate. Naturex sells the concentrate to Enzymatic Therapy, a Wisconsin-based company that makes and markets the finished maca products. Thanks to the health supplements boom, both companies have grown, with Naturex’s revenues topping $125 million in 2007 and Enzymatic Therapy’s surpassing $80 million. Enzymatic Therapy sells $200,000 worth of maca-based products each month, said the company’s chief executive Randy Rose. One product, Maca Stimulant, is sold in Wal-Mart under Mr. Kilham’s Medicine Hunter brand. Mr. Kilham earns a retainer from both Naturex and Enzymatic Therapy, in addition to royalties from another Medicine Hunter-branded product at Wal-Mart. Mr. Kilham says he earns around $200,000 each year in retainers, and sales are so buoyant he expects to make “in the mid-six figures” in royalties next year. Mr. Kilham insists he is not in the business simply for financial gain. His motivation comes from promoting herbal medicines and helping traditional communities, he said. “I have financial security and don’t need to make money from this,” he said. “I believe trade is the best way to get good medicines to the public, to help the environment and to help indigenous people.” He and Mr. Cam pay growers here in Ninacaca a premium of 6 soles (about $2) for a kilo of maca, almost twice the going rate of 3 to 3.40 soles a kilo. They have set up a computer room at the Chakarunas warehouse and a free dental clinic, the town’s first. Mr. Kilham is clearly adored by the locals in these desolate, wind-swept villages. On a recent visit here, shamans, maca growers and their families flocked to him. Since only maca and potatoes grow at this altitude, they are thankful Mr. Kilham is helping them sell their produce. He makes a point of returning regularly to Peru to affirm his commitment to the project. On this trip, his third this year, he brought executives from Phythea, a French company that sold 40 million euros of natural products last year. Phythea’s president, Laurent Mallet, had heard about maca and wanted to see both the agricultural and social aspect of Chakarunas Trading up close. Mr. Mallet said he was so touched by the people and the rawness of their surroundings — it took him seven hours by van to get here, and several doses of oxygen to offset the headaches and nausea brought on by the altitude — that he vowed to increase his order of maca from five to 25 tons next year, if clinical trials in Bordeaux confirmed that maca reduces hot flashes and night sweats in menopausal women. “I think it could be a very good product for us,” Mr. Mallet said. “I especially like the human dimension. They want to build a school and a medical center.” To be sure, not everyone is so positive. Mr. Kilham runs the constant risk of being branded a “biopirate,” an outsider who steals traditional knowledge and fails to pass on the benefits to the local community. In 2001, the company Mr. Kilham worked for at the time, Pure World Botanics, obtained United States patents for isolating and extracting maca’s key active compounds. The Peruvian government accused the company of profiting from what was rightfully Peru’s. Mr. Kilham said he fought to make his bosses open up the patents. The company denied they had acted improperly but Naturex, which bought Pure World Botanics in 2005, granted Peruvian companies free licenses to the patents and vowed to increase the price paid per kilo to maca farmers by 15 percent. “At Naturex,” the company’s marketing manager, Antoine Dauby, said in a statement, “we believe in giving back to the communities where we do business. And we’re doing that in Peru.” | Alternative and Complementary Medicine;Dietary Supplements and Herbal Remedies;Peru;Drugs (Pharmaceuticals);Medicine and Health;Inventions and Patents;Kilham Chris |
ny0169399 | [
"us"
] | 2007/03/13 | Homeless Woman Is Charged in Fire | CHICAGO, March 12 — A homeless woman was charged Monday with first-degree murder and aggravated arson for an apartment fire that killed four people on the North Side of the city early Saturday, the authorities said. Police said the woman, Mary Smith, 43, set fire to the stairwell of a three-story apartment building not far from Wrigley Field, using newspapers and fliers that had accumulated there. The fire quickly spread. Three men and one woman ranging in age from 23 to 27 died in the blaze, which broke out around 7 a.m. A 21-year-old man was in serious condition at a local hospital after falling or jumping from a window, said Monique Bond, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Police Department. Ms. Smith was also charged with an additional count of aggravated arson for three small fires on a nearby street several hours before the fatal blaze. Those fires were set using available debris, including a sweater, newspapers and fliers, said Edward J. O’Donnell, commander of the Chicago Police Department’s bomb and arson unit. Ms. Smith was taken into custody around 9 p.m. Saturday after the police received a tip that she was in a coffee shop not far from the apartment. | Fires and Firefighters;Arson;Homeless Persons;Murders and Attempted Murders;Chicago (Ill) |
ny0118798 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2012/07/03 | Cost to Protect U.S. Secrets Doubles in Decade to $11 Billion | WASHINGTON — The federal government spent more than $11 billion to protect its secrets last year, double the cost of classification a decade ago — and that is only the part it will reveal. The total does not include the costs incurred by the Central Intelligence Agency , the National Security Agency and other spy agencies, whose spending is — you guessed it — classified. John P. Fitzpatrick, head of the Information Security Oversight Office, which oversees the government’s classification effort and released the annual report, said that adding the excluded agencies would increase the spending total by “less than 20 percent.” That suggests that the real total may be about $13 billion, more than the entire annual budget of the Environmental Protection Agency. The costs include investigations of people applying for security clearances, equipment like safes and special computer gear, training for government personnel, and salaries for officials who review documents for classification and declassification. Spending on secrecy has increased steadily for more than a decade, driven in part by the expanding counterterrorism programs after the 2001 terrorist attacks, but also by the continuing protection of cold war secrets dating back decades. The total cost for 2001 was $4.7 billion, the oversight office said. The spending report, showing an increase of 12 percent from 2010, comes at a time of intense public debate over secrecy and leaks of classified information. Six prosecutions of government officials for disclosing classified information to the news media have occurred under the Obama administration, and two new leak investigations are under way. The antisecrecy group WikiLeaks set off a furor in 2010 and 2011 by obtaining and releasing hundreds of thousands of confidential United States government documents, including diplomatic cables. Both Republican and Democratic leaders of the Congressional intelligence committees have denounced recent leaks to the news media for damaging national security and have called for a crackdown. But some independent experts say the ballooning classification system is the problem, sweeping huge quantities of unremarkable information in along with genuinely important secrets. Steven Aftergood, who directs the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists, said the classification of the amounts spent by the intelligence agencies on classification, for example, was unnecessary. “To me it illustrates the most important problem — namely that we are classifying far too much information,” he said. “The credibility of the classification system is collapsing under the weight of bogus secrets.” Costs are driven up in part by the slow pace of declassification, which has slowed drastically since a push in the 1990s. Many documents from the 1960s remain classified, and agencies still regularly go to court to defend their secrecy in the face of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. In May, a judge ruled that the C.I.A. could continue to withhold from the public one of five volumes of its official history of the Bay of Pigs operation, in which the agency trained Cuban exiles to invade Cuba in 1961 in a disastrous attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. The C.I.A. has also spent years fighting lawsuits seeking the release of files on agency officials who oversaw an anti-Castro group that clashed publicly with Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy. But Mr. Fitzpatrick of the oversight office said there can be valid reasons for keeping decades-old secrets. “Everything is more complicated than it seems,” said Mr. Fitzpatrick, who worked in several intelligence agencies before taking his current position. “It could be the name of a source, a method of collection that’s still in use, or an agreement with a foreign government that still needs to be protected.” | Espionage and Intelligence Services;Budgets and Budgeting;Classified Information and State Secrets;Computer Security;Freedom of Information Act;United States Defense and Military Forces;National Security Agency;Central Intelligence Agency;United States |
ny0085744 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2015/07/27 | Help for Mets, Just When They Needed It | The scoreboard watching starts now. Juan Uribe said it, anyway, and good teams tend to follow his lead. “Washington lost today,” Uribe said late Sunday afternoon at Citi Field after smashing a game-ending hit to cap his first weekend as a Met. “You see the other team you’re fighting in the division, and they lose, you have to win.” So Uribe took it upon himself to deliver. A simple single was all the Mets needed in the bottom of the 10th inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers, one of his former teams. But Uribe unleashed a ferocious two-strike hack and ripped a fastball off the wall in deep left center. The Mets won, 3-2, to pull to within two games of the Nationals in the National League East. Uribe said he wanted only to make contact, but he looked as if he wanted to hit the ball to the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge. Curtis Granderson, who doubled and scored the winning run, seemed impressed by his new teammate’s confidence in matching a power swing to closer Kenley Jansen’s power stuff. “With two strikes, to put the same type of swing, connect like that and drive it,” Granderson said, “that’s just a credit to a very good hitter who’s able to stick with his plan, stick with his approach.” Uribe came to the Mets from Atlanta on Friday, with Kelly Johnson, for two minor league pitchers. It was the kind of trade that resonates in a clubhouse — two players with no chance to make an impact this season for two popular, well-traveled veterans. Uribe, now mostly a third baseman, has played for five other teams and won two World Series. Johnson has played for seven other teams and appeared in the postseason with three. He has started at five defensive positions this season. “That versatility is enormous, to keep key, quality players on the field,” Manager Terry Collins said. “It’s hugely enormous.” A hugely enormous acquisition is really more like the one Kansas City made on Sunday, getting the ace starter Johnny Cueto from Cincinnati. Uribe and Johnson are only role players, yet they are legitimate major leaguers who improve the Mets’ roster. So, for that matter, does the rookie left fielder Michael Conforto, whose Class AA manager raved about him to Collins. “A ball’s on the edge, he doesn’t swing at it until he absolutely has to,” Collins said. “That was the one thing that Pedro Lopez told me: Of all the guys he’s had come through Binghamton — and he’s had a bunch who’ve played in the big leagues — this kid’s got the best plate discipline he’s ever seen, and it’s showing so far.” Catcher Travis d’Arnaud, on a rehabilitation assignment at Class AA, is close to returning from his elbow injury. He will help. Reliever Jenrry Mejia is back from his drug suspension; he has helped. Third baseman David Wright (lower back) has been cleared for baseball activities, at least. Of course, the Nationals have even more impact players on their way back — including infielder Anthony Rendon, who returned to the lineup Saturday — and have not yet made a deadline deal. The Mets are still trying to reach the postseason with the lowest-scoring team in the N.L. They are improving, but not imposing. Uribe, 36, has seen enough to be hopeful. His championship teams, the 2005 White Sox and the 2010 Giants, both scored fewer runs than the league average in the regular season. “In baseball, you never know,” he said. “I’ve been in Chicago, and nobody’s thinking like Chicago’s winning. I’ve been in San Fran, and nobody’s thinking like San Fran’s winning. And they win. In baseball, you never know what could happen.” The Mets would like to base their chances on more than that. But Uribe is right — you really do never know, and all you need is some kind of postseason ticket. Good luck, good pitching and just enough hitting can take care of the rest. In 2010, Uribe’s Giants won the N.L. Championship Series opener against Philadelphia’s Roy Halladay, who had just pitched a no-hitter. Cody Ross, a player claimed on waivers in August, hit two home runs. That was not supposed to happen, but it did. The Giants clinched the pennant in the sixth game with a go-ahead homer by Uribe. He homered again in the World Series opener, a win against Texas. Uribe parlayed that success into a three-year, $21 million contract with Los Angeles, where he pulled off a rare trick: He played poorly for two years yet was revered for his attitude. “I’ll be here for whatever the manager needs me — for pinch-hitting, for defense, I’ll be here,” Uribe said Sunday. “I’m not going to say, ‘I’m going to play every day’ — no, no, no. I’m here for whenever the manager says, ‘Uribe, you ready for the moment?’ Yes.” Are the Mets ready for their moment? They just went 4-6 against the three N.L. division leaders: St. Louis, Washington and the Dodgers. Not great, but not damaging. The Mets lost no ground to the Nationals. “It’s a good spot to be in — you’re a couple of games out of first place with a lot of games in your own division left to play,” Granderson said. If nothing else, the Mets are modestly better equipped for the final push than they were a few days ago. They might make more deals, and they know they will be in a pennant race. Progress comes slowly at Citi Field, but it is happening. | Baseball;Juan Uribe;Kelly Johnson;Mets |
ny0082237 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2015/10/20 | White House Emphasizes Companies’ Commitment to Cutting Emissions | WASHINGTON — The Obama administration announced Monday that 81 major companies have committed to large reductions in carbon emissions, part of a broad push by the White House to show progress ahead of international climate talks in Paris this year. The companies that have made the pledge include such iconic American brands as Levi Strauss & Company, McDonald’s, I.B.M. and Procter & Gamble. They have operations in all 50 states, employ over nine million people, and have more than $3 trillion in annual revenue and a combined market capitalization of over $5 trillion, according to the White House. But many of the newly announced commitments were in fact issued before. Part of the White House campaign is simple theatrics: convincing both domestic and international audiences that the United States — long the world’s greatest source of carbon emissions — is serious about making significant reductions in its carbon footprint. Many of the chiefs of the companies met with President Obama on Monday morning, part of a continuing push by the administration to use both carrots and sticks to persuade businesses to move away from operations that rely on coal and oil toward ones that use more wind and solar power . Some of the companies, including Nike, have pledged to power their operations entirely with renewable energy or to reduce their carbon emissions to zero. “The bottom line is this: These commitments show that international action on climate are not only good for our climate but good for the bottom line,” said Brian Deese, a senior adviser to the president. Todd Brady, global environmental director at Intel, acknowledged Monday morning that his company’s pledge is a combination of prior and new commitments. The administration’s leadership on the issue “has caused us to step back and see if we can do more,” Mr. Brady said. The administration is also using significant new regulations, including the newly released Clean Power Plan, to drive down carbon emissions in the United States over the next 15 years. Republicans have denounced such regulations as job killers that will result in significant costs to both businesses and consumers. By showing that many major businesses are making large reductions in carbon emissions voluntarily while still being profitable, the Obama administration hopes to prove that its new rules will lead to greater economic growth, not less. The administration expects to persuade even more businesses to sign its climate pledge before climate talks in Paris begin in six weeks. Such pledges, Mr. Deese said, “will really help drive the conversation and drive progress going into Paris.” | Greenhouse gas;Climate Change;Global Warming;Regulation and Deregulation;US Politics;Barack Obama |
ny0062494 | [
"business"
] | 2014/01/26 | The Chatter for Sunday, Jan. 26 | “For a nine-month-old company to buy a 93-year-old one is a lot to bite off.” Andy Katz-Mayfield, co-founder of Harry’s, an Internet shaving start-up that bought the nearly century-old Feintechnik, a razor manufacturer in Germany, for $100 million. “In a good kitchen, male and female really doesn’t matter anymore.” Lauren DeSteno, the new chef de cuisine at Marea, a high-end Manhattan restaurant. Even though male chefs are still more prevalent in professional kitchens, particularly at the highest and lowest rungs of the industry, a new vanguard of American women is coming up behind them. “I looked down. I thought my pants fell off.” Lee Kaufman, 91, on her reaction to being recognized in public after she appeared in commercials with her husband, Morty, advertising the Swiffer WetJet. | Speeches;Restaurant;advertising,marketing |
ny0247123 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2011/05/20 | Former Trump University Is Subject of Inquiry in New York | The New York State attorney general’s office is investigating whether a for-profit school founded by Donald J. Trump , which charges students up to $35,000 a course, has engaged in illegal business practices, according to people briefed on the inquiry. The investigation was prompted by about a dozen complaints concerning the Trump school that the attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, has found to be “credible” and “serious,” these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was not yet public. The inquiry is part of a broader examination of the for-profit education industry by Mr. Schneiderman’s office, which is opening investigations into at least five education companies that operate or have students in the state, according to the people speaking on the condition of anonymity. The investigation is the latest problem for a six-year-old company, known until last year as Trump University, that already faces a string of consumer complaints, reprimands from state regulators and a lawsuit from dissatisfied former students. George Sorial, a managing director of the Trump Organization, confirmed that the company had received a subpoena from the attorney general’s office, and said, “We look forward to resolving this matter and intend to fully cooperate with their inquiry.” Mr. Schneiderman is looking into whether the schools and their recruiters misrepresent their ability to find students jobs, the quality of instruction, the cost of attending, and their programs accreditation, among other things. Such activities could constitute deceptive trade practices or fraud. The four other companies are the Career Education Corporation , which runs the Sanford-Brown Institute, Briarcliffe College and American InterContintental University; Corinthian Colleges , the parent company of Everest Institute, WyoTech and Heald Colleges; Lincoln Educational Services , the owner of Lincoln Technical and Lincoln Colleges Online; and Bridgepoint Education, the operator of Ashford University. Spokesmen for Lincoln Educational Services, Bridgeport Education and Corinthian Colleges each said the companies had been sent requests for information by the attorney general’s office and would comply with them. A representative of Career Education Corporation declined to comment. For-profit schools have become big business in the United States, especially as the unemployed seek a way back into the work force. Some of those schools, however, have been accused of creating as much economic harm as help: students have reported falling deep into debt to pay for classes that they said had failed to deliver what they had promised. Mr. Trump’s institution is unique among for-profit schools: it is built almost entirely around the prestige and prominence of a single individual. Mr. Trump said he created the university in 2005 to impart decades’ worth of his business acumen to the general public. He aggressively marketed the school, telling students that his handpicked instructors would “teach you better than the best business school,” according to a transcript of a Web video. The school has charged premium prices because of the Trump name, with the cost of the courses ranging from $1,500 to $35,000 each. But, as The New York Times reported last week, dozens of students have complained about the quality of the program to the attorneys general of New York, Texas, Florida and Illinois. The Better Business Bureau gave the school a D-minus for 2010, its second-lowest grade, after receiving 23 complaints. Over the last three years, New York and Maryland have told the company to drop the word “university” from its title, saying that using it violated state education laws. (The school was renamed the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative in 2010.) Four former students filed a suit against Trump University last year in a federal court in California, seeking class-action status. They contended that the school used high-pressure sales tactics to enroll students in the costly classes, promised extensive one-on-one instruction that did not materialize and employed “mentors” who at times recommended investments from which they stood to profit. Mr. Sorial of the Trump Organization, which oversees Mr. Trump’s businesses, forcefully disputed those claims. He said on Thursday that 95 percent of the school’s students in New York had rated their courses as “excellent” on evaluation forms. The school’s national average is even higher, he said. “Our customer satisfaction surveys speak for themselves,” he said. As its troubles have mounted, the school has suspended new classes and begun overhauling its curriculum, executives said. One priority is finding a way to inject more of Mr. Trump into the program. “The one thing is that they really wanted me involved, instead of the teachers,” Mr. Trump said in an interview last week. In interviews, several former students said they felt betrayed by the real estate mogul and his school, especially after investing tens of thousands of dollars in what they thought was to be a comprehensive education. “They lure you in with false promises,” said Patricia Murphy, 57, of the Bronx, who is among the former students suing Mr. Trump, whose suit makes similar claims. She said she had spent about $12,000 on Trump University classes, much of it paid with credit cards, in the hope of escaping her career as a part-time teacher and becoming a real estate investor. Her instructors said they would introduce her to banks, help her secure loans and walk her, step by step, through deals, she recalled. “They did none of that,” she said. “I was scammed.” Mr. Sorial said the school was looking into Ms. Murphy’s claims. Carmen Mendez, 59, a public school teacher in Brooklyn, wrote to the Better Business Bureau in 2009 about her disappointment with the school — and with Mr. Trump. She said she had dipped into her retirement savings to pay nearly $35,000 for the classes, because “Mr. Trump is a very respectable person, and I thought that Trump University was a real institution,” she said in the letter to the Better Business Bureau. An instructor promised her, she wrote, that the school guaranteed financial assistance to buy e real estate. But once she had enrolled, Ms. Mendez wrote, she was refused such assistance. Because her credit cards were loaded with debt to pay for the classes, mortgage brokers told her she was ineligible for a loan, she said. “I am writing because I want people to be aware that Trump University is not a real educational institution,” she told the Better Business Bureau. “Please advise other people so they do not lose their savings in these difficult days.” Mr. Sorial said that the school tried to offer Ms. Mendez a full refund more than six months ago. “She failed to return our numerous calls and e-mails,” he said. | Trump University;For-profit education;Donald Trump;Lawsuit;Lincoln Educational Services;Bridgepoint Education |
ny0113377 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2012/11/02 | Colombia: Blast Disrupts Halloween Festivities | Colombian authorities said Thursday that two men were killed and at least 37 people, including 14 children, were injured when a suitcase bomb the men were carrying on a bicycle exploded during Halloween festivities in the town of Pradera in Valle del Cauca State. The regional police said that the two men were suspected of being members of a drug-trafficking band allied with leftist rebels and that it appeared that the bomb detonated prematurely two blocks from the central square, where more than 5,000 children had gathered for Halloween celebrations. The police speculated that the bomb’s intended target was Pradera’s police station. | Demonstrations Protests and Riots;Bombs and Explosives;Halloween;Colombia |
ny0146651 | [
"technology"
] | 2008/07/17 | Nintendo and Sony Unveil Games | LOS ANGELES — The Japanese video game titans Nintendo and Sony announced wide-ranging, if not entirely breathtaking, new games and services at the E3 convention here on Tuesday but did not alter their overall strategies in the fast-growing game market, as Microsoft did on Monday. Nintendo, which is riding high on the popularity of its DS hand-held game unit and its Wii console, continued to aim largely at children and mainstream consumers, a strategy that has pushed the industry beyond its customary base of young male players. Sony, which is gaining some traction for its PlayStation 3 console after initial stumbles, directed most of its new offerings at more traditional gamers, as well as movie buffs interested in its high-definition Blu-ray disc format. While far from disappointing, the combined showings from the companies left some of the cognoscenti at the convention, an annual video game trade show, a bit underwhelmed. “They didn’t need to show a lot, and so they didn’t show a lot,” Brian D. Crecente, managing editor of Kotaku, a leading game blog, said of Nintendo. Sony, he added, “met the minimal expectations, but they didn’t blow it out of the water.” Nintendo surprised the attendees with the announcement that Rockstar Games, owned by Take-Two Interactive, was creating a version of the violent Grand Theft Auto series for the DS, called Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. In addition, Nintendo unveiled two accessories on Tuesday. A microphone for the Wii called Wii Speak will be available as an option for a new version of Animal Crossing, a virtual zookeeper game, this holiday season. It also unveiled an attachment to make the Wii controller even more responsive to twists and turns. The unit, called the Wii MotionPlus, will be packaged with a new compilation of games called Wii Sports Resort. Sony began its presentation with a demonstration of Resistance 2, a first-person shooter game under development by Insomniac Games. Ted Price, chief executive of Insomniac, showed a portion of the game — combat against a 300-foot-tall leviathan rampaging through an urban landscape. Building on the PlayStation 3’s popularity as a Blu-ray movie player, Sony announced on Tuesday that it had opened a movie download service over the PlayStation Network. Differentiating that service from a similar one by Microsoft, Sony said that consumers who buy or rent movies over its service could also transfer those films to their PlayStation Portable units to watch on the road. Sony offered a first look at its superhero-themed multiplayer game called DC Universe Online and confirmed talk that a new installment in its blockbuster God of War series is in the works for the PlayStation 3. The company also exhibited artistic and technical ambition in a trailer for a game in the works called MAG, for Massive Action Game. MAG is meant to allow up to 256 players to simultaneously occupy one continuous modern-combat battlefield. | Computer and Video Games;Nintendo Co Ltd;SONY Corporation;Microsoft Corp;Computers and the Internet;Wii (Video Game System);E3 Media and Business Summit;PlayStation 3 (Video Game System) |
ny0090520 | [
"business",
"international"
] | 2015/09/23 | ‘War of Princes’ Sows Turmoil at South Korean Conglomerate | SEOUL, South Korea — The plot sounds like something out of a Korean television drama. An executive is kicked out of the management of his family’s $79 billion business empire and suspects his younger brother is behind the move. The elder brother enlists the help of the chairman — their father — in regaining power. But the younger brother dethrones their father, too, and consolidates control of the conglomerate, at least for now. Yet this isn’t fiction. It’s the saga of the Lotte Group, a household name in South Korea that includes a nationwide chain of hotels, shopping malls, movie theaters, apartment buildings, coffee shops and burger joints. Sibling disputes — like the feud this summer between the two sons of Shin Kyuk-ho, the 92-year-old founder of Lotte — are a recurring phenomenon at South Korean chaebol, or family-owned conglomerates. And as small as these squabbles may appear, they have direct implications for the country’s economy. Every major industry in South Korea is dominated by such groups, which include Samsung, Hyundai and LG. The country’s lawmakers were concerned enough that they called a parliamentary hearing on Lotte’s troubles last week, in which the younger brother personally apologized for the turmoil. “There is hardly any major chaebol group that has not been rocked by a ‘war of princes’; it’s such a volatile issue that it’s a great blessing for Samsung and Hyundai that their current chairmen only had one son,” said Lee Ji-soo, the director of the Law and Business Research Center in Seoul, which monitors chaebol. “When investors demand better corporate governance at chaebol, they include transparency in succession plans.” Such governance issues can be alarming to global investors. They fear that the combination of complex business structures and chains of succession tied only to which founder’s child is in favor exposes multibillion-dollar companies to upheaval. The families that run the top 10 chaebol own only 2.7 percent of their empires on average, according to government data. But typical chairmen wield what critics call kinglike control over their groups by keeping their companies interlocked through cross-shareholding. Units are supervised by executives whose careers rise and fall at the whims of the chairman. Lotte, South Korea’s fifth-largest chaebol, is a classic example. Its subsidiaries’ ownerships and futures are entangled in 416 rings of circular shareholding, which would make a diagram explaining it all look like a bowl of spaghetti. The structure is designed in part to prevent hostile takeovers by ensuring that no large stakes will be vulnerable. But it also means financial troubles at one company can easily spill over into the rest of the conglomerate. Chaebol chairmen delay selecting heirs until late in life. With multibillion-dollar fortunes at stake, their offspring commonly file lawsuits, install surveillance cameras and accuse each other of forging their father’s wills in winner-takes-all struggles. Family feuds have often broken up chaebol. In 2000, Hyundai was split into four groups by such a spat. In other cases, they have led to prolonged management disarray, as in the episodes at the Doosan and Kumho groups. Lotte is one of South Korea’s biggest employers, with 310,000 people on its payroll at home and abroad. In 2014, its 80 subsidiaries posted 93 trillion won, or $79 billion, in revenue. But it had humble roots. Mr. Shin stowed away on a ship to Japan in 1941, when Korea was still a Japanese colony. There, he attended college and started a chewing gum company, later expanding his business to his home country. His Korean wife died young, leaving him with a daughter. He later had two sons with his Japanese wife: Dong-joo, 61, put in charge of Lotte’s operation in Japan; and Dong-bin, 60, the leader of Lotte in South Korea. Image Shin Dong-joo, center, the elder son of the founder of the Lotte Group, lost his management positions in a family feud but remained a substantial shareholder in key companies within the conglomerate. Credit Kyodo, via Reuters While Lotte’s growth stalled in Japan, the younger son, Dong-bin, helped build it into South Korea’s No. 1 retail giant through mergers and acquisitions. Under his leadership, Lotte expanded its petrochemical business, opened a chain of shopping malls in China and Vietnam and bought hotels abroad, including the New York Palace Hotel. It is building the 1,821-foot Lotte World Tower, South Korea’s tallest building, in Seoul. Then, over several months starting at the end of 2014, Dong-joo was stripped of responsibility. “It’s father, who is doing this,” Dong-bin told reporters in January, referring to his elder brother’s being edged out. In mid-July, Dong-bin was named chief executive of Lotte Holdings of Japan, the de facto holding company of the entire group. But Dong-joo fought back, appealing to his father and rallying support from uncles and his half sister, who local media said “holds the ears” of the wheelchair-bound patriarch. In late July, Dong-joo said the father had ordered the removal of Dong-bin and his allies from the board of Lotte Holdings. The next day, however, Dong-bin convened a board meeting, where Mr. Shin’s order was nullified and the father was stripped of his chairman’s title. In early August, the battle reached a crescendo. Dong-joo called his younger brother an ingrate mutinous son who had gone “against father’s will” in his greed to run the whole empire. Dong-joo also released documents anointing him as heir, which he said had been signed by his father. “Shin Dong-bin has no authority, no justification,” a frail Mr. Shin said, reading haltingly from a prepared statement, in video footage released by Dong-joo. “I can never understand or tolerate him for trying to exclude me, his father, from Lotte Group, which I have built for 70 years.” Supporters of Dong-bin called his older brother an incompetent manager and accused him and his cronies of “brainwashing” Mr. Shin’s “addled mind” and plotting to split the group. To chaebol watchers, such comments crossed a line: It is taboo for chaebol managers to speak in public about the condition of a chairman. “Lotte is what it is today due to the great leadership of the general chairman,” said Hwang Kag-gyu, a Lotte executive and an ally of Dong-bin, referring to the founder. “If you compare the performances of the two brothers, it’s clear who is the proven leader, who is better for the group and for its stakeholders and employees.” By mid-August, the dust had settled, with Dong-bin emerging as the victor. Shareholders of Lotte Holdings approved his leadership and his management plans, but the sibling dispute is not completely over. Dong-joo still is a major shareholder in key Lotte companies, and each brother has threatened to take the other to court. “The management of the group remains in a medieval era,” Chosun Ilbo, a South Korean daily, said in an editorial. Dong-bin said the company would spend 7 trillion won, or about $5.9 billion, to remove many of the interlocking shareholder rings. That would make the conglomerate more resilient to losses at any of its component companies. “This happened because while Lotte has been growing, it didn’t do enough to improve its ownership structure and management transparency,” he said, bowing in apology at a news conference in Seoul last month. He said that he still respected his father. But, he added, “management is separate from the family.” | Lotte;South Korea;Management |
