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ny0215538 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2010/04/18 | Blasts Rattle Cricket Crowd in South India | NEW DELHI — At least 15 people were injured Saturday by two explosions near a crowded cricket stadium in Bangalore as thousands of spectators were arriving for a match in India ’s popular professional league. The police told Indian news media that the low-intensity explosions occurred near an outer wall of the stadium. The blasts took place less than an hour before the scheduled 4 p.m. match in India’s Premier League, during a week when the authorities had warned about a rising threat of terrorist attacks in India. By Saturday night, the police had not yet determined whether the explosions were acts of terrorism, and no one had claimed responsibility. Officers cordoned off the blast area but after a delay of about an hour allowed the match to begin between the Bangalore Royal Challenge and the Mumbai Indians. “It is a minor blast,” the Bangalore city police commissioner, Shankar Bidari, told reporters at the scene, according to Press Trust of India. “It appears that some explosive material was behind a plastic board near the wall.” A day earlier, the State Department issued a travel advisory warning that the government “continues to receive information that terrorist groups may be planning attacks in India.” The explosions in Bangalore came two months after 17 people were killed when a bomb hidden inside a backpack detonated at a restaurant in the city of Pune. Indian authorities are investigating whether the Pune bombing was the work of domestic terrorists linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terrorist organization. A splinter group of Lashkar-e-Taiba contacted an Indian newspaper to claim responsibility for the attack. The Bangalore attack, like the one in Pune, may complicate efforts by India and Pakistan to resume diplomacy. India cut off diplomatic relations after the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai that left at least 163 people dead. But the two countries have been trying to restart talks and the foreign secretaries of both countries met in New Delhi shortly after the Pune bombing. | India;Terrorism;Stadiums and Arenas;Cricket (Game) |
ny0006801 | [
"sports",
"soccer"
] | 2013/05/29 | FIFA Says No to Yemen on Lifting Ban | The FIFA executive committee cited “security reasons” and rejected an application by the Yemen Football Association to have a ban lifted on internationals and friendlies in the country. Yemen has been forced to play games away from home since 2011 because of political protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh. | Soccer;FIFA;Yemen;Ali Abdullah Saleh |
ny0212921 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2010/03/03 | For 13th Time, Critic of China’s Government Is Barred From Leaving Country | BEIJING — Chinese security agents in Sichuan Province detained Liao Yiwu, a prominent author and critic of the government, as he prepared to fly Monday to a literary festival in Germany, human rights activists said. It was the 13th time Mr. Liao had been prevented from leaving the country. The Associated Press reported that he had been placed under house arrest after being questioned by security agents for four hours. “How can this happen?” The A.P. quoted him as saying. “It’s a cultural event, nothing political. Such drama!” Telephone calls on Tuesday to Mr. Liao’s home in rural Chengdu produced a recording saying that the line was temporarily unavailable. Calls to his cellphone went unanswered. Mr. Liao was removed from a plane at Chengdu’s airport as he prepared to fly to Germany to attend lit.Cologne , one of Europe’s largest literary festivals, where he was to read from one of his books, “Miss Hello and the Farm Emperor: Chinese Society From the Bottom.” “The reason for inviting Mr. Liao was simple: he’s a great writer,” Traudle Berger, a spokeswoman at the Cologne Festival, said in an interview on Tuesday. “And China should be proud of such a great writer.” Ms. Berger said Mr. Liao’s scheduled reading would still take place, with an actor assuming his role. Proceeds from the ticketed event will be donated to the human rights group Amnesty International, she said. Last September, Mr. Liao was barred from traveling to Berlin to attend an event affiliated with the Frankfurt Book Fair, at which China was designated the honored guest . A poet, screenwriter and new-journalism author, Mr. Liao, 51, is one of China’s best known and most outspoken writers. Many of his works tell stories of people who have been left behind in the nation’s rush to economic and political prominence, characters that include prostitutes, a grave robber, and a lavatory attendant. His 2008 book “ The Corpse Walker ,” another view of Chinese society’s lower rungs, was published to international acclaim. His works are banned in China, but he has gained a large underground following, and pirated versions of his works can be found in some Chinese bookstores. Mr. Liao was imprisoned for four years in the early 1990s after writing an epic poem, “ Massacre ,” which denounced the Chinese government’s suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. In December 2007, when he traveled to Beijing to receive an award from the Independent Chinese PEN Center, a writers’ rights organization, he was detained by the police and sent back to Chengdu. In a text-message exchange last month, Mr. Liao said he had repeatedly met with Chengdu security officials to negotiate for permission to attend the Cologne event, but was told that he had been blacklisted by Beijing officials and forbidden to travel abroad. In a Monday interview with the German network Deutsche Welle, Mr. Liao said he was seated on the plane at Chengdu’s airport on Monday morning when a flight attendant approached and told him that “someone is looking for you.” “I asked who it was, and she said it would be best if I got my luggage,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “I got my bags, and while I was walking to the cabin door, I saw a police officer.” Mr. Liao said the police told him, “You cannot continue doing whatever you want.” “I told them there will be many readers at the festival,” he said. “I would like to go and meet them and read some of my own pieces and play the traditional Chinese mouth organ, the xiao. I said it was purely a literature festival and nothing political. They said they understood and were only doing their job following orders from the top.” On Monday, the PEN American Center , which like the Chinese organization is one of 145 affiliates of the International PEN Center , called on China’s president, Hu Jintao, to lift restrictions on Mr. Liao and other writers. “It is hard to figure what the Chinese government hopes to accomplish by preventing one of its most compelling literary voices from meeting with international colleagues and readers,” Larry Siems, who directs the American center’s Freedom to Write program, said in a written statement . Human Rights in China , a group based in Hong Kong, later published an open letter from Mr. Liao to German readers. In it, Mr. Liao recounts learning to play the xiao while in prison, under the tutelage of an old monk. “How many other sages like my master are there among the Chinese people now?” he wrote. “I do not know. How many innocent political prisoners are still imprisoned? I also do not know. But writers like me from the bottom of society still have to write, record and broadcast, even to the dismay of the Communist Party of China. I have the responsibility to make you understand that the life of the Chinese spirit is longer than the totalitarian government.” Germany’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing regret at China’s detention of Mr. Liao. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, told journalists on Tuesday that Chinese citizens were free to travel according to Chinese laws. “We hope the relevant government will respect the law enforcement carried out by the Chinese authorities,” he said. | China;Freedom and Human Rights;Liao Yiwu;Books and Literature |
ny0278946 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2016/11/12 | For Chinese Women, a Surname Is Her Name | BEIJING — “Well, of course I kept my name when I married,” said Yang Huiping, mystified at being asked about it as she polished the glass doors of an apartment block in Beijing. “My husband is called Zhao, but I’m called Yang,” the 47-year-old cleaner said. “It’s always been like that. Why would I change my name?” In Japan, under a 19th-century law upheld last year by the country’s Supreme Court, all married couples must use the same surname, and by overwhelming custom — in 96 percent of couples — women take their husband’s name. Even in the United States, where feminism has influenced attitudes for decades, the rate is about 80 percent . But in China, as in other Asian societies shaped by Confucian values, including Korea and Vietnam, women traditionally retain their surname at marriage. This is an expression not of marital equality, Chinese feminists are quick to note, but of powerful patriarchal values. A married woman continues to be identified by her father’s lineage. A girl might not even have a formal name, just a nickname given by her parents in addition to her father’s surname, said Zhang Rongli, a law professor at China Women’s University. After marrying, a woman often disappeared in terms of her name, known by her father’s surname and the affix “shi,” meaning “clan.” A woman whose father was surnamed Yang would be called Yang Shi. That kept her an outsider in her husband’s family. Genealogical records, which focused on the male line of descent, reflected this, usually omitting wives and daughters. This changed with the fall of the Qing, the last imperial dynasty, in 1911 and the rise in the 1920s of the Nationalist, or Kuomintang, government, which tried to institute a Western-inspired legal code. Under a section of the new Civil Code enacted in 1930, a woman had the legal right to her husband’s name, signaling the end of her “outsider” status. “The wife uses her original surname, but the family name is her husband’s name,” the law said. “But if the people involved agree otherwise, it is not limited to this.” Enforcement was uneven, however, broken up by the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s and civil war between the Nationalists and Communists in the 1940s. After the Communist victory in 1949, the new central government took up the cause of women in the 1950 Marriage Law, which also banned bigamy and arranged marriages as part of its feminist agenda. Ms. Zhang called that legislation a declaration of women’s rights. “For the first time, it was definitively laid out in law that a married woman had the right to her own, independent surname,” she said. “It wasn’t just a formalistic thing about liberating women. Having a definite surname increased women’s rights consciousness and protected their property rights.” After the law was enacted, women rushed to register their names to have a claim on inheritance and, crucially, land, as the government carried out land reform, Ms. Zhang said. “On this issue, Chinese law was very progressive,” she said. Not everyone agrees. A commenter identified as Mu Qing Shan on Baidu Feminism Tieba, a social media site, wondered whether a woman’s retention of her surname only reinforced her outsider identity and inferior social position. “After marriage, Chinese women don’t change their name. Is that really a sign of high status?” asked Mu Qing Shan, who did not respond to attempts to contact her. “Doesn’t letting a woman take your surname raise her status?” Less egalitarian than discriminatory, then. “Woman are just a tool to produce the next generation. They don’t deserve your surname. So they are forever ‘outside surname people,’” Mu Qing Shan continued. A final twist on Chinese surname traditions also owes something to patriarchy. Occasionally, a husband took his wife’s family name, a practice known as “ruzhui,” meaning “to enter superfluity” or “become superfluous.’’ This usually occurred when a family needed a male heir to carry on the family line. Often the man was poor. He subverted the traditional pattern of a woman’s marrying into the man’s home by marrying into her home. Today, some men offer to ruzhui, on grounds of poverty. “My family is from Suide in Shaanxi Province. I was born in 1989,” wrote a user calling himself Yu Jian, or “Meet,” on the matchmaking website www.ru-zhui.com . “I have a college degree but don’t want to be a burden to my family, so I’ve decided to marry into a woman’s family,” Yu Jian wrote. The “burden” is an apparent reference to a tradition that has not died, decades after the Communist government’s Marriage Law: A man’s family is often expected to give a woman’s family a “bride price,” which can include an apartment and car for the bridal pair, making it costly for many families to marry off their sons. | Women and Girls;Personal name;Marriage;China;Women's rights,Feminism |
ny0103896 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2012/03/17 | Calls for Dismissal of Prosecutors in Stevens Trial | WASHINGTON — Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska called on Friday for the summary dismissal of two federal prosecutors who came under particular criticism in a report about the botched ethics trial of Senator Ted Stevens , while lawyers for the two complained that their clients had been smeared. Ms. Murkowski said that the late Mr. Stevens, a fellow Alaska Republican, would not have lost his Senate seat in the 2008 election if not for their misconduct. “The first thing that I think needs to happen is the attorney general needs to get rid of those prosecutors who have engaged in this intentional willful misconduct that this report brings out,” she said in an interview. “They are still out there prosecuting, and by the way, we are paying $1.8 million as taxpayers to pay for their legal fees. That really just burns me.” One of those prosecutors, Joseph W. Bottini, a 27-year veteran of the United States attorney’s office in Anchorage, said in a phone interview that it has been “personally devastating” for him to have been “part of something that has discredited the Department of Justice.” He insisted that he had not intentionally withheld information from Mr. Stevens’ defense team, despite the report’s accusations . “There is no question that I made mistakes — and we all did, quite frankly — but I would never do anything intentionally wrong,” Mr. Bottini said. “Intentional misconduct goes against everything that I believe in as a federal prosecutor.” Mr. Stevens was prosecuted late in the Bush administration on charges that he failed to report gifts related to the remodeling of his home by an oil field services firm. He was convicted in October 2008, days before narrowly losing his bid for re-election to his Democratic opponent. In early 2009, it emerged that the government’s star witness, whose testimony cast doubt on Mr. Stevens’ claim that he had intended to pay for the remodeling, had earlier made conflicting statements that prosecutors failed to disclose. The judge overseeing the case dismissed the conviction and appointed a special investigator, whose 514-page report was made public on Thursday. It found that three prosecutors in particular — Mr. Bottini, James A. Goeke, and Nicholas A. Marsh — had known about other material favoring Mr. Stevens as well, accusing them of intentionally failing to provide it to the defense. However, the report concluded that they could not be prosecuted for criminal contempt of court because the judge had never given a specific order that they turn over such material. It left open what might be done by the Justice Department, whose own investigation is in its late stages. Last week, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. testified that the internal investigation had recommended unspecified sanctions for at least some of the prosecutors, but “what exactly should happen to these people” would depend on factors like what each did, how serious the acts were, and whether they were isolated. While the report largely exonerated several other prosecutors, it said that the evidence against Mr. Bottini and Mr. Goeke, who were both based in Alaska at the time, showed “beyond a reasonable doubt” that they intentionally concealed information they should have disclosed. The report did not make the same assertion about Mr. Marsh, a former member of the department’s public integrity section, citing his suicide in 2010 as a reason to remain silent. Mr. Bottini, who is now working on a case involving a suspected plot by militia members to kill a federal judge, moved to Alaska as a teenager and is a veteran figure in the office. Mr. Goeke joined the prosecutor’s office in 2003 after working for several years as a commercial litigator; he has since taken a position as a federal prosecutor in Washington State. Attorneys for Mr. Bottini and Mr. Goeke fought the decision to make the report public, saying it was not fair to accuse people of being guilty of intentional misconduct when they would not get a trial to test the basis for those claims. They criticized the report as leaping without explanation from the fact that their clients made mistakes to the conclusion that the mistakes were intentional. They complained that they had not been given a chance to contest the accusations in the report before the judge made its conclusions public, and said the report omitted information that would have put their clients’ actions in a better light. "It’s ironic that in a case about whether the defense had full access to all the evidence, we did not have access to the materials in the report and did not have a chance to challenge them," Mr. Goeke’s lawyer, Matthew Menchel, said. Senator Murkowksi had little sympathy. She recalled talking with Mr. Stevens, who died in a plane crash in 2010, about his insistence on a quick trial before the election because he had faith the justice system would exonerate him. Citing instances of alleged prosecutorial misconduct in other cases, she vowed to press forward with a bill that would require prosecutors to turn over all “favorable” evidence to the defense. That would be a much more sweeping disclosure standard than the current one, which is limited to information that is deemed “material.” The bill’s co-sponsors include Mark Begich, the Alaska Democrat who defeated Mr. Stevens in 2008. “No one can say that the Justice Department has come out well from this,” said Daniel Richman, a criminal law professor at Columbia University. “The question now is of what significance this is to future reforms.” | United States Attorneys;Ethics (Institutional);United States Politics and Government;Justice Department;Murkowski Lisa;Bottini Joseph W;Stevens Ted;Goeke James A;Alaska |
ny0159864 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2006/03/03 | The Bright Side of Industry Upheaval | Orlando, Fla. - IN front of an electric blue backdrop that resembled a computer screen, speakers at the annual media conference of the American Association of Advertising Agencies stressed that their industry must cater to consumers who are empowered by technology and ever-widening content choices. More than 1,400 media and advertising executives gathered here to debate a problem facing the industry: in a time when advertising is shifting from traditional to nontraditional media, what is the most effective way to deliver the message? Mark Rosenthal, who is now the chairman and chief executive of Interpublic Media, offered as a guide his experience as president and chief operating officer of MTV Networks. "Religious, relentless focus on the consumer -- that was the mantra that drove our business," Mr. Rosenthal said. "If you understand that and are so microfocused on that, you cannot go wrong." And the more choice consumers have, another speaker said, the more they will buy. Mike Shaw, the president of sales and marketing for the ABC Television Network unit of ABC, said that despite greater competition, television viewing time had increased because consumers had greater choice. He said the average consumer now watched 4 hours and 32 minutes of television a day. "Through all of this choice, we've given consumers exactly what they want," Mr. Shaw said. "I don't actually believe that more choice is going to lead to less viewing." To further hone the science of what consumers want, there was a call to improve consumer research, particularly for traditional media. In a stern speech, Jean Pool, the executive vice president and chief operating officer at Universal McCann, a unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies, called for media sellers to release more measurement research on traditional media, particularly commercial data, so that traditional media can compete with digital. "We as an industry are way behind other countries," she said. "Personally, that really embarrasses me." Ms. Pool also addressed the issue of advertising clutter, which she said is "in every conceivable nook and cranny of everyday life." Being interrupted every six or seven minutes during a television program is excessive, she said, and pop-up ads and other online advertising is invasive. The Four A's, as the association is known, released a joint study with Harris Interactive this week that concluded that about one-third of consumers say there is too much advertising interrupting their programming. "We may think we're really cute with some of these tactics," she said. "But what does the day in the life of an average consumer look like?" Throughout the day, speakers debated the role of user-generated content in media buying, and the new advertising forums that had emerged from Web sites because of it. Daniel L. Rosensweig, the chief operating officer of Yahoo, promoted Yahoo Groups as an innovative advertising opportunity. Years ago, he said, advertising in online communities and message boards was considered undesirable. But now there are more than 90 million users of Yahoo Groups -- and those users are generally in a target demographic for advertisers, he said. "Today, everybody wants to be there because these are the environments personally created by individuals," Mr. Rosensweig said. Mr. Rosensweig said the 15 million to 20 million bloggers on the Web are evidence of the potential strength of advertising on user-generated content sites. "Today all of us have gone from consumer to consumer and publisher," he said. (Moments later, he amended that to "consumer and publisher and distributor," remembering the tendency of Web users to pass along content.) In a panel titled "The Shape of the Modern Media Organization," executives from six large advertising and media services companies discussed how technology advances have changed their clients' needs. "The notion that the creative community is still thinking in terms of 30- second television commercials is crazy," said Charlie Rutman, the chief executive of MPG North America, part of the Media Planning Group. Joe Uva, the president and chief executive of OMD Worldwide, part of Omnicom, said: "We are in a constant state of evolution, and I think it is in response to client need," he said. "Our clients are saying, 'More ideas, bigger ideas.' " In another presentation, Mr. Shaw of ABC said his network was planning a new feature on its Web site: a Webcast of "Desperate Housewives," available 12 hours after the show runs on television. It will have at least one 30-second commercial. But even as the industry contends with major changes, one perennial issue surfaced again: how to improve diversity in an industry that tends to be short on racial and ethnic minorities, as well as women in upper management positions. "How do you truly have a diverse agency that is speaking to a diverse set of clients?" asked Mr. Rosenthal of Interpublic, adding, "I look around this room and this is not a diverse industry." | AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF ADVERTISING AGENCIES;HARRIS INTERACTIVE;ADVERTISING AND MARKETING;TELEVISION;CONVENTIONS AND CONFERENCES;CONSUMER BEHAVIOR;COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET;ADVERTISING (TIMES COLUMN) |
ny0202011 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2009/09/22 | Enthusiasm Builds for Financial Tax Idea | PARIS — No longer just a hopeless cause for anti-capitalist activists, the idea of a global tax on financial transactions is gaining ground in Europe. European Union leaders could not agree to put it on the agenda this week of the Group of 20 summit meeting in Pittsburgh on changing the financial system, but the leaders of France, Germany and the European Commission endorsed the concept. More strikingly, the head of the British Financial Services Authority, which regulates the world’s second biggest banking center after New York, said last month that such a levy could help shrink a swollen financial sector. “If increased capital requirements are insufficient I am happy to consider taxes on financial transactions — ‘Tobin taxes,”’ the F.S.A. chairman, Adair Turner, told Prospect magazine. James Tobin, a Nobel prize-winning U.S. economist, first proposed a small levy on currency trading in 1972 to penalize short-term speculation after the United States abandoned the gold standard and floated the dollar. His idea found no takers then and lay dormant until the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens, an anti-globalization movement based in France, began campaigning for it in the mid-1990s. In the meantime, the scope of the proposed tax, the policy objective and the proposed beneficiaries had changed. The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, says that he and the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, have agreed to work on a proposal for an “international financial contribution” to fund development assistance. He estimated a voluntary contribution of just 0.005 percent on financial transactions would raise €30 billion, or $44.10 billion, a year. Many key details remain to be worked out, like who would receive and allocate the revenue and for what projects. A plan will be put to 58 nations at a meeting planned in Paris next month to discuss innovative financing to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. These involve eradicating extreme poverty, hunger and disease, promoting gender equality, health, education and clean water, and reducing child mortality. In Germany, Social Democrats, junior partners in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s grand coalition, which faces a general election next Sunday, say the proceeds of a Tobin tax should go to meet the costs of bailing out banks in the global financial crisis. Don’t hold your breath. Agreement on such a tax is anything but imminent. Mrs. Merkel, a political conservative, said it would only be feasible if all the world’s main financial centers agreed to levy it, and there is no sign that the United States is remotely interested. Mrs. Merkel’s support sounded like lip service, echoing widespread indignation among German voters at U.S. and British financial capitalism, which their leaders have blamed for the crisis. Critics of the Tobin tax, including the banking and business lobbies, argue that a levy on financial transactions would drive business offshore, reduce trading volumes and liquidity, hit employment in the financial sector, harm shareholders and slow the world economy. They also say it would be hard to collect and easy to evade. A lot of this is specious special pleading. Of course banks don’t want to be taxed on lucrative high frequency trading. But there is no inherent reason why there should be a tax on buying a car but not on buying a derivatives contract. No one seriously argues that you can’t tax cars for fear of killing jobs or driving the auto industry to Singapore or the Cayman Islands. Moreover, it is hard to see why a fractional tax rate of 5 cents on every $1,000 would seriously impair liquidity. Britain has long charged stamp duty on share and real estate transactions, while the United States funds its regulators through a tiny levy on transactions. Mr. Turner of the F.S.A. argues that diminishing the turnover of the financial sector would be a worthwhile objective in itself to reduce the amount of “socially useless activity.” Perhaps the most salient criticism is that a Tobin tax would do little or nothing to deter risky financial engineering and excessive leverage. That is not its purpose. With Western governments facing huge budget deficits and debt mountains as a result of the crisis, the funds available to help the poorest countries are bound to shrink unless new revenue sources are tapped. Taxing financial speculation is surely more appealing than raising taxes on income or labor. | Taxation;Tobin tax;International Trade and World Market;Europe |