ny0210656 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2017/01/03 | Second Avenue Subway, Clean and Fast, Wins Praise as Commuters Return | New year. New commute. Many New Yorkers returned to work on Tuesday morning on the shiny new Second Avenue subway , a long-delayed project that took nearly a century to bring to reality. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city’s subway system, opened the first segment of the line to the public on New Year’s Day with three new stations at East 96th Street, East 86th Street and East 72nd Street. But it was on Tuesday that the new subway line faced its first big test as commuters piled on. For some, it was a faster way to work or a more convenient way tor travel. For others, it was simply an experience not to be missed. Vicente Herrera, 38, a home health aide, snapped selfies at the East 72nd Street station. He said he had never seen subway tracks that looked so good — not caked in black grime. Mr. Herrera, who lives in Washington Heights, inhaled deeply. “The smell,” he said. “It smells like new.” The Second Avenue subway held the tantalizing promise of a more pleasant commute for subway riders. There were many reasons: Fewer blocks to walk. Precious minutes shaved off daily treks. Not having to wedge onto the perpetually packed trains and platforms of the nearby Lexington Avenue subway, the most crowded subway line in the United States. And no rats — yet. The new line also includes a new entrance to the subway station at East 63rd Street and Lexington, where it will connect directly to the existing Q train route running south to Coney Island. On Tuesday morning, the Q roared through the new stations with no delays or major problems, according to M.T.A. officials. Image Catching the Q train at the new 86th Street station. Credit John Taggart for The New York Times John Raskin, the executive director of Riders Alliance , a transportation advocacy group, said the Second Avenue subway would bring needed relief to the Upper East Side. “I think people will start to notice the difference right away,” he said. “Now the challenge will be fixing the rest of the system to benefit everyone else who is trying to get to work.” Mr. Raskin said that while he had heard no complaints about the Second Avenue subway on Tuesday, there were plenty of other problems. The 1,2,3,4,5,6, B and D trains had all been delayed for a variety of reasons, including a person who jumped in front of a southbound 1 train, unauthorized people walking on or near tracks, a sick passenger, a track fire and signal problems. The Second Avenue subway attracted 48,200 riders on Sunday, M.T.A. officials said. Numbers for Monday and Tuesday were still being collected. Ridership is expected to eventually rise as high as 200,000 daily as more commuters return to work from the holiday break and become familiar with the line, they said. Veronique Hakim, the president of New York City Transit, which is part of the M.T.A., said that she had been “hopscotching” along the new line on Tuesday. Riders, she said, seemed to appreciate the larger platforms and improved service. “It’s a very different experience to riding the Lexington line,” she said. The benefits of the new subway line already appeared to have caused a spillover effect. On Tuesday morning, some Lexington Avenue trains and platforms appeared less crowded, in part because foot traffic seemed lighter after the holiday but also because there was now another option. At the 86th Street Station, a platform controller for the M.T.A. who did not give her name said that normally by 7:45 a.m., two or three rows of people would be waiting to board the 6 train. Today, there was only a single row. “I have a lot of hope it will relieve some of the congestion,” Marie Kallio, 50, an administrator from the Bronx, said as she waited on the platform. Emilia Goued, 14, a high school student, said she often had to push her way onto the 4 or 5 express trains and wait for several to go by because there was simply no room. Not today. “I feel like I can get on any express train that comes,” she said. Image Commuters at the 86th Street station. Credit John Taggart for The New York Times Some riders could not wait to try out the Second Avenue subway. At the East 96th Street station, where a sign announced that service would start at 6 a.m., a group huddled outside 15 minutes early. Several tried to slip in past a gate at the entrance, only to be turned back into the morning chill by subway workers. “Two minutes,” one worker said aloud, as the clock ticked down. Jim Hopkins, 61, was one of the first through the turnstile. “This is perfect for me,” said Mr. Hopkins, the chief operating officer of a real estate investment business who lives on East 95th Street, estimating that he would save about 10 minutes on his new commute to Herald Square. “Now I can get in a little earlier and work a little later.” Ten blocks south, at the East 86th Street station, Katherine Chango, 19, of Brooklyn, waited on the platform to go home after delivering newspapers on the Upper East Side. “I wanted to check it out for the first time,” said Ms. Chango, who said the new line was more convenient for her than the Lexington Avenue subway. “It’s more of a struggle to take the 6 or the 4 for me,” she said. Of course, some riders still found something to gripe about. A few said that trains took longer to arrive than they expected or wanted. At the East 86th Street station, several commuters waited impatiently for a southbound train that, according to an electronic information kiosk, was “arriving now.” In fact, it took a few more minutes. Still, United States Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a Democrat and a leading advocate for the Second Avenue subway for more than two decades, said she had heard “overwhelmingly positive” feedback. “Many have been waiting for it their whole lives,” she said. By its third day of service, the Second Avenue subway already had fans. Duane Butler, 62, wore a black baseball cap with a yellow Q train logo and “2nd Av Local” stitched on the back. Mr. Butler, who lives on 90th Street between First and Second Avenues, was on his way to work at a Barnes & Noble corporate office near Union Square. In his jacket pocket was a stopwatch to time his first commute on the new line. “I clicked it on as soon as I walked out the door,” he said. This was not Mr. Butler’s first time on the new subway line. He has been riding it since it opened. “I think it’s breathtaking,” he said. | Subway;Second Avenue Subway;Commuting;Transit Terminals;MTA;Upper East Side Manhattan |
ny0187697 | [
"nyregion",
"thecity"
] | 2009/04/26 | Future of Closed Flushing Airport Is in Dispute | THE old hangars are gone at Flushing Airport, an overgrown 70-acre parcel next to the Whitestone Expressway in College Point, Queens. The runway is under water, the Goodyear blimps are a distant memory, and the airplane enthusiasts who used to lean against the fence for a glimpse of a Cessna or an antique Stinson moved on decades ago. The airport, once the city’s busiest, has been closed since 1984. Still, there is flight to be seen. On a soggy day last week, a few geese grazed on a forlorn baseball field next to the old airstrip, and another pair swooped low over 20th Avenue, the airport’s northern border, and came in for a landing on a Waldbaum’s parking lot. A homeless man named Marty who said he grew up in College Point and twice flew out of the airport in his youth watched the geese swoop past and rattled off a list of birds he has seen there: hawks, kingfishers, an eagle and even an albino pheasant. “The brackish water is a big part of this, to have such a variety of life,” he said, standing next to a large hole in the chain-link fence that surrounds the property. Nature has thrived on the site since the airport’s closing. Proposals have been floated to use it for a heliport, a warehouse, batting cages, driving ranges, even a blimp port, echoing the site’s use as a docking station for Goodyear blimps in the 1960s and ’70s. None of the ideas amounted to anything, and the property remained closed. But this could change. The New York City Economic Development Corporation’s plan to redevelop Willets Point, near Citi Field , involves moving five businesses into College Point Corporate Park, of which the airport property is a part. The businesses would move next to the airport, leaving the airstrip and adjacent land untouched. But Community Board 7, which represents the area, is pressuring the city to reopen part of the airport property as part of that project and convert about 40 acres next to the runway into a “soft recreation” area. Representatives of the Economic Development Corporation say any decision on the site’s future depends on a full analysis, which will take time. The agency is willing to set aside at least 15 acres as a permanent natural area, said David Lombino, a spokesman for the corporation. As for the rest, he added, the ground is mushy, making future use problematic. “There’s really the basic question,” Mr. Lombino said. “Is it feasible to develop on this parcel?” For one thing, a vast marshland has overtaken the runway. The marshland arose after pumps used to keep the land dry were shut off when the airport closed. A friend of Marty’s named Kevin, who is a College Point native, had a simpler explanation. “Nature took it back,” he said. Neither man wanted his last name used because the site is private and they weren’t supposed to be there. It is, they said, an uncommonly wild area in the middle of the city. “By the time you make that curve, the world disappears,” Kevin said, pointing past the fence toward the weeds, taller than a man, that stood on the other side. In the opinion of Marty, who has cultivated an interest in bird-watching, any reuse of the site, even as a park, would be troublesome. “I’m not worried about the cost; I’m worried about the animals,” he said. Then, glancing quickly skyward, he added: “Look, look, look! There goes a crane over there! They eat frogs, rats.” Spend even a little time near the fence, and you can be forgiven for thinking that the airport is already a soft recreation area. A woman wearing a puffy vest popped through the fence; people say she feeds the cats there. A man in a camouflage jacket emerged from the tall grass walking a beagle on a yellow leash; according to him, beagle owners frequent the land to train their dogs for hunting. Recently, somebody built a dirt-bike track, complete with jumps. The man with the beagle gave his name as Tony and said that he had come from Astoria for a walk, as he had been doing for years. “I don’t know how long it’s going to last,” he said. “Sooner or later, they’re going to build something.” | Relocation of Business;Economic Development Corporation;Airports;College Point (NYC) |
ny0258924 | [
"us"
] | 2011/01/06 | Colorado Approves License for Piñon Ridge Uranium Mill | DENVER — Colorado regulators on Wednesday approved a license for the first new rock-crushing uranium mill to be built in the United States in more than 25 years to make fuel for nuclear power plants. The plan still has many hurdles to overcome, including transportation and air emissions permits, and opponents said they would keep up their fight as well. But the approval of a license to handle radioactive materials is still a big step forward for a plan to bring back a storied, deeply controversial industry that boomed across many corners of the West before crashing in the 1980s. The $175 million mill, called Piñon Ridge , would be built in an isolated rural valley in western Colorado near the Utah border — an area pockmarked with closed-down uranium mines, some of which, mill company officials said, would reopen to supply uranium ore, creating perhaps 300 jobs in an economically depressed area. Local residents have largely supported the plan, by a Canadian company, Energy Fuels, despite a well-documented history of health effects and radioactive pollution issues that plagued the industry in the past. Improved safety rules and regulation would make this uranium wave different and safer, supporters and company officials said. Hilary White, executive director of a leading opposition group, the Sheep Mountain Alliance, called the decision by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to approve the license “rushed.” She said the group was reviewing the hundreds of pages of supporting documents that the state also released Wednesday before deciding what to do next. | Uranium;Nuclear Energy;Regulation and Deregulation of Industry;Colorado |
ny0159959 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2006/03/02 | Salary Cap Chaos Looms as Talks Drag On in N.F.L. | National Football League owners will meet in New York this morning in a last-ditch attempt to forge labor peace before the start of the signing period for free agents tomorrow. If no deal is reached, the annual salary-cap-induced purge of players is expected to balloon as teams struggle to get under a cap that could be at least $10 million lower than it would have been under a new labor agreement. The N.F.L. Management Council's executive committee met yesterday and unanimously rejected the players association's latest proposal. The council will report on the status of negotiations during the owners' meeting today. "Without an agreement with the union on an extension, the league year will begin as scheduled at midnight Thursday under the current terms of the C.B.A.," the league said in a statement last night, referring to the start of free agency in accord with the current collective bargaining agreement. Because of the chance of a last-minute deal, the league extended the deadline for player cuts to 10 p.m. from 4 p.m. Eastern today. The current deal does not expire until after the 2007 season, but Friday is a key day. If there is no new deal by then, the 2006 season will be the last one played with a salary cap. Teams and players will be confronted with a new set of contract rules for 2006 that figure to complicate negotiations and team finances so much that many player agents believe free agents will not be able to gain appropriate contracts. A new collective bargaining agreement could be reached after Friday, but once free agency begins with a new set of rules, contracts made under those rules would remain in place. But the real effects of the failure to reach a deal will be felt much sooner, when teams, scrambling today to comply with the salary cap, which was set at $94.5 million yesterday, start clearing their rosters. The Broncos got a jump on things yesterday, releasing three starters -- defensive end Trevor Pryce, running back Mike Anderson and tight end Jeb Putzier. The Buffalo Bills released defensive tackle Sam Adams, safety Lawyer Milloy and tight end Mark Campbell in moves resulting in part from salary-cap considerations. Some teams, including the Oakland Raiders, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins, are well over the cap and might have to make deep cuts, while other teams -- among them the Minnesota Vikings, the Arizona Cardinals and the Cleveland Browns -- are poised to make a splash because they are far below the cap. Some people involved in the game remain hopeful that a deal can still get done, or at least that owners and players can agree to put off the start of free agency as negotiations continue. But the players' union chief, Gene Upshaw, has said that he will not delay the start of the signing period. The player agent Leigh Steinberg said he believed that the anticipated salary-cap purge today would not take place and that, instead, the two sides would at least agree to postpone the start of the new league year, which would keep the free-agency period from kicking in and allow teams to hold off on making deep player cuts to get under the cap. "I think as players and owners peer into the abyss, the ramifications of the negotiation landscape are so stark that they will push at the last moment to work out a compromise," Steinberg said. "Notwithstanding whatever fighting words you hear from the bargaining table, the reality is that with the new TV contract about to take effect and the incredibly lucrative ancillary revenue streams, both sides know we are on the verge of ushering in the most lucrative payday in the history of professional sports," Steinberg said. "The history of professional football is that nothing happens until the very last moment." But the N.F.L. talks are complicated by the owners' internal dissension over revenue-sharing, which Upshaw insists must be resolved before a new labor deal is reached. Talks between management and the players broke off on Tuesday. Revenue-sharing is an important issue because high-revenue teams have a financial advantage in luring free agents, something that could upset the competitive balance the league craves. If a new deal is not completed, several new rules will have an impact on contract negotiations. Signing bonuses, a favorite tool of agents because they offer the only guaranteed money in a contract, could be apportioned only over a four-year period on the salary cap, rather than the usual maximum of seven years. That is likely to mean much smaller bonuses. Other mechanisms that teams and agents use to get around the cap -- salary incentives that count in later salary-cap years -- will also be affected, with the result being that large contracts could be hard to come by even in the usually ferocious free-agent market for top-flight players. "It makes it very difficult for all the clubs," the agent Ralph Cindrich said. "I don't think there is any question there will be a lot of extremely talented players who are not going to be able to reach the levels of compensation many of their peers have reached in previous years." | NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE;LABOR;FREE AGENTS (SPORTS);FOOTBALL;ORGANIZED LABOR |
ny0173932 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2007/10/11 | Manhattan: Cars Hit Man in Wheelchair | A man in a wheelchair was critically injured yesterday when he was struck by two cars while trying to cross a street in Harlem, the police said. The man, 44, whose identity was not revealed by the police, was hit about 6 a.m. by a white van traveling west on 125th Street, the police said. The impact threw the man into the eastbound lane, where he was hit by a black Lincoln Town Car. The police said that both drivers left, but that the Town Car driver returned. The injured man was taken to Harlem Hospital Center, the police said. | Accidents and Safety;Harlem (NYC) |
ny0042194 | [
"sports"
] | 2014/05/16 | Mel Patton, 89, Who Shattered a Leg and Then Sprinting Records, Is Dead | Mel Patton, who overcame a badly broken leg as a child to become known as “the world’s fastest human” in the 1940s and win two gold medals in the 1948 London Olympics, died on May 9 in Fallbrook, Calif., near San Diego. He was 89. The University of Southern California announced his death in a statement on Wednesday. Patton was a five-time N.C.A.A. champion competing for U.S.C. Lean, wiry and graceful at 6 feet tall, Patton was a picture-book runner who “glided rather than sprinted,” as Mal Florence, who covered track and field for The Los Angeles Times, wrote in 1983. “He didn’t pound a track,” Florence added. “He caressed it.” Patton won national collegiate titles in the 100 three times (the race was in yards in 1947 and meters in 1948 and 1949) and at 200 meters in 1948 and 1949. He also broke two world records held by the Olympic champion Jesse Owens in 1948 and 1949, earning the nickname Pell Mell. But for Patton, no year surpassed 1948 for both glory and disappointment. It was the year he ran 100 yards in 9.3 seconds at the Fresno Relays in California, snapping the 18-year-old world record of 9.4 that he had shared with Owens and others. (He would hold the record until 1961; the final record, 9.0, was set by Ivory Crockett in 1971.) Patton’s picture appeared on the cover of Time magazine. But it was also the year he suffered the only defeats of his career. Two of them came in the United States Olympic trials in Evanston, Ill., where Harrison Dillard beat him in the qualifying heats and Barney Ewell defeated him in the final. Still, he qualified for the London Games, the first Olympics to be held since the Berlin Games of 1936. In London he was favored to win three gold medals, starting with the 100 meters. But the Olympics opened during a heat wave. “It was hot and humid in London that summer,” Patton recalled. “It had an effect on me. The most I ever weighed at the time was 151 pounds, and I was down to 143 then. I was pretty disturbed before the 100. I wasn’t running on all eight cylinders. I wasn’t physically strong.” Surprising everyone, Dillard, who turned to the 100-meter dash when he had unaccountably failed to make the American team as a high hurdler, won the Olympic gold medal in the 100. Ewell finished second. Patton, never a factor, was fifth. “I was unbelievably disappointed,” Patton said, “but it wasn’t the end of the world. I still had the 200.” The weather turned cooler for the 200-meter final, and Patton felt his energy restored. Over a mushy clay track, he won by a foot in 21.1 seconds. His second gold medal came as anchorman for the United States team in the 4x100-meter relay. The next year he broke another Owens record, by a hair, running 220 yards in 20.2 seconds. Owens had run it in 20.3 seconds 13 years earlier. Image Mel Patton, second from right, winning the 200 meters at the 1948 Olympics in London. Credit Associated Press Patton had been considered a shoo-in for the 1948 Olympic 100 on the strength of his record-shattering performance in Fresno that May. The event had a five-man field, but all eyes were on Patton and his biggest rival, the great Jamaican sprinter Lloyd La Beach, who was then living in Panama (which he would represent in the London Games). Patton, married with a 23-month-old daughter, had been eager to get to the Olympics and succeed there in the hope of landing a coaching job afterward. “The race generated a terrific emotional tension,” Collier’s magazine wrote in a July profile of Patton. The official referee was the renowned football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg, a child of the Civil War who, at almost 86, was the oldest working coach in the United States. After four false starts, in windless 90-degree heat, Patton burst into the lead, but La Beach surged and at 80 yards “threw himself forward in a mighty lunge and only missed collaring Patton by six inches,” Colliers wrote. Patton played down his victory, telling the magazine: “Honestly, I didn’t feel I ran a good race at Fresno. I know in my heart that I didn’t run that last 40 yards in good form. I felt I was floundering, trying to get to the tape.” Melvin Emory Patton was born on Nov. 16, 1924, in Los Angeles. When he was 8, he was hit by a truck outside his home, and his left leg was shattered an inch below the hip. “I was fouled up for six months,” he said years later. “I still remember lying on that hospital bed with my leg jacked up in the air by ropes and pulleys.” He recovered, and at 12, at a May Day celebration at school, he won a race against a dozen classmates. His father, a lineman for a municipal power company, wanted him to play baseball, but a physical education teacher steered him to track. Jim Pursell, his coach at University High School in West Los Angeles, taught Patton to explode out of the blocks, drive hard for 50 yards, then float at top speed. As Patton remembered it, “You just settle down and go along for the ride.” Pursell told him to preserve his leg strength and not to dance, swim or dive. Patton complied. He entered U.S.C. after two years in the Navy. There were no athletic scholarships for track then, and he paid for his schooling and supported his wife and daughter on a $90-a-month G.I. allowance ($885 in today’s money) and a $60-a-month part-time job sweeping halls. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physical education and later did coach track, at Long Beach City College in California (1949-55) and the University of Wichita (now Wichita State) in Kansas (1955-56). He later directed the national sports programs of Saudi Arabia, managed an electronics company and worked with an executive search firm. He married Shirley Ann Roos in 1945. She survives him, along with their daughter, Susan; their son, Gary; five grandchildren; and a great-grandchild. Patton was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1985. Except for one trip to Australia for professional sprint competitions, Patton did not run after college. He refused to compete in meets sanctioned by the Amateur Athletic Union, then the sport’s American governing body. The reason, he said, was that in those supposedly amateur days, some sprinters were being paid under the table. “My wife, Shirl, and I could hardly rub two nickels together,” he said. “I saw the checks the others were getting. In my naïveté, I didn’t think they’d let something like that continue. “I wouldn’t do a cigarette ad because I don’t smoke and my kids were at an impressionable age. What would they think of their dad sponsoring cigarettes? But it did tick me off that some guys were getting $500 a race.” | Mel Patton;Track and field;Olympics;Obituary |
ny0252988 | [
"us"
] | 2011/10/18 | Stroke Victim Is Flown From South Pole | Renee Nicole Doucuer, who was serving as winter manager at the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole when she suffered a stroke on Aug. 27, was airlifted from the isolated base on Monday. Ms. Doucuer was resting in New Zealand on Monday. She is expected to undergo tests on Tuesday to determine the severity of her stroke, and the results will determine when she flies home to Seabrook, N.H. Ms. Doucuer, 58, had been trying to leave the South Pole since her stroke. But Raytheon, which operates the station under contract from the National Science Foundation , determined that any rescue during Antarctica’s winter would unnecessarily put other lives at risk. Ms. Doucuer and her family pressured Raytheon and the National Science Foundation to have a plane on standby should the weather improve. The flight that ultimately retrieved Ms. Doucuer was the first scheduled one of the spring season. A C-17 cargo plane, which was not intended to carry passengers, made room for Ms. Doucuer and a doctor from the station. | Stroke;South Pole;National Science Foundation;Raytheon Co;Doucuer Renee Nicole |
ny0212686 | [
"us"
] | 2017/01/14 | ‘You Focus on the Good’: Women Who Voted for Trump, in Their Own Words | On Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration, women from all over the country will be rolling into Washington for what promises to be an enormous protest against Donald J. Trump. But millions of women went to the polls for Mr. Trump on Election Day, including, according to surveys, 53 percent of white women . Why did they? Conventional wisdom that his behavior and remarks would disqualify him in the eyes of many women proved wrong . Interviews with more than a dozen women around the country showed a range of reasons for their support: worries about the economy, anger about the Affordable Care Act and the price of health care, protection of Second Amendment rights, fears about immigration and terrorism, and opposition to abortion. But many women also voted against Hillary Clinton, voicing deep suspicions about the American deaths in Benghazi, Libya; her use of a private email server; and the hacked emails of the Democratic National Committee as proof that she said one thing in public and another in private. Here are excerpts, condensed and edited, from their thoughts. Image Rebecca Gregory Credit Chad Batka for The New York Times More Respect for Police Voter: Rebecca Gregory, 46. Nurse. Home: Roseville, Mich. In 2008 and 2012, I voted for Obama, I was pro-gay marriage, Planned Parenthood was very important to me. But after eight years, I saw there was much more racial divide than there had ever been, I didn’t like the way the economy is going and I didn’t like the stance he took on police. My husband is a court officer and volunteers in the police force. [President Obama] didn’t support law enforcement the way he did the community that felt they were being unjustly treated. I think he could have done a better job instead of pointing blame. Instead of saying we need to educate people on how to behave when they’re being pulled over by the police. I’m seeing a barrage of patients coming in from different countries. An Iraqi immigrant came in last night, he needs dialysis. He will never be productive in the U.S., he will always be dependent on Medicaid. I feel for him, I want to help him, but we have to take care of our own people first. Driving to work yesterday, I saw three homeless people. They need our help. If I turned down every candidate who objectified women, I’d vote for no one. _____ A ‘Good Man, Deep Down’ Voter: Sandy Pearson, 48. Studying to be a mortgage broker. Home: Chattanooga, Tenn. Trump’s not a perfect man, by any means. He kind of reminds me of my ex-husband. I think he’s a really good man, deep down. This guy has such potential, and I truly believe he cares about our country and wants to help everyone. I do read things on occasion that he tweets and I think, oh my word. I wish I could have had 10 minutes with him. Listen, Donald, you need to straighten up and stop with this foolishness. What he said about women was disrespectful . But I don’t get offended like some people do. You get through the bad and you focus on the good. Basically these were our choices, and I felt he was the better choice, and I had to overlook the negatives and focus on the positives. At the very beginning of this election, I was leaning toward Bernie Sanders. I looked at all the candidates, what were their ideas to help our country out of debt and make our military strong and be there for our vets. I have so many friends whose health care costs have doubled and are having to get extra jobs just to pay their insurance. And I read all these things about people where their religious liberties are not being taken seriously. _____ ‘He Knows How to Build Things’ Voter: Deb Alighire, 44. Engineer and program manager at Mopar, a subsidiary of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Home: Clarkston, Mich. I’m very focused on bringing the plants back. In metro Detroit, waiters usually were younger people and during the time of hardship, the bankruptcies, it was very striking to me to go to a Papa Gino’s and have a middle-aged man being a waiter. Usually these people would have some kind of job related to the automotive industry. I’m super excited about Trump. I believe he knows how to build things. My dad worked at a coal power plant for 39 years and they’re freaked out about energy changing too quickly. I’m also concerned about immigration. I went to Minnesota and I had a Somali cabdriver who lectured me for 35 minutes to the airport about how women in America have too much freedom. My thought process on that is that I don’t like seeing people going through the hardship they go through, but I don’t want to go backwards in the feminist movement, either. _____ Image Taylor Davis Credit Yana Paskova for The New York Times Daughter of Engineers Voter: Taylor Davis, 27. Works in a small business. Home: Enfield, Conn. I helped campaign for Obama and I was a die-hard Bernie supporter. When he backed Hillary Clinton, I couldn’t get behind it . Both my parents are engineers. My mom was an engineer long before many women in the field. When the economy started faltering, she went from a very high position at Pratt & Whitney to being unemployed for a year, and that was heartbreaking. I think that Trump really cares about having high-skilled jobs back here, not necessarily