ny0285191 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2016/09/28 | David Ortiz Makes His Final Visit to Yankee Stadium | David Ortiz, the burly and ebullient Red Sox designated hitter, stood on the top steps leading out of the visitors’ dugout at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday evening and looked at the upper decks. On the ground, he was nearly encased by people — members of the news media, team officials and fans — all standing on the warning track as the Red Sox took batting practice. At 40, Ortiz is more popular than he has ever been and, somehow, nearly as good. In New York, he is a beloved foil, an archenemy who draws a chorus of jeers when he comes up to the plate despite appreciation for his résumé. Although Yankees fans may be antagonistic to him in the Bronx, when they see him on the street or anywhere else, they tell him something else altogether. “That they love me,” he said with a laugh. This week, Ortiz will most likely play his final three games here if he makes good on his vow to conclude his 20-year major league career. He has come to love both the Stadium and the city. Perhaps it is because he has a lifetime .970 on-base plus slugging percentage against the Yankees, and 31 home runs in 114 games at the two Yankee Stadiums. Maybe it is because Ortiz, a native of the Dominican Republic, feels a kinship to an area that has a significant Dominican population. He played his first game at the old Yankee Stadium in 1998, when he was with the Minnesota Twins, and felt an immediate connection, even as he went 0 for 4. Ortiz remembers how impressive it was to walk into the building and to feel the magnitude of its history. The significance of every visit has ramped up since then. “Yankee Stadium, it might be my favorite place to hit, to play, regardless,” he said. “The dimensions are perfect for a left-handed power hitter. All the emotions, all the adrenaline, all the competition — competing against the Yankees has been outstanding.” The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry may have reached its zenith while Ortiz starred in Boston. In 2003, the two teams played an epic seven-game American League Championship Series in which the Yankees prevailed. The next year, the Red Sox erased a 3-0 deficit and went on to win the World Series, ending Boston’s 86-year title drought, and they have won two more titles during Ortiz’s career. Ortiz and the Red Sox now come to Yankee Stadium with an air of confidence. This season, Boston is almost certain to win the American League East and Ortiz is a candidate for the Most Valuable Player Award, hitting 37 home runs and posting a 1.039 O.P.S. — the third-highest of his career. The Yankees are almost certain to miss the playoffs again. After being pulverized by Ortiz for two decades, the Yankees will be content to see him retire. “He’s been someone that we’ve never figured out,” said Brian Cashman, the Yankees’ general manager. Joe Girardi, the Yankees’ manager, spoke for many people around baseball when he said: “You often wonder why he’s retiring. I know a lot of athletes like to go out on top, but, gosh, the year he’s having, I would really have to think about coming back, but I’m going to encourage him to retire.” The only question was how the Yankees would honor Ortiz before his final game at Yankee Stadium on Thursday. Girardi and Cashman both said he deserved some kind of ceremony, as Ortiz has received in other stops across the league, but they did not offer any suggestions. Ortiz did not expect much. He said in February that he would like a standing ovation, but on Tuesday he said he was simply being sarcastic. Instead, Ortiz seems to want his final moments in New York to be like most of the others in the city. He wants to be booed, even as he goes out. “I say that when you get used to something and you do well with it, you just don’t want to change it,” he said. “Basically, I’m so used to them booing me when I step on the field. It feels weird when it doesn’t happen.” | Baseball;Stadiums Arenas;Red Sox;Yankees;David Ortiz |
ny0013897 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2013/11/24 | Syria Seen as Most Dire Refugee Crisis in a Generation | KILIS, Turkey — As the boom of shelling resounded along Turkey’s border with Syria here on a recent afternoon, Zakaria Deeb had nowhere left to run. He had traveled 100 miles to Kilis with his family, chasing a false rumor that refugees would be allowed into a Turkish-run camp in the city, about 50 miles north of the Syrian city Aleppo. Instead, along with hundreds of other Syrians, the Deebs were now squatting in a gravel-strewn field across from the camp, sleeping under plastic sheets hanging from the branch of a cypress tree. Nearly three years of bloody civil war in Syria have created what the United Nations, governments and international humanitarian organizations describe as the most challenging refugee crisis in a generation — bigger than the one unleashed by the Rwandan genocide and laden with the sectarianism of the Balkan wars. With no end in sight in the conflict and with large parts of Syria already destroyed, governments and organizations are quietly preparing for the refugee crisis to last years. The Deebs fled their home a year ago because of fighting between Syrian rebels and government forces. Recent clashes between Kurdish fighters and the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, pushed them into Turkey. Now, just on the other side of the border here, ISIS fighters were battling yet another rebel group, the Northern Storm. “We expected the revolution to be over quickly, like in Libya and Egypt, but it’s been nearly three years already, and God knows when this war will end,” Mr. Deeb, 31, said, peering at the plumes of white smoke rising inside Syria. Children shrieked as another large mortar shell exploded across the border. A stray bullet from Syria had landed inside the camp in the morning, wounding a 5-year-old girl in the foot. “If this camp is full, we’re willing to go to any camp inside Turkey,” he said. “We don’t want to go back to Syria.” Syrians have been pouring out of their country in recent months, fleeing an increasingly violent and murky conflict that is pitting scores of armed groups against one another as much as against the government. Numbering just 300,000 one year ago, the refugees now total 2.1 million, and the United Nations predicts their numbers could swell to 3.5 million by the end of the year. “The fighting continues, people are getting displaced and we don’t know how long it’s going to take,” said Amin Awad, the head of the United Nations’ refugee agency in the Middle East. “Therefore, aside from making sure the humanitarian operations are running, we need to support the host communities and governments.” The exodus has stretched the resources of the region’s host countries — Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and even Turkey, the biggest and richest by far. Camps are full. But so are many neighborhoods in cities, towns and villages, where the Syrians’ presence has raised rents, undercut wages and increased tensions. In Lebanon, the smallest of the host nations and the most politically fragile, Syrian refugees are expected soon to make up a quarter of the population. The flood has also raised fears that the refugees will import the Syrian conflict into the host countries, and destabilize already fragile borders. Like the other host nations, Turkey, which is actively supporting the Syrian opposition, was struggling to control the mass movements across its border. In Hatay, Turkey’s southwestern province, hundreds of Syrians could be seen crossing illegally, unchecked by border guards or soldiers. Stretches of the border appeared porous and lawless. Criminal gangs thriving in the cross-border smuggling of gasoline and other goods could be seen working in broad daylight, using walkie-talkies to direct trucks in and out of Syria. A few miles from one of the biggest smuggling centers, the Turkish border town Bes Arslan, soldiers could sometimes be seen chasing individual Syrians clambering down a hill into Turkey. In a cat-and-mouse game played out over the day, Syrians crouched behind trees and rocks, some successfully slipping into Turkey; others were caught by soldiers and sent back. Those turned away often try again later in the day. As soon as darkness fell, hundreds of Syrians began pouring out of Bes Arslan onto the highway, where relatives and taxi drivers were waiting. Slipping in and out of the headlights, they stuffed large suitcases into vehicles that quickly took them deeper into Turkey. One weeping woman was ushered into the back seat of a car as the driver and others took care of her luggage and five children. Her baby, who had been sitting on the asphalt, was finally put inside, and the car whisked the family away. Her husband had died in a bombing earlier that day during the family’s flight. “She had to leave his body behind in Syria,” said one of the men who had helped her with her luggage. “The driver is taking her into town for free.” Rising Frustration Saher Hardan, another squatter in Kilis, fled Syria two years ago with her children. With the money she earned from selling a modest piece of land, the family lived in a $75-a-month apartment here until recently. Now out of money, the Hardans sleep inside a tent with their neatly stacked belongings. A framed portrait of Ms. Hardan’s husband — a former school janitor who fought for the Western-backed Free Syrian Army and was killed, “torn into pieces” in an explosion — sat prominently in the middle of the tent. “We tried four times to get into a camp, but they keep telling us that there is no space,” Ms. Hardan, 45, said. Image Syrian refugees living in squalid conditions in a squatters camp in Turkey. Like other nations, Turkey is struggling to control the mass movements across its border. Credit Lynsey Addario for The New York Times Turkey has already spent $2 billion sheltering 200,000 Syrian refugees in 21 camps. But an estimated 400,000 live in Turkish communities, and many, like Ms. Hardan, have exhausted their savings and are turning to Turkey for help. Turkish officials, who have been praised for their well-run camps, are expressing frustration. “The Syrian refugees want more than what we can provide,” said Suleyman Tapsiz, the governor of Kilis. “So we’re caught in a dilemma. On the one hand, if we provide good services, more and more people will come. On the other hand, if we don’t provide good services, we risk being labeled a government that doesn’t provide humanitarian help properly.” The United Nations has asked for more than $5 billion in humanitarian aid this year for Syria, its biggest financial appeal ever for a single crisis. Officials say the high costs result not only from the scale of the crisis but also from the difficulties of catering to a refugee population used to middle-class conditions. Dry food rations have been typically distributed inside refugee camps during crises in Africa, while registered Syrian refugees are given vouchers or debit cards to buy food at supermarkets. The cost is greater, but the Syrians prefer the freedom of preparing their own meals. The practice also injects money into the host communities — $160 million from the World Food Program has trickled into local stores in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt so far this year. Governments and humanitarian groups are increasingly working under the assumption that the crisis will be a long-lasting one. The Danish Refugee Council recently established two community centers in Turkey where refugees can study Turkish and English, as well as take computer lessons and learn other skills. In the center in Altinozu, in Hatay Province, the Syrians and Turkish locals have also mixed in cooking classes and soccer matches. “We need projects to bring host and refugee communities together,” said Sarah Saleh, the council’s Turkey director. At a Turkish language class offered by the city of Gaziantep, a couple of dozen Syrian men and women were being taught the pronunciation of vowels and the differences with Arabic. Anas Hejazi, 26, was attending the class with his father. They both worked as dentists in Damascus before coming to Turkey six months ago. Acquiring some Turkish, he hoped, would increase his chances of eventually earning a license to practice. “I need to enter the Turkish community because my life is now here,” he said. “I need to speak their language.” Divisions and Risks At the main border crossing in Reyhanli, a southwestern town in Turkey, Khaldun Ibrahim, 20, a black backpack slung over his right shoulder, was going back to Syria. He had spent a week with his parents, refugees inside Turkey, to celebrate the recent Muslim new year, Eid al-Adha. “I ate too much,” he said with a pat on his belly. Then turning serious, Mr. Khaldun, whose facial hair — bushy beard but no mustache — reflected the Islamist leanings of his brigade, Ahrar al-Sham, added: “I’m a fighter out of his homeland. So I’m happy to be going back to Syria.” The ease with which fighters are crossing in and out of Syria, as well as their strong ties with the refugee population in the region, underscores the fears that the refugees will inevitably bring the conflict with them, as refugees have often done in the past. The Assad government, led by Alawites who are considered an offshoot of Shiite Islam, is supported by Shiite Iran and Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militia; Syria’s Sunni opposition is backed by Sunni-led Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The host countries themselves have carved out positions on the Syrian conflict along sectarian lines. The refugee population in the region reflects that divide and carries its risks. In Sunni-led Turkey, which backs the Syrian opposition, most of the Syrians in the camps and cities are believed to be Sunni. Alawite and Shiite Syrians have gravitated to southwest Turkey, a religiously mixed region, or tried to melt away in the Istanbul megalopolis. Syrians of both sects have fled to Lebanon, a country with a weak central government and a fragile balance between its Sunni and Shiite populations. Syrian Kurds have gone to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq . Young refugee men are joining Kurdish militias that are increasingly locked in battles along the Turkish-Syrian border with Sunni-led Islamic extremists, who move easily between eastern Syria and western Iraq. Jordan, a Sunni country that supports the Syrian opposition, has received Sunni Syrians. But the kingdom, an American ally, fears the contagion of an increasingly potent dimension of the Syrian conflict: the battle between moderate and radical Islam. “The longer the conflict continues, the more we see Jordan becoming a destination for extremists,” said a high-ranking Jordanian government official. Jordan is worried not only about extremists among the Syrian refugees but also about their effect on its own jihadist Salafists. “More and more young Jordanians are becoming extremists because of Syria,” said Osama Shihadeh, a prominent moderate Jordanian Salafist. His own nephew, he said, had gone to fight inside Syria despite his parents’ opposition. | Syria;Arab Spring;Refugees,Internally Displaced People;Humanitarian aid;Turkey;International relations |