the service industry. Do I think Trump’s trying to send women back to the kitchen? No, his daughter is a great example . She ran the women-who-work campaign long before he ran for president. _____ Didn’t Like Him, Until a Rally Voter: Robin Mueller, 42. Preschool teacher. Home: Sterling Heights, Mich. I made up my mind for Trump at the last minute. Since my husband is in the military, I was concerned about having someone who didn’t have military experience, didn’t have the knowledge of dealing with world leaders. And I kind of thought he had a big mouth. But I had an 8-year-old who was totally on the Trump train. He talked me into taking him to a Trump rally. I expected him to be like what I’d seen on the news, saying hateful things. But his presence was very calming and I liked his talking points. We really are the middle class, and we kind of get swept aside. The first time she ran against Obama, I was all on board for Hillary Clinton. I really wanted to have a female president. I think that’s important. But I’m not sure that’s her. In the past, her stance on abortion was more the way I feel, just for the first trimester, then she did a 360. She was here in the primary, having a debate with Bernie Sanders. He answered the question honestly. When they asked her the same question, she kind of danced around it. Then she went on “The View” and said she was for late-term abortions. Just take a stance, be honest. Same thing as with gay marriage, she wasn’t for it, then she was. I’m 100 percent for it. It’s ridiculous the way we tell people who they can and cannot marry. Don’t go back and forth. Don’t pander. I voted for Obama the last time. I don’t agree with a lot of what he said, but I felt he was honest. _____ A Racist? ‘You Don’t Know Me’ Voter: Katie Holder, 39. Owns a weight-loss business. Home: Gulf Shores, Ala. I feel very, very badly for the people who are very scared for their way of life. From what I’m understanding, he’s only really wanting illegal immigrants that have committed crimes to be deported, which I agree with. I feel bad for the lesbian and gay and transsexual community that fear for their way of life. From what I understand, he says he’s not going to mess with that. Somebody called me a racist because I did vote for Trump. Hold on, you don’t know me. Doesn’t that make you a racist by calling me a racist when you don’t know me? I’m looking for a brighter future for me and my children, and honestly I felt l like our country was kind of at risk if we did elect Hillary. _____ Image Victoria Czapski Credit Chad Batka for The New York Times No Time for Political Correctness Voter: Victoria Czapski, 45. Works in education. Home: Sterling Heights, Mich. I felt he had what it would take to get the country back on track. Being P.C. was going to kill the country. He speaks his mind and because of that, he’s not going to lie to you. I don’t want immigrants, accepting them without doing the background checks. Are these people terrorists ? I don’t want to live in a country where we have to worry about going to the movie theater or the mall. Let’s be on the offensive, versus the defensive. We are a country based on immigrants. But I believe they should go through the process. My great-grandparents came here, they had to learn English. This is a Christian country. The whole bending over backwards. He says what everyone’s thinking and is afraid to say. That doesn’t make anyone bigoted. I’m not saying there are people out there who shouldn’t be helped. I worked in the inner cities. They’re on welfare. They make a certain amount of money and everything gets taken away. That amount of money is so low that they have no incentive to work. Why don’t you allow them to gradually earn more money? Find a way to help people get over the hump. _____ Can’t Put Him in a Box Voter: Pam Cornett, 46. Formerly self-employed, now working in customer service. Home: Chattanooga, Tenn. I voted for Trump because I wanted change. I feel like our economy has totally tanked. People do not have disposable income. I feel the last eight years have been a joke. Obama was out for himself. I don’t think he really respected the office. I think it was more about him being a celebrity than a president. Trump’s a successful businessman, and I feel like that’s what America needs to bring our economy back. I don’t think Donald Trump is really Republican, to be quite honest with you. He’s not in a box. One of the most attractive things to me is he can’t be boxed. He wants to bring America back to what it was before. I don’t think it’s taking us back to women have no rights or slavery days. _____ Image Paula Filar Credit Chad Batka for The New York Times He Was Egregious, but She Lied Voter: Paula Filar, 71. Retired business owner. Home: Shelby Township, Mich. I thought if he would only have kept his mouth shut during the primary. About the way people looked, about their size. Really? About McCain. I mean, really? All of it was so egregious. I hated it, I cringed. All of that was bad, but it didn’t stop me. And it’s like Hillary has the right to talk about Trump when she stayed with a guy who was in the White House and took advantage of a young intern? Why would you stay with him? Benghazi. The emails . The I.R.S. She’s a liar. The Clintons got wealthy because of their position. I’d rather have someone there who doesn’t need the money. He’s got a message. He’s going to make a change. Her message was all him. All negative ads. I spent a long time in the staffing industry here, worked with the automotive industry. We weren’t competitive. That’s got to be turned around. We have to have incentives for companies to keep their work here. _____ Dark Suspicions Voter: Tangie Wooden, 44. Learning facilitator for Blue Cross of Tennessee. Home: Ringgold, Ga. When Trump became my only choice, I felt he was the lesser of two evils. I had major issues with Hillary as far as ethics was concerned. It seems she feels that she is above the law and nothing ever seems to stick. I didn’t particularly like everything he was saying as far as building a wall, and doing this to immigrants. I looked at that more as bravado, his audience needed that to get the applause. But there are allegations about killing people who get in her way — Vince Foster, people like that. Someone who has a big bravado is not as concerning to me as someone who might kill people who get in her way. _____ Good Business Sense Voter: Kasia Riddle, 43. Substitute teacher. Home: Murfreesboro, Tenn. I run my household like a business, my classroom like a business. I expect him to run the country in such a manner. You don’t pay more money out than you have. You want to have your budget under control. You want to know the people you’re working with are above average. You want to pick the people based on what they can do, not on what they did for you. He’s not getting large amounts from donors based on what you’ll do for me later. _____ Image Guzin Karides Credit Julia Rendleman for The New York Times A Voice for Women Voter: Guzin Karides, 49. Homemaker, former attorney. Home: Virginia Beach I laughed Trump off like everyone else did. Once I stopped laughing at him and started listening, I started to support him. I felt like once you got past the bluster, he really was interested in helping everyone. I do think having a secure border is very important. My father was a Muslim immigrant from Turkey, he went through the process. I don’t agree with a ban on Muslims, but my father was very wary of Muslims who came over if they didn’t have a reason to be here. He would support a full vetting, but not a total ban. I have always considered myself a feminist. For me, I want to be treated the exact same way. That’s not the feel I get from feminists today, they want extra privileges. I gave up my first marriage so I could be a law partner and then I had to give up on my partnership so I could be a better mom. To say women are going backwards would be wrong. Look at how much Trump hires women, how much he does rely on women, how much he relies on his own daughter. I’m sort of amazed by her. She may pull him more into the middle. She’ll be a good voice for women. | US Politics;Women and Girls;Donald Trump;Barack Obama;Hillary Clinton;2016 Presidential Election |
ny0081779 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2015/11/06 | Sizing Up Baseball’s Class of Free Agents | In August and September, as Yoenis Cespedes went on an offensive tear that helped carry the Mets to the postseason, the dollar figures bandied about for what he might earn as a free agent became comical. A Cuban-born outfielder who made his major league debut in 2012, Cespedes has been around long enough for most of the baseball world to be plenty familiar with him, but he was suddenly on his way to 35 home runs and a contract worth the gross domestic product of a midsize country. There is no question that the midseason trade to the Mets improved Cespedes’s position as a free agent. But when October rolled round, the streaky slugger reminded everyone of his volatility by scuffling through much of the playoffs. Friday is the deadline for contract options to be exercised and for teams to make qualifying offers for pending free agents, so the pursuit of Cespedes and other top free agents will begin in earnest. The biggest names available include the pitchers Zack Greinke, David Price and Johnny Cueto and the outfielders Jason Heyward and Justin Upton. But one of the most intriguing questions will be whether teams will base their evaluation of Cespedes on the 57 regular-season games he played for the Mets, or the preceding 518 games. In truth, Cespedes, while valuable, has plenty of flaws. At 30, he has a reliance on power above contact that makes him unlikely to age particularly well as a hitter. His great 2015 season came after a two-season stretch in which he hit a combined .251 with a .298 on-base percentage, making him less valuable than the 48 home runs he hit in those seasons would suggest. His defense can be spectacular from a corner outfield position, but he was miscast as a center fielder for the Mets. If a team were looking to make a nine-figure investment, it would be far better off with Heyward of the St. Louis Cardinals. Image Can Ben Zobrist parlay an outstanding postseason with the Royals into one more big contract? Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times At 26, a rare age for a player to reach free agency, Heyward is among the best defensive players in baseball and a productive hitter, even if he has not quite lived up to expectations. Those came even before he hit the third pitch of his major league career, from Carlos Zambrano, more than 430 feet. Heyward, primarily a right fielder, is especially intriguing because of his potential, but even if he does not improve, one could argue that he is the superior player. By wins above replacement, Heyward edged Cespedes this season, 6.5 to 6.3. The difference was greater last season, when Heyward topped Cespedes, 6.2 to 4.1. And since Heyward is just entering his prime, the difference could grow larger. Much of Heyward’s value comes from his play in the outfield, where he has 92 defensive runs saved over all since 2012 (Cespedes has 15). He has also been a better hitter than some might realize. Adjusted for league and home ballpark, Cespedes has been 22 percent better than the average batter, according to Baseball-Reference, while Heyward has been 14 percent better. Heyward has been more disruptive as a runner, with 43 steals in 50 attempts over the last two seasons to Cespedes’s 14 in 21 attempts. Both players are likely to receive contracts of $100 million or more — perhaps far more — but four or five years down the road, the team that signs Heyward is likely to be much happier with the contract. The Top Tier Beyond Heyward — who may represent the greatest reward, if not the most value — Greinke is the top free agent. The 2009 American League Cy Young winner, Greinke is 32 and just had the best season of his career with a 1.66 E.R.A. over more than 220 innings. Greinke signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers as a free agent, and over three seasons he has been better than they could have anticipated, going 51-15 with a 2.30 E.R.A. in 92 starts. It would be wise for him to re-sign in Los Angeles, where he is comfortable, but any team would be lucky to have him. Price, 30, is just a hair behind Greinke no matter how much teams are turned off by his postseason struggles. Beginning with his dominant third season for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2010, Price has been incredible in the vast majority of his 189 regular-season starts, so judging him on eight postseason starts would be misguided. Worth the Investment There are a number of players below the top tier who can help a team win but, for a variety of reasons, will not command deals quite as lucrative. The list includes three key members of the Kansas City Royals. Ben Zobrist, who can play in the infield and the outfield, has quietly been among the most productive players in baseball since 2009, with his 39.3 WAR trailing only Robinson Cano’s, Miguel Cabrera’s, Adrian Beltre’s and Joey Votto’s in that time. But he got off to a rocky start this season with Oakland before being traded to Kansas City, and at 34, he may be closing out his prime. Alex Gordon’s stock has been volatile, but at 31, he is a three-time All-Star and a quality defensive left fielder. He missed 58 games this year but was remarkably durable over the four previous seasons. Johnny Cueto went from being one of the best pitchers in the National League over several seasons to being a huge disappointment for the Royals after a midseason trade. But when he became the first A.L. pitcher since 1991 to throw a complete-game win in the World Series, he probably did enough to erase any doubts about his ability. At 29, he could provide as much value as Greinke or Price, if he finds the right situation. Other productive players, if imperfect ones, include Upton, first baseman Chris Davis, pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma, outfielder Colby Rasmus, pitcher Jordan Zimmermann and second baseman Howie Kendrick. Players to Avoid It is not uncommon for a player to inflate his value artificially after a dominant stretch of play, but Mets infielder Daniel Murphy is an extreme example. Well established as someone who can give a team about 2 WAR a season with moderate power and adequate defense, Murphy thoroughly confused everyone with a terrific postseason in which he flashed so much power that it was surprising when his at-bats did not end in home runs. But at 30 years old, and with no reason to believe his power surge was anything but an aberration, Murphy seems like a great example of a player who will almost assuredly disappoint any team hoping he can play that way regularly. At least with Murphy, the inflated contract would be a result of something he did. For Matt Wieters, a large contract would be based on little more than his name and the persistent belief that he will eventually put everything together. It is easy to see how teams would find a switch-hitting catcher with the power to hit 20 home runs intriguing, but he has played in only 101 of Baltimore’s last 324 games, and in 2013, which was the last time he played a full season, he was a below-average hitter in terms of adjusted O.P.S. despite his 22 home runs. Wieters will turn 30 in the second month of the season, and while he may return to the player he was in 2011 and 2012, it is hard to believe that it would last long. Perhaps the biggest head scratcher in terms of value is pitcher Scott Kazmir. He may be only 31, but few players have experienced as many highs or lows. A dominant first half with Oakland had him primed for a big payday, but he faltered drastically after a trade to Houston, and that, combined with his complicated health history — his only season of 200 or more innings came in 2007 — should at the very least give teams pause. | Baseball;Yoenis Cespedes;Zack Greinke;Free agent;Johnny Cueto;Alex Gordon;Ben Zobrist |
ny0275496 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2016/02/26 | Post-Enron Accounting Rule Requires Companies to Report Leases | The Enron accounting scandal happened nearly 15 years ago, but the announcement on Thursday of a new accounting rule shows that its impact is still being felt in corporate America. The Financial Accounting Standards Board, the body that sets accounting rules, has issued a final rule that changes how companies account for most of their leases. Though leases are similar to loans, companies have long been permitted to exclude most leases from their balance sheets. As a result, investors looking at a company’s financial statements may have struggled to calculate its true financial obligations. The new rule requires that the most common type of lease be included on a company’s balance sheet, potentially giving investors a more accurate picture of a company’s health. Regulators started to consider a change in lease accounting after the collapse in 2001 of Enron, whose executives made the company look stronger than it was by keeping some of its financial obligations “off-balance sheet.” “This adds light to one of the remaining crevices of off-balance-sheet accounting,” James L. Kroeker, vice chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, said about the new rule. The board estimates that the rule could add more than $1 trillion of obligations to the liabilities section of the balance sheets of public companies traded in the United States. That compares with $26 trillion of total liabilities for those companies, according to the board. The increase in liabilities was one of the reasons companies criticized the rule. Using certain measurements that aim to assess a company’s creditworthiness, the new leasing rule might make a business look more indebted. Lenders might then be less willing to extend credit to it. “This standard can have a severe impact on the ability of businesses to go out and get debt,” said Tom Quaadman, at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness. Still, the lease obligations added to the balance sheet will be offset by corresponding assets. As a result, the rule will not erode a company’s net worth, an important measure of financial strength. Also, when the obligations turn up on the balance sheet, there may be few big surprises. Companies already make disclosures about their lease obligations in the notes of their financial statements. Bringing all the leases onto the balance sheet is expected to have benefits for investors. The rule further standardizes how leases are presented in financial statements — and perhaps subjects them to deeper scrutiny by auditors. The rule could make it easier for investors to compare the strength of several companies in one sector. “The new guidance responds to requests from investors and other financial statement users for a more faithful representation of an organization’s leasing activities,” Russell G. Golden, chairman of the accounting standards board, said in a statement. Under the new rule, companies must bring their “operating leases” onto their balance sheets. Operating leases give a company the right to use an asset, like a retail location in a mall, over time. Companies owe far more through operating leases than they do through capital leases, which are already accounted for on companies’ balance sheets. Capital leases typically allow companies to gain ownership of the asset at the end of the lease. Leases of less than 12 months will not have to be included on the balance sheet. The new leasing rule will not affect earnings. The way lease payments are reflected in the income statement will not change. Industry lobbyists have asserted that adopting the rule on leases will create new costs for companies. But they also said that the accounting standards board had listened to companies’ concerns. “F.A.S.B. has been very receptive to hearing what the problems are,” Mr. Quaadman said, referring to the board. For most public companies, the rule will take effect in 2019, but companies may adopt it earlier. Since Enron’s collapse, the accounting standards board has taken other steps to prevent companies from hiding the true extent of their financial obligations. The board has, for example, introduced rules that aim to prevent companies from using special off-balance-sheet entities to obscure how much they really owe. | Accounting; Accountants;Companies;FASB;Enron;United States Chamber of Commerce;Russell G Golden;Lobbying |
ny0119694 | [
"sports",
"olympics"
] | 2012/07/28 | Nikpah of Afghanistan Symbolizes Peaceful Olympic Combat | KABUL — It was only by chance that a 10-year-old Rohullah Nikpah found taekwondo. Unlike most Olympic athletes, Nikpah was not groomed from an early age to compete. Rather, he grew up in a refugee camp in Iran, and one day he accompanied his brother to a makeshift gym for a taekwondo sparring session. The connection was immediate, a little like love at first sight. “I just enjoyed practicing this sport,” he said. He does more than enjoy it. Just four years after returning to Afghanistan from life as a refugee, Nikpah was standing on the podium at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, a bronze medal around his neck. Unlikely as it may seem, that day produced Afghanistan’s first Olympic medalist. When Nikpah defeated the Spanish world champion Juan Antonio Ramos in the 58-kilogram, or 128-pound, category, he became a national hero in a place that has seen few in the past 30 years. To welcome him home, thousands of his countrymen gathered in Ghazi Stadium, which, until then, had been known more for the Taliban’s public executions. When the preliminary round in taekwondo starts Aug. 8, Nikpah will no longer be an unknown but a returning medalist. And this time he has his eyes on the gold. “I don’t have any stress for this competition, and I hope to Allah to go there and I will bring a good achievement back to the country,” he said. Having moved up in weight class since the Beijing Olympics, Nikpah is ranked 13th by the World Taekwondo Federation in the men’s 68-kilogram category, or 150 pounds. Nikpah was born two years before the Taliban took power in 1989. His family — ethnic Hazaras, a minority community that suffered discrimination under the Taliban — had to escape to Iran, where Nikpah grew up among fellow Afghan exiles and discovered taekwondo. His family returned to Afghanistan in 2004. At age 21 in Beijing, Nikpah not only competed in his first Olympics, he took home a medal. He is tall, fit and blessed with movie-star looks. Even his haircut is popular with young men eager to imitate their hero. For a nation synonymous with the destruction of war, he is a welcome face of a new Afghanistan. “We are the young generation and can introduce our country to the world through the sports,” he said one morning at the Kabul home he shares with his family, a gift from President Hamid Karzai for his showing in Beijing. Expectations are high in London. “He will definitely medal,” said Usman Dildar, an Afghan member of the London Organizing Committee who runs a large taekwondo studio in London. “What color? Inshallah, we’re hoping for gold.” Nikpah’s celebrity aside, the Munir Ahmad Taekwondo Association Club in Kabul seems spartan compared with the facilities used by most Olympic athletes. Gym equipment lies at one end of a rectangular room. With a military precision, Nikpah kicked, struck and blocked across the interlocking red and blue floor mats as his coach, Mohammed Bashir Tareki, looked on. The Afghan National Olympic Committee pays its athletes about $21 a month. Nikpah runs an electronics business with two partners to make ends meet. “We don’t have enough facilities to do the training in our country,” he said. “I just use what we have.” Despite the lack of resources, taekwondo has blossomed in Afghanistan, partly because of Nikpah’s stardom, and also because of the popularity of the sport in neighboring Iran, which has about 4,000 taekwondo gyms. Today in Afghanistan, about 500 clubs are active. Taekwondo is a key way to provide young Afghans with options outside of the criminal world, said Mirwais Bahawi, acting secretary general of the Afghanistan Taekwondo Foundation. In Nikpah’s lifetime, Afghanistan has hardly figured at the Olympics. It sent just two athletes to Atlanta in 1996, during Taliban rule, before the International Olympic Committee expelled it in 1999 because of its treatment of women. Afghan athletes returned to the Games in Athens in 2004 with a team of five, including two women. In Beijing, Nikpah was one of four Afghan athletes. “We can’t provide everything they want right now,” Bahawi said. “And they are not always thinking about the things we don’t have.” The taekwondo foundation has received training and equipment from its counterpart in South Korea, the birthplace of the sport. In late May, Nikpah traveled there for training before heading to London this month. The day before he left for South Korea, Nikpah was on a Kabul sidewalk outside a supermarket. Passers-by recognized him, offering smiles and pats on the back. Two women, clad in blue burqas , approached him politely. He basked in their attention with a delighted smile, and put a hand over his heart in the traditional gesture of thanks and respect. Does he feel pressure not to let his compatriots down? “Yes, of course, I feel 100 percent responsible for the people,” he said. “It’s the support of the people who give me energy, and I hope to make them happy.” | Olympic Games (2012);Nikpah Rohullah;Taekwondo;Afghanistan |
ny0101038 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2015/12/17 | Pope Francis, Reminding That Salvation Is Free, Warns Against Fraudsters | An estimated 10 million Roman Catholics are expected to pass through the Holy Door, a symbol of the threshold to salvation, during a yearlong celebration dedicated to the theme of mercy. But, Pope Francis warned on Wednesday, be wary of fraudsters asking for a toll to enter the doorway. “Be careful,” he exhorted, according to the Catholic News Service . “Beware of someone who is sly or sneaky who tells you that you need to pay. Salvation cannot be paid for, salvation cannot be bought. Jesus is the door and Jesus is free of charge.” Pope Francis called for the Jubilee, or Holy Year, to highlight the need for mercy, he said in an interview this month with the Italian magazine Credere. Typically, they are celebrated every 25 or 50 years and are focused in Rome, but this year bishops will open Holy Doors in local places of worship around the world . “To pass through the Holy Door means to rediscover the infinite mercy of the Father who welcomes everyone and goes out personally to encounter each of them,” the pope said before the opening ceremony last week. “This will be a year in which we grow ever more convinced of God’s mercy.” The pope’s warning against scammers came on the same week that police in Rome said they had seized 3,500 fake Vatican parchments being sold as keepsakes of the Holy Year pilgrimage, The Associated Press reported. The genuine parchments are personalized and sold by the Vatican for $8 to $40 to fund the pope’s charitable efforts, but $76,000 worth of knockoffs were found at a souvenir shop near St. Peter’s Basilica. | Catholic Church;Pope Francis;Counterfeit;Pilgrimage |
ny0087556 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2015/07/23 | Bills’ Marquise Goodwin Is Second in Long Jump | Buffalo Bills wide receiver Marquise Goodwin won a silver medal in the long jump at the Pan American Games in Toronto, leaping 27 feet 1 ¾ inches. Jeffery Henderson of the United States won at 28-0 ¼, and Emiliano Lasa of Uruguay took bronze with 26-9 ¾. | Track and field;Marquise Goodwin;Football;Bills |
ny0027869 | [
"business"
] | 2013/01/09 | Taxpayers Can Start Filing Jan. 30 | WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The Internal Revenue Service said on Tuesday that taxpayers could begin filing their 2012 returns on Jan. 30, eight days later than originally planned because of last-minute changes that Congress made to the tax laws at the beginning of the year. “This date ensures we have the time we need to update and test our processing systems,” the I.R.S.’s acting commissioner, Steven T. Miller, said in a statement. Legislation enacted on Jan. 2, after months of debate on Capitol Hill, raised the ordinary income tax rates on household incomes above $450,000 and extended some tax breaks. The agency said it could not prepare for the coming tax season until it knew what was in the legislation. More than 120 million households should be able to start filing tax returns on Jan. 30 but some, like those claiming energy tax credits, will not be able to file until late February or early March, the agency said. | Income tax;IRS;Legislation;Senate;Congress;House of Representatives;Congress;Tax |
ny0213360 | [
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] | 2010/03/18 | At Villanova, Coach Wright’s Style Is Part Flash, All Candor | VILLANOVA, Pa. — In July 2007, Villanova guard Scottie Reynolds, then coming off a rookie-of-the-year season in the Big East, played for Wildcats Coach Jay Wright with the United States team in the Pan-American Games in Rio de Janeiro. During one practice, Reynolds , a meek shooter, failed to perform a defensive drill correctly three times. After the third try, Wright’s silver tongue turned into a leather whip in front of the team. “Get out!” Wright told Reynolds. “If you want to act like a small-town kid, then you’re never going to play at this level!” Reynolds, a humble son of Huntsville, Ala., remained reticent. “He killed me,” said Reynolds, whose No. 2-seeded Wildcats will play No. 15 Robert Morris on Thursday in the South Region of the N.C.A.A. tournament. “That summer alone is why I feel like I’ve been here five or six years.” For all of Wright’s big-city polish, whether it is the self-described “man purse” he carries while recruiting, the tailor-made suits or the cologne bottles he stores in his car, desk and travel kit, his gritty makeup may be his strongest trait. It is not the glossy appearance of a “Glengarry Glen Ross” character that shows through when he visits recruits. Rather, it is unvarnished truth that impresses. “The greatest gift I can give you is the truth,” Wright often tells prospects. Boston University Coach Pat Chambers, who coached with Wright for five seasons, said: “As an assistant, you cringe when Jay comes in for the final meeting and tells the kid he’s not going to start right away. But you know what? He told that to an N.B.A. player in Tyreke Evans . I rolled my eyes, but I know Tyreke respected that, too.” Wright, 48 , has fashioned his team into a winner, largely based on the ability to procure talent along the New York-to-Washington corridor. Favorable impressions allowed him to collect four McDonald’s all-Americans on his current roster, but now he has been charged with sustaining the success from last season’s team, which reached the Final Four. The transition has not been easy. Having been ranked as high as No. 2, the Wildcats finished the regular season ninth and have five losses in their last seven games. “The guy can coach and manage the whole program, or else it wouldn’t be Villanova University ,” said Philadelphia University Coach Herb Magee, who taught Wright to shoot in his youth. “It would be Exit University with kids leaving.” For a guard-oriented program, Villanova has rebounded well in recruiting. No signee in the last four years has been more vital to Villanova’s revival than Reynolds. He originally committed to Oklahoma, but changed his mind once Coach Kelvin Sampson uprooted for Indiana. He knew none of the Wildcats when he came to visit. Wright called Reynolds’s mother, Pam, who adopted Reynolds when he was a toddler. She told Wright that she would have to wait a few days to decide. “Everything seemed too good to be true,” she told Wright. “We want to be sure.” Reynolds committed and was welcomed by Wright, who likes to refer to his comfortable lot in life as “La-La land.” The senior guard Randy Foye graduated after leading the Wildcats to the Round of 8, and Wright wanted to remodel Reynolds into a point guard. At first, they were a mismatch. Wright, a Bucknell frat boy who prided himself on high school basketball runs into Philadelphia neighborhoods, where he found bullet holes in his car, was aggressive and wanted Reynolds to play similarly. Reynolds, a pious type with the penchant for overanalyzing, wanted to study every angle. “I thought this kid can’t be thinking this deeply,” Wright said. “I’m used to New York-Jersey guys who you get in their face and they do it.” Injuries forced Reynolds to score and handle the ball, reaching a climax during a late-February game at UConn. Wright let Reynolds, a freshman, work off ball screens for 40 points, using the same two plays over and over. “Each time I’d think there’s no way we’d get away with this again,” Wright said. The big shots came from Reynolds’s compact motion, which ends with a subtle flick. He has continued them through his career, culminating in a full-court layup in the final second against Pitt last March to land Villanova in the Final Four. “If you ask me what I remember about him, it was the 40 at UConn more than the Pitt shot,” Wright said. “We maintained the program on his shoulders that year.” Chambers can still hear the echoes from past blow-ups. The last one he saw was last April, before Villanova left for the Final Four. Wright let Reynolds have it, and the exchange made Chambers confident. “Whenever they went at it, we usually won,” Chambers said. “Both locked in.” Now, Wright and Reynolds start another title pursuit in the spotlight. “I understand now,” Reynolds said. “He’s just telling you the truth.” | Wright Jay;Villanova University;Draft and Recruitment (Sports);College Athletics;NCAA Basketball Tournament (Men);Basketball;Coaches and Managers;Big East Conference;Reynolds Scottie |
ny0094143 | [
"sports",
"soccer"
] | 2015/01/05 | Yeovil Town Has Its Shot at Manchester United in the F.A. Cup | YEOVIL, England — On Friday morning, Yeovil Town’s tiny stadium — Huish Park, with a capacity of about 9,500 — was both empty and buzzing. A group of electricians maneuvered through the seats, balancing loops of cable and step ladders on their shoulders. A woman, busy with her clipboard, wove her way around a tower of burger-bun boxes stacked near the touchline. A squeaking, elderly turnstile was oiled, and the air rung with the sound of hammer blows on hollow scaffolding poles as temporary stands and TV camera positions were assembled at the corners of the field. Behind one goal, the very low-tech scoreboard was being tested, flashing up the state of play before Sunday’s kickoff: F.A. Cup Third Round; Yeovil Town 0, Manchester United 0. The third round, which was played across England this weekend, is when the big teams of the Premier League enter the tournament, and when the little ones start to dream of the impossible. For smaller clubs like Yeovil Town and its fans, advancing this far offers a glimpse at a dream — a trip to a grand stadium or, better, a visit to yours from a giant like United. It also offers the opportunity to soak in the so-called magic of the F.A. Cup — and to daydream, as Yeovil did for much of Sunday, of harnessing enough of that magic to write a new place in that history. Image Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney, right, and Yeovil Town’s Joe Edwards before Sunday’s match in the F.A. Cup, which visiting United won, 2-0. Credit Alastair Grant/Associated Press Winning against world-class talent is always going to be difficult for teams like Yeovil, which has struggled this season even in its own league, two divisions below the mighty Premier League. The goal on Sunday, Yeovil Manager Gary Johnson wrote in his notes for the matchday program, was to “give the fans a day they will remember for the rest of their lives.” Manchester United may not be too accustomed to playing this kind of game at this kind of stadium, but the home team is an expert. The F.A. Cup is open to all clubs in the English league system, which includes some from Wales, and over the last 90 years Yeovil has been matched against some of the biggest teams in the third round. It has given a few a run for their money : Liverpool in 1935; Sunderland, whom Yeovil beat in 1949 by 2-1; Arsenal in 1992; and Liverpool again in 2004. This year Yeovil drew the biggest club of all. Just to put it in perspective, United is 65 places higher in the English league structure, and it has revenue probably 250 times bigger: Think of seeing the Yankees sent to play at the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes. In 1949, Yeovil did go on to play Manchester United, away in the fourth round, and was soundly thrashed, 8-0. But win, draw or lose, these great clashes of unequals bring in a small fortune. Sunday’s game alone was expected to increase Yeovil Town F.C.’s annual turnover by around a third, team officials predicted. Image A Yeovil Town fan waiting for the start of the match. Credit Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Still, the gap in stature between Huish Park and Old Trafford was obvious. The press office at Yeovil is a khaki portable cabin set down by a mini traffic circle that also serves as the club’s garden of remembrance, where fans’ ashes can be buried. Inside it on Friday, team officials prepared more than 140 credentials for the match (seven times the usual crowd, and representing reporters from as far away as the Persian Gulf, the Netherlands and Denmark) and noted that they had already run out of chairs, desks and even electrical outlets. The same problem of scaling up was evident in the kitchens and hospitality rooms. As cleaners vacuumed every inch of the almost threadbare carpets woven wall to wall with Yeovil club crests, a team employee named Clive Robinson seemed unperturbed as he pondered menus, silver service for Manchester United’s directors and an order for the stadium tea bars that had requested six times the normal volume of hot dogs, diced onions, ketchup and burgers. “It’s all about the prep,” he said. By Sunday, Huish Park was polished and painted and primed for its big day, right down to the fresh flowers in every rest room — a touch overseen by a devoted volunteer, Pat Custard, that is unique in English soccer. Custard also runs the tea bar, which means she does not even get to see the games as the bars need to be cleaned and closed up. She makes do with specially recorded DVDs. Yeovil Town may not have been the favorite, but it was ready to be a good host. As it turned out, Manchester United was ready to be a good guest. Its support, around a quarter of the crowd, made plenty of noise and offered villainous swagger, chanting, “Do you know what it’s like to win the league?” Its former manager Alex Ferguson added a bit of celebrity flash by arriving in a helicopter. Image A bare-chested Joe Edwards of Yeovil Town swapped shirts with Wayne Rooney after United’s 2-0 win. Credit Michael Steele/Getty Images It was not quite the all-star United team on display, but Manager Louis Van Gaal started Wayne Rooney and Radamel Falcao, and sent on Juan Mata and Ángel di María in the second half. Most generous of all, for 60 minutes, United played with the kind of disconnectedness that gave Yeovil Town hope as its players relentlessly pressed and scurried about. “We just might do this,” one fan whispered early in the second half, but United was not quite that generous. A goal from Ander Herrera and a last-minute breakaway from di María produced a 2-0 victory and Yeovil was out. “I wasn’t surprised by the performance because I knew this was a massive game and some of these lads may never get this type of game again,” Johnson said in a postmatch news conference that was briefly interrupted by the din stirred up by Ferguson’s departing helicopter . “It was important we put on an event, and I think the supporters are happy. Everything went very well, and we’re proud of our club.” Perhaps it was best that Pat Custard was still in the tea bar counting the takings when the match ended; it’s the dashed aspirations that hurt the most. But Yeovil’s team, on and off the pitch, had surely earned its moment of hope. | Soccer;FA Cup;Great Britain;Manchester United;Yeovil Town |
ny0004015 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/04/28 | New Jersey Henhouses Sell Duck, Goose, Even Ostrich Eggs | WANTAGE, N.J. — Most mornings outside the gates of Tier Haus Farms here, several cars drive up to investigate the contents of an ordinary-looking cooler. Inside are eggs, freshly collected from beyond the gates by Carolyn Gerdes, an owner of the hilly, 70-acre property. Instead of having a traditional farm stand, Ms. Gerdes accepts orders by text, e-mail and phone for eggs, then leaves them for her regular customers to pick up when she is not available to hand them off directly. “The thing about eggs — and people who buy them right from a farm know this — is that you really can tell when they’re fresh. They taste much different,” Ms. Gerdes, 43, said. That may be true, but in the case of Tier Haus Farms, the appeal is more than freshness. About 20 percent of the customers are also seeking variety. Like several other egg producers in New Jersey, Ms. Gerdes sells alternative eggs — eggs that are not laid by chickens. “I’d say that for every five dozen chicken eggs I sell, I sell a dozen duck eggs,” Ms. Gerdes said. And this time of year, when goose eggs are available — laying season generally lasts from mid- to late April to late June — “I’ll sell around five goose eggs for every five dozen chicken eggs.” Each spring, she also sells a few guinea hen eggs, which are smaller than chicken eggs and have a very hard shell. Ms. Gerdes, who maintains a flock of about 80 birds of various species, has operated Tier Haus, whose main business is raising sheep and goats for meat, since 2006; she started selling goose and duck eggs around 2008. Demand has steadily increased each year, she said during a recent walk through the noisy henhouse, where she paused at a nest to collect a still-warm white duck egg. Later, she would wash it and deposit it in a carton of a special size, stamped with the “Jersey Fresh” logo. Michael Westendorf, a cooperative extension specialist and associate professor in the department of animal sciences at Rutgers University , said that small, noncommercial egg producers throughout the state were noticing an uptick in demand for fresh eggs. “Free-range has been important for a while,” Mr. Westendorf said. But lately “we’re seeing a lot of interest in niche markets,” like duck, goose, quail and ostrich eggs, he said. Image This is also ostrich egg season, as Ty Appelbaum, 5, can attest. His father, Todd Appelbaum, owns Roaming Acres Farm in Hardyston, N.J. Credit Randy Harris for The New York Times Duck eggs, which are slightly larger than extra-large chicken eggs, and goose eggs, which are about three times the size of jumbo chicken eggs, are prized by bakers, Ms. Gerdes said, because they have a higher yolk-to-white ratio and are therefore richer. “You bake a poundcake with one and you can see the difference in color — it’ll be much more yellow-orange,” she said. Duck eggs are also common in Asian cooking. Farmers like Ms. Gerdes and Joe Silvestri, owner of the two-acre Goffle Road Poultry Farm in Wyckoff, attribute the increased popularity of nonchicken eggs in part to allergies. “A lot of times people who are allergic to chicken eggs can eat duck eggs,” said Mr. Silvestri, 55, who packages duck and quail eggs for sale in the farm’s on-site market year-round. Mr. Silvestri estimated that each week he sold 900 to 1,000 dozen chicken eggs and 10 dozen duck eggs, which he described as having “a strong yolk flavor.” He also sells goose and quail eggs. Mr. Silvestri also carries the occasional ostrich egg, which he obtains from another farmer and sells with the contents drained. “People will buy them just for the shell. They like to decorate them,” he said. Local cooks wishing to buy an ostrich egg for eating — one equals roughly two dozen chicken eggs — are not out of luck, though. Image Roaming Acres Farm has 200 ostriches, raised mostly for meat. Their eggs fetch $30 apiece. Credit Randy Harris for The New York Times From April until early June, Todd Appelbaum, owner of Roaming Acres Farm in Hardyston, gathers about 10 eggs a day from his flock of 200 ostriches and sells them for $30 each at the Montclair Farmers Market, the Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan, and directly from Roaming Acres. He sells them to offset what he said were considerable feed costs; Roaming Acres raises ostriches mainly for the meat. The taste of an ostrich egg is not dissimilar to the taste of a chicken egg, said Mr. Appelbaum, 41, during a walk around the sprawling, 69-acre farm, where he also raises bison, emus and Berkshire pigs. The appeal is mostly novelty, he said. That may also explain the popularity of quail eggs, which are “around the size of a large gumball,” in the words of Matthew Sytsema, chef at the 70-acre Griggstown Quail Farm and Market in Princeton. Griggstown Quail sells about 1,000 dozen a week year-round at an on-site store and at farmers markets. Its customers include wholesalers and restaurants, like the Bernards Inn in Bernardsville. The farm also sells pheasant eggs from April to June, when they are available. The difference in taste between a quail egg and a chicken egg is “very minimal,” Mr. Sytsema, 31, said. He has prepared a short spiel for the benefit of curious customers who ask questions at farmers markets: “I tell them, anything you can do with a chicken egg you can do with a quail egg. But chefs usually use them for appetizers, because they look good.” Sometimes he wishes quail eggs were not as appealing as they are, he added. “We take a lot of orders for them for parties,” he said. “They’re so little, and they’re not the easiest things to peel.” Cooking ostrich eggs presents different challenges, Mr. Appelbaum said. The shells can be difficult to crack, because they are thicker and harder than the shells of chicken eggs. “You also have to find a really big frying pan,” he said. | Eggs;Cooking;New Jersey;Roaming Acres Farm Hardyston NJ;Griggstown Quail Farm and Market Princeton NJ;Goffle Road Poultry Farm Wyckoff NJ;Tier Haus Farms Wantage NJ |
ny0241941 | [
"us"
] | 2011/03/11 | California Budget Deadline Passes, but Deal May Be Near | LOS ANGELES — When Gov. Jerry Brown first proposed his plan of tax extensions and deep cuts to close the $26 billion shortfall California is facing, he said it needed to pass the Legislature by March 10, so the taxes could be put before voters in a referendum in June, a key part of his plan. That deadline passed on Thursday amid signs that Mr. Brown, a Democrat, might be making progress in persuading some Republicans to sign on to the bill and with Mr. Brown saying that the deadline was not that hard. “We are in serious discussions with legislators on both sides of the aisle,” said Gil Duran, Mr. Brown’s spokesman. “He called a delay because the discussions have been productive.” The Assembly speaker, John A. Pérez, asked members to stay on call for a possible vote Friday or over the weekend, said his spokesman, Shannon Murphy. Mr. Brown is looking to close the budget deficit with spending cuts and tax extensions, including sales and income tax surcharges, that would otherwise expire. To get the taxes on the ballot, he needs to win the support of two-thirds of the Legislature, which means winning support from two Republicans in the Senate and two Republicans in the House. Mr. Brown has met repeatedly in recent days with five Republican senators who have signaled that they are open to a deal if Democrats yield on some issues of concern to them, including cuts in benefits for state workers and a state spending cap. “We have accepted the governor’s challenge to bring him our reform proposals, and we’re ready to work,” the five Republican senators said in a statement on Thursday evening. Mr. Brown has said he was open to discussing those demands but at the same time, has made clear that he could go only so far without losing the support of Democrats. In his campaign for governor, Mr. Brown said he would not agree to any tax increases unless they were approved by voters. If the tax extensions are not approved, Mr. Brown said he would return with “an all-cuts budget.” Darrell Steinberg, the president pro tem of the Senate, said that with a deal, the Legislature could vote on a bill early next week. Officials said that would still allow enough time for it to appear on the ballot on June 7, as Mr. Brown has proposed. | California;Budgets and Budgeting;Brown Edmund G Jr;United States Politics and Government;Referendums |
ny0208663 | [
"us"
] | 2009/12/05 | A Second Act Is Proposed for Chicago Hospital Campus | CHICAGO — A hospital campus that city officials had planned to use as an athletes’ village in their failed bid for the 2016 Olympics should be placed on the National Register of Historic Places, a state panel recommended on Friday. The panel, the Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council, voted unanimously to ask federal officials to recognize the Michael Reese Hospital campus because some buildings were designed by Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus. But the city, which bought the 40-acre campus earlier this year for $91 million as it prepared its bid for the 2016 Games, has already begun demolishing some buildings. And after losing the bid in October, Chicago announced plans to raze most of the site’s 29 buildings to make way for mixed-income housing in an effort recoup the costs of buying the property. Although the campus’s placement on the register would not legally force the city to stop demolition, the Illinois panel and preservationists here said it would certainly draw national attention to the site and pressure city officials to reconsider. Grahm Balkany, director of the Gropius in Chicago Coalition, a group that has pressed to save the site, told the panel that the city had already demolished four of eight buildings that Gropius was heavily involved in designing. “This is a part of Chicago that people found truly exquisite,” Mr. Balkany said. “It is a tragedy.” The city said the panel’s vote would not change its plans to continue demolition. City officials had already promised to preserve the main hospital building, which was designed by the architectural firm Schmidt, Garden & Martin, and the Singer Pavilion, which was designed by Gropius. A spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Community Development, Molly Sullivan, said the city could not afford to maintain more than those two buildings, especially during tough economic times. “The city has tried to balance the interests of preservation while not burdening the taxpayers,” Ms. Sullivan said. But preservationists said Mayor Richard M. Daley should not have bought the campus before knowing whether it would win the Olympics bid. | Historic Buildings and Sites;Chicago (Ill);Gropius Walter;National Register of Historic Places;Hospitals;Olympic Games (2016) |
ny0080193 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2015/02/01 | A Review of ‘Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike’ in Northport | Christopher Durang saves the best speech for last in “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” the comedic mash-up in which the playwright mixes bits of Anton Chekhov with large doses of his own brand of wacky humor. The play is running at the John W. Engeman Theater at Northport through March 8. Toward the end of the second act, Vanya — a middle-aged man who shares his name with the title character of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” — launches into an extended rant criticizing everything wrong with today’s video-screen-obsessed society and praising everything right (or nearly so) with the mid-20th-century, when the ventriloquist Señor Wences entertained Americans in living rooms across the nation on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and virtually every boy in the country owned a coonskin cap, or wanted to own one. Kevin Pariseau, the actor who plays Vanya, nails the monologue with his sputtering, outraged delivery, drawing whooping laughs from baby boomers and explaining enough about the Davy Crockett reference and other matters to allow younger people appreciative chuckles too. Image Stephen Mark Lukas (Spike) Credit Michael DeCristofaro It’s a shame that this production of Mr. Durang’s comedy, which won the 2013 Tony Award for best play, isn’t peppered with many more of these moments. The production is as scattershot as its meandering title. Some of the jokes land and some don’t. Richard T. Dolce, the director, has the cast speak in overly mannered tones, especially in the opening scenes, trying to approximate the cadences of some of Chekhov’s plays, most of which deal with Russian aristocrats living yearning, unfulfilled lives. But the stylized speech patterns drain the fun from sequences that should be hilarious and can sound like a certain kind of embarrassingly bad community theater performance. This comparison comes to mind because early in the play, Vanya explains that he and his siblings got their Russian names because their parents were professors who were both active in community theater. Though Mr. Pariseau is fairly subdued outside of his rant, Laurie Dawn, who plays the continually depressed Sonia, goes all out with cartoonish whining. In an admirable turnaround, she is much funnier when her character dons a glamorous wig and gown and, for a costume party, pretends to be Maggie Smith. Though she sounds not at all like the Oscar-winning actress, Ms. Dawn presents a heartwarming portrait of an ugly duckling transformed into a swan. She redeems her forays into overacting, as do others. Image Isabel Santiago (Cassandra) Credit Michael DeCristofaro The marquee name among the performers here is Sean Young, who starred in “ Blade Runner ” and other Hollywood movies. Like Sigourney Weaver in the Broadway production, she adds an amusing insider resonance by being a successful movie actress playing the role of a successful movie actress. Ms. Young, who according to her program biography has had very little stage experience, acquits herself honorably. Her character, Masha (a name from several of Chekhov’s plays), has been supporting her siblings Vanya and Sonia, who still live at the family home (a situation that slightly echoes “Uncle Vanya”). In Mr. Durang’s version, the family home is a farmhouse in Bucks County, Pa. Masha, the family’s self-centered queen bee, alarms her brother and sister by threatening to sell the homestead. She also brings along her much younger boyfriend, Spike, a well-muscled would-be actor who likes to strip to his skivvies, or less, ably played by Stephen Mark Lukas. A stereotypically sassy housekeeper named Cassandra who makes predictions no one believes and who practices voodoo (for no discernible reason except some sophomoric pin-sticking humor) is a more jarring presence. The character seems out of sync with the other Durang creations, but Isabel Santiago plays the role with good grace and the required zest. A rudimentary knowledge of Chekhov is all that is needed to appreciate Mr. Durang’s literary wit. When Vanya and Sonia argue about whether 10 or 11 trees constitute a cherry orchard, it’s a reference to “The Cherry Orchard,” of course. When Sonia repeatedly declares, “I am a wild turkey,” it’s not hard to figure out that the line must be a variation on one from “The Seagull.” In fact, “I am a seagull” is a famous line from that play, said by a character named Nina. In Mr. Durang’s play, Nina is a young aspiring actress who wanders in from next door, amiably portrayed by Megan Yelaney. Nothing matches up exactly. And nothing matches Vanya’s final soliloquy, which manages to incorporate, with a gentle tug, the pathos that underlies the unfocused lives of Mr. Durang’s characters. The recurring phrase that Vanya uses to define his abhorrence of the digital age and yearning for a simpler one is absurdly sad: “We licked postage stamps!” | Theater;Christopher Durang;John W. Engeman Theater;Anton Chekhov;Northport NY;Sean Young;Richard T Dolce;Kevin Pariseau |
ny0058312 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2014/09/25 | In Israel, Values of a Holy Respite Are Adapted for a High-Tech World | JERUSALEM — The printers at Energiya Global sit idle as the company, which promotes solar power in developing countries, tries to go paperless. Energiya is also throwing open the doors to its funky, colorful headquarters for yoga workshops and Talmud classes. And instead of ordering in for the weekly staff lunch, employees this year will rotate cooking duties, donating the savings. These are not typical efforts at corporate consciousness, but part of a new Israeli experiment with alternative observances of shmita, the sabbatical that began Wednesday night with the Jewish year 5775. Translating biblical concepts of renewal and responsibility to a knowledge-based economy, they are part of a broader push to infuse Jewish values and rituals into secular or at least non-Orthodox strands of society. Shmita comes every seventh year, a required rest period for the land. The Torah commands farmers not to till their fields and to let poor people and animals feed off what grows; separately, it mandates that all debts be forgiven during shmita years. During the last two shmita cycles, controversy erupted between the religious and the more-religious in Israel over a century-old workaround that enables Jews to temporarily transfer ownership of their lands to non-Jews so it can still be cultivated. That fight continues this year as people protest the military’s move to buy produce only from non-Jewish farms. But in its wake, a separate set of initiatives that have nothing to do with agriculture is taking root. “People are thinking, this is just too good to remain in the area of arcane Halakhic arguments, the values here are really important for any modern society,” explained Julian Sinclair, a vice president at Energiya who is also an economist, rabbi, and author of a new book on shmita, referring to debates over Jewish law. “It’s about the sources of our wealth and letting go of our control and the hold on the things which make us wealthy, and the absence of which leaves other people behind.” The reinterpretation is also a response to the radical changes in Israel’s economy, where a booming high-tech sector long ago replaced the collective farming culture of the state’s founding. Less than 2 percent of Israel’s G.N.P. came from agriculture in 2011, down from more than 60 percent in 1949. So Yossi Tsuria, a founder of NDS, a video-software company now part of Cisco Systems, has been promoting a list of 49 things technology firms might try to fulfill the shmita spirit. They include a patent pool, where companies could donate patents not part of their core business to be used by any entrepreneur; required rotation of business models and management positions, and: “A year without exorbitant bonuses. The money can be directed to social causes.” (No. 32). “The workday will be no longer than eight hours and the work week will have no more than five days” (No. 40). “Email only works during business hours. If an email is received out of hours, a message will be returned explaining policy.” (No 41). Mr. Tsuria admitted that he does not know of big outfits that have actually adopted any of the measures (even at Energiya, the shmita committee dismissed the email time limits as impractical). But 100 tech workers have enrolled in a special shmita program where they will spend a half-day each week studying at Hebrew University, which Mr. Tsuria sees as a start. “High-tech as a whole is running faster than regular people can accommodate, and stopping for a year — don’t try to push a new iPhone 7, O.K., let the people breathe — has real value,” he said. Noting that Jewish Sabbath observance today “is totally different” from what it was during the First and Second Temples, when animal sacrifices were the centerpiece, Mr. Tsuria added: “Shmita was stuck in 2,000 years ago — it didn’t have any evolution to adapt itself to the life of the people.” Einat Kramer, who has spent the last two years promoting alternative shmita, told of an online time bank matching volunteers with certain skills with people in need, with each hour completed marked with a blue dot on a map of Israel. One man told Ms. Kramer he planned to purchase monkeys used in laboratory experiments and set them free. Ms. Kramer herself recently bought a 500-square-foot, $500 white tent she plans to bring to public squares across the country as a sort of “Hyde Park for dreamers.” Inside will be a lending library, a recycling center, and free coffee, tea and fruit. Though in the Torah, shmita only applies to the land of Israel, diaspora Jews are also on board. Amichai Lau Lavie, an Israeli-American rabbinical student who runs a pop-up synagogue in New York, has created a website called Fallow Lab encouraging “digital detox” for shmita. Some initiatives are more direct descendants of the biblical dictates. Four nonprofit groups have enrolled 1,500 families each with debts of about $25,000 into an eight-month budgeting seminar. Those who complete it will have to pay only a third of their reduced debt; the groups promise to collect donations to cover another third, and convince creditors to forgive the rest. At Energiya, shmita fits with the socially-conscious, environmentally-friendly ethos, but clashes somewhat with the intense start-up culture. For example, one idea being debated is a prohibition on assigning projects with a deadline of less than 48 hours (current practice, as at so many companies, is that managers often ask for things “right now”). Going fully paperless would save the firm of 14 employees about $3,500 a year in paper and toner. But they are not yet unplugging the printers because the founder is something of a paper addict. “Next time he hands me a document with his chicken scrawl in the margins, I’m going to say, ‘I do not accept that,’ ” said Sara Halevi, the communications director, whose personal shmita commitments include exchanging the yellow pads she brings to meetings for a laptop, and leaving that laptop at the office four nights a week. “I can’t push it to the point where I get fired, that would be counterproductive,” she added. | Israel;Agriculture;Judaism |
ny0163006 | [
"sports",
"olympics"
] | 2006/02/19 | Italians Say Passion for Dance Just Isn't in Americans' Blood | TURIN, Italy, Feb. 18 - There was a sultry red glow inside Teatro Juvarra, a small theater downtown, as the patrons arrived Saturday in their dancing shoes. It was tango night at this dance hall, and when the music began, the men and women grabbed their partners. Some men closed their eyes. Some women fell limp as their partners held them. Others, in a bold move, wrapped one of their legs around one of their partner's. "To dance like this, you have to have it in your blood," said Christel Glasa, a 56-year-old telecom worker from Turin. "That's why Americans don't dance like this. They have cold blood." A day earlier, Glasa watched the compulsory portion of the Olympic ice dancing competition on television. The Italian team of Barbara Fusar Poli and Maurizio Margaglio finished first. "The Italians won because it's the same thing as tango," Glasa said. "It needs the same emotion. Americans don't have that." But over the past few years, that has changed. It has been 30 years since an ice dance team from the United States has won an Olympic medal. Colleen O'Connor and Jim Millns won a bronze medal in 1976, the year the ice dancing made its debut at the Games. But here, there is one couple, Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, that can break that drought. When they skate, they sizzle. Maybe it is because Belbin did not become a United States citizen until Dec. 31, just in time to be eligible for the Olympics. Whatever the reason, she and Agosto have a good chance of winning a medal. Last year, they won silver at the world championships, the highest finish by a United States dance team since 1975. In the compulsory dance Friday, they finished sixth but are only 1.42 points out of first place. In the United States, ballroom dancing has taken off in recent years, particularly with the popularity of television shows like "Dancing With the Stars" and movies like "Mad Hot Ballroom," a film that follows 11-year-olds from three New York City public schools as they prepare for and compete in a citywide ballroom dancing contest. On the film's Web site, the motto is, "Anyone can make it if they learn how to shake it." "When we first started, it was kind of discouraging that only our family and friends came to watch, but now there is a crowd there," Belbin said of ice dance events in the United States. She added that people seemed to be flocking to her sport because they could relate to it. "I think at home, everyone dances around in their underwear," she said. On Sunday, fans at the Palavela will see exactly which ice dancers have learned how to shake it, this time to Latin music. Belbin, 21, wore a white dress and breezy chiffon skirt for the compulsory dance. Agosto, 24, who has a dark goatee, was in a tuxedo. For the original dance, though, they will perform the salsa, rumba and cha-cha, so their costumes will reflect those dance styles. For Belbin, a razor-thin blonde with huge blue eyes, and for the rest of her female competitors, that will mean less material and more skin. If Friday night's compulsory dance was any indication of interest in the sport here, the Palavela should be hopping. The arena was only half full for the men's short program Tuesday. But for the first of three nights of ice dancing, it was packed. Outside, scalpers circulated, hawking one of the night's hottest tickets. Inside, the fans were rowdy, waving flags and cheering as if it were the Super Bowl, even as they watched 24 couples perform the same dance to the same music, the Ravensburger Waltz. "There is much more interest in ice dancing here than in America," said Roman Kostomarov of Russia; he and partner Tatyana Navka won the world championships last year and in 2004. They finished second in the compulsory dance Friday. "It's because of our history and because we're old-fashioned," he said. It is also more common for Europeans to begin ballroom dancing at a young age, then keep dancing, even into their 80's, to stay healthy, said Saitta Silvano, a cafe owner from Turin. Silvano, who was at Teatro Juvarra on Saturday night with his wife, Gabriella, said he started dancing after watching his parents waltzing when he was a boy. In turn, he sent his four children, now ages 13 to 22, to dancing school. But there is a simpler reason why the United States has lagged behind Europeans in ice dancing, Gabriella Silvano said. "We're just hotter," she said. | ITALY;POLI BARBARA FUSAR;MARGAGLIO MAURIZIO;ICE SKATING;ICE DANCING;OLYMPIC GAMES (2006);WINTER GAMES (OLYMPICS);OLYMPIC GAMES;FIGURE SKATING |
ny0079398 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2015/02/28 | The Significance of Lloyds’ Plan to Pay a Dividend | The last time the Lloyds Banking Group paid a dividend, Gordon Brown was the British prime minister, Lehman Brothers still existed and “banker” was yet to become a term of abuse. The fact the British bank is making its first shareholder payout since August 2008 is, therefore, an encouraging milestone. But in valuation terms, this year’s dividend is more important. In a sense, the 2014 dividend is more about its existence than its size. It means that the Prudential Regulation Authority, which oversees British banks, is comfortable with Lloyds’ profitability. So it should be. The bank only managed a low pass in December’s British stress tests, but that assessment needs to be taken in the context of its worst-case planning. Actual reported figures show the group’s net interest margin — the difference between the interest it takes in and pays out — has jumped 33 basis points to 245 basis points in a year, and should be 255 basis points in 2015. Return on equity, stripping out the costs of restructuring and compensation of customers who were improperly sold payment protection insurance, is almost 14 percent — way above Lloyds’ 9 to 10 percent cost of equity. Even so, Lloyds is being conservative: A 0.75 pence per share full-year dividend represents barely a 10 percent payout ratio on its 8 pence underlying earnings per share, and below the 1 pence forecast. Actual return on equity is still only 3 percent, and although Lloyds’ 12.8 percent core Tier 1 ratio is solid, global capital requirements may rise. Net interest margins are already being hit by lower mortgage rates. The major driver of Lloyds’ valuation is whether it can afford to distribute more than the 50 percent of earnings, as it has hinted. If it paid out half of the 5.8 pence in earnings per share expected by analysts for 2015 and long-term dividends growth of 5 percent can be assumed, the shares would be worth 72 pence based on a Gordon growth model, lower than the current 79 pence price. If Lloyds paid out 70 percent of earnings — as some expect might be possible — that climbs to 100 pence. Regulatory uncertainties and Britain’s competition review give pause for thought. The fact that the bank is still 23.9 percent state-owned is relevant given the British election in May. But there is handsome upside potential for investors inclined to be bullish. | Banking and Finance;Regulation and Deregulation;Lloyds Banking Group;Prudential Regulation Authority Great Britain;Great Britain |