ny0000624 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2013/03/27 | Rome Court Overturns Acquittal of Amanda Knox | ROME — Italy’s highest court on Tuesday ordered a new trial in the sensational case of Amanda Knox, an American student accused of murdering her 21-year-old roommate, Meredith Kercher of Britain, in 2007. The judges’ announcement that an earlier acquittal had been overturned was greeted by a shocked silence in the courtroom here. The ruling, by the Court of Cassation, means that the case against Ms. Knox, 25, and a former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 29, will be reheard at a new appeals court in Florence either later this year or in early 2014. The two were initially convicted in 2009 in a trial that divided public opinion internationally, but were acquitted by an appeals court jury 18 months ago. Prosecutors and lawyers for Ms. Kercher’s family then challenged the acquittal, a step that is permitted under Italian law. Ms. Knox, a student at the University of Washington, stayed up till 2 a.m. in Seattle waiting for the outcome, said her lawyer, Carlo Dalla Vedova. “She was sad,” he said. “She believed the nightmare was over.” The decision opened a further tangled and dramatic chapter in a long-running case whose youthful protagonists, sometimes-lurid detail and courtroom spectacle have fascinated many people in the United States, Britain and the rest of Europe. But it also highlighted the divide between the legal systems of Italy and the United States, where defendants cannot be tried twice for the same crime after an acquittal. Ms. Knox’s lawyer said she was unlikely to appear for a new trial, but she could be tried in absentia. The Italian authorities could seek to extradite her only if her conviction was upheld in the new trial and confirmed by the Court of Cassation, whose decisions are final. The Court of Cassation rules on questions of procedure, not on the merits of a case or the presumption of guilt or innocence. At the time of the killing, Ms. Kercher and Ms. Knox were living in Perugia, north of Rome. Ms. Kercher, an exchange student at the University of Perugia, was killed in her bedroom on the night of Nov. 1, 2007. Her half-naked body was found under a duvet, her throat slit. Ms. Knox, then a 20-year-old University of Washington student, and Mr. Sollecito, then 23, were arrested days later and convicted of murder in December 2009 in a lower court in Perugia in a case built largely on DNA evidence. Prosecutors had argued that Ms. Kercher had been the victim of a drug-fueled game of rough sex gone awry, involving Ms. Knox, Mr. Sollecito and a second man, Rudy Guede, an Ivorian living in Perugia, who was tried separately and sentenced to 16 years. Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito were each sentenced to 25 years in prison for the crime, and Ms. Knox received an extra year for slander after she falsely accused another man of committing the murder. But questions were raised during the appeal about the quality of the forensic evidence, as well as the reliability of some witnesses, and the prosecutors’ theory of the crime. The convictions were overturned on appeal, and the two were released in October 2011, but last year prosecutors filed an appeal with the Court of Cassation. Ms. Knox’s lawyers appealed the charge of defamation, but the ruling on Tuesday upheld it. In a statement issued by her media advisers within minutes of the announcement, Ms. Knox said it was “painful” to receive the court’s ruling “when the prosecution’s theory of my involvement in Meredith’s murder has been repeatedly revealed to be completely unfounded and unfair.” Mr. Dalla Vedova said that the legal reasoning for ordering a new trial was expected from the Court of Cassation within 90 days, and that at that point, lawyers would learn “which points of the case will have to be re-examined” in the new appeals trial. “The trial starts from zero,” he said, “and after we see the decisions we will know whether certain witnesses have to be recalled, or evidence retested.” If the new appeals court upholds the previous conviction and the Court of Cassation confirms it, Mr. Dalla Vedova said, Ms. Knox will have to serve out her sentence. The lawyer said Italian authorities would have to authorize an extradition request and the United States Justice Department would have to approve it. There is no final ruling in any case until the Court of Cassation has signed off on it, Mr. Dalla Vedova said. Giulia Bongiorno, a lawyer representing Mr. Sollecito, said in a telephone interview: “The battle continues. In this trial we always had to climb up the mountain.” A lawyer for the Kercher family, Francesco Maresca, was jubilant. “This is marvelous,” he said. “I had faith in the Court of Cassation. I was sure it would annul the acquittal.” Mr. Maresca said the Kercher family had not traveled to Rome for the latest hearings because Arline Kercher, the victim’s mother, was not well. In a statement, Stephanie Kercher, the victim’s sister, said there were still many unanswered questions. “Understanding the truth about what happened that night is all that we can do for her,” she said. As a family, “we still have a long trip ahead of us, but it is the only one that will allow Meredith to rest in peace.” HarperCollins said it still planned to publish Ms. Knox’s book, “Waiting to Be Heard,” as planned on April 30 and was moving ahead with scheduled TV interviews. From the start, the case drew intense media coverage. In the United States, the news media frequently portrayed Ms. Knox as a naïve American wrongly caught up in the morass of a dysfunctional Italian legal system. British newspapers covered the case obsessively at every twist and turn, often from the point of view of the anguished Kercher family. Mr. Sollecito has been living in Verona, Italy, where he is getting a degree in computer engineering. He did not come to the hearing. “He didn’t want to get caught up in this mob scene, he didn’t want to be here,” his father, Francesco Sollecito, said Monday at the courthouse. On Tuesday, a reporter from Italian Sky TG24 television managed to reach the younger Mr. Sollecito on the telephone. “Right now, I can’t talk,” he said in a shaky voice. “I am sorry, have a good day.” | Amanda Knox;Italy;Meredith Kercher;Raffaele Sollecito;Decisions and Verdicts;Murders;Perugia |
ny0272430 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2016/05/19 | Amid Inquiry, a New York City Police Official Is Fired, Another Is Reassigned | A police official has been reassigned and a detective has been fired amid an extensive federal inquiry into municipal corruption, the New York Police Department announced on Wednesday. The police official, Inspector Peter DeBlasio, had been assigned to the Brooklyn South patrol borough and was transferred to an administrative position, Stephen P. Davis, the top police spokesman, said in a brief statement on Wednesday. Mr. Davis said that the department had also fired Detective Michael Milici, who was placed on a modified assignment on March 31. Police officials said that neither man would testify before a grand jury. In an email on Wednesday, Barry I. Slotnick, the lawyer representing Inspector DeBlasio, said, “We are opposing the demotion.” (The inspector is not related to Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat.) Roy T. Richter, president of the Captains Endowment Association, said that Inspector DeBlasio, “cooperated fully and answered questions presented to him by federal investigators at his home in an early morning unscheduled interview.” After his reassignment, Detective Milici filed for retirement and was suspended. Neither his lawyer nor the Detectives’ Endowment Association responded to phone and email messages seeking comment. Detective Milici was called to testify before a grand jury, but refused, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights, police officials said. He faced departmental charges for his refusal to cooperate, which officers are required to do, police officials said. In recent months, the Police Department has placed several senior officials on modified assignments. Two deputy chiefs have also been moved into less prestigious positions. The investigation, led by the federal authorities and with the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau, has centered on two businessmen with ties to Mayor de Blasio and their efforts to wield influence with police officials and others in the mayor’s administration. | NYPD;Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings;Bill de Blasio;Corruption;Peter DeBlasio;Michael Milici;NYC |
ny0092393 | [
"us"
] | 2015/08/26 | Hawaii: Former San Francisco Archbishop Faces a Charge of Drunken Driving | Cardinal William Joseph Levada, a former archbishop of San Francisco, is due in Kona District Court on Sept. 24 after being arrested on suspicion of drunken driving last week. Cardinal Levada was stopped while driving on the Big Island, the police said. Cardinal Levada, 79, who was on vacation in Hawaii, was released from jail after posting $500 bail. In a statement, he said he regretted his error in judgment and intended to cooperate with the authorities. | William J Levada;Driving Under the Influence DUI;Catholic Church;San Francisco |
ny0072557 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2015/03/23 | Netanyahu Aides Cite Iran as Source of U.S. Tensions | JERUSALEM — Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, called Sunday for reconciliation and healing after a divisive election campaign that ended in a victory for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but inflamed domestic discord and worsened already rancorous relations between Mr. Netanyahu and the Obama administration. “We have been through a stormy and passionate election period — this is the time to begin a process of mending and healing in Israeli society,” Mr. Rivlin said, adding, “While the government that will be formed will have been elected by a majority of Israel’s citizens, it must provide an answer to the needs of all the citizens of Israel — Jews, Arabs, left, right, north, south, center and the periphery.” Yet in what appeared to be an effort to counter President Obama’s criticism of Mr. Netanyahu’s contentious remarks on a Palestinian state and an Election Day warning about too many Arab voters, Netanyahu loyalists said that the true cause of the tensions with Washington was Israel’s strong opposition to a nuclear accord with Iran. Mr. Rivlin, whose post is largely ceremonial, made his remarks as he began consultations with representatives of parties elected to Parliament to initiate the formal process of building a coalition government. He started with Mr. Netanyahu’s conservative Likud Party, which won 30 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, and is expected to rely primarily on right-wing and Orthodox parties to form a majority government. Particularly galling for many in Israel and around the world was Mr. Netanyahu’s comment in an Election Day video in which he asserted that Israel’s Arab citizens were streaming to the polling stations “in droves.” In Netanyahu’s Next Knesset, a More Compatible Coalition Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party achieved a surprisingly strong victory in Tuesday’s election. Now, he is likely to build a right-wing coalition of 67 of the 120 members of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament. Days earlier, Mr. Netanyahu, in another appeal to right-wing voters, seemed to promise that no Palestinian state would be established under his watch. He appeared to be reneging on a policy speech he made in 2009 endorsing, under certain conditions, the two-state solution, a pillar of American Middle East policy. Despite the prime minister’s postelection attempts to walk back his comments , Mr. Obama vented his ire over them in a videotaped interview with The Huffington Post this weekend. The United States ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, told Israel Radio on Sunday that Mr. Netanyahu’s apparent change of position, in which he said he opposed a Palestinian state, and his subsequent efforts to insist that his remarks were misinterpreted, has created “a confusing situation that leads to doubt about what Israel’s true policy is.” Speaking in Hebrew, Mr. Shapiro added, “We have to reassess our outlook on what our standing is regarding the goal of how to progress in the direction of a solution of two states for two peoples; if negotiations are impossible, what other steps are correct.” But Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, said on Sunday that Mr. Netanyahu “didn’t say what the president and others seem to suggest that he’s saying.” Appearing on the NBC program “Meet the Press,” Mr. Dermer said Mr. Netanyahu was “committed to a vision of peace, of two states for two peoples, a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state of Israel. What has changed is the circumstances over the last few years.” Mr. Dermer pointed to growing instability in the Middle East and what he described as the alliance between the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas, the Islamic militant group, as impediments to the peace process. The Nuclear Talks With Iran, Explained What the United States and Iran want out of discussions over Iran’s nuclear development. Yuval Steinitz, a Likud minister loyal to Mr. Netanyahu, told Israel Radio later on Sunday that the main reason for tensions with Washington was “the strong disagreement we have with the United States over the Iran issue.” “We cannot accept the idea that the whole world — the Iranians, the Europeans, the Americans — are talking about the nuclear agreement with Iran and we have to sit quietly on the side,” he said. The dispute over Iran reached a flash point in the days before the Israeli election when Mr. Netanyahu, in defiance of the White House, addressed the Republican-led Congress and warned against an accord that seemed to be taking shape between Tehran and six world powers. Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations who was a formal adviser to Mr. Netanyahu and spoke to him over the weekend, said that the core of what he described as “cool winds blowing” from Washington was Iran, not the Palestinian issue. “I don’t see the disagreements over the Palestinians being the basis for the state of relations — it must extend to the fact that they’re about to cut a deal with Tehran and they know that Israel has serious reservations about the substance of that agreement,” Mr. Gold said in a telephone interview. “The issue of Iran is paramount in both Jerusalem and in Washington, and it may affect the tone at present.” Mr. Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a conservative research group, expressed confidence that relations would soon be repaired, if only because of other regional realities, like threats posed by the Islamic State and instability in Yemen. “In the past we’ve had similar tensions over aspects of the peace process, and ultimately the region forced us into surmounting our differences and working together as allies,” he said. | Israel;Reuven Rivlin;Benjamin Netanyahu;Iran;Nuclear weapon;Election;Palestinians;Likud Party Israel;Palestinian Authority |