ny0168695 | [
"technology"
] | 2006/06/01 | PC's That Are a Lot Smaller Than a Breadbox | Chris DiBona's work as manager of open-source programs for Google takes him on the road, where laptops grow heavier with every gate he passes in the airport. So he has been experimenting with piecing together the ultimate lightweight PC. At the core of his ensemble is the OQO-01, a full-featured PC running Windows XP that is not much bigger than a pack of 3-by-5 index cards. It's measured in ounces (14), not pounds. "I use both this and my cellphone in the same manner," he said. "They're read-only devices. I can do cursory work." The OQO comes with a built-in keyboard that can be tapped by the thumbs. When he wants to do more serious work, he unpacks a full-size, foldable keyboard from Think Outside that is scarcely bigger than the OQO when he packs it away. Mr. DiBona says he types as quickly with the folding keyboard as he does with a normal one. The 5.6-ounce keyboard connects with the OQO wirelessly with the Bluetooth standard. Mr. DiBona is not the only one exploring replacing a laptop with a combination of cellphones, hand-helds and foldable keyboards. The folding keyboards have been around since the introduction of some of the first palmtops, but they are playing an increasingly viable role in laptop replacement as the combined elements become more and more capable. Many of the latest palmtops will run all the software needed to browse the Web, exchange e-mail or even drive a projector to give a presentation. A Palm TX ($299, 5.25 ounces), for instance, can let you handle most basic editing chores with files created in Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint. These microsize versions can do many of the simple tasks of their bigger cousins, but are limited by the size of the screen. The tiny processors, after all, are as powerful as the desktop machines of a few years ago. The TX and competitors from companies like Hewlett-Packard and Dell can do most of what a traveler could want except, perhaps, play the most sophisticated games. The thin slabs can even display low-resolution movies, albeit not from DVD disks. To use more than a stylus or a thin thumb keyboard, a user must stitch together a fully functioning system out of parts that all speak the current lingua franca, Bluetooth. Regular keyboards cannot be connected. While full-size keyboards are the tools most commonly added to a cellphone or a hand-held, there are also mice, headphones , microphones, digital cameras and even satellite navigation receivers. The advantage is that people can carry just the parts they need. On a short trip, the keyboard and mouse can stay home. The disadvantage is that each of these devices needs its own power system, potentially requiring a number of charging bricks. Screens The heart of these machines lives behind the screens of the cellphones or palmtops where the main processors, memory and wireless receiver can be found. Hand-helds like the Palm TX connect with the Internet with Wi-Fi connections common in coffee shops and homes, while higher-end tools like the Palm Treo 650 use cellular networks to fetch information. (Cingular sells the 6.3-ounce 650 for about $370 with a two-year service agreement priced at $105 a month.) The latest Treo, the 700P, also includes the ability to connect with the emerging EV-DO networks from Verizon and Sprint, which offer download speeds that can exceed those of cable modems and digital subscriber lines. Some of these devices include tiny keyboards while others use just a stylus and a few buttons. The OQO, Treos and BlackBerrys come with built-in keyboards best operated with thumbs, while others, like the Palm TX and the Nokia 770, are meant to be driven by a stylus. The focus of the software also varies. While many palmtops keep track of appointments, phone numbers and notes, the eight-ounce Nokia 770 (about $400) is sold as a window to the Web and is labeled an "Internet tablet ." It latches on to any local Wi-Fi connection to link into the Web. The screen has a higher resolution than most small devices, offering a grid of 800 by 480 pixels instead of the more standard 480 by 320 or 320 by 320. These devices are designed to be a bit simpler and focused on the needs of the traveler. On the other hand, the OQO ($1,900 to $2,100 at www.oqo.com ) behaves just like a desktop PC running Windows XP and offers 30 gigabytes of disk space. The interest in the micro Windows PC is growing. Microsoft is pushing a standard called the Ultra-Mobile PC, running a stylus-enabled version of Windows in a larger package that weighs a bit more than two pounds. The first model, the Samsung Q1 ($1,100), has a 40-gigabyte hard drive and a seven-inch display. Keyboards While all of these cellphones, palmtops and tablets can operate by themselves, a full-size keyboard makes them much more efficient and useful. It may be simple to page through a list of phone numbers with a stylus, but for writing anything more than a disjointed, error-filled and uncapitalized text, a real keyboard is essential. A number of keyboards are jostling for attention. Device makers like Palm often distribute customized keyboards, while companies like Think Outside ( www.thinkoutside.com ) and Freedom Input ( www.freedominput.com ) sell their own versions. Freedom Input, for instance, sells full-size foldable keyboards for BlackBerrys (typically $112 to $131). If these keyboards are still too big, the company also makes a tiny thumb keyboard the size of a credit card for Bluetooth phones that have no built-in keyboard. A stand for the phone or palmtop is integrated on most, separate on some. Palm sells a keyboard for $70 that connects using the infrared port on the Palm. And the Stowaway Bluetooth keyboard from Think Outside weighs 5.6 ounces, costs about $150, and comes with the cachet of being included in the Museum of Modern Art's design collection. There is also a great deal of experimentation in this area. The FrogPad, for instance, comes from FrogPad Inc. ( www.frogpad.com ), a small Texas company devoted to building keyboards that can be operated with one hand. The most common letters require only one keystroke, while the least common are composed by pushing two or more of the 20 keys at once, in much the same way that a pianist strikes a chord. The small form and lack of hinges make the keyboards ideal for travelers, but they are also finding uses among the disabled and among graphic designers who like to keep one hand on the mouse. The flashiest keyboard, literally, may be the Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard from i.Tech ( www.itechdynamic.com ), a tiny device (1.38 by 3.6 by 1 inch) that draws the keyboard on the desk with a ruby laser and watches the movement of your fingers with a motion sensor. It weighs three ounces and costs about $180 from thinkgeek.com and others. There are no hinges or moving parts to jam, bend or break, but the only feedback is a click. If your favored combination begins to look too complicated, laptop makers continue to make their offerings smaller and lighter. Dynamism.com , for instance, imports laptops from Japan not normally sold in the United States. The Panasonic R5 ($2,000 to $2,500) weighs only 2.2 pounds, a number almost small enough to quote in ounces — about 35. | Computers and the Internet;Cellular Telephones;Computer Software;Wireless Communications |
ny0161830 | [
"technology"
] | 2006/05/27 | Timing the Electronics Market for the Best Deal on a New PC | Lower prices are part of the natural order in the world of electronics. Sometimes, though, the slow but relentless drop in price turns into a torrent. That's happening now in personal computers. Prices are falling fast on notebook computers, as much as 18.5 percent so far this year, according to statistics compiled by Current Analysis, a market research firm. The bulk of notebooks now sell for less than $1,000. The lower-priced notebooks are pushing desktop prices down, too. "I would expect even more intense price competition," said Charles Smulders, an analyst with Gartner, another market research firm. The pace of price cuts has accelerated because a price war has broken out that offers great benefits to anyone in the market for a PC. And that could be a pretty large market. Forrester Research estimates that 70 percent of PC's in use are more than two years old and 90 percent of second, third and fourth computers are even older. The wars started quietly a year ago this week when Acer, a PC maker in Taiwan, re-entered the American market. The strategy was to get into the top tier of PC vendors as quickly as possible, which meant it would grab market share by keeping prices low. Acer and other makers took business from Dell, which began to look less like the growth company that its investors were accustomed to. Dell's response came earlier this year as it cut prices. Intel, meanwhile, was losing a significant portion of the microprocessor market to Advanced Micro Devices. Intel's share dropped to 77.9 percent from 81.5 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to Gartner, while A.M.D.'s market share grew to 20.4 percent from 16.6 percent two years ago. Intel is fighting to win back share, which means PC makers use the rivalry to get a price break. Apple switched its processor to an Intel chip. Apple also makes running Windows applications on a Mac very easy. Owners of iPods are beginning to notice that Apple does more than sell music. At the same time, Microsoft has pushed back the release of Vista, its new operating system, from before Christmas to early next year. Normally that would slow PC sales. But Microsoft is considering whether to offer incentives for consumers to buy PC's before Vista's release. Some analysts had expected coming into the year that prices would actually go up slightly. Instead, the average price of a notebook computer dropped to $963 in April, an 18.5 percent decrease from a year ago, according to Current Analysis, which is based in Sterling, Va. When an electronic device breaks through the $1,000 psychological barrier, sales take off. Samir Bhavnani, director for research at Current Analysis, said 37 percent more notebooks have been sold so far this year. About 60 percent of all notebook computers sold last month were priced below $1,000. He credits Dell, saying, "They love getting down in the mud." Dell is running a promotion, which it bills as a celebration of its 22nd anniversary, with a $400 discount on PC's, plus a free monitor and free shipping. Another statistic will tell you just how good consumers have it. While the number of notebooks sold is up 37 percent, revenue growth in the period is up only 15.5 percent, Mr. Bhavnani said. Companies are making less money on each notebook. Desktop computers are literally being given away. Retailers sold 14.8 percent more of them in the first five months of the year, but revenue declined 4 percent, Mr. Bhavnani said. Half of the computers sold for less than $500. Consider the Hewlett-Packard Compaq Presario desktop offered this week at Office Depot. For $300 you get a PC with 512 megabytes of RAM and a 100-gigabyte hard drive. Office Depot tossed in a 17-inch CRT monitor and a printer. "The material cost, before the printer, was around $400," estimated Mark Hill, Acer's vice president for sales in the United States. "It's crazy." Not that he's complaining. Acer has gained one point of market share this year by artful pricing. So how does a consumer play this? As always with electronics, it is worth waiting. Expect even better deals around the Christmas season. But if you need to get one now, you certainly won't suffer. Deals will abound during the back-to-school season, which starts in June just as the school year ends. Many consumers will end up waiting for Vista, Microsoft's new operating system. Some analysts expect that to keep computer sales from flagging during the year-end holidays, manufacturers will pressure Microsoft to offer a free upgrade to Vista to anyone buying a new PC. Decide on the particular features you want on the computer. A notebook with one gigabyte of random access memory and an 80-gigabyte hard drive is recommended. Don't worry about the processor. Unless you are using the computer for designing nuclear power plants or playing video games professionally, any one of them on the market will serve you well. Why a notebook, rather than a desktop? Convenience, mostly. Desktop models are becoming a relic of a bygone era as the artificial price difference between notebooks and desktops collapse. Notebooks now outsell desktops in stores. IDC estimates that by the middle of next year, more than half of all PC's sold will be notebooks. Decide on a size. The computers that weigh less than four pounds are considered ultra portables, the kind you take on business trips. Anything heavier is a desktop replacement, perfect for moving from room to room or on a jaunt to the coffee shop. Go to a store to test the heft. Reflect on how much style you want. As this category matures, manufacturers differentiate their products by making some notebooks look prettier than others. They charge more for anything on the color wheel besides gray and anything that glows. Then watch the prices at retailers and at the manufacturers' Web sites. The last time you bought a PC, the best deals were probably online. That's not necessarily true anymore. The best deals can be inside the stores because those retailers are using PC's and notebooks in particular as loss leaders to drive traffic. Here is another business trend that is helping consumers. As the prices of PC's drop, even if retailers sell more units their year-on-year revenue comparisons may drop. Investors closely watch that figure. So stores need to bolster revenue by selling even more of them. They do that by offering even better deals on notebooks because notebook buyers tend to buy other gear like bags and home networking equipment. The brand you pick will depend on which one gives you the most computer for the price. Current Analysis compiles a "competitive value index" that measures the price of PC's against the features offered. When it looks at computers sold in all channels, the top berths go to Acer, Gateway, Dell and Hewlett-Packard. Columns providing advice on buying a computer usually have a paragraph or two where the writer pauses and briefly genuflects at Apple. Great computer, they'll say, but — there is always that but — they carry a premium of 20 percent to 30 percent over a similarly configured computer running Windows. Here comes those paragraphs. However, that required "but" may soon be retired. Gene Munster, a senior research analyst with Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis, compared Mac notebooks with similarly equipped notebook computers running Windows and discovered that the premium for a Mac is now only about 10 percent. "I don't think consumers go through this exercise," he said. The premium shrank, not because Apple cut its prices, Mr. Munster said, but because Apple, in switching to an Intel processor, increased the performance of its Macs, and then didn't raise prices. A few more consumers may notice. Apple's market share, which climbed as high as 2.5 percent last year before the switch to Intel, has grown from 1.8 percent. Macs compete at the high end of the PC market, where the machines costing more than $1,500 are loaded with multimedia features like TV tuners and bigger hard drives to store photos, videos and music. Some have special chips designed to enhance the performance of video games. Price cuts have not been as deep up there, which is one reason Mr. Munster thinks the premium won't go back to 30 percent. He said that the media viewing and editing software that comes with the Mac compensates for much of the remaining premium. "Apples are always going to be at a premium," he said. | Computers and the Internet;Retail Stores and Trade;Sales;Computer Chips;Dell Inc;Intel Corporation;Apple Computer Inc;Advanced Micro Devices Incorporated;Microsoft Corporation |
ny0192982 | [
"sports",
"othersports"
] | 2009/02/15 | Soaring, Never Boring | Shaun White , 22, the champion snowboarder and skateboarder known for his shock of curly red hair, does not know the meaning of off-season. After winning the slopestyle and superpipe at the Winter X Games last month in Aspen, Colo., he came to New York to compete in the Red Bull Snowscrapers event on Feb. 5. (NBC will broadcast it at 5 p.m. Eastern on Sunday.) Though Snowscrapers took place on a specially built 90-foot-high ramp in East River Park, it was business as usual for White. JOSHUA ROBINSON YOU ARE AT THE SUMMIT OF SNOWBOARDING AND SKATEBOARDING. HOW DO YOU KEEP THE TWO BALANCED? I always think, ‘Wow, what would happen if I focused my attention just on one sport all year round?’ But I honestly think it’s kind of the secret to my success. I don’t really get over it; it’s still fun for me. I can go skateboard all summer and then I really want to go snowboarding, because I haven’t been thinking about it all day and night. It wipes the slate clean so that when I come back, I’m really invigorated to ride and learn new tricks. The same goes for skateboarding. Come April, I’m going to be so over snowboarding, I’m just going to want to go skateboarding. HOW DID YOU DECIDE TO ADD SKATEBOARDING TO YOUR COMPETITIVE CALENDAR? I’ve been skateboarding since I was a kid, but it always took the back burner. It was just for fun. But I figured if I’m going just as hard during my off-season as I am during snowboard season, why not just have two seasons? I asked a couple of my friends, including Tony Hawk, and he said, ‘You have the ability to go for it.’ YOUR CELEBRITY HAS SKYROCKETED OVER THE PAST COUPLE OF YEARS. HOW OFTEN ARE YOU RECOGNIZED? It’s strange nowadays; I can’t really cruise anymore. It’s the simple things that are pretty hard. I usually cruise around with my hair up in a beanie and sunglasses on. Not that I don’t like being bothered, I love signing things for people and doing things, but you know, I was once woken up on a plane to sign something. I dig it, I think it’s fun. When I want to be recognized, I let the hair out. | White Shaun;Snowboarding;Skateboards |
ny0270020 | [
"us"
] | 2016/04/30 | Got Ink? Navy Is Relaxing Its Rules on Tattoos | The United States Navy is loosening its rules governing tattoos effective Saturday in response to their growing popularity among young people and to remove a potential barrier for desired recruits. Under the new rules, there will be no limit to the size or number of tattoos sailors can have below the elbow and the knee. Previous rules restricted the sizes of tattoos on arms and legs. And for the first time, sailors can have a neck tattoo, although it cannot be longer than an inch in any direction. “We just got to the point where we realized we needed to be honest with ourselves and put something in place that was going to reflect the realities of our country and the needs of our Navy,” Mike D. Stevens , master chief petty officer of the Navy, told The Navy Times . “We need to make sure that we’re not missing any opportunities to recruit and retain the best and the brightest because of our policies.” A Harris Poll conducted last fall found that three in 10 Americans have at least one tattoo, up from about two in 10 four years earlier. Tattoos are especially popular among younger Americans, with 47 percent of millennials and 36 percent of members of Generation X saying they had at least one, Harris reported. Image A tattoo that Jeff Phillips got while he was in the Navy. Credit Jeff Phillips Those demographics represent an important pool of potential sailors for the Navy. The United States Naval Institute reported that the average age of recruits in all the armed services is 20 but that the 17-to-24 age group is a shrinking population. Further, as the economy has improved, fewer young people are interested in enlisting. Tattoos have long been entwined with American seafaring culture, which developed a repertory over time of anchors, dragons and pinup girls, among other symbols. Jeff Phillips, 42, of Jacksonville, Fla., said that during his Navy service in the early 1990s it was seen as odd if you were enlisted and did not have a tattoo. “It was a rite of passage,” said Mr. Phillips, who got a tattoo of Bugs Bunny near his left biceps. “ ‘You don’t have a tattoo yet? What’s wrong with you?’ ” John-Henry Doucette, 42, of Virginia Beach, Va., who served from 1991 to 1996, said he got a “tremendously bad version of Hemingway” on his upper right arm two years after enlisting. Told about the relaxed tattoo rules, he said, “It doesn’t sound like the Navy I served in.” But, Mr. Doucette said, if it helps attract young, smart recruits, all the better, adding that it does not matter what sailors look like or how many tattoos they have. What does matter, he said, is: “Do your work. Be good to each other. Have a good ship.” At All-Out Tattoo in Norfolk, Va. , Jason Sumners, a tattoo artist of 22 years, said he expects the new Navy rules to mean little to business, even if the city is home to Naval Station Norfolk , the largest naval complex in the world. Mr. Sumners, who is known as Hero, said newly enlisted personnel are the most conscientious about the rules, but sailors who have served even a few months disregard them and get what they want. “As soon as they get in and figure it out, they don’t care,” he said. Sailors are seldom seriously punished for infractions, he said. Mr. Sumners said that although he knew of the military regulations, he would be the last one to enforce them. “Why would I let money walk out the door?” he asked. But, he added, “If you get something on your face, you’re an idiot.” | Tattoo;US Military;Military Recruiting and Draft |
ny0264170 | [
"us"
] | 2011/12/08 | Florida: Punishment Delayed in Drum Major’s Death | At the request of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Florida A&M University said on Wednesday that it was delaying disciplinary action in the wake of the possible hazing death of a marching band drum major. Earlier, the university fired its longtime band director, Julian White, and said it would suspend some students in the death of the drum major, Robert Champion. Those moves have been halted for now while the investigation continues into the death. Mr. Champion was found unresponsive on a bus parked outside an Orlando, Fla., hotel last month after a football game. He was vomiting and had complained he could not breathe before he collapsed. | Hazing;Florida A&M University;Champion Robert;Deaths (Fatalities);Florida;Colleges and Universities |
ny0273147 | [
"business"
] | 2016/05/01 | One Top Taxpayer Moved, and New Jersey Shuddered | Our top-heavy economy has come to this: One man can move out of New Jersey and put the entire state budget at risk. Other states are facing similar situations as a greater share of income — and tax revenue — becomes concentrated in the hands of a few. Last month, during a routine review of New Jersey’s finances, one could sense the alarm. The state’s wealthiest resident had reportedly “shifted his personal and business domicile to another state,” Frank W. Haines III, New Jersey’s legislative budget and finance officer, told a State Senate committee. If the news were true, New Jersey would lose so much in tax revenue that “we may be facing an unusual degree of income tax forecast risk,” Mr. Haines said. The New Jersey resident (unnamed by Mr. Haines) is the hedge-fund billionaire David Tepper. In December, Mr. Tepper declared himself a resident of Florida after living for over 20 years in New Jersey. He later moved the official headquarters of his hedge fund, Appaloosa Management, to Miami. New Jersey won’t say exactly how much Mr. Tepper paid in taxes. But according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha, he earned more than $6 billion from 2012 to 2015. Tax experts say his move to Florida could cost New Jersey — which has a top tax rate of 8.97 percent — hundreds of millions of dollars in lost payments. Mr. Tepper, 58, declined to comment on his move. He does have family — his mother and sister — who live in Florida. But several New Jersey lawmakers cited his relocation as proof that the state’s tax rates, up from 6.37 percent in 1996, are chasing away the rich. Florida has no personal income tax. “If you’re making hundreds of millions of dollars and you’re paying close to 10 percent to the state of New Jersey, you do the math,” said Jon Bramnick, the Republican leader in the New Jersey Assembly. “You can save millions a year by moving to Florida. How can you blame him?” Beyond the debate on taxing the rich, Mr. Tepper’s move is a case study in how tax collections are affected when income becomes very highly concentrated. With the top tenth of 1 percent of the population reaping the largest income gains, states with the highest tax rates on the rich are growing increasingly dependent on a smaller group of superearners for tax revenue. In New York, California, Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey, the top 1 percent pay a third or more of total income taxes. Now a handful of billionaires or even a single individual like Mr. Tepper can have a noticeable impact on state revenues and budgets. California had to account for a “Facebook effect” in 2012 and 2013 after that company’s 2012 initial public offering of stock. The offering generated more than $1 billion in revenue — much of that from the chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and a small group of company shareholders. Washington, D.C., had an unexpected $50 million gain in its 2012 fiscal year — which helped create a budget surplus — after the death of a local billionaire increased its estate tax receipts. Some academic research shows that high taxes are chasing the rich to lower-tax states, and anecdotes of tax-fleeing billionaires abound. But other studies say there is little evidence showing that the rich move solely for tax purposes. Millionaires and billionaires who move from the high-tax states in the Northeast to Florida, for instance, may be drawn by the sunshine, lifestyle and retirement culture, in addition to lower taxes. While some high earners may be moving for tax reasons, New Jersey, New York, California and other states are replacing rich people faster than they are losing them. New Jersey had 237,000 millionaires in 2015, compared with 207,200 in 2006, according to Phoenix Marketing International, a research firm. New York added 69,500 millionaires from 2006 to 2015, to 437,900, while California added over 100,000 millionaires, to 772,600. The best solution to the mega-taxpayer dilemma, some tax experts say, is for states to do a better job of tracking and forecasting the incomes of their top earners. Since the rich are the most mobile and are able to manage their investments just as easily in Miami as in Manhattan, states are devising new ways to monitor their top taxpayers and keep them from leaving. “In a time of rising inequality, I’m not sure the right answer is lowering taxes or making them less progressive,” said Kim S. Rueben, senior fellow of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute. “It’s more about keeping an eye on people, seeing where they are and enforcing the tax rules.” Image Tax experts say David Tepper’s move to Florida could cost New Jersey — which has a top tax rate of 8.97 percent — hundreds of millions of dollars in lost payments. Credit Brad Barket/Getty Images Connecticut, home to several hedge fund billionaires, now tracks the quarterly estimated payments of 100 of its top earners. Kevin B. Sullivan, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services, said about five or six of the highest earners could have a “measurable impact on the revenue stream.” Mr. Sullivan said that when one of the state’s rich hedge fund executives planned to move his family and company to a lower-tax state, state officials met with him and persuaded him to leave some of his work force in Connecticut. “We knew we were going to lose him,” Mr. Sullivan said. “But we wanted to keep some of the higher-paying jobs.” He said the state worked out a deal to keep the jobs in exchange for an agreement about the owner’s regular visits to family and friends in Connecticut. (Homeowners who spend more than 183 days in the state are considered residents for tax purposes.) He said the state was holding discussions with other top earners in hopes of keeping them. “I’m not saying we’re sending fruit baskets and get-well cards,” said Mr. Sullivan, a former Democratic legislator. “But we’re trying to send a more welcoming message to the high earners as a group.” New York is now more closely monitoring wealthy taxpayers who have homes in New York but claim Florida as their tax residence. And New Jersey is collecting data on all of the taxpayers who make more than $1 million to forecast their tax payments more accurately. In California, 5,745 taxpayers earning $5 million or more generated more than $10 billion of income taxes in 2013, or about 19 percent of the state’s total, according to state officials. “Any state that depends on income taxes is going to get sick whenever one of these guys gets a cold,” Mr. Sullivan said. Hence New Jersey’s concern over Mr. Tepper’s departure. Whatever the reasons for his move, he is leaving for Florida at an especially opportune time for tax savings. Many hedge fund managers have for years used a tax loophole that allowed them to defer taxes on fees they earned through the use of offshore funds. A 2008 federal tax rule, however, requires them to declare those fees by the end of 2017 and pay any necessary federal, state and local taxes. For some hedge fund managers, the amounts declared will probably be in the billions of dollars, accountants say. A spokesman for Mr. Tepper declined to comment on his overseas income. By moving to Florida, Mr. Tepper could avoid paying state income taxes on any such funds. “If he’s bringing money back, you’re talking about a big possible gain,” Mr. Bramnick said. “So it’s a good time to move to Florida.” Mr. Tepper regularly topped state wealth rankings as New Jersey’s richest resident. He also has homes in Miami Beach and the Hamptons. In 2012 and 2013, he also topped Alpha’s list of the highest-earning hedge fund managers, with estimated earnings of $2.2 billion in 2012 and $3.5 billion in 2013. His earnings fell to $400 million in 2014. Mr. Tepper never publicly announced his move to Florida. But it became public on April 5, when Mr. Haines, citing a Bloomberg report, mentioned Mr. Tepper’s move in his remarks to the State Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee. In discussing the move, Mr. Haines said, “Even a 1 percent forecasting error in the income tax estimate is worth $140 million.” Mr. Tepper’s payments may have even been higher. If Mr. Tepper earned $3.5 billion in 2013, his state tax bill could have been over $300 million, according to New Jersey accountants. Granted, his actual payments were probably far lower because of deferred income, charitable deductions and other accounting treatments. Yet Mr. Haines’s comments are believed to be the first time a state official has warned of a budget risk because of one resident’s relocation. “We’ve had states mention risks from high-income groups, but never from a single taxpayer,” Ms. Rueben of the Tax Policy Center said. | New Jersey;HNWI,Wealth,Billionaires,1 Percent;Income tax;US states;David A Tepper;Budget;Appaloosa Management;Relocation;Florida |
ny0027275 | [
"sports"
] | 2013/01/28 | Once More, White Wins Gold at Winter X Games | ASPEN, Colo. — The snowboarder Shaun White won his sixth straight halfpipe gold medal at the Winter X Games on Sunday with a score of 98 out of 100, including one trick that topped out at a record 24 feet above the edge of the 22-foot halfpipe. His second-best run of 95 was the competition’s second-best score. “It was an amazing start to a great run,” White said of the 24-foot “backside method” trick that opened his winning routine. Ayumu Hirano, a 14-year-old from Japan, won silver with a score of 92.33. Markus Malin of Finland (91.33) was third. The field was diminished after Iouri Podladtchikov of Switzerland, a two-time silver medalist at the Winter X Games who was considered White’s biggest rival in the event, withdrew with an illness. Matt Ladley, the fifth-rated qualifier, was injured in practice when his binding released, sending him into the crowd on the deck of the halfpipe. Earlier Sunday, Tucker Hibbert became the first Winter X Games athlete to win six consecutive gold medals in one event when he was the winner in the snowmobile snocross. Image Nick Goepper soaring through the air on his way to winning the gold medal in the Winter X Games’ men’s slopestyle final. Credit Doug Pensinger/Getty Images White, 26, has won every X Games halfpipe competition since 2008. He also won gold at the 2006 Winter X Games and at the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics. White finished fifth in Saturday’s slopestyle, an event he dominated before focusing on the halfpipe leading to the 2010 Vancouver Games. Beyond winning the halfpipe, White has set a goal of winning the Olympic slopestyle event when it makes its debut in Sochi, Russia, at the 2014 Games. “I’m going to go practice some slopestyle,” White said of his near-future plans. This year’s four-day Winter X Games proved to be a dangerous affair. Among injuries to several athletes whisked in ambulances to the hospital, including two women during Sunday’s ski slopestyle event, the one to the snowmobiler Caleb Moore was the most serious. Moore crashed Thursday while landing on a back flip, and his 500-pound snowmobile bounced on top of him. Momentarily knocked unconscious and later found to have a concussion, he was flown to a hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., after doctors in Aspen diagnosed a heart contusion. He had emergency surgery and was placed in the intensive-care unit. On Sunday, a family spokeswoman said Moore’s “cardiac injury has led to a secondary complication involving his brain.” She did not provide further details. During Sunday night’s Big Air competition, a snowmobile sped away from its rider after a crash and zoomed into an area of spectators. There were no serious injuries. | X Games;Shaun White;Snowboarding |
ny0073029 | [
"sports",
"autoracing"
] | 2015/03/14 | A Lingering Controversy Since 1994 | In 1994, one of the most dramatic and controversial seasons in Formula One history ended with a race that was equally dramatic and controversial. The Australian Grand Prix at Adelaide that year was the series’s first title-deciding, final-race showdown in eight years, and 21 years later it continues to divide opinion. Early in that 1994 season, Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna had died at the third race, the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy, the first driver deaths at a Grand Prix since 1982. Senna, a Brazilian, was Formula One’s biggest star at the time, a three-time world champion who was favored to win a fourth title that season. But his Williams had aerodynamic problems as the season began, and it was Benetton’s Michael Schumacher who won the first two races, with Senna failing to score any points. Then at Imola, the Brazilian crashed and died at the age of 34; Schumacher won the race. At the next race, in Monaco, Schumacher dominated again. It looked like the young German, who had joined the series in 1991, won his first race the following year and then another in 1993, would clinch the title midway through the season without any competition. But then he and his team began to face a barrage of penalties from the International Automobile Federation for various — sometimes innocuous — rules infractions. In all, Schumacher was disqualified or suspended from four of the 16 races. The British driver Damon Hill had been thrust into the leading role at Williams after Senna’s death. He delivered when it was needed, winning six races, including ones from which Schumacher had been disqualified. He was just one point behind the German for the lead of the championship heading into the final race, with a car that was performing better. Not only most of Britain was rooting for him, but fans of the Williams team, which had been through such a tragic year, were also hoping he would win. Hill was on edge. Having been hired as the team’s second driver, his salary reflected that status, and before the race he had said he wasn’t motivated to drive hard “for the sort of money you pay someone with no experience.” For the first time since Senna died, he was beaten in qualification by his teammate, Nigel Mansell, who at 41 had returned from IndyCar racing to drive in a few races and now scored pole position. Schumacher was on edge as well. During the Friday qualifying, he had crashed chasing Mansell’s provisional pole. He ended up qualifying second; Hill was third. At the start of the race, Mansell spun his wheels, and Schumacher immediately took the lead, while Hill slotted into second position behind him. The two fought it out through almost the first half of the 81-lap race, with Hill pressuring Schumacher throughout. On Lap 36, Hill had dropped back slightly as he passed a straggler, while Schumacher, pushing the car hard at Turn 5, lost control slightly and went off the track, hitting the wall. “I got caught out on a bump when the car stepped out and went sideways, and I caught it,” Schumacher said later. “Then I went over the grass and touched the wall, but continued.” Hill had not seen what had happened, and so wasn’t aware that Schumacher had potentially damaged his car. When he suddenly found the German going slowly, he decided it might be his only chance to pass him and took the inside line into the next corner. But Schumacher then turned in, and their cars collided. The Benetton was launched up in the air sideways, and almost flipped, sending Schumacher out of the race. Hill continued slowly, but his front suspension was bent. He made a long pit stop. If the team took the time to replace the suspension, it would be impossible for him to finish in the points. “I saw the opportunity and thought I had to go for it, but it didn’t happen,” Hill said later of his move on the corner. “In retrospect, I would have let him go.” Schumacher maintained that his own turn inside was a normal racing incident. Hill decided to keep quiet, but his team maintained that Schumacher had hit Hill on purpose. “We at Williams were already 100 percent certain that Michael was guilty of foul play,” Patrick Head, the team’s technical director, told F1 Racing magazine in 2006. “He was about to drive his stricken Benetton up the slip-road when he spotted Damon’s Williams about to pass him and abruptly veered across the track to prevent that happening.” The F.I.A. race stewards examined the accident from various camera angles and decided not to penalize Schumacher. Williams, after such a difficult year with the loss of Senna, chose not to file a protest. And while they had lost the drivers’ title, they nevertheless won the constructors’ title, thanks to Mansell winning the race. Hill finally won the title in 1996. And in 1997, at the season-ending showdown with Jacques Villeneuve in a Williams, when Schumacher, now in a Ferrari, again led the series by a single point, the German again ran into his challenger. But Villeneuve continued to the end and won the title, while Schumacher was judged guilty and disqualified retrospectively from the championship. | Australia;Adelaide;Michael Schumacher;Formula One;Car Racing;Fatalities,casualties;Ayrton Senna |
ny0024878 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/08/07 | Even Before a Debate, an Unfriendly Exchange | It was only a matter of time before the race for mayor developed its own personal feud. As they arrived at a candidate forum on Tuesday that was sponsored by AARP and devoted to issues affecting seniors, Anthony D. Weiner, a Democratic candidate, derisively referred to a long-shot Republican candidate, George T. McDonald, as “grandpa.” The insult, which was caught on video by NY1, came after Mr. Weiner, 48, apparently patted Mr. McDonald on the chest as the candidates greeted each other on stage. “Don’t put your hands on me ever again,” Mr. McDonald, who is 69, said. Mr. Weiner, not known for his equanimity, responded by telling Mr. McDonald that he had “anger issues.” Mr. McDonald said he did not, to which Mr. Weiner shot back, “You do, Grandpa.” Mr. McDonald has been outspoken in his disdain for Mr. Weiner, who resigned from Congress in 2011 after sending sexually explicit messages to women online. Last week, Mr. McDonald called Mr. Weiner a “self-pleasuring freak,” and on Tuesday, he cut into his time at the forum to criticize Mr. Weiner, calling him a “glib narcissist.” “I would contrast my values with Anthony Weiner’s values any day of the week,” Mr. McDonald said, drawing boos from the crowd. After the forum, which was held in an auditorium at Hunter College, a woman approached Mr. McDonald, yelling loudly that he should be “ashamed” for using his allotted response time during the debate to attack Mr. Weiner, who, as a Democrat, is not among Mr. McDonald’s opponents in the Sept. 10 mayoral primary. The woman was swiftly overtaken by another supporter of Mr. Weiner. This one, a man, railed at Mr. McDonald at the top of his lungs. Mr. McDonald reiterated his feelings about Mr. Weiner before nearby police officers stepped between the two. Afterward, Mr. McDonald once again lamented Mr. Weiner’s presence in the race. “We are all up against him at this point, because he sucks the air, the oxygen out of the air, and takes up all of the space,” he said. “We would be talking about other things. He’s the only game in town.” | George T McDonald;Mayoral races;Anthony Weiner;Political Debates;NYC;AARP |
ny0167652 | [
"technology"
] | 2006/01/30 | The Resurgence of E-Cards | THE online greeting card industry is starting to make some noise again. Just ask the screaming banshee. The highly freaked-out woman, known by millions from an animated Halloween e-card from Hallmark.com, is back, this time in a Valentine's Day revival of her hair-raising neuroses. The character's return helps punctuate the quiet resurgence of the e-card category, which was an icon of the dot-com boom and a quick -- and for some, deserving -- victim of the bust. Companies are designing more heavily animated cards to circulate among high-speed Internet users, and despite the costs of creating and distributing these cards, businesses are generating profits, thanks to a healthy online ad market and a willingness among millions of consumers to pay for the cards. Not that anyone will have to pay to hear the banshee scream: Hallmark, the behemoth of the greeting card industry, uses her as an Internet rainmaker of sorts. The company distributes all of its e-cards free, in exchange for the right to show short in-house commercials to senders and recipients. Natalie Hartman, Hallmark.com's marketing manager, said the company had followed this approach since Blue Mountain Arts, the pioneer of free e-cards, forced most of its competitors to follow suit in the late 1990's. Excite@Home, the ill-fated online portal and high-speed Internet service, bought Blue Mountain for $780 million in 1999, partly for its ability to give advertisers a way to reach a wide swath of the Internet audience. Excite sold Blue Mountain two years later for $35 million to American Greetings, Hallmark's chief competitor, and shortly thereafter the site began charging for subscriptions. But Hallmark gains enough business from its cards that they are worth giving away, Ms. Hartman said. The company, which is privately held, does not disclose how much more money e-card senders and recipients spend with Hallmark, both online and off. "But if you get customers to interact with you both online and in the stores, they're better customers," Ms. Hartman said. "We're seeing that." Hallmark's e-card operation has also turned out to be an ad hoc business incubator. The company's e-card team dreamed up Hoops & YoYo, a pair of talking dogs whose quick popularity prompted Hallmark to create T-shirts, dolls and a Christmas CD around the characters. "It's in the midst of taking off," Ms. Hartman said. The same can be true for the e-card unit of American Greetings. The business earlier this month announced it had reached 2.5 million subscribers, who pay $14 annually to send an unlimited number of cards, after stagnating at about 2.1 million for nearly two years. According to Sally Babcock, the senior vice president of American Greetings' online division, the company will probably deliver three million e-cards this Valentine's Day, the peak day of the year. That's about 15 percent more than last year, she said. "After settling for more than two years, the marketplace is now increasing," she said. Ms. Babcock attributed the growth chiefly to an improvement in the quality of the cards. "You can customize the cards more than ever," she said. "There's better animation, better music, better captions." Of the roughly 8,000 e-cards available on the site, Ms. Babcock said 80 percent were animated, compared to 50 percent last year. By midyear, nearly 90 percent will be animated. AmericanGreetings.com gives away a small number of those "as kind of a sampling model," she said. "But we also know some of those people won't subscribe, and we want them to stay with us." In addition to revenues gleaned from subscriptions, the company earns money from advertisements it sells on the site and on the e-cards when they play. The company does not say how much advertising revenue it generates, but Ms. Babcock said such revenues jumped by 25 percent last year. Of course, none of this means much if the company cannot earn a profit. American Greetings will not release figures for its e-commerce division, but Ms. Babcock said its profits were "incredibly strong," and growing. That is a good thing for American Greetings -- the greeting card industry in general is in a bit of a slump, as consumers have migrated to cheaper cards sold by Wal-Mart and other mass market retailers in recent years. According to Kathleen M. Reed, an analyst with Stanford Financial Group, an investment firm, AmericanGreetings.com is "one of the company's two main growth drivers, with the other being licensing revenue." Ms. Reed pointed out that one of the company's signature cards of last year, featuring a Thanksgiving turkey singing "I Will Survive," was sent to more than 30 million people. "And even though you might have gotten it free, when you click on it, it brings you to the AmericanGreetings.com site," she said. "It's a great strategy." The advent of paid subscriptions for e-cards, Ms. Reed said, may actually be a good thing for the market, in that the cards now receive more attention than when they were free. "I remember when Blue Mountain came out. I got about three cards a day," Ms. Reed said. "Happy Groundhog Day, happy purple day, happy being alive day. Enough! I enjoy getting them now, because I hardly get them and it's more of a treat." Perhaps the biggest surprise of the online greeting card market is that the most popular site is not Hallmark or American Greetings, but a five-person company in Britain, JacquieLawson.com. According to the Internet consulting firm Nielsen/NetRatings, JacquieLawson.com had 22.7 million visitors in December, more than twice its closest competitor, AmericanGreetings.com. The business started on a whim when Ms. Lawson, an artist working for a Web site developer, created a Christmas card in 2000 and sent it to a dozen friends while she was on vacation. Ms. Lawson returned from vacation to 1,600 e-mail messages from people who had seen the card, and a company was born. Now, JacquieLawson.com has 527,000 subscribers who pay about $8 annually to choose from among about 60 cards Ms. Lawson and a colleague have created. Andrew Dukes, the company's commercial manager, said that JacquieLawson.com had thrived in part because her cards had more sophisticated animation than others on the market. (A popular Fourth of July card, for instance, features marine creatures gathering into a patriotic mosaic, bracketed by the phrase "From sea to shining sea.") "Two or three years ago, Jacquie said she wanted to raise the quality of e-cards," Mr. Dukes said. "I said 'Are you being realistic?' But looking back, the quality has improved. She'd say that's because of her, and she's probably right." | BLUE MOUNTAIN ARTS;ADVERTISING AND MARKETING;COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET |
ny0142974 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2008/11/15 | Jason S. Grumet | As he prepares to take office, President-elect Barack Obama is relying on a small team of advisers who will lead his transition operation and help choose the members of a new Obama administration . Following is part of a series of profiles of potential members of the administration. Name: Jason S. Grumet Being considered for: White House energy and climate adviser or other senior environmental/energy position. Would bring to job: Expertise on environmental and energy issues; knowledge of energy politics in Congress; wide contacts in environmental, academic and industry circles. Used to work as: Executive director of the National Commission on Energy Policy, a position he still holds. Mr. Grumet helped create the nonpartisan group, which studies energy, climate and security issues. He is also a founder of the Bipartisan Policy Center, which proposes policies on national security, health care, energy, agriculture and transportation; its advisory board includes former Senators Bob Dole, Tom Daschle, Howard Baker and George Mitchell. He also served as executive director of a body that coordinates air quality policy for a consortium of New England States. In his own words: “For almost 20 years, automakers and environmentalists have been locked into an often-vitriolic and rarely productive fight over fuel economy. The upheaval in the Middle East has crystallized recognition that these issues are much bigger than just how many jobs in the upper Midwest are affected. Other industry leaders, outside of the auto industry, are starting to express concern that the volatility of oil and gasoline prices are exposing a fundamental weakness in our economic competitiveness.” (In December 2007, during the Congressional battle over auto mileage standards.) “The underlying premise of Senator Obama’s approach to climate change is the recognition that there is a tremendous urgency to act, and to do so, we have to find a voice and a set of policies that can be embraced not just by 51 percent of the Congress or even 61 percent of the Congress — a platform that speaks to the severity of the problem as well as the real anxieties that have made it so difficult to act until now.” ( Earlier this year, on climate change legislation, to the environmental Web site Grist.) Is linked to Mr. Obama by: Having advised him on energy issues when he entered the Senate in 2005. Mr. Grumet helped Mr. Obama fashion an automotive fuel-economy proposal similar to one that passed in 2007; he joined the Obama campaign early on as his top adviser on energy and the environment. Carries as baggage: Has been criticized by environmentalists as being too close to industry and too wedded to the use of nuclear power, ethanol and coal to generate energy. He has also been criticized by the industry for proposing mandatory climate change legislation and pollution rules that would raise the cost of producing electricity and manufactured goods. Also known for: Being the 1988 national collegiate debate champion. Résumé includes: Born Feb. 25, 1967, in Rochester. ... graduate of Brown (environmental studies) and Harvard Law School. ... married to Stephanie Grumet, a former Environmental Protection Agency scientist. ... three children. JOHN M. BRODER | Grumet Jason;Obama Barack;Energy and Power;Environment;United States Politics and Government |
ny0170579 | [
"technology"
] | 2007/02/10 | Google Encounters Hurdles in Selling Radio Advertising | SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 9 — When Google acquired dMarc Broadcasting, a company whose software allows marketers to place ads on radio stations, for up to $1.24 billion early last year, it was seen as a clear sign of Google’s ambitions to extend its dominance over Internet advertising to other media. Now, there are indications that Google Audio, as the company’s foray into radio advertising is known, has hit some snags. The two brothers who founded dMarc in 2002 have left Google amid growing speculation by analysts and radio and advertising executives that the Internet giant is finding it harder than expected to muscle its way into the radio business. Industry insiders cite everything from culture clashes to resistance in the radio industry, which relies heavily on sales representatives, to automate its advertising systems. But the hurdle mentioned most often is Google’s apparent inability to secure enough air time, or inventory, to make its system attractive to advertisers. “At a high level, dMarc and Google are both trying to move mountains and reshape traditional media,” said Jordan Rohan, an Internet analyst with RBC Capital Markets. “That’s not easy to do. If Google Audio were to be successful, it needs to have prime-time and drive-time inventory in major markets.” Google, which began testing radio ads late last year, confirmed the departure of Chad and Ryan Steelberg, the dMarc founders, which was first reported on Thursday by paidContent.org , an industry blog. In a statement, the company said it was happy with the progress of the tests to date and remained committed to the audio business. And during a conference call with analysts last week, Jonathan Rosenberg, senior vice president for product management at Google, said the radio test was “pretty robust in terms of scope.” “I believe we had over 700 radio stations in more than 200 metros in the network,” Mr. Rosenberg said, according to a transcript of the call published by Thomson Financial. But radio analysts said that they were not impressed by the numbers themselves, stressing that Google’s access to air time may be limited, by and large, to what the industry calls “remnant inventory” — ad time sold at the last minute and at low prices. Many analysts say that Google has been trying to sign a large inventory deal with CBS Radio, whose network of 147 radio stations is among the largest in the country, but that negotiations have taken longer than expected and no deal has been announced yet. A spokeswoman for CBS Radio declined to comment. Ryan Steelberg did not respond to an e-mail message and phone calls seeking comment, and Chad Steelberg could not be reached for comment. Google’s success in radio is important, in part, because the company’s lofty valuation is partly based on investors’ expectations that it will be able to expand beyond its core Internet advertising business to media like radio, newspapers and even television. Success is important for the Steelbergs, too. Google paid $102 million in cash for dMarc, and agreed to pay as much as $1.14 billion over three years, depending on how well the company meets certain performance targets. Google’s relationship with one radio network suggests that speculation about its inventory problems is accurate and that the company faces challenging negotiations with others besides CBS. During a conference call with analysts last month, Rick Cummings, president of Emmis Radio, described the airtime it had made available to Google as “remnant inventory.” Emmis owns 23 stations in major markets and was one of the first radio networks to work with dMarc. “The Google folks have expressed an interest in doing more business with us and in some prime inventory,” said Mr. Cummings, according to a transcript of the call. “We’ve said we’re happy to discuss it so long as the money is there and the price is right. That remains to be seen. That’s really up to them.” Analysts say they expect Google will eventually find a way to make deeper inroads into radio. “I would assume that someone in the industry will eventually sell Google some inventory,” said Jonathan Jacoby, a broadcasting analyst with Banc of America Securities. In a note to investors, however, Mr. Jacoby said it was possible that “the management disruption at dMarc could slow the march toward online radio selling.” | Google Inc;Radio;Advertising and Marketing;Computers and the Internet |
ny0121593 | [
"science"
] | 2012/09/04 | A Look at the Royal Society’s Bizarre and Fascinating Archives | In the Royal Society’s early years, scientists wrote of research both bizarre and elegant, made seemingly uncanny predictions, and sought to reconcile their findings with prevailing beliefs about God. A few samples from the archives: EXPERIMENTS, CRUEL AND UNUSUAL The other experiment (which I shall hardly, I confess, make again, because it was cruel) was with a dog, which, by means of a pair of bellows, wherewith I filled his lungs, and suffered them to empty again, I was able to preserve alive as long as I could desire, after I had wholly opened the thorax, and cut off all the ribs, and opened the belly. — Letter from Robert Hooke to Robert Boyle (1664) Experiments: Of destroying Mites by several Fumes: of the equivocal Generation of Insects: of feeding a Carp in the Air: of making Insects with Cheese, and Sack: of killing Water-Newts, Toads, and Sloworms with several Salts: of killing Frogs by touching their skin, with Vinegar, Pitch, or Mercury: of a Spiders not being Inchanted by a Circle of Unicorns-horn, or Irish Earth, laid round about it. — Thomas Sprat, “The History of the Royal Society” (1667) FORETELLING THE FUTURE In the year 1456 ... a Comet was seen passing Retrograde between the Earth and the sun. ... Hence I dare venture to foretell, that it will return again in the year 1758. — Edmond Halley, “A Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets” (1705); the prediction was correct. GUIDING HANDS This most beautiful system [The Universe] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. — Isaac Newton UNDISCOVERED SHORES The footsteps of Nature are to be trac’d, not only in her ordinary course, but when she seems to be put to her shifts, to make many doublings and turnings, and to use some kind of art in endeavouring to avoid our discovery. — Robert Hooke, “Micrographia” (1665) To myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. — Newton; said to have been written in 1727, the final year of his life | Royal Society;Newton Isaac |
ny0231592 | [
"technology"
] | 2010/09/13 | Using Crowds, and GPS, to Chart Roadkill | DAVIS, Calif. — To Ron Ringen, a retired veterinarian, roadkill is a calling. Nearly every week for the last seven months, Mr. Ringen, 69, has driven the roads north of this college town near Sacramento, scanning the pavement for telltale bits of fur and feathers. Pulling over, Mr. Ringen gets out, snaps photographs and uses his GPS device to record the precise location where creatures met their end. He has logged more than 1,400 animals, from the miniature (one-ounce song sparrows) to the gargantuan (a 1,500-pound black Angus bull). “Most people don’t realize how many animals die on the road every day — they just don’t see it,” he said. While Mr. Ringen’s friends goad him with nicknames like “Doctor Roadkill,” he is not alone in his peculiar pursuit. Hundreds of volunteers collect and upload roadkill data to the California Roadkill Observation System, a mapping Web site built by researchers at the University of California, Davis, to better understand where and why cars strike animals. Begun a year ago, the Web site — www.wildlifecrossing.net/california — is the first statewide effort to map roadkill using citizen observers. Volunteers comb the state’s highways and country roads for dead animals, collecting GPS coordinates, photographs and species information and uploading it to a database and Google map populated with dots representing the kills. The site’s gruesome gallery includes photos of flattened squirrels or squashed skunks. “For some people the only contact they have with wild animals is when they run them over,” said Fraser M. Shilling, the lead researcher on the project. “This is the first time people have been able to record roadkill online and I think it will change our understanding of what our road system is really doing to wildlife.” The site’s founders hope to soon hire a software engineer to design a smartphone app. They think one would attract new and younger volunteers, speed up the process, and, with built-in GPS function, assure more accurate location information. About 73 million GPS-enabled cellphones and 23 million automotive GPS units will be shipped in the United States and Canada this year, according to IMS Research, a market research firm. “GPS is very pervasive,” said Bill Morelli, an analyst with the firm. “Everybody is interested in pursuing the benefits of getting data points from these devices,” he said. For example, wireless providers like AT&T and Sprint are looking into applications that would use drivers’ GPS smartphones to monitor traffic speed in real time. The roadkill maps give researchers a better understanding of the environmental impacts of roads. They intend to use the data to build statistical and Geographic Information Systems models to predict roadkill hot spots and to determine where animal road crossings, culverts and warning signs may be most effective on current and future roadways. Given the more than 258 million vehicles on the country’s four million miles of public roads, it is little wonder that cars regularly strike animals. Estimates for just how many run-ins occur each year vary widely. The Humane Society of the United States estimates that a million animals are killed by vehicles every day, while a 2008 Federal Highway Administration report puts the number of accidents with large animals between one million and two million a year. The agency estimates such accidents result in over $8 billion in damages annually. In addition, about 200 people die each year in accidents with deer and other animals, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The Federal Highway Administration provides money to state transportation agencies to help minimize the number of animal accidents. “The methods are as varied as the wildlife themselves, ranging from fences, bridges and tunnels to electronic animal-detection warning systems,” said Victor Mendez, the agency’s administrator. Still, Mr. Shilling and his colleagues think that drivers armed with keen eyes, GPS devices and smartphones are perhaps better suited than government agencies to map the cumulative effects of roadkill. In late March, the researchers started a second Web site, in Maine, called Maine Audubon Wildlife Road Watch, available via wildlifecrossing.net . “There are so many miles of road, the more people you have involved looking for roadkill, the better,” said Susan Gallo, a wildlife biologist with Maine Audubon, the group that commissioned the site in partnership with the state’s transportation department and other state agencies. Despite the grisly nature of the task, volunteers have been enthusiastic, Mr. Shilling says. Even with limited public outreach, the California site has almost 300 registered users and more than 6,900 documented kills. In Maine, the most commonly counted roadkill species is the North American porcupine. “I see an awful lot of them. They just move so slow,” said Donna Runnels, 58. She uploads the data she collects while walking and riding her horse near her home in Burnham, Me. The animal most likely to be found dead along a California road is the raccoon, though hundreds of species have been counted, including desert iguanas, black bears, tiger salamanders, brown pelicans and western shovelnose snakes. During countless hours on hundreds of miles of road, Mr. Ringen’s eyes have become attuned to the tiniest tattered remains; he can spot a flattened mouse while driving 50 miles an hour, he says. Nevertheless, occasionally his eyes trick him. He regularly pulls over for what he thinks are bird remains only to find discarded banana peels. Last spring driving on Interstate 80 crossing the Sacramento River Delta, he saw, to his disbelief, what seemed to be a small shark on the highway. He exited and circled his car back to the spot only to find a child’s stuffed toy shark. “This is how crazy you get,” Mr. Ringen said. “I’m almost a fanatic with it. You get hooked. You wake up wondering ‘What am I going to find out there today?’ ” | Animals;Roads and Traffic;Roadkill;Accidents and Safety;Maps;Computers and the Internet;California;Maine;Global Positioning System |
ny0212657 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2017/01/13 | Yellow Fever Outbreak in Brazil Prompts a State of Emergency | RIO DE JANEIRO — The governor of the Minas Gerais State in southeastern Brazil declared a public health emergency on Friday over an outbreak of yellow fever that appears to have killed at least 10 people so far and led to reports of more than 100 suspected cases of the disease. The state authorities said Friday they were investigating 133 suspected cases of yellow fever, of which 20 were considered probable, pending further testing. They said they were also looking into reports of 38 deaths, 10 of them suspected of being caused by yellow fever, according to the State Health Secretariat’s website . The state health authorities said the number of suspected cases had more than doubled in recent days: 48 suspected cases had been reported as of Wednesday, and that figure rose to 110 on Thursday. According to the World Health Organization, yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle pain, nausea and vomiting. A small number of patients develop severe symptoms, and about half of those die within seven to 10 days. A spokeswoman for the Minas Gerais State Health Secretariat said all the cases reported so far were sylvatic, meaning that the infection has been passed by mosquitoes in the wild, in rural areas where monkeys are known to carry the disease. Small outbreaks are occasionally set off in rural towns when loggers, miners or other forest workers catch the disease and transmit it to local mosquitoes. Those outbreaks may die out spontaneously with the arrival of cold or windy weather, or they may be quelled by vaccination campaigns. But if yellow fever reaches cities infested with Aedes aegypti mosquitoes — the same species that carries the Zika virus — it can set off outbreaks that spread so fast that vaccination teams and mosquito-control teams cannot contain them. Health specialists said the sudden increase in cases was cause for alarm. “It is a significant increase,” said Dr. Jesse Alves, an infectious diseases specialist at the Emilio Ribas Hospital in São Paulo, an institution run by the state government there. Dr. Alves noted that Brazil suffered cyclical outbreaks of sylvatic yellow fever in rural areas like those in Minas Gerais. The last one was in 2009 and led to a number of deaths. “This is not the first time this has happened,” Dr. Alves said. “We know the virus has a cyclical behavior, and from time to time we see activity in areas of transmission. But each time this happens it is of concern because we could see the return of yellow fever to Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in urban areas.” The government of Minas Gerais said Friday that the declaration of a public health emergency expanded its ability to deal with the growing crisis, allowing it to assign contracts for more workers and services without having to go through the rounds of bidding normally required under Brazilian law. “We are taking all the preventive measures, especially in affected areas in the rural zone,” Gov. Fernando Pimentel said in comments published on the State Health Secretariat’s website on Friday. “Everything that is necessary is being done, and with the help of everyone and the awareness of the population, we will overcome this moment.” The state has received 735,000 vaccines from Brazil’s Ministry of Health, the state spokeswoman said. People in rural areas and towns affected by the outbreak have been lining up to receive vaccinations, according to local news reports. Although many of the areas where the Minas Gerais state government has reported cases of yellow fever are rural, some cases are in small towns. One death likely to have been caused by yellow fever has been reported in Ubaporanga, a town of 12,000 people. In Ladainha, a town of 18,000 people, the disease is suspected in the deaths of three people. “The question is why people weren’t vaccinated in these areas,” Dr. Alves said. “Minas Gerais has long been known as a risk area for yellow fever. That is what most calls my attention.” | Yellow fever;Minas Gerais;Brazil;Mosquito;Vaccines Immunization |