ny0268659 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2016/04/20 | Inquiry of Mayor de Blasio Fund-Raising Extends to ’14 State Senate Races | The federal investigation of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s campaign fund-raising apparatus has expanded to focus on efforts to raise money for Democratic candidates for the State Senate in 2014, when the party was battling to retake the chamber, according to people with knowledge of grand jury subpoenas issued in the inquiry. Earlier this week, federal agents and local investigators served state grand jury subpoenas for records related to fund-raising on behalf of Democratic candidates who were in the midst of half a dozen hotly contested races that year, two of the people said. In the end, the Senate remained in Republican control. Several of the Democratic candidates themselves were among those contacted by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and investigators working with prosecutors from the office of the Manhattan district attorney. The agents and investigators contacted some of the candidates to serve the subpoenas and, in some cases, conduct interviews, the people said. Mr. de Blasio made retaking the chamber a priority in 2014 and personally solicited contributions for his fellow Democrats in Senate races as part of that effort. There is no indication that Mr. de Blasio is a target of the inquiry. Spokesmen for his re-election campaign and the city’s Law Department declined to say whether they had received subpoenas. Prosecutors are focused on whether there was an effort to evade campaign contribution limits. They are trying to determine whether contributions solicited by the mayor went to smaller county committees with the intention that they then be passed on to candidates in the contested races, the two people said. Those county committees have no limits on campaign contributions from individuals, groups or companies, but candidates’ committees do. In addition to the focus on the Senate campaign, federal authorities are continuing their investigation of the fund-raising of Mr. de Blasio’s mayoral campaign. On Monday, F.B.I. agents and state investigators made an early morning visit to the Brooklyn home of Mr. de Blasio’s former finance director, Ross A. Offinger, two other people said. Mr. Offinger was not home, and it was unclear whether the agents had intended to serve him with a subpoena. He declined to comment through a spokesman. The corruption investigation came to light two weeks ago. Initially a largely federal effort, it has centered on the activities of two businessmen, Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg. Mr. Rechnitz raised money for the mayor’s election in 2013, and he and his wife also made personal donations. That inquiry is being conducted by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, the F.B.I., and the city’s Investigation Department. Those agencies, and the Manhattan district attorney’s office, all declined to comment. The subpoenas issued this week, the people said, sought all communications with the mayor’s office and documents regarding solicitations, donors and donations to the Campaign for One New York, a nonprofit group that supported the mayor’s agenda. Mr. Offinger had served as the group’s finance director. The group, which Mr. de Blasio shut down last month, has drawn the ire of government watchdog groups, which said it created “a shadow government” of lobbyists and businesses with interests before city government. Mr. Rechnitz donated $50,000 to the group through a company he controls, and Mr. Reichberg held a fund-raiser for the group. A spokesman for the Campaign for One New York also declined to say whether it had received a subpoena. Investigators were initially focused on whether Mr. Rechnitz and Mr. Reichberg received some favorable city action — or a promise of some action — in exchange for their financial support, people briefed on that case have said, but it was not immediately clear what that action might be. As part of the investigation into Mr. Rechnitz and Mr. Reichberg, F.B.I. agents and Internal Affairs investigators in the New York Police Department have questioned roughly two dozen police officials who were suspected of taking gifts and trips from the men, people briefed on the matter have said. Nine mostly senior police officials have been transferred or placed on administrative duty as a result of the inquiry. As part of the investigation, a member of a volunteer security patrol in Borough Park, Brooklyn, was charged with bribery on Monday after being accused of offering cash to police officials in exchange for handgun licenses. Mr. de Blasio, fresh off his 2013 mayoral election, became involved in the 2014 State Senate battle when he saw an opportunity for Democrats to take control of the chamber, which had been in the hands of Republicans. A Democrat-controlled Senate, the logic went, would be more sympathetic to the city’s financial needs. Mr. de Blasio, a political operative by training, personally cold-called major donors seeking large donations and contributed some of his top strategists to help out on races around New York State. Mr. de Blasio was stepping into a vacuum left by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who had agreed to help fellow Democrats regain control of the chamber — as opposed to standing on the sidelines as he had in 2012 — but ended up doing little to help Democratic candidates. Still, in the end, the Republicans held on to their majority. | New York;Bill de Blasio;Campaign finance;NYC;State Legislature elections;Subpoena;Campaign for One New York;NYPD;Jona Rechnitz;Jeremy Reichberg |
ny0256353 | [
"us"
] | 2011/08/19 | Fewer Youths to Be Deported in New Policy | WASHINGTON — The Obama administration announced Thursday that it would suspend deportation proceedings against many illegal immigrants who pose no threat to national security or public safety. The new policy is expected to help thousands of illegal immigrants who came to the United States as young children, graduated from high school and want to go on to college or serve in the armed forces. White House and immigration officials said they would exercise “prosecutorial discretion” to focus enforcement efforts on cases involving criminals and people who have flagrantly violated immigration laws. Under the new policy, the secretary of homeland security, Janet Napolitano, can provide relief, on a case-by-case basis, to young people who are in the country illegally but pose no threat to national security or to the public safety. The decision would, through administrative action, help many intended beneficiaries of legislation that has been stalled in Congress for a decade. The sponsor of the legislation, Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, has argued that “these young people should not be punished for their parents’ mistakes.” The action would also bolster President Obama ’s reputation with Latino voters as he heads into the 2012 election. Just a week ago the leaders of major Hispanic organizations criticized his record, saying in a report that Mr. Obama and Congress had “overpromised and underdelivered” on immigration and other issues of concern to Latino voters, a major force in some swing states. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas, denounced the new policy. “The Obama administration has again made clear its plan to grant backdoor amnesty to illegal immigrants,” Mr. Smith said. “The administration should enforce immigration laws, not look for ways to ignore them. Officials should remember the oath of office they took to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the land.” White House officials emphasized that they were not granting relief to a whole class of people, but would review cases one by one, using new standards meant to distinguish low- and high-priority cases. “The president has said on numerous occasions that it makes no sense to expend our enforcement resources on low-priority cases, such as individuals” who were brought to this country as young children and know no other home, Ms. Napolitano said in a letter to Mr. Durbin. She said that low-priority cases were “clogging immigration court dockets” and diverting enforcement resources away from individuals who pose a threat to public safety. Mr. Durbin said he believed the new policy would stop the deportation of most people who would qualify for relief under his bill, known as the Dream Act (formally the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act). Some experts have estimated that more than two million people might be eligible to apply for legal status under the Dream Act. Mr. Durbin’s office estimates that 100,000 to 200,000 could eventually earn citizenship, though the numbers are uncertain. Under the new policy, the government will review 300,000 cases of people in deportation proceedings to identify those who might qualify for relief and those who should be expelled as soon as possible. White House officials said the new policy could help illegal immigrants with family members in the United States. The White House is interpreting “family” to include partners of lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Richard Socarides, a New York lawyer who was an adviser to President Bill Clinton on gay issues, said, “The new policy will end, at least for now, the deportations of gay people legally married to their same-sex American citizen partners, and it may extend to other people in same-sex partnerships.” J. Kevin Appleby, director of migration policy at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the initiative would keep immigrant families together. “It is consistent with the teaching of the church that human rights should be respected, regardless of an immigrant’s legal status,” he said. Cecilia Muñoz, a White House official who helped develop the new policy, said officials would suspend deportation proceedings in low-priority cases that, for example, involve “military veterans and the spouses of active-duty military personnel.” Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, who teaches immigration law at Cornell, said the new policy could also benefit “illegal immigrants who were stopped for traffic violations and thrown into deportation proceedings, as well as people whose only violation of immigration law is that they stayed beyond the expiration of their visas or worked here illegally.” Ms. Napolitano said her agency and the Justice Department would do the case-by-case review of all people in deportation proceedings. Those who qualify for relief can apply for permission to work in the United States and will probably receive it, officials said. The new policy “will not provide categorical relief for any group” and “will not alleviate the need for passage of the Dream Act or for larger reforms to our immigration laws,” Ms. Napolitano said. People in deportation proceedings stand to benefit most from the new policy. The new enforcement priorities also make it less likely that the government will begin such proceedings in the future against people who have no criminal records and pose no threat to national security. White House officials said the new policy ratified guidance on “prosecutorial discretion” recently issued by John Morton, the director of immigration and customs enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, praised the new directive, saying it would allow federal agents to “focus on serious felons, gang members and individuals who are a national security threat, rather than college students and veterans who have risked their lives for our country.” Roy H. Beck, the president of Numbers USA, a nonprofit group that wants to reduce legal and illegal immigration, said he could understand the decision to defer deportation in some cases. But he said the decision to grant work permits was distressing. “This is a jobs issue,” Mr. Beck said. “The president is taking sides, putting illegal aliens ahead of unemployed Americans.” | Immigration and Emigration;United States Politics and Government;Illegal Immigrants;Deportation;Obama Barack;Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act |
ny0068789 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2014/12/09 | Political Strife Flares in Central Pakistan | ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Political violence erupted in central Pakistan on Monday when opposition supporters clashed with riot police in Faisalabad, leaving one man dead and several wounded. Protests over the man’s death then spread across Punjab Province at the instigation of Imran Khan , the former cricket star who has been campaigning for months for the ouster of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The clashes in Faisalabad began in the early morning and quickly degenerated into running battles between rival groups of supporters and riot police officers armed with sticks and batons. The subsequent protests in other cities passed relatively peacefully. But it was clear that the death of Mr. Khan’s supporter, who he named as Haq Nawaz, had injected fresh energy into a slow-burning political crisis that started in August. “The sacrifice of Haq Nawaz will not go in vain,” Mr. Khan told a crowd in Faisalabad. Mr. Khan has been trying to capitalize on growing discontent with Mr. Sharif’s 18-month-old government. At a large rally in the capital, Islamabad, in August, he claimed that Mr. Sharif’s party had engaged in election rigging. A number of his supporters have been camped in Islamabad since then, though a charismatic cleric who had joined the protest, Muhammad Tahir-ul Qadri, left in October. Mr. Khan warned on Nov. 30 that his movement could turn violent if his grievances were not addressed, and he announced a series of protests across Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous and prosperous province. Faisalabad, one of the largest cities in the province, is an industrial center that for years was a stronghold for Mr. Sharif and his political party, but where backing for the opposition has surged recently. As the clashes continued there on Monday, Mr. Khan’s supporters threatened to surround the home of Rana Sanaullah, a legislator allied with Mr. Sharif. “If we want to remain peaceful, it does not mean we cannot confront them,” Mr. Khan said at his home in Islamabad before traveling to Faisalabad. Pervez Rashid, the federal information minister, accused Mr. Khan of “creating anarchy and chaos in the country.” Others said the gunfire heard in Faisalabad had been started by a member of a religious group that supports Mr. Khan. “We have video footage,” Mr. Sanaullah said. “This man will be caught, and people will then themselves see that he is not related with the government.” The prospect of continued political violence unnerved the Pakistani business community on Monday, which was reflected in a dip in the main stock exchange in Karachi. “Businesses cannot operate if there is rioting in the streets,” said Zeeshan Ali Khan, who runs a real estate business in Lahore. | Pakistan;Civil Unrest;Imran Khan;Nawaz Sharif;Punjab Pakistan |
ny0023878 | [
"business"
] | 2013/08/20 | Obama Presses for Action on Bank Rules | WASHINGTON — President Obama urged the nation’s top financial regulators on Monday to move faster on new rules for Wall Street, telling them in a private White House meeting that they must work to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis. Aides said Mr. Obama also told the regulators that the United States needed a more simplified and certain system of financing housing. The president recently endorsed proposals to reduce the government’s role in providing mortgages. Administration officials and some lawmakers have expressed frustration that critical parts of Mr. Obama’s overhaul of the financial system, which was voted into law three years ago and is known as the Dodd-Frank act, remain unenforced as an alphabet soup of federal agencies wrangle over how to adopt it. In particular, top presidential aides have highlighted the failure in putting the Volcker Rule into effect. It would prohibit banks from risking institutional money in certain speculative investments. Last month, Jacob Lew, the Treasury secretary, complained in a speech that the regulators were moving too slowly to confront the dangers of banks that are so large that governments cannot allow them to fail for fear of bringing down the economy. “If we get to the end of this year, and cannot, with an honest straight face, say that we’ve ended ‘too big to fail,’ we’re going to have to look at other options because the policy of Dodd-Frank and the policy of the administration is to end ‘too big to fail,’ ” Mr. Lew said. Image Ben Bernanke, left, chairman of the Federal Reserve; Jacob Lew, the Treasury secretary; and other top financial officials met on Monday with President Obama. Credit Mark Wilson/Getty Images The meeting on Monday was an attempt to raise those concerns directly with the agencies that are responsible for turning the law into reality. Among those in attendance were Mr. Lew; Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve; and top officials at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the National Credit Union Administration. Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman, said Mr. Obama wanted to convey “the sense of urgency that he feels about getting these regulations under Wall Street reform implemented promptly.” “There are some important rules that have been put in place,” he added. “More work needs to be done.” Congress passed Dodd-Frank in 2010 in response to the financial crisis of 2008. Since then, regulators have been working to turn the mammoth law into workable regulations, often in the face of opposition from lobbyists for banks that opposed the law. Among the rules that have yet to be put into effect, according to Treasury Department officials, are enhanced prudential standards for banks and certain other institutions, capital and margin rules for derivatives, new mortgage disclosure regulations and the Volcker Rule. Treasury officials said they expected regulators to finish work in those areas by the end of the year. As the banks have returned to profitability, the Obama administration has sounded increasingly impatient about the pace of bank regulation. Its desire to speed things up comes at what appears to be an opportune time. The fear that banks are too big, and could jeopardize the wider economy if they fail, is shared by people on both the left and right. Congress has introduced two bills in recent months that envision far more drastic overhauls than Dodd-Frank, both with bipartisan support. Image Senator Elizabeth Warren is among the lawmakers who have raised concerns that regulators are not moving quickly enough. Credit Daniel Rosenbaum for The New York Times “The politics are pretty good for the administration if they can do something on this,” Nolan McCarty, a professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton. Some lawmakers also have expressed concern that the regulators are moving too slowly. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, and several other senators have proposed new laws that would reinstate a firewall between banks and investment firms like those in the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act. Senators David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, and Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, have introduced separate legislation that would increase the amount of capital that the nation’s biggest banks are required to carry. “For too long, financial watchdogs were asleep on the job, allowing Wall Street megabanks to become too complex to manage and regulate and ‘too big to fail,’ ” said a spokeswoman for Senator Brown. She said Senator Brown was “hopeful that today’s meeting will lead to progress in ensuring that taxpayers and our financial system are no longer threatened by ‘too big to fail’ banks.” The administration may also want to sound the right notes as the financial crisis’s fifth anniversary approaches. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the event blamed for paralyzing the world financial system, occurred on Sept. 15, 2008. The fact that many rules have not been completed so long after Lehman’s failure could be a source of embarrassment to the administration and regulators. “They certainly don’t want that story dominating things over the next couple of months,” said Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, a group that has called for stricter regulation of financial firms. | Barack Obama;Banking and Finance;Regulation and Deregulation;Dodd Frank;Legislation;US Politics;Jacob J Lew;Ben S Bernanke;Elizabeth Warren |
ny0036562 | [
"us"
] | 2014/03/21 | Fred Phelps, Anti-Gay Preacher Who Targeted Military Funerals, Dies at 84 | TOPEKA, Kan. — The Rev. Fred Phelps, the virulently antigay preacher who drew wide, scornful attention for staging demonstrations at military funerals as a way to proclaim his belief that God is punishing America for its tolerance of homosexuality, died here on Wednesday. He was 84. The Westboro Baptist Church confirmed the death , declaring on one of its websites, “Fred W. Phelps Sr. has gone the way of all flesh.” The church did not give a cause of death, but Mr. Phelps had been living under hospice care. Mr. Phelps, who founded and led Westboro Baptist, a small, independent church in Topeka, was a much-loathed figure at the fringe of the American religious scene, denounced across the theological and political spectrum for his beliefs, his language and his tactics. His congregation, which claims to have staged tens of thousands of demonstrations, is made up almost entirely of his family members, many of whom lived together in a small Topeka compound, although in recent years some of his children and grandchildren had broken with the group. A disbarred civil rights lawyer who had once been honored by the N.A.A.C.P. and who ran for office repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, as a Democrat, Mr. Phelps seemed to accept the criticism if not relish it. “If I had nobody mad at me,” he told The Wichita Eagle in 2006, “what right would I have to claim that I was preaching the Gospel?” He believed that the United States was beyond saving, and he devoted his life to traveling with a small band of protesters to highlight what he saw as America’s sinfulness and damnation. Image The Rev. Fred Phelps in 2006. Credit Charlie Riedel/Associated Press “The way to prove you love thy neighbor is to warn them they’re committing sin,” he told the central Pennsylvania newspaper The Patriot-News in 2004. “You’re not going to get nowhere with that slop that ‘God loves you,’ ” he added. “That’s a diabolical lie from hell without biblical warrant.” His church’s website maintains a running tally of “people whom God has cast into hell since you loaded this page.” He was highly litigious and employed crude language to call attention to his cause. (The slogan “God Hates Fags” appeared on the church’s picket signs and remains in its web address .) He sued President Ronald Reagan for establishing diplomatic relations with the Vatican; denounced the Rev. Jerry Falwell , who called Mr. Phelps a “first-class nut”; and picketed the funerals of Al Gore’s father and Bill Clinton’s mother. Mr. Phelps’s picketing began in 1991 as an outgrowth of his dissatisfaction with Topeka’s response to his complaint that gay men were using a park near his home for “indecent conduct.” His antigay effort at the park was followed by protests of funerals of people who had died of AIDS, and then multiple local churches that he criticized as tolerant of homosexuality. In 1998, he explained his view of a wrathful God in an interview with The Houston Chronicle. “You can’t believe the Bible without believing that God hates people,” he said. “It’s pure nonsense to say that God loves the sinner but hates the sin. He hates the sin, and he hates the sinner. He sends them to hell. Do you think he loves the people in hell?” Later that year, he attracted global attention and condemnation when he picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, the gay Wyoming college student whose beating death led to a national debate over hate crimes. It was his church’s protests of military funerals, which began in about 2005, that provoked the most widespread anger, prompting legislative bodies to establish buffer zones to limit such protests at funerals. In 2011, Mr. Phelps won a major legal victory when the Supreme Court ruled, 8 to 1, that his church’s protests were a protected form of speech. The ruling preserved the buffer zones but found that the father of a slain soldier was not entitled to damages for emotional distress caused by a protest. “This is somebody who was addicted to rage and anger,” K. Ryan Jones , a filmmaker who made a documentary about Mr. Phelps, said in an interview. “Early on in his legal career he would manifest that rage against the people he was prosecuting, or some would say persecuting, and then when he was disbarred that rage transitioned into the ministry.” Image Mr. Phelps, with his wife, Margie M. Phelps, left, and daughter Margie J. Phelps, at a demonstration in Baltimore in 2007. Credit Jed Kirschbaum/Baltimore Sun, via Associated Press Fred Waldron Phelps was born on Nov. 13, 1929, in Meridian, Miss. He said that he had been admitted to the United States Military Academy at West Point but that after high school he had what his official biography called “a profound religious experience” and decided instead to devote himself to evangelism. In 1951, when he was just 21, he was profiled in Time magazine after his denunciations of “promiscuous petting” and “teachers’ filthy jokes in classrooms” at John Muir College in Pasadena, Calif., where he was a student, had brought him into conflict with the administration. He married Margie Marie Simms in 1952, and in 1954 the couple moved to Topeka. They had 13 children, 54 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, according to the church’s website. Mr. Phelps established Westboro Baptist in 1955. He earned a law degree in 1964 from Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, but his legal career was troubled from the start. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center , which describes Westboro Baptist as “arguably the most obnoxious and rabid hate group in America,” Mr. Phelps struggled to find people to attest to his good character when he wanted to be admitted to the bar, was temporarily suspended for professional misconduct, and was even sued for failing to pay for candy his children sold door to door. He succeeded in winning settlements in discrimination cases he filed as a civil rights lawyer. “Most blacks — that’s who they went to,” the Rev. Ben Scott, president of the N.A.A.C.P.’s Topeka branch, said in an interview with CNN in 2010. “I don’t know if he was cheaper or if he had that stick-to-it-ness, but Fred didn’t lose many back then.” Mr. Phelps was disbarred in Kansas in 1979 for professional misconduct in connection with a lawsuit he brought against a court clerk who he said had failed to have a transcript ready in time. In 1989, after being accused of misconduct by nine federal judges, he agreed to stop practicing law in the federal courts as well. His focus on protests since 1991 was relentless: His church claimed to hold multiple events a day while issuing news releases using coarse and inflammatory language, some of which celebrated the deaths of American soldiers , saying they were God’s way of punishing America for enabling homosexuality. This week, an estranged son of Mr. Phelps said his father had been excommunicated from his own church. The church did not respond to that assertion. Answering inquiries about Mr. Phelps’s health, however, the church summed up its message , saying: “God still hates fags, God still hates fag enablers and any nation that embraces that sin as an ‘innocent’ lifestyle can expect to incur the wrath of God. Repent or Perish.” Westboro Baptist has said that it does not plan to hold a public funeral for Mr. Phelps, and the Kansas Equality Coalition, a gay rights group, has urged people not to celebrate his death. When asked in 2006 how he would feel if his own funeral were protested, Mr. Phelps said: “I’d welcome it. I’d invite them.” | Fred W Phelps Sr;Westboro Baptist Church;Baptists;Obituary |
ny0172812 | [
"us"
] | 2007/11/15 | Lawsuit Over Visa for Muslim Academic | Adam Habib, a South African Muslim academic, has been told by the State Department that he was barred from entering the United States because of engaging in terrorist activities, prompting the American Civil Liberties Union to revise an earlier lawsuit. The suit, filed in Federal District Court in Boston in September by the A.C.L.U. for various groups that had invited Mr. Habib to speak, had sought to force the government to issue Mr. Habib a visa on free-speech grounds. Now that the reason for the denial has been stated,the A.C.L.U. wants to force the government to produce evidence, said Melissa Goodman, an A.C.L.U. lawyer. | South Africa;Freedom of Speech and Expression |
ny0003423 | [
"sports",
"soccer"
] | 2013/04/02 | Chelsea Tops Manchester United | Demba Ba’s goal sent Chelsea into the F.A. Cup semifinals with a 1-0 victory over Manchester United on Monday. The game was decided four minutes into the second half when Ba hooked the ball over goalkeeper David De Gea. United was denied an equalizer on Petr Cech’s stunning one-handed save to block Javier Hernández’s close-range header. The save even had Hernandez congratulating the goalkeeper. ¶ Aston Villa won the NextGen Series, a Champions League-type event for teenagers, with a 2-1 win over Chelsea in Como, Italy. (NYT) | Soccer;Chelsea Soccer Team;Manchester United;Aston Villa Soccer Team;Demba Ba;Javier Hernández |
ny0038446 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2014/04/05 | James Benkard Dies at 76; Defended Inmates in Death Penalty Cases | James W. B. Benkard, a prominent New York corporate lawyer who was honored for his extensive pro bono work in cases involving the death penalty and prisoners with mental illness, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 76. The cause was complications of melanoma, his son Andrew said. Mr. Benkard handled his first death penalty case in the mid-1970s, when he represented Joseph James in an appeal of his death sentence before the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. Mr. James was convicted in 1976 of killing a correction officer during an attempted prison escape. He had been incarcerated on an earlier murder charge. In 1977, after he pleaded guilty to the initial murder charge, the Court of Appeals ruled that Mr. James had been wrongly sentenced to death in the killing of the correction officer. The court found unconstitutional the portion of the state’s capital punishment statute making the death penalty mandatory for those convicted of intentionally killing police or correction officers who were on duty. Mr. Benkard spent most of his career handling corporate litigation in New York for the international firm Davis Polk & Wardwell while continuing to take on death row cases in Georgia, Louisiana and Tennessee. In Tennessee, he helped persuade an appeals court to throw out the conviction of a death row inmate, Timothy McKinney, because he had been ineffectively represented at trial. Mr. McKinney was released in 2013 after a plea agreement. Image James W. B. Benkard In 2007, the New York State Bar Association honored Mr. Benkard for his work on a case that led to a state law banning the use of solitary confinement for mentally ill inmates. James Willard Bartlett Benkard was born in Manhattan on April 10, 1937, to Franklin Benkard, a lawyer, and the former Laura Dupee. He graduated from Harvard University in 1959 and from Columbia Law School in 1964, and joined Davis Polk soon afterward. He retired in 2005 but continued to do pro bono work. In addition to his son Andrew, his survivors include his wife, the former Margaret Spofford; another son, James; a daughter, Margaret Chaves; six grandchildren; and a sister, Joan Jackson. Mr. Benkard was a trustee of the Environmental Defense Fund. In 1991, President George Bush considered appointing him assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. He was a friend of C. Boyden Gray, the White House counsel. But his association with the Environmental Defense Fund proved the more decisive connection. Because of it, conservative groups, led by the Washington Legal Foundation, did not want to see him in the job, and he was never appointed. At the time, President Bush was facing challengers from the right for the Republican nomination in 1992. That year, writing in The New York Times, the columnist Anthony Lewis quoted Mr. Benkard as saying, “I support George Bush, but the constant pressure on him from the right will inevitably alienate moderate Republicans such as myself.” | James W B Benkard;Capital punishment;Lawyers;Obituary |
ny0020282 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2013/07/13 | Texas Democrats, Energized, Face Hurdles in Turning a Red State Blue | AUSTIN, Tex. — State Senator Wendy Davis’s marathon filibuster against new abortion restrictions in Texas ended two weeks ago, but the enthusiasm she has ignited among Democrats was still going strong on a steamy morning here this week. Ms. Davis , the Fort Worth teenage mother turned Harvard Law graduate, won rapturous applause at a news conference this week in support of abortion rights that quickly took on the feel of a rally outside the Texas Capitol. “#StandWithWendy” and “#StandWithTXWomen” read the signs of some of the 150 attendees, using the Twitter hashtags that rocketed across the Internet when she stood on the floor of the Senate for 11 hours during a special session, and in the weeks since. “It’s going to fast-forward political change,” Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, predicted of the impact of abortion legislation . “But in the short term, women are going to suffer.” The bill Ms. Davis sought to block will soon be passed, but that is not the only comedown liberals here will have to contend with in the months to come. Texas Democrats, moribund for a generation, look at the response to the senator and the inexorable changing face of the state on the horizon and find reasons for optimism. Yet for all the energy that Ms. Davis, 50, has injected into her party, and before that all the chatter about the impact of Texas’ shifted demographics on the state’s politics, Democrats face a daunting challenge in trying to win the governorship next year. The problem: Texas is still a very conservative state. Ask Democrats in Austin if they can win the governor’s race next fall and the answers betray that reality. Euphemisms like “long-term process” and “nothing happens overnight” are uttered as stand-ins for a simple affirmative reply. Democrats have not won the governorship for nearly a quarter-century, not since Ms. Richards’s mother, Ann, was elected in 1990. They have not captured any statewide office since 1994. Next year, they will most likely face Attorney General Greg Abbott , a Republican who already has more than $20 million in the bank. And, as they always do when there is a Democrat in the White House, they will have to walk a tightrope between distancing themselves from an unpopular president and not angering their pro-Obama base. Image State Senator Wendy Davis’s recent 11-hour filibuster against new abortion restrictions gained a national spotlight. Credit Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune What makes 2014 even trickier for Democrats is that the woman who has become the most-talked-about new figure on the national political scene may not even want to run for governor. Ms. Davis faces a difficult decision: harness the enthusiasm she has won and make a bid for the state’s top job, or stand for re-election and bide her time until the demographics are more favorable and the White House is no longer home to a liberal unpopular in her state. The broader challenge for Democrats here is how to keep the spirits of local activists high and the wallets of national donors open without setting them up for a letdown. “There’s an opportunity that didn’t exist before,” Ms. Davis said in an interview. She was referring to what she sees as the opening for Democrats, but she could have been talking about her own prospects. Ms. Davis is enjoying not only a burst of national attention, but also a renewed pride among female activists who see her as a potential heir to Ann Richards, who died in 2006. Annie’s List, a state group dedicated to electing Democratic women, announced this week that they were giving Ms. Davis $50,000, ostensibly for her re-election. The senator declined to say what her plans are for next year; if she runs for governor or another statewide office she would need to relinquish her Senate seat. A debate has already begun among Democrats about whether she and the party would be better served with her running for governor, pursuing a statewide office down-ballot, or running for re-election. “I think Wendy might could run for lieutenant governor,” said Ben Barnes, a former lieutenant governor himself. “I know people are calling to say Wendy should run for governor. But I don’t think Wendy would get many more votes than Tony Sanchez or Bill White got.” Mr. Sanchez and Mr. White were both were defeated by Gov. Rick Perry. Mr. Sanchez received 40 percent in 2002, and Mr. White won 42 percent in 2010. “Texas is still a Republican state,” Mr. Barnes said. But Mr. Barnes, now a lobbyist who splits his time between Washington and Austin, predicts Ms. Davis will face intense pressure to run for governor, noting that he has already received e-mails from Democratic donors in money hubs like New York, Washington and San Francisco eager to hold fund-raisers for the party’s new star. That is music to the ears of Texas Republicans. “I’m sure they have some slick presentations that resonate with donors in California and New York, but this is Texas and their message doesn’t match the values of an overwhelming majority of Texas voters,” said Rob Johnson, an Austin-based Republican strategist and a former top aide to Mr. Perry. Image Jessica Nenow, left, and Art Stretton, center, debated abortion rights with Brian McAuliffe on Friday. Credit Tamir Kalifa/Associated Press If Ms. Davis were to run for a lower-ticket race, the race might not be as easily turned into a referendum on the Obama administration. The most recent statewide poll has the president’s job approval rating among independents at 37 percent. Mr. Abbott has spent much of his time in recent years tangling with the Obama administration, and Republicans here are already highlighting those legal battles. “Given the prevailing political winds nationally and in Texas, he’s positioned himself perfectly for 2014: a resolute conservative and fearless fighter of perceived D.C. overreach,” Justice Don R. Willett of the Texas Supreme Court, a former Abbott aide, said of the attorney general. “Any Democrat running in Texas has to overcome the national Democrat label,” said Matt Angle, a longtime Democratic operative and former chief of staff to a Texas congressman. A key to Democratic growth, party leaders say, is bolstering the political power of the state’s Latinos, who make up 38 percent of the state’s 25.1 million people. “There are 2.1 million eligible Hispanics not registered to vote and another 1.3 million Hispanics who didn’t participate” in 2010, said State Representative Trey Martinez Fischer, a San Antonio Democrat who is widely seen as eyeing statewide office. “So I’d like to see those 3.4 million voters get in the discussion like we’ve done with women and then I think Texas becomes a more aggressive proposition.” Jeremy Bird aims to help that cause. Mr. Bird was Mr. Obama’s national field director last year and has spent much of his time devoted to an organization called Battleground Texas, which is trying to build the Democratic infrastructure to make the state competitive from the presidency on down the ballot — eventually. The immediate challenge, of course, is recruiting solid candidates to maintain momentum. “It’s about bringing fundamental change here, and that means starting in 2014 — but it’s not all about 2014,” said State Senator Kirk Watson of Austin, the chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus. Asked directly if a Democrat could win the governor’s race, Mr. Watson, who lost the attorney general race to Mr. Abbott in 2002, started and stopped his sentence before settling on, “We have the ability to win next year’s governor’s race.” But then he offered an addendum: “I can’t predict for certain a Democrat will win in 2014.” | Wendy Davis;Abortion;Texas;Gubernatorial races;Democrats |
ny0173064 | [
"nyregion",
"thecity"
] | 2007/11/14 | Manhattan: Helping the Council Track Complaints | Following Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg ’s lead, City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn , left, announced a new case-tracking tool yesterday, similar to the city’s 311 system, to help manage and resolve constituent complaints. The system, called CouncilStat, will be fully installed in January and is intended to help council members track the exasperating everyday problems, big and small, that affect their constituents, from nightclub noise to dwindling supplies of affordable housing. Ms. Quinn said it would also allow members to share data and problem-solving ideas, identify local and citywide trends, and focus city resources where they are most needed. “One of the most important things we do as council members and council staff is serve New Yorkers, deal and help the constituents who call, or now e-mail, our offices asking for help,” Ms. Quinn said at a news conference at City Hall. | Quinn Christine C;Bloomberg Michael R;City Hall;City Councils;Manhattan (NYC) |
ny0225799 | [
"business",
"mutfund"
] | 2010/10/10 | Books on Planning Retirement or Paying for College | THE financial planner Raymond J. Lucia boasts in “The Buckets of Money Retirement Solution” (Wiley, $24.95) that he has helped “thousands of people invest more than $2 billion” by showing them how to use the method of the book’s title. And there is no doubt that he has an intriguing premise. Mr. Lucia has seemingly combined two well-accepted and related concepts when it comes to retirement planning. Idea 1: You want to shift a significant portion of your savings into progressively more conservative investments as the date of your retirement draws nigh. Idea 2: You should have seven years of retirement expenses in liquid investments at all times, so that you don’t have to worry about market gyrations over the short and intermediate term. To accomplish both, the book says, you should put your money into three separate buckets. Bucket No. 1, which he calls “income,” is the money that you’ll need for the short term in retirement. (Five to seven years is the time frame he’s talking about.) That money should be in ultraconservative investments. In bucket No. 2, called “relative safety,” are slightly more risky choices — bonds, for example. And bucket No. 3, called “growth,” is where you invest for the long term. It holds the riskiest investments. Once you fill the buckets, you draw down the money in the first bucket (income) first. When it’s depleted, you empty the second bucket into the first, providing immediate income for five to seven more years. Bucket No. 3, meanwhile, is “reserved largely for real estate, stocks and alternative investments,” he says, and “continues to have time to grow.” Once the first bucket is emptied for the second time, he adds, and if the stock and real estate markets perform at their historical norms, this last, growth bucket “should provide a nice chunk of change to allow you to rebucketize and see yourself through your retirement years.” While the concept seems straightforward, things soon start becoming more complicated and unconventional, and a reader is left with a lot of questions. For one thing, those three buckets quickly turn into five. Mr. Lucia suggests dividing bucket No. 1 into two parts — “income for life” (read: “annuities”) and “short-term fixed income.” And he recommends dividing bucket No. 3 as well, into a growth-and-income component, made up of real estate investment trusts, and another component devoted to stocks and other more aggressive investments. And the buckets aren’t filled with everything you might expect. While suggesting an annuity to fund immediate needs is not surprising, Mr. Lucia says that “fixed indexed annuities,” in which “returns are tied to the performance of the stock market,” could be used in bucket No. 2. But it is hard to see how a fixed indexed annuity could fall into the “relative safety” category. As Mr. Lucia writes: “F.I.A.’s are by far the most complex” of all fixed annuities. “Some brokers that sell them don’t even know how they actually work.” Surprising, too, are some of the contents of bucket No. 3. While no one would raise an eyebrow about including real estate investment trusts, Mr. Lucia is partial not to those REITs that trade like stocks, but rather to nonpublicly traded ones, which by definition are far less liquid. You would like to question him about some of this, as well as about how effective his approach would be if, just before bucket No. 1 is emptied for a second time, bucket No. 3 suffers a hit as devastating as that of 2008. Readers might also wonder whether there’s a way to construct the buckets with less risk, and whether it’s absolutely necessary to wait until the first bucket is emptied twice before touching No. 3. Mr. Lucia probably answers all of these questions for clients. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help readers. But, surprisingly, given the title, the book devotes relatively few pages to the bucket plan itself, instead offering long chapters on annuities, real estate ownership and taxes. Worthy subjects, all, but not exactly what a reader was expecting. Conversely, Zac Bissonnette doesn’t leave any doubt about what he is advocating in “Debt-Free U” (Portfolio Penguin, $16). Mr. Bissonnette, a senior majoring in art history at the University of Massachusetts, says he believes that students can get an outstanding college education at less cost than most people believe. He tells parents not to sacrifice their retirement to pay for their children’s education. He also recommends the parents avoid home equity loans , and loans in general, to pay for college. And he tells students to avoid borrowing as well, warning that too much debt can saddle them with a potentially crushing burden after graduation. Yes, such an approach limits the available cash, but that is Mr. Bissonnette’s point. His idea is to pay for college out of cash flow by having students go to a public university within their state — possibly starting at a community college — and having them work part time once they get there. By taking challenging courses and enrolling in an honors program, he contends, they can get an education comparable to that at the best universities anywhere. He makes it all sound a bit simplistic, assuming, for example, that all large state colleges are basically the same and that choosing a college can be reduced to knowing which one gives you the best return on your financial investment. But with many colleges now costing more than $50,000 a year — when all expenses are included — the thought that you can pay for a child’s education without sacrificing your retirement is appealing, whether or not you plan to put that retirement money into buckets. | Lucia Raymond J;Debt-Free U (Book);Bissonnette Zac;Retirement;Stocks and Bonds;Books and Literature;Writing and Writers;Buckets of Money Retirement Solution The (Book) |
ny0027504 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2013/01/19 | Obama’s Campaign Machinery Turns to Promoting Policy | WASHINGTON — A new political operation created to advance President Obama’s agenda in his second term will be allowed to raise unlimited money and accept corporate contributions, but officials said Friday the donations will be disclosed. Obama for America, the organization that mobilized the president’s army of supporters during his two races for the White House, now has a new name: Organizing for Action. The aim of the group, which will be overseen by a small inner circle of former campaign advisers, will be to promote Mr. Obama’s policies and to give Democratic activists and other allies a way to rally behind his agenda. The group’s chairman will be Jim Messina, the president’s campaign manager in 2012. He said Friday that the grass-roots effort would start by tackling gun control, immigration and climate change and would operate under the same financing rules as the president’s inauguration committee, which accepts corporate contributions. “We’re disclosing all donors,” Mr. Messina said in an interview. “The president feels strongly about transparency.” The group, which also will be advised by David Plouffe and other top political aides to Mr. Obama, reflects the evolution in the president’s view on the intersection of money and politics. A year ago, facing the prospect of a financial disadvantage against Republicans in his re-election bid, Mr. Obama reversed himself and gave his blessing to a “super PAC” supporting his campaign. Organizing for Action, which will be tax-exempt, can draw upon unlimited donations to take advantage of a muscular campaign apparatus that includes millions of Obama supporters. The group is planning to run television advertisements in a campaign-style effort to push the president’s initiatives. “It’s not focused on politics,” Mr. Messina said. “It’s on supporting the legislative agenda.” In previous administrations, similar tasks would have been performed by the White House Office of Political Affairs or the Democratic National Committee. But an outside group allows the operation to raise money, broadcast television ads and essentially run a political campaign on issues without running afoul of government guidelines that prohibit directly advocating for legislation. Organizing for Action will be set up under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, the federal designation for “social welfare” groups that are dedicated to advancing broad community interests. The government does not require the disclosure of donors, although Mr. Messina said the group would voluntarily disclose its sources of financing but not impose contribution limits. Aides said they were uncertain whether the amount of specific donations would be revealed. “We have a remarkable opportunity right now to change our country,” Mr. Messina said in a message to supporters on Friday. “And if we can take the enthusiasm and passion that people showed throughout the campaign and channel it into the work ahead of us, we will be unstoppable.” The leadership of the group will include Robert Gibbs, the president’s longtime confidant and former White House press secretary, as well as Stephanie Cutter, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and Julianna Smoot, three deputy campaign managers. Jon Carson, who left the White House this week after serving in the Office of Community Engagement, will be the group’s executive director. The president and the first lady, Michelle Obama, expressed their support for the group on Friday and asked their backers to stay active in the second term. “We should all be proud of what we accomplished, but let’s be clear: all that hard work was about more than just one election,” Mrs. Obama said in a video to supporters . “We can’t stop now.” | Barack Obama;Campaign finance;Jim Messina;Organizing for Action;2012 Presidential Election |
ny0195318 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2009/11/22 | Hudson Valley Shakespeare Takes Craft to Dobbs Ferry Students | Dobbs Ferry THE floor is strewn with backpacks. A dozen or so high school students — in jeans and hoodies, sweaters and dresses, boots and sneakers — have divided into clusters of two to four, most on and around the stage, in an otherwise empty theater at the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry. They are preparing scenes from “Hamlet.” In one cluster, a boy is playing the role of Ophelia, Hamlet’s doomed girlfriend, and the two girls sitting across from him giggle every time he opens his mouth. Gender reversals are encouraged here, but with teenage egos around, they are risky. A few yards away, a girl in a denim jacket says of the title character, “He’s dealing with all of this, like, stuff. And then his mom — ” She is speaking to Katie Hartke, one of two teaching artists from the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival who have come to the school to share their professional expertise. This session is part of the troupe’s educational program, now in its 14th season. It started out as a way to communicate what Hudson Valley does, “but also to sort of further our style of doing Shakespeare ,” said Christopher V. Edwards, the company’s director of education, in a telephone interview from the house in Garrison where company members live during the season. Hudson Valley Shakespeare is a 22-year-old theatrical company that performs every summer in Garrison, on the grounds of Boscobel , a Federal-style mansion on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River. The company is known for productions that treat Shakespeare’s language and characters with love but irreverence. “We make it extremely accessible,” Mr. Edwards said. He has played one character in “The Taming of the Shrew” as a surfer and has done “Romeo and Juliet” as a 1980s hip-hop story. “People thought, ‘Wow, if we can make it this accessible to audience members coming to see this stuff, why can’t we do this with kids and the community?’ ” The students usually have their own motivations. Some are just dabbling. A few hope to make a career of theater. In either case, they get real acting lessons and direction. Here at the Masters School, Ms. Hartke, who played the title character’s daughter in Hudson Valley’s “Pericles” last summer, is explaining to two girls that they get to decide whether they believe that Gertrude knows all along who murdered her first husband, Hamlet’s father. “Or does this play open her eyes to that?” Ms. Hartke suggests, referring to the scene in which traveling players enact a similar crime. Meanwhile, the other teaching artist, Ryan Quinn, is asking another group questions about a setting. “You’re in the throne room. What does the throne look like?” It is plush red and gold, they decide, with battle-scene tapestries. Mr. Quinn, who played the young Pericles at Hudson Valley last summer, explains that details like those enrich a performance, because “you act differently in different spaces.” “There are a gazillion ways to interpret ‘Hamlet,’ ” he tells the group. Then he and Ms. Hartke pose questions to the would-be actors. “How do you want to make the other person in the scene feel?” “If your mother wouldn’t let you go to a concert,” he asked, offering a hypothetical example, “how would you go about making her feel guilty?” Mr. Quinn suggests that the boy might treat his mother as if she were a dog or a little girl; specifics like that give a performance physicality. “Make people have to react to your choices,” he tells the group. Later in the day, Ms. Hartke and Mr. Quinn take the stage and do a couple of versions of the get-thee-to-a-nunnery scene. The entire program takes place over three days. Eventually, the students will perform their scenes, complete with costumes, but they will have scripts in hand. Memorizing lines is not a requirement. That is deliberate. “Then it becomes product-oriented, not process-oriented,” Ms. Hartke explained after the morning session. “We’d rather have them experience it.” In fact, Mr. Edwards said that the question he heard most often at student talk-backs was, “How do you learn all those lines?” But between the obvious comments, there are often unexpected ones — one of the reasons Mr. Edwards loves working with young people. “Adults will sort of take things for granted — Macbeth did X, Y and Z because he’s ambitious,” he said. “Kids will say, ‘But it doesn’t make sense that he does that.’ They’ll say things like, ‘Why didn’t he just figure out another way to kill Banquo instead of waiting that long or making it covert? Why couldn’t he just kill him out on the field?’ ” That tells him the students are “engaged, and they’re personalizing it.” And that’s what theater is all about. | Theater;Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival;Shakespeare William;Westchester County (NY);Education and Schools |
ny0109721 | [
"business",
"economy"
] | 2012/05/30 | Tech Lawsuits Endanger Innovation | Casual observers would find little in common between the smartphones in their pockets and the funky backbeat of the Beastie Boys’ Car Thief . But these two creations will go down together in the annals of creativity as reminders of the flaws in our intellectual property laws. TufAmerica, which manages the rights to the catalog of the go-go band Trouble Funk, sued the Beastie Boys this month, saying they had illegally used samples from Trouble Funk’s classics “Drop the Bomb” and “Say What” in several tracks on their 1980s albums “Licensed to Ill” and “Paul’s Boutique.” To fans of 1980s hip-hop, the suit was a bitter reminder of how copyright law changed the music they loved. Back then, a new generation of artists rapped over elaborate musical mosaics made of brief samples from other songs. “Paul’s Boutique” included hundreds of samples from artists ranging from the Beatles to Afrika Bambaataa. A series of court decisions in the 1990s, though, made this kind of musical collage all but impossible , forcing artists to get permission for every snippet they used — a logistical and financial nightmare. Lawsuits flew against several rappers, and a form of cultural expression virtually disappeared. Hip-hop may have little to do with high tech. But its experience carries a stark warning for the future of technology. High-tech behemoths in a range of businesses like mobile computing and search and social networking have been suing one another to protect their intellectual property from what they see as the blatant copying and cloning by their rivals. Regardless of the legitimacy of their claims, the aggressive litigation could have a devastating effect on society as a whole, short-circuiting innovation. The battle raging over smartphone technology is the latest case in point. Since 2010, Apple and Microsoft have led a frenzy of patent and copyright litigation against the makers of smartphones running Google’s Android operating system, hoping courts around the world will force their rivals to pay license fees, remove features from their devices or even leave the market altogether. Apple and Microsoft have spent billions to acquire the patent portfolios of old technology companies to bolster their case. Though Google has mainly played defense, its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility and its thousands of patents have helped Android device makers go on the offensive. The confrontation could have a reasonable outcome — a détente in which the companies licensed each other’s technology on reasonable terms and coexisted in peaceful rivalry. But the smartphone wars could easily escalate, reducing competition in mobile computing and, like hip-hop mash-ups, knocking technologies out of the market for good. This would defeat the very purpose of intellectual property law. Patents on inventions, like copyrights on songs, are not granted to be fair to their creators. Their purpose is to encourage innovation, a broad social good, by granting creators a limited monopoly to profit from their creations. While companies like Apple may believe they are insufficiently compensated for their inventions, the evidence often suggests otherwise. The belief that stronger intellectual property protection inevitably leads to more innovation appears to be broadly wrong. Innovation is often tripped up by intellectual property rights. One study found that the number of new rose varieties registered by American nurseries fell after the passage of the Plant Patent Act of 1930, which allowed for the patenting of new rose hybrids. Another study concluded that copyrighting new gene sequences sharply reduced scientists’ subsequent experimentation with the decoded genes, even if they were later placed in the public domain. Surveys have found that the risk of patent litigation deters firms from pursuing innovations. It’