ny0102517 | [
"us"
] | 2015/12/12 | California: Civil Rights Suit Filed Over Man Shot to Death by Police | The mother of a young black man shot dead by the San Francisco police filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Friday, saying officers needlessly opened fire in a shooting captured on video . Five San Francisco police officers responding to a report of a stabbing killed Mario Woods, 26, on Dec. 2 when he refused commands to drop an eight-inch knife. Two video clips of the episode have circulated online, angering community leaders and activists. During community meetings this week, some have called for Chief Greg Suhr to resign and for the officers who fired their guns to be charged criminally. Mr. Suhr has said that the police opened fire when it appeared that Mr. Woods was raising the knife and approaching one of the officers. John Burris, a lawyer representing Gwendolyn Woods, the mother, disputed that account Friday and showed a video clip not previously seen publicly. He said Mr. Woods never raised his hands. | Mario Woods;San Francisco;Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings;Black People,African-Americans;Civil Rights;Lawsuits;Police;Greg Suhr |
ny0052673 | [
"sports",
"hockey"
] | 2014/07/03 | Islanders Add Forwards | The Islanders signed the free-agent forwards Mikhail Grabovski and Nikolai Kulemin to four-year contracts. Grabovski, 30, had 13 goals and 22 assists in 58 games last season for Washington. Kulemin, 27, had 9 goals and 11 assists in 70 games for Toronto. | Ice hockey;Islanders;Mikhail Grabovski;Nikolai Kulemin |
ny0217601 | [
"sports"
] | 2010/05/03 | Suspicious Device Forces Delay Near Marathon Finish | A suspicious device near the Pittsburgh Marathon finish line prompted the police to stop the race for 10 to 12 minutes after the race leaders finished. The device was disabled, and the police said it was not believed to have been an explosive. Karen Fredette, a race spokeswoman, said that the race was diverted around the block where the device was found but that the finish was not changed. | Marathon Running;Bombs and Explosives;Pittsburgh Marathon |
ny0068163 | [
"business",
"energy-environment"
] | 2014/12/17 | U.S. Imposes Steep Tariffs on Chinese Solar Panels | The Commerce Department began closing a chapter in a protracted trade conflict with China over solar equipment Tuesday, approving a collection of steep tariffs on imports from China and Taiwan. The decision, intended to close a loophole that had allowed Chinese manufacturers to avoid tariffs imposed in an earlier ruling by using cells — a major module component — made in Taiwan, found that the companies were selling products below the cost of manufacture and that the Chinese companies were benefiting from unfair subsidies from their government. The department announced anti-dumping duties of 26.71 percent to 78.42 percent on imports of most solar panels made in China, and rates of 11.45 percent to 27.55 percent on imports of solar cells made in Taiwan. In addition, the department announced anti-subsidy duties of 27.64 percent to 49.79 percent for Chinese modules. “These remedies come just in time to enable the domestic industry to return to conditions of fair trade,” said Mukesh Dulani, president of SolarWorld Americas. “The tariffs and scope set the stage for companies to create new jobs and build or expand factories on U.S. soil.” But others in the industry were quick to criticize the ruling. “Taxing solar trade undermines both the spirit and efficacy of pledges made by the U.S. and China to work together in the battle against global warming,” Jigar Shah, president of the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy, said in a statement. “These unnecessary taxes inhibit competition and put upward pressure on solar panel prices needed by U.S. homeowners, installers and utilities.” SolarWorld has had a string of victories since it originally filed a complaint in 2011. In 2012, the Commerce Department began imposing tariffs on Chinese imports. This year, in preliminary decisions in a second case, the department expanded the scope of the ruling to include imports from Taiwan, leading to tariffs of about 19 to 55 percent. The most recent decision makes that ruling final, but trade officials could not immediately say what the total tariff margins would be because there is some overlap between the anti-dumping and subsidy rates. The conflict has its roots in a flood of inexpensive Chinese solar products that pushed many American manufacturers out of business but proved a boon to developers and installers who could offer their services at greatly reduced prices. Some solar executives and advocates argue that the low prices have helped spur wider adoption of solar energy in the United States, creating thousands of customers and jobs. Others say that expansion has come at too high a cost in employment on the manufacturing side. As a result, the industry split over the case, a long-simmering conflict that bubbled to the surface Tuesday with executives from PetersenDean, a privately held roofing and solar company, calling for leaders at the Solar Energy Industries Association to resign because of the trade organization’s opposition to the case and its ties to Chinese-owned solar companies. Erin Clark, the company’s president of solar, said in a statement that the trade association’s position was in conflict with its stated purpose to keep America competitive. “SEIA has become nothing more than a tool used by Chinese companies to try and bankrupt and destroy American solar manufacturing,” he said. The Solar Energy Industries Association did not respond to a request for comment. American officials continue to hope for a negotiated settlement with the Chinese, but that has yet to materialize, and the trade issues are far from settled. The final determination in the original SolarWorld case, over Chinese cells, has been going through an appeal process that is not due to end until January. The main beneficiary of the ruling is likely to be Malaysia , a Southeast Asian nation that is already the second-largest exporter of solar panels to the United States, after China and narrowly ahead of Taiwan. Western, Japanese and Korean companies are pouring investment into extensive operations there, seeing it as a stable country with a fairly low cost yet highly skilled labor force, and without China’s persistent trade frictions with the West. | Solar energy;China;Taiwan;International trade;Commerce Department;Tariff;Malaysia;SolarWorld;Solar Energy Industries Assn |
ny0037004 | [
"us"
] | 2014/03/30 | Aftershocks Follow an Earthquake Near Los Angeles | A total of 115 aftershocks jolted the Los Angeles area by Saturday morning after a magnitude 5.1 earthquake on Friday night, a federal seismologist said. Three aftershocks reached magnitude 3, the last at 10:37 p.m. Pacific time on Friday, said the seismologist, Lucy Jones of the United States Geological Survey. She said that a more powerful quake than Friday’s was possible, though unlikely, and that comparatively minor aftershocks could continue for weeks. Image A woman walked past a broken wall in Fullerton, Calif., on Saturday, a day after a magnitude 5.1 earthquake shook the area. Credit Ken Steinhardt/The Orange County Register, via Associated Press Friday’s largest temblor struck near the cities of Brea and La Habra, southeast of Los Angeles, shortly after 9 p.m. Pacific time and was preceded by a foreshock. A fire battalion chief, John Stokes, said that no one had been killed and that only minor injuries had been reported. The area, however, did not emerge unscathed: Fifty Fullerton residents were displaced from their homes because of property damage, and five water mains ruptured. The Los Angeles Dodgers announcer Vin Scully incorporated the tremors into his television patter when they were felt in the sixth inning of a home exhibition game against the Los Angeles Angels on Friday night. Ms. Jones said the temblor and aftershocks followed almost 20 years of unusually low seismic activity in the Los Angeles area. Such activity could become more frequent, she said. “One question is: Is this going to be a blip, or is it going to continue?” Ms. Jones said. “We could start seeing a pattern.” | Earthquake;Los Angeles |
ny0157795 | [
"science"
] | 2008/12/05 | Gene Test Shows Spain’s Jewish and Muslim Mix | The genetic signatures of people in Spain and Portugal provide new and explicit evidence of the mass conversions of Sephardic Jews and Muslims to Catholicism in the 15th and 16th centuries after Christian armies wrested Spain back from Muslim control, a team of geneticists reports. Twenty percent of the population of the Iberian Peninsula has Sephardic Jewish ancestry and 11 percent have DNA reflecting Moorish ancestors, the geneticists have found. Historians have debated how many Jews converted and how many chose exile. “One wing grossly underestimates the number of conversions,” said Jane S. Gerber, an expert on Sephardic history at the City University of New York. The finding bears on two different views of Spanish history, said Jonathan S. Ray, a professor of Jewish studies at Georgetown University. One, proposed by the 20th-century historian Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz, holds that Spanish civilization is Catholic and other influences are foreign; the other sees Spain as having been enriched by drawing from all three of its historical cultures, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim. The study, based on an analysis of Y chromosomes, was conducted by biologists led by Mark A. Jobling of the University of Leicester in England and Francesc Calafell of the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. They developed a Y chromosome signature for Sephardic men by studying Sephardic Jewish communities in places where Jews migrated after being expelled from Spain in 1492 to 1496. They also characterized the Y chromosomes of the Arab and Berber army that invaded Spain in A.D. 711 from data on people living in Morocco and Western Sahara. After a period of forbearance under the Arab Umayyad dynasty, Spain entered a period of religious intolerance, with its Muslim Berber dynasties forcing Christians and Jews to convert to Islam, and the victorious Christians then expelling Jews and Muslims or forcing them to convert. The new genetic study, reported online on Thursday in the American Journal of Human Genetics, indicates there was a high level of conversion among Jews. Because most of the Y chromosome remains unchanged from father to son, the proportions of Sephardic and Moorish ancestry detected in the present population are probably the same as those just after the 1492 expulsions. A high proportion of people with Sephardic ancestry was to be expected, Dr. Ray said. “Jews formed a very large part of the urban population up until the great conversions,” he said. Dr. Ray raised the question of what the DNA evidence might mean personally. “If four generations on I have no knowledge of my genetic past, how does that affect my understanding of my own religious association?” The issue is one that has confronted Dr. Calafell, an author of the study. His own Y chromosome may be of Sephardic ancestry — the test is not definitive for individuals — and his surname is from a town in Catalonia; Jews undergoing conversion often took surnames from place names. But he does not regard his Y chromosome as a strong link to the Sephardic heritage. Assuming no in-breeding, he would have had more than one million living ancestors in A.D. 1500. “My full ancestry is made of many different individuals, and my Y chromosome tells me just about one of them,” he said. | Genetics and Heredity;Jews;Genealogy;Islam;Christians and Christianity;History;Spain;Portugal;DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) |
ny0267532 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2016/03/24 | Ex-Trader Tom Hayes Ordered to Pay $1.2 Million in Libor Case | LONDON — A judge on Wednesday ordered Tom Hayes, a former UBS and Citigroup trader, to forfeit more than 878,000 pounds, or about $1.2 million, in bonuses and other compensation because of his conviction last year of manipulating a global benchmark interest rate known as Libor. Mr. Hayes, who is serving an 11-year prison sentence, was the first person to go to trial in Britain and be convicted on criminal charges related to the manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor. The ensuing scandal has led to billions of dollars in fines and has rocked the reputations of some of the world’s biggest banks, including Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS and Deutsche Bank. “The court acknowledged the challenges of quantifying the benefit from crime in this case,” Mark Thompson, the head of the Serious Fraud Office’s Proceeds of Crime Division, said in a news release. “The outcome is a substantial confiscation order, which Mr. Hayes will need to satisfy or face a further period of imprisonment.” Mr. Hayes testified at a five-day confiscation proceeding last week that he lost nearly £1 million through personal trading after he was dismissed from Citigroup. The trading losses, along with legal fees, wiped out much of his savings, Mr. Hayes said at the time. The decision means that Mr. Hayes will probably be forced to sell his family’s home in Surrey. The seven-bedroom home, known as Old Rectory, is worth about £1.7 million. At a hearing on Wednesday, prosecutors said Mr. Hayes had only about £49,000 in cash, jewelry and other assets that could be sold quickly to satisfy the judgment. The Serious Fraud Office had accused Mr. Hayes, who worked as a trader in Tokyo, of being a ringleader among more than a dozen traders in what authorities said was a brazen scheme to manipulate Libor, which helps determine the borrowing costs for trillions of dollars in loans. He was accused of engaging in misconduct from 2006 to 2010. Tracking the Libor Scandal Abuse of interest rates and the failure to address the problem is one of the most expensive scandals to hit Wall Street since the financial crisis. Mr. Hayes was convicted of conspiring to manipulate Libor in August. He was originally sentenced to 14 years in prison, but his sentence was reduced to 11 years in prison by an appellate court in December. This month, an appeals court denied his request to have the Supreme Court, Britain’s highest court, review the case, making it more difficult for him to challenge his conviction. Mr. Hayes is expected to ask the Criminal Case Review Commission, which examines miscarriages of justice, to examine his case. The independent body can refer criminal cases back to the appellate court for review. At trial, Mr. Hayes’s lawyers argued that he was open about his conduct and did not believe at the time that he was acting dishonestly. To set Libor and other rates, banks submit the rates at which they would be prepared to lend money to one another, on an unsecured basis, in various currencies and at varying maturities. The evidence against Mr. Hayes included 82 hours of voluntary testimony that prosecutors said he provided to the Serious Fraud Office over five months. The authorities said he admitted to rigging rates and provided testimony against many former friends and colleagues, including his half brother. Mr. Hayes testified during the trial that he decided to cooperate with British authorities because he feared being extradited to the United States, where he is also facing criminal charges, and wanted to remain close to his wife and child. After providing the voluntary testimony to British authorities, Mr. Hayes stopped cooperating with prosecutors in 2013 and chose to plead not guilty to the charges in Britain. Mr. Hayes remains the only person convicted at trial in Britain for manipulating Libor. Prosecutors suffered a setback in January when six former brokers were acquitted of criminal charges that they helped Mr. Hayes manipulate Libor. A third trial in London of others accused of manipulating Libor is expected to begin next month. The first trial in the United States of people accused of rigging Libor ended in the conviction in November of two former London-based traders. The men were sentenced to prison terms this month. | Libor;Thomas Alexander William Hayes;Great Britain;Serious Fraud Office United Kingdom;Banking and Finance;Fines |
ny0024652 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/08/19 | Quinn’s Wife Edges Onto the Political Stage | Kim M. Catullo does not like giving interviews or getting behind a microphone. At political events, she tends to hover in the background, so much so that she is sometimes mistaken for a member of her wife’s security detail. But with the primary just weeks away, Ms. Catullo, the wife of Christine C. Quinn, is edging out of her comfort zone to take on a more visible role in Ms. Quinn’s campaign for mayor of New York City. Showing off spouses can be an important way for candidates, particularly for gay candidates, to soften their images, by demonstrating that they have families, and Ms. Quinn’s rivals in the Democratic primary, all men, have repeatedly called attention to their wives in the campaign. Chirlane McCray, Bill de Blasio’s wife, has been a prominent figure in his campaign and has been profiled in publications including The New Yorker and Essence. William C. Thompson Jr.'s campaign has in recent weeks sent out a separate public schedule for his wife, Elsie McCabe Thompson. Ms. Catullo, a corporate lawyer who married Ms. Quinn last year in a ceremony attended by most of the state’s major elected officials, is the last of the leading candidates’ spouses to come forward. In something of an official rollout, the Quinn campaign approached several outlets late last week to offer brief interviews with Ms. Catullo over the weekend. On a short walk around her Chelsea neighborhood on Saturday afternoon, she answered questions and posed for pictures with Justin, a black Lab mix that is one of two shelter dogs living with the couple. Ms. Catullo, 46, said she had tried to talk Ms. Quinn, 47, out of running for mayor, right up until Ms. Quinn, the City Council speaker, officially announced her campaign on March 10. “I really didn’t want her to do it,” Ms. Catullo said. “I knew that being a woman and being a lesbian and being different — and then all the other reasons — she was going to be a target,” Ms. Catullo continued, adding that she was also nervous about Ms. Quinn’s safety. “I really flip-flopped in the sense that I knew I shouldn’t stand in the way of it, but on a personal level I was really worried,” she said. Ms. Catullo and Ms. Quinn were introduced by mutual friends in the fall of 2001. Ms. Catullo initially turned down the setup, because she was reluctant to date a politician, but after she passed by several of Ms. Quinn’s campaign posters on a jog around the West Village — Ms. Quinn was then running for re-election as a councilwoman — she decided Ms. Quinn was “kind of cute” and relented. It turned out that they had a lot in common. Like Ms. Quinn, Ms. Catullo, who grew up in Newark in what she described as a working-class family, lost her mother to cancer when she was a teenager. In the interview, she said her life as a child was transformed by reading. At Rutgers University, she had a double major in political science and English and spent a summer studying painting in Italy. She ultimately gave up her artistic ambitions to become a lawyer; she is now a partner at Gibbons, a New Jersey law firm . When Ms. Quinn decided to run for speaker in 2005, Ms. Catullo said, she was skeptical that “the political bigwigs” would throw their support behind a lesbian candidate. She said she was “a little stunned” when Ms. Quinn won. Now, as the primary campaign heats up, she said it was painful to see Ms. Quinn being attacked by her rivals. “It’s hard for a spouse who loves their spouse to watch this,” Ms. Catullo said. “Anyone who likes this, I question their sanity.” Asked if Ms. Quinn, who is known for cracking a few heads around the Council, ever yells at home, Ms. Catullo laughed. “If she did, she’d be in big trouble,” she said. “I win every argument at home,” she went on. Asked why, she smiled and said, “I’m a litigator.” She conceded that Ms. Quinn was tough, but she said the depictions of her as a bully were unfair. “She’s a wonderful person, and it’s really hard to hear some of that,” Ms. Catullo said. “And I know that if New Yorkers knew that heart and soul that I do, she would win by a landslide.” Ms. Catullo declined to say how she voted in recent mayoral elections, but said she was proud of how Ms. Quinn handled the difficult decision of whether to support lifting term limits so that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg could seek a third term. “I think a lot of people forget how concerned a lot of New Yorkers were,” she said. She said she had not fully thought through how she might have to adjust her life were Ms. Quinn to be elected, though she said she would not quit her job. But she knew that they would be under a spotlight. “The first woman mayor and a lesbian couple — I mean, that’s going to be an international story,” Ms. Catullo said. “Just the intensity around her candidacy, I can’t imagine what it will be like.” As for what role she will play in the campaign, she said that besides “continuing to do the laundry, the shopping, and the dog walking,” she would visit senior centers, hand out leaflets and do anything else Ms. Quinn needed her to do. In turn, she said, she would ask that after the election, Ms. Quinn put down her BlackBerry, at least for a few days. Longer term, she said, she had dreams of a quiet, unplugged life someday — far from the political scrum. “I want to go and work on a goat farm in Vermont,” Ms. Catullo said. “She says, ‘Someday ... but not now.’ ” | Christine C Quinn;Kim M Catullo;Mayoral races;Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage;NYC |
ny0186927 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2009/04/02 | In Workplace Injury System, Ill Will on All Sides | TONAWANDA, N.Y. — The sprawling DuPont plant along the Niagara River here can be a grim place, but less so on the days when the company hands out coupons to reward workers for a few weeks without injury. Called “safety bucks,” the coupons look like real money and can be redeemed at Red Lobster, Home Depot and several other businesses in the area. For some workers who risk their fingers and bones to make Corian, the stonelike countertop material that is the plant’s major product, the coupons have become a modest blessing and benefit. But other workers regard them as a curse, as a way to mobilize peer pressure against workers who might consider reporting an injury. “You know that if you report an injury, everybody says, ‘You son of a bitch,’ ” said Dan Austin , who worked at the plant for 30 years. “I’ve heard people say, ‘So-and-so reported an injury and it’s going to cost us our safety bucks this month.’ ” Companies across the state have recently introduced reward programs to curtail injuries, in part to keep their workers safe, in part to cut down on workers’ compensation claims, which managers cite as a huge factor in the high cost of doing business in New York. “There are an awful lot of situations where people aren’t truly injured on the job,” said Gregory Harden, the president of Harden Furniture, a 380-employee company based in McConnellsville. “I tend to be a little cynical. Monday is always the day with the highest injury rate for us. Someone comes in on Monday, and their back is really sore for whatever reason, and they end up missing a few weeks of work.” The state’s multibillion-dollar workers’ compensation system is plagued by many shortcomings: endless delays, suspect doctors, and a rudimentary form of justice that prevails as employees and employers seek to survive. But perhaps the most powerful way to appreciate how the system has failed is to see what it has done to New York’s workplaces. A century ago, when the state created its workers’ compensation system, the goal was a no-fault insurance program that would foster workplace harmony by resolving disputes over injuries without litigation or recrimination. Today, however, employers and employees are still at war over workplace injuries, a war marked by mistrust and fear. Each side is angry; each side has its own powerful evidence to justify that anger. Workers say companies are going to extraordinary lengths to cut back on claims: contesting injuries, checking on workers at home, even firing those who file for benefits. Employers say that the compensation system is so expensive, so riddled with fraudulent claims, that they need to take aggressive steps to curb their costs. A single injury can easily cost $10,000, and sometimes several hundred thousand dollars when a badly maimed worker draws benefits for life. Though no independent study has established that claimant fraud is rampant, many executives say the system is skewed against them by judges who favor claimants and by malingerers who collect benefits when they are well enough to work. The state is putting reforms in place to reduce costs for companies and ease tensions in the workplace, but it remains unclear how much they will help. And the economic downturn has only added to the pressure to control costs. So to cut back on claims, some factories are using scoreboards to record days passed without an injury. Some companies reward workers who report no injuries with a banquet featuring a lottery with a cash prize. Other plants play safety bingo: if there are enough consecutive injury-free days, one worker gets bingo and wins a cash jackpot. “It keeps everybody’s mind on safety because every day when they come in, that bingo board is right next to the time clock,” said Ed Prunier, safety manager at Ball Metal Container in Saratoga Springs . Some companies are also using a less fun-filled program, known as progressive discipline. At the DuPont plant here, workers face five progressive steps when they suffer repeated injuries deemed to be partly their own fault: verbal warning, written warning, probation, five-day suspension and dismissal. “There’s like a philosophy that unless your arm is falling off, don’t tell anybody, take the pain, don’t go the emergency room,” said Jerry Graves, a DuPont machine operator who injured his thumb. “Say you smashed your finger with a hammer at home.” Experts say it is difficult to estimate how often employers in New York retaliate against workers who file compensation claims because there is no tracking of such data. But several studies have found that the perception of widespread retaliation has contributed to the decline in the number of compensation claims in New York and nationwide in recent years. “There are lots of people out there who aren’t filing claims because it’s not worth the hassle and because of the fear of retaliation by the employer,” said Leslie Boden, a professor of public health at Boston University . Legal experts say New York makes it easy to fire workers who file claims. The law bars retaliation, but states that as long as an employer has a “valid reason,” like a prolonged absence, the firing is legitimate. Some of the workers most affected by efforts to curtail claims are immigrants, who make up an increasing part of the state’s blue-collar work force. Many of them do not know about the compensation system, and when they get hurt, their employers often pressure them not to apply for benefits, worker advocates said. “Their bosses tell them, ‘Don’t go to the hospital. Don’t say it happened at work. I’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of your medications.’ ” said Gonzalo Mercado, executive director of El Centro del Imigrante, a workers’ center on Staten Island . “In most cases, the employer never does any of that.” Gerver Lopez, for example, was putting up aluminum siding in May 2007 when the scaffolding broke and he fell to the ground, hurting his spine. Mr. Lopez, an immigrant from El Salvador , could not get up. He said his boss shouted: “Don’t call an ambulance. I don’t want no trouble. I have 30 houses to do, and I don’t want to lose any of them.” An uncle drove him to Nassau University Medical Center, and doctors there told him that he would never walk again, he said. By the time his two-and-a-half-month stay ended, his medical bills topped $45,000. Now 22, he remains paralyzed, and is supported by his mother, a waitress. “The boss said he was going to pay for everything and I shouldn’t say anything,” Mr. Lopez said. “He didn’t give me a penny.” Hurt on the Job Fred Willette followed his father into metal grinding, a world of dangerous dust and deafening noise. At Kodak , where he worked for several years, a machine would collect the dust spun off by his efforts. But when he took a similar job at Addison Precision Manufacturing, a metal-parts factory in Rochester , he said his new bosses did not want to spend the $3,000 for such a machine. “They said, ‘All we have to do is provide you with a dust mask,’ ” Mr. Willette said. So for seven years, he said, he did what he was told, grinding tools that are used to make parts for rockets, snowmobiles and medical equipment. Then the shortness of breath began. One day he passed out and was rushed to the emergency room, the first of several trips. The doctors initially thought it was asthma . But on a return visit, a doctor asked him what he was grinding. “Tungsten carbide with cobalt,” he replied. It turned out he had hard-metal pulmonary disease, which, like black lung disease , can be hobbling, even fatal. Mr. Willette said that in March 2000 he told his bosses he was going to apply for workers’ compensation to tide him over until he recovered. They fired him the next day, he said, a position the company disputes. “They were saying: ‘You’re a liability. You’re getting all these people involved. We don’t need you,’ ” he said. He was 48 at the time. Robert Grey, a claimant lawyer, said New York’s law against retaliation “is close to useless, both as a deterrent and a remedy.” The courts have said employers can fire a claimant who misses too many days or if they need to hire someone to do the claimant’s work. As a result, lawyers seldom pursue retaliation cases, said Michael T. Berns, a member of the state Workers’ Compensation Board until last June. “The burden of proof is with the claimant,” he said. “It’s a very difficult burden.” Some states take a tougher stance. In Oregon , claimants retain the right to be reinstated to their job within three years of filing a claim, so long as they are still able to do the job. Mr. Willette said that even after he was dismissed, the company challenged his claim. A private investigator for its insurance carrier began parking outside his house and trailing him to the doctor and the supermarket, he said. “At first we thought it was the police,” Mr. Willette said. “But the cops said, ‘He’s a private investigator watching you.’ ” Rodney Champagne, one of the owners of Addison Precision, declined to discuss Mr. Willette’s case. “I’m not really interested,” he said. But the company’s insurer said in official filings that the lung disease stemmed largely from smoking , not metallic dust. The company’s chief executive, Robert Champagne, said during the compensation trial that he was concerned about his workers’ safety and that Mr. Willette had not been fired for filing a claim. He was sent home, he said, because he was upset and shaky at work and had not brought in a requested note about the medication needed to control his stress-related seizures . After leaving Addison, Mr. Willette held a few lower-paying jobs for a few months, but his breathing did not improve, and he slipped into a depression for nearly a year. He felt too short of breath for his favorite pastime, fishing . Now he spends his days watching television. Occasionally he visits his father, gathering strength to go out for an hour or two by using an oxygen tank at home. He now receives benefits, $278 a week. But because the company challenged his claim, those benefits did not start until 18 months after he was let go. “You feel very low from what they put you through,” he said. “They try to grind you down.” Fearing Fraud As the sixth president in the Curtis Screw Company’s 100-year history, Paul Hojnacki wants the company to survive another century in Buffalo , the city where it was founded. But Mr. Hojnacki is so angry about the state’s workers’ compensation system that he sometimes talks of moving the factory, which makes precision auto parts. He denounces the delays in settling cases, complains about the “pro-worker judges” and about the way some employees, he said, are allowed to milk the system. Most of all, he indicts the costs. Curtis Screw, he said, spent $4,900 per employee in 2007 for workers’ compensation coverage for its 220 workers, more than 10 times what it cost at its factory in Cornelius, N.C. “The cost of this monstrosity,” he said of the system, “has to be taken into consideration because it’s driving businesses out of New York State .” Mr. Hojnacki said the compensation bill represents 2.5 percent of the Buffalo plant’s revenues, at a time when manufacturers often have profit margins of 3 percent. At the plant, where wages average $15.50 an hour, compensation costs translate into $2.50 for every hour that employees work, he said. One of the reforms the state has pushed through in recent years reduced compensation premiums for many companies by 20 percent, but Curtis Screw self-insures, so it has yet to see any savings. “New York State, prior to the reform, was one of the most expensive states in the country for workers’ comp,” said Kenneth Adams, the president of the Business Council of New York State . “With these reductions in premiums, the cost of workers’ comp for most employers has fallen into line with the average of other states. But if you’re in manufacturing, it can still be a significant cost.” Mr. Harden, whose family-owned furniture company was founded in 1844, bridles at paying $1,800 per employee for compensation insurance. He complains that a compensation judge in 2004 ordered his company to pay $400 in weekly death benefits for life to the widow of a driver who died of pneumonia while making a delivery in Texas . “It wasn’t from anything on the job,” Mr. Harden said of the death. While acknowledging that some compensation was in order, he said, “we feel the terms of our payments are excessive.” Mr. Hojnacki says he is similarly upset by the $200,000 his company pays out annually to 15 former employees who have been classified as having permanent partial or permanent total disabilities. Nearly all of them, he said, were terminated for poor performance, then filed for compensation. “We have 15 people that we terminated that we cut a check to every week, some that date as far back as 1993-94,” he said. “It’s absolutely ludicrous. Even with the workers’ comp reforms, this legacy cost we literally have to pay until these people pass.” The Buffalo factory self-insures because Curtis Screw finds it cheaper to pay its compensation costs itself, rather than use an outside insurer. Mr. Hojnacki said his yearly compensation expenses include $850,000 to cover medical expenses for current workers, replacement wages for those workers and state assessments to finance the comp system. Mr. Hojnacki cited a machinist who worked at Curtis Screw for several years and then filed a claim for a back injury. “We did surveillance on him,” Mr. Hojnacki said. “We had a videotape where this individual was doing work on his house, lifting sheets of drywall and carrying them around and taking them from the outside to the inside by himself. We took it to the judge. The judge ruled, ‘We find that the individual was having a good day.’ ” The worker was classified as having a permanent partial disability, for which, Mr. Hojnacki said, the company pays him $400 a week. “The workers’ comp judges are totally sympathetic with the workers,” he continued. “One judge told me, ‘It’s workers’ comp. It’s not employers’ comp.’ ” One reason that Curtis Screw’s costs are so high, Mr. Hojnacki acknowledged, is that his company has so many injuries, including a half-dozen workers who have had costly surgery for carpal tunnel problems. None of his workers in North Carolina have ever received compensation for such an injury, he said. “We have 25 injuries each year, and of the 25 the vast majority are legitimate situations where people scrape a finger or slip or twist a knee,” he said. “The vast majority of workers, they can’t wait to be released from workers’ comp and come back to work. For them, workers’ comp is exactly what it should be — it compensates them for the short period they’re out. But then there’s this small group of employees that play the system.” Mr. Hojnacki said that with his company facing competition from China , high energy costs and a devastating downturn in the auto industry, it cannot afford to be saddled with illegitimate compensation claims. “It’s just devastating that you can have people who take advantage of the system,” he said. “They are taking money that we could be sharing with other workers.” Safety Pays At FTT Manufacturing in Geneseo, the safety bingo pot starts at $25 and increases $2 for every day without an injury. Each day a number is drawn, and workers keep tabs on their game cards. If someone gets bingo after 20 days, the winner receives $65, but the pot continues to grow until an injury is reported. The maximum pot is $150. “We didn’t want to give them something cheesy — where people say ‘big deal,’ ” said Wade Smith, co-director of FTT’s safety programs. Within a year of introducing the game, he said, injuries fell by a third at the company, which makes high-precision parts for many industries. The game was set up for FTT by an outside firm, Safety Pays , which has sold bingo games to more than 3,000 companies and is converting the clamor over compensation costs into profits. Safety Pays provides a format for the game, plus bingo boards, cards, balls and “Winner’s Circle mini-posters.” “The individual,” Safety Pays says in its advertising brochure, “who at one time alleged the occasional ‘ backache ’ in order to get a couple of extra days off will be hard-pressed to do so when his co-workers are anticipating a financial windfall by winning a jackpot.” Mr. Smith said injured employees are never subjected to more than some good-natured “locker room pressure.” But many safety advocates and labor unions are worried about the growth of such programs, which the Occupational Safety and Health Administration considered banning in the 1990s. Robert K. McLellan, former president of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, told the House Education and Labor Committee last year about a worker who told his doctors he had hurt himself at home when the injury had really happened on the job. The worker later admitted lying because he did not want his co-workers to lose a promised steak dinner. Last year, the committee’s staff criticized these programs, saying in a report, “Since workers are human and inevitably make errors, the consequence of rewards or punishment is often a failure to report incidents, rather than a reduction of injuries.” Seth Marshall, founder of Safety Pays, says the games promote healthy peer pressure that increases everyone’s focus on safety and discourages workers from reporting fraudulent injuries. At the DuPont plant here, officials base performance bonuses in part on how many injuries occur at the plant. But they say they never want to deter the reporting of legitimate injuries. “All safety incidents, regardless of size, are to be reported and investigated,” said Beth Turner, DuPont’s director of global operations safety, health and environment. Wendy Hughes, however, says she believes DuPont punished her when she crushed her thumb one day in 2002. The brakes of her forklift failed, she said, and when she tried to stop the forklift with her leg, her thumb got caught between it and a cabinet. Doctors did a bone graft and inserted six pins in her thumb. She said DuPont seemed eager not to have her report a lost-time accident to OSHA, so her supervisors ordered her to return to the factory directly from the emergency room. Ms. Hughes said she was not given any days off to recuperate. Instead, she was ordered to spend her days biding time in the factory’s break room. When other workers complained about seeing her there, she said management ordered her to spend each day inside a four-by-six closet where protective work clothes were stored. DuPont declined to discuss her case, citing privacy concerns. “All my co-workers started saying things like, ‘We’re not going to get any performance-based bonus,’ ” she recalled. “ ‘There go our safety bucks for the quarter.’ ” | Workers' compensation;New York;Medicine and Health |
ny0011196 | [
"us"
] | 2013/02/15 | California: More Parks Woes Found | The State Department of Parks and Recreation does not know how much it costs to operate each of California’s 270 state parks, beaches and recreational areas and had no way of knowing how much the state would have saved by closing 70 parks last year, according to an audit released Thursday. State Auditor Elaine Howle’s findings were part of an investigation into $54 million found hidden last summer in two special funds, but it reveals the money troubles were a symptom of much deeper dysfunction within the department. The audit said department administrators estimated the operating costs for individual parks based on geographic regions using 10-year-old figures. | California;Parks;Budget |
ny0115107 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/11/24 | Mother Answers ‘Call of Duty’ to Care for a Sick Son | The first sound Lisa Robinson’s eldest son made after his birth might as well have been a rallying cry. Isiah McNeill was born with developmental disabilities, and Ms. Robinson said that marshaling her efforts to ensure his life would be as normal as possible became a “call of duty.” “I didn’t let that stop him,” she said of Mr. McNeill’s condition. He is now 22. “He played baseball,” she said. “He’s had friends. He’s had a job. He’s had a girlfriend.” Ms. Robinson added that last year, he received a special education diploma. Despite those successes, another obstacle appeared. In April, doctors made the startling discovery that Mr. McNeill had developed an aggressive brain tumor on the optic nerve as well as on his pituitary gland. He underwent two rounds of chemotherapy, followed by 25 radiation treatments to remove the cancer. Additional problems followed him home. He began to see things that were not there — spiders crawling on him — and at other times, he did not recognize his mother. One set of strange behaviors that Ms. Robinson observed was, in hindsight, a clue to a particularly devastating aftereffect that Mr. McNeill had tried to conceal. “He wouldn’t leave the house,” she said. “He had a lot of appointments, and he would feign being sick or purposely be difficult when going to his appointments. He always stayed close to me when we were walking. I knew something was wrong, but he kept it to himself.” Once the truth became clear, Ms. Robinson said, she broke down, her usual veneer of strength gone. She learned that the cancer treatment had severely compromised Mr. McNeill’s vision; his reluctance to leave their apartment was born of fear that his new disability would be revealed. In August, he was declared legally blind. Ms. Robinson can only speculate about his reasons for not telling her sooner. “Maybe because he already has enough going on, he doesn’t want to be a burden or he doesn’t want to be weak or weaker,” she said. “I really couldn’t say.” Tending to her son has been no easy feat for Ms. Robinson, 48, who has a number of her own health problems — including arthritis, vertigo and a degenerative disk disease. In March, her health, in concert with housing issues, forced her to leave her job as a data-entry specialist for the New York City Department of Education. The Bronx apartment she shares with Mr. McNeill and her other son, Joshua, 17, had been supported by a rental subsidy through Advantage, a city program designed to help clients transition from shelters to self-sufficiency. But a withdrawal of state and federal funding ended the program a year ago, and by September, Ms. Robinson had accrued rental arrears of $11,235. During Mr. McNeill’s hospitalization, his monthly Social Security disability payments of $416 that Ms. Robinson had been receiving ended, dropping her monthly income to $280 in cash assistance. A legal advocacy program in the Bronx helped secure Department of Social Services support for the rental arrears. Help came from several sources, including the Children’s Aid Society , one of the agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. The society drew $3,669 from the fund, helping the family to avoid eviction. Ms. Robinson said the city’s Family Eviction Prevention Supplement program was helping her to pay rent going forward. “It’s been really exhausting emotionally,” she said of her ordeal, but added that she found solace in quiet moments. “I have to wipe my tears and play ball,” she said. Ms. Robinson also credited the support of her boyfriend and a large extended family. “Spiritually, I just try to keep myself focused and healthy,” she said. That focus on wellness extends to Mr. McNeill, who, because of a steroid he has been taking, gained about 60 pounds in a six-month period. “We try to keep him active so he isn’t just there sitting and not doing anything,” Ms. Robinson said. “In the summer, we would walk him out to the park and tried to get him to walk as much as he possibly can. I get water jugs and have him lift that and do leg lifts when he’s in the bed.” In October, Mr. McNeill had a series of seizures and was admitted to a hospital, where he has been for weeks. Ms. Robinson hopes to have her son home again soon. Her priority will be the same: helping him adjust to a new routine and finding him a rehabilitation program to help him become more independent. She is also investigating customer-service related jobs she can do from home, and is longing for a semblance of how her life, and her son, used to be. “Prior to the surgery, he grabbed his keys, his phone, his MetroCard and his wallet and said, ‘Mom, I’m going to be here or there,’ and he called every few hours,” she said. “He had a normal life. It’s a setback for both of us.” | New York Times Neediest Cases Fund;Philanthropy;Children's Aid Society;Department of Social Services;Robinson Lisa |
ny0236688 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2010/06/18 | The Zog Sports Party Is at Leisure Time Bowl | Sitting on a musty couch in an East Village karaoke bar recently, I was fully aware I should have been home writing, but I blame my bowling team for the transgression. It may sound old-fashioned, but this league is more like a weekly party and it is sometimes hard to let the party end. Beer towers perch at the end of lanes, and bowlers have been known to add glow necklaces and wigs to their ensembles. During the games, run by Zog Sports at Leisure Time Bowl in the Port Authority, overhead monitors show both scores and music videos, so the crash of ball meeting pin is accompanied by the sounds of rock, pop and hip-hop. Fun is certainly more important than ability, but the competitive spirit has been known to kick in. When we come together to battle a common opponent on the lanes, we are occasionally transformed. Heck, I even surprised myself by bowling a turkey — three strikes in a row — a few weeks ago, and I credit the enthusiasm and high-fives of my teammates with this rare feat. For most of us, bowling represents an escape from thoughts of work, a welcome distraction that we extend to the occasional karaoke after-party. This approach, it turns out, is just what Rob Herzog, the chief executive of Zog, intended. “We try to give you a defined time when you need to leave work and go hang out with your friends or go make new friends,” Mr. Herzog said in his Midtown office. “Our goal is for that to be the highlight of your week.” Nonetheless, there is an incentive to bowl at least somewhat seriously: everyone bowls for a charity. The top two teams in every division in this and other Zog leagues — including Wiffle ball, volleyball, soccer and basketball — win donations to their charity of choice, with the money coming from players’ league fees. The same goes for winners of honors like best team name and best drinking team. (For which I nominate the Wild Turkeys: if a member of that team bowls a turkey, they all do a shot of bourbon and encourage their opponents to join in.) Some bowlers are quite serious about raising money. James Rapp, a 38-year-old lawyer, heads up a team that plays for Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City. “We thought it’d be a great way for people to socialize more, and obviously we can promote the agency a little bit and maybe win a little money for it,” he said by phone. Charity is what brought Zog into being in the first place. After 9/11, Mr. Herzog said, he saw people being generous with time and money. “This level of all-giving altruism is going to fade over time,” he remembers thinking. “My thought was, ‘How can I figure out a way to integrate it into something that you want to do anyway?’ ” Since 2002, he said, the company he founded based on that thought has funneled about $1 million to charities. The number of beer towers and shots consumed — and bad renditions of “Just a Gigolo” at karaoke after-parties — is harder to quantify. That’s Where They Roll A selection of bowling leagues in the area. ZOGSPORTS Leisure Time Bowl Port Authority, Second Floor; zogsports.org/2010 . SUNDAY BOWLING LEAGUE Chelsea Piers, 23rd Street and the West Side Highway, Manhattan; sblnyc.com . MONDAY NIGHT MADNESS BOWLING Chelsea Piers, 23rd Street and the West Side Highway, Manhattan; [email protected] . NYC SOCIAL SPORTS CLUB Brooklyn Bowl, 61 Wythe Avenue, between North 11th and North 12th Streets, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; nycsocialsportsclub.com . GARDEN STATE GAY BOWLING Nationwide Hudson Lanes, 1 Garfield Avenue, Jersey City; gsgbo.com . | Bowling;Athletics and Sports;Philanthropy |
ny0055091 | [
"sports"
] | 2014/07/13 | Phelps Beats Lochte in 100 | Michael Phelps won the 100-meter backstroke at the Bulldog Grand Slam in Athens, Ga., edging Ryan Lochte. Phelps finished in 53.88 seconds, Lochte in 54.40. | Swimming;Michael Phelps;Ryan Lochte |
ny0035169 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2014/03/04 | P.R. Agency Adds L.G.B.T. Practice | MWW, a leading independent public relations agency, will announce on Monday that it is acquiring a firm that specializes in reaching consumers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. The ageny will acquire and absorb the Macias Media Group in Los Angeles, which offers services like marketing, public relations and corporate communications aimed at L.G.B.T. consumers. Financial terms of the deal were not being disclosed. Stephen Macias, president at Macias Media, will join MWW as senior vice president and the lead of the L.G.B.T. practice. He will be based in the MWW office in Los Angeles and also spend time in the MWW office in New York. The deal adds MWW to a lengthening list of agencies with practices devoted to the L.G.B.T. audience. Advertisers are increasingly interested in reaching these consumers not only through traditional measures like buying ads in L.G.B.T. magazines and sponsoring floats in pride parades but also by engaging with them in general-market media like television and social platforms. The deal is also coming at the end of a month that has seen an unusually large number of blue-chip brands featuring L.G.B.T. consumers, celebrities and themes in mainstream ads, among them Banana Republic, Barneys, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, Royal Caribbean International and Visa. The L.G.B.T. market is “an area I have been particularly interested in,” said Michael W. Kempner, president and chief executive at MWW, which has its headquarters in East Rutherford, N.J., adding that it was a demographic group appealing in its own right but also for its “cultural influence” on mainstream consumers. “We’ve done L.G.B.T. work for several clients over the last few years,” he said, and in the course of that “had done some work with Stephen and become impressed with him, his operation and his approach to marketing.” Mr. Macias formed Macias Media in September 2012 after working as executive vice president and general manager at Here Media in Los Angeles, which specializes in the L.G.B.T. market. Macias Media became the marketing and public relations agency for Here Media; other clients have included the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black,” the Vail International Film Festival and United for Equality in Sports and Entertainment. “The L.G.B.T. space has been changing remarkably over the past couple years,” said Mr. Macias, who is 46, as more advertisers “look for an L.G.B.T. strategy.” Current Macias Media clients become clients of the new L.G.B.T. practice at MWW, Mr. Macias said, and “we will be announcing some large” additional clients shortly, “large, corporate brands based on the East Coast.” | Public relations;Homosexuality;Transgender and Transsexual;MWW |
ny0290627 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2016/01/21 | CrossFit Promoter Accused of Defrauding Investors Reaches Plea Deal | Joshua B. Newman, a New York entrepreneur charged last year with defrauding investors in several CrossFit training ventures, has reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors in New Jersey. Prosecutors said in a court filing on Tuesday that the deal with Mr. Newman was reached recently after months of negotiations. A criminal complaint was filed in May. The terms of the plea agreement were not disclosed. Mr. Newman is scheduled to appear before Judge William H. Walls of Federal District Court in Newark on March 23 for a “plea proceeding.” The filing with the court did not explain why the hearing was being held roughly two months after prosecutors and Mr. Newman reached an agreement. The agreement means a grand jury will not need to consider whether to indict Mr. Newman. Priya Chaudhry, a lawyer for Mr. Newman, said in an email response that she could not comment on the plea deal. Matthew Reilly, a spokesman for Paul J. Fishman, the United States attorney in New Jersey, declined to comment on the agreement as well. Last May, federal prosecutors charged Mr. Newman with two counts of wire fraud. Authorities said Mr. Newman, 36, defrauded more than a dozen investors out of at least $2 million in trying to raise money. Plea negotiations began shortly after he was charged. Mr. Newman, who graduated from Yale University in 2001, positioned himself in recent years as something of a local spokesman for the high-intensity fitness movement known as CrossFit. He was the co-founder of a big, independently owned CrossFit center in Manhattan. But behind the scenes, investors complained about Mr. Newman not paying debts owed to them. Last April, The New York Times reported a long list of disgruntled investors in Mr. Newman’s ventures, which also included a now-defunct film production company. CrossFit Inc. provides technical assistance to people looking to operate centers using the CrossFit brand name. Recently, Mr. Newman, despite the federal criminal charges pending against him, started a new online fitness training venture called Composite Fitness. The website for the new venture makes no mention of the fraud charges, but talks about the favorable media coverage he has received over the years. The website promises to refund customers who are dissatisfied with the training regiment that Composite Fitness creates. “If you don’t feel completely satisfied with any package you purchase from us, at any point, let us know,” the website said. “We’ll immediately refund your purchase, 100 percent, no questions asked.” | Fraud;Joshua Bryce Newman;CrossFit;New Jersey |
ny0113476 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2012/11/20 | Justin Tuck, Giants and Ex-Notre Dame Star, Won’t Jinx Irish | EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — At first, Justin Tuck pleaded superstition when it came to questions about Notre Dame . Tuck is the Giants’ defensive captain and almost surely the most visible Fighting Irish product in the N.F.L., but he immediately became leery Monday when a conversation turned toward his alma mater’s No. 1 ranking and seemingly clear path to the national championship game. “I’m not talking about it, I’m not talking about it, I’m not talking about it,” he said in the locker room at the team’s training facility, spinning away as if trying to avoid making even metaphorical contact with the subject. “I don’t want to jinx anything. I’m not talking about it.” A few feet away, defensive tackle Chris Canty nodded approvingly. “Don’t mess it up, Tuck!” he shouted, and his fellow defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul — who attended South Florida and has a locker next to Tuck’s — crossed his arms and said, to no one in particular, “I’m not talking about it either.” Tuck’s reticence was understandable. The last time Notre Dame was ranked No. 1 was 1993 and Tuck, who attended the university from 2001 to 2004, was part of a mostly unsatisfying football era. Tuck also endured a tough senior season when Coach Tyrone Willingham was fired before the team’s bowl game. “It is one of my biggest regrets,” Tuck said, reneging (somewhat) on his refusal to discuss the Irish. “Winning seasons aren’t what it’s about at Notre Dame. You go there to win titles. I had some good personal success there, but as a team we didn’t do what we were supposed to do. I wish we had.” Tuck added: “If you win there, it’s like you’re a god. People never forget.” Tuck noted, however, that his historical reference point for Notre Dame stardom was Joe Montana — a quarterback whose tenure in South Bend, Ind., ended in 1978. While players from familiar N.F.L. pipelines like Ohio State and Southern California seemingly have weekly reunions on the field in the N.F.L., Tuck said he had noticed that he did not get to have nearly as many friendly embraces with fellow Irish alumni. Tuck mentioned a few players he thought had the potential for extended success at the professional level, including Seattle receiver Golden Tate and Minnesota tight end Kyle Rudolph, but he conceded that it was a little strange to remain the most high-profile alumni despite his having been drafted in 2005. Tuck does have high hopes for the senior linebacker Manti Te’o. “He’s the prototype middle linebacker in the league,” said Tuck, who was recruited as a linebacker. “I could see him really making an impact.” For now, though, Tuck wants Te’o to focus on Notre Dame’s game at Southern California on Saturday and — he hopes — the bigger prize that lies beyond. As his own contribution, Tuck vowed that he would not attend the Bowl Championship Series title game if Notre Dame made it, because he had not gone to any games this season and believed changing that might bring up bad karma. Tuck pointed to a teammate, linebacker Spencer Paysinger, who used the team’s bye week to attend his alma mater’s game — and watched as Oregon lost to Stanford, derailing the Ducks’ championship aspirations. “It was all lined up for us,” Paysinger said ruefully. “I know Tuck said it’s because I went, but I don’t think that’s true.” Paysinger looked around the room. “I’ve been hearing it from a lot of guys today, though, I’ll tell you that,” he added. With several perennial powerhouses represented in the Giants’ locker room, college football talk is constant. Corey Webster, a proud Louisiana State attendee, is often in the mix along with several Giants who went to Miami, including Antrel Rolle and Kenny Phillips. Tuck, with his Alabama roots and Notre Dame business degree, is usually involved in the banter, but this year he has generally stayed out of it, striking a cautiously optimistic stance with the Irish. He and his wife, Lauran, who graduated from Notre Dame and began dating Tuck during his junior year, have had viewing parties at their home during Notre Dame games — “the usual: pizza, wings, that kind of thing,” she said — but Tuck has been hesitant to boast as the Irish have flourished. That is why he will not discuss a possible trip to Miami on Jan. 7, when Notre Dame could play for its first national title since 1988. Tuck said he hoped to be busy with the N.F.L. playoffs anyway, but his wife was not so quick to dismiss the possibility of going. “I actually went to the first home game this season,” she said proudly, referring to Notre Dame’s victory over Purdue. “And we won. So I don’t consider myself a jinx at all. I’d love to be there.” | Tuck Justin;University of Notre Dame;New York Giants;Football;Football (College);Superstitions |
ny0121697 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2012/09/05 | Trappist Monastery Is Vandalized Near Jerusalem | Vandals burned the door of a Trappist monastery at Latrun, near Jerusalem, early Tuesday and scrawled anti-Christian slogans on the walls. The Israeli authorities said they suspected it was the work of Jewish extremists avenging recent moves against unauthorized settlement outposts in the West Bank. The graffiti included “Jesus is a monkey” and the names of two small outposts where security forces have destroyed structures several times. The vandals also wrote “mutual concern,” code in settler circles for the policy of exacting a price for army and police actions against the outposts. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders condemned the act, as did regional leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. | Vandalism;Monasteries and Monks;Jerusalem (Israel);Religion and Belief;Israel;Israeli Settlements;West Bank |
ny0030200 | [
"us"
] | 2013/06/28 | At Zimmerman Trial, Victim’s Friend Is Pressed on Her Story | SANFORD, Fla. — Rachel Jeantel, the young woman who spoke to Trayvon Martin moments before his death, came under bruising cross-examination again on Thursday as defense lawyers raised questions about the accuracy of her story and the setting in which she was first interviewed by the chief prosecutor in the case. In her second day on the witness stand, Ms. Jeantel told jurors that the first time she was interviewed under oath by law enforcement authorities was in the presence of a teary-eyed Sybrina Fulton, Mr. Martin’s mother, on April 2, 2012. The interview took place in Ms. Fulton’s living room, with Ms. Fulton sitting by her side, she said. Ms. Fulton also rode in the car with her as she was being taken to the house for the interview, she added. “I never thought the interview would be at the mother’s house with the mother,” said Ms. Jeantel, 19, of Miami, one of the prosecution’s star witnesses. Asked by the defense if her desire to be helpful and spare the mother any uncomfortable feelings prompted her to soften her statements, Ms. Jeantel said yes. Ms. Jeantel also said that she only cleaned up the language, including Mr. Martin’s statement describing George Zimmerman as a “creepy-ass cracker.” She used just “creepy” instead. “You wanted to be helpful because you wanted to help the prosecution arrest George Zimmerman,” Don West, one of Mr. Zimmerman’s lawyers, asked Ms. Jeantel. “I never thought I was a serious witness at the time,” Ms. Jeantel replied. Did that shape what she said? Mr. West asked her. “Yes,” she replied. Mr. Zimmerman, 29, is charged with second-degree murder in the Feb. 26, 2012, shooting death of Mr. Martin, an unarmed, 17-year-old African-American from Miami. Mr. Martin was on the phone with Ms. Jeantel as he walked across the housing complex where he was staying as a guest. Mr. Zimmerman, who was a neighborhood watch volunteer there, told the police that Mr. Martin jumped him, punched him and slammed his head on the concrete. Mr. Zimmerman said he shot him in self-defense. Looking more subdued on her second day, Ms. Jeantel was careful to punctuate her answers to Mr. West with “yes, sir” or “no, sir.” On Wednesday, Ms. Jeantel proved to be a less-than-stellar prosecution witness, showing flashes of irritation. As the jury looked on, Ms. Jeantel reiterated what Mr. Martin told her that night as he walked home, an account that bolstered the prosecution’s assertion that Mr. Zimmerman was the aggressor and had instigated the confrontation. Later that afternoon, defense lawyers opened the door for the jury to learn that Mr. Zimmerman had a history of confrontation. With the jurors out of the courtroom, prosecutors brought out the fact that his former girlfriend was granted a domestic violence restraining order against him and that Mr. Zimmerman had been charged with battery of a law enforcement official. But Mr. O’Mara quickly countered that Mr. Zimmerman also was granted a restraining order against his former girlfriend and that those charges were later dismissed. He clarified that the battery charge was reduced and eventually dismissed. Image Rachel Jeantel, 19, with Don West, a defense lawyer. She testified for a second day about her final phone call with Mr. Martin. Credit Pool photo by Jacob Langston Later in the afternoon, jurors also watched Selma Mora, a resident of the complex, re-enact how she heard a loud sound, ran from her kitchen, peered out from her porch and saw the silhouette of two figures on the ground. One was on top, astride a person on the bottom. The figure on the top got up, placed his hand on his head and paced. She asked him three times what was going on, Ms. Mora said in Spanish through an interpreter. On the third time, the man responded, “Just go call the police,” she said. It was too dark to see faces, she added. It took four days for the police to interview her, she said. But it was Ms. Jeantel’s testimony that most captivated the courtroom. Quoting Mr. Martin, she recounted to jurors that a white man in a car was following him. Growing concerned, he ran toward home. Shortly after, Mr. Martin saw the man and asked him, “What you following me for?” she said. And the “hard-breathing man” replied, “What are you doing around here?” She heard a thump, she said, which sounded like Mr. Martin’s headset falling away and wet grass. She testified for the first time that the wet-grass noise could have been people rolling around. “What I heard was, ‘Get off, get off,’ and I started calling, ‘Trayvon, Trayvon,' ” Ms. Jeantel said. “It sounded like his voice,” she said, adding that it was difficult to hear. The phone went dead. Ms. Jeantel said that she assumed a fight had taken place and thought nothing of it. She did not know Mr. Martin had died until two days later. But under cross-examination, Ms. Jeantel acknowledged that she had never mentioned “get off” until she was interviewed on April 2, 2012, by the chief prosecutor, Bernie de la Rionda. She had not mentioned “get off” in her March 2012 letter to Ms. Fulton, in subsequent conversations with Ms. Fulton or in her initial remarks to the Martin family lawyer, a conversation that was recorded, at least in parts. Ms. Jeantel said she was reluctant to get involved in the case because it was so emotional. This is why she initially lied about her name and said she was 16, a minor, she said. During his cross-examination, Mr. West tried to suggest that Ms. Jeantel was being prompted to answer a certain way in the sworn statement she gave Mr. de la Rionda on April 2, adding new layers to her story. But on Thursday Ms. Jeantel stood firm and said that she heard Mr. Martin say “get off.” When Mr. West suggested that perhaps it was Mr. Martin who approached and confronted Mr. Zimmerman, Ms. Jeantel did not take the bait. “If he was going to confront the man, he would have told me,” Ms. Jeantel said. “He did not tell me that. He just told me that he trying to get home, sir, but the man was still following him, sir.” | Trayvon Martin;George Zimmerman;Sanford FL;Murders;Rachel Jeantel |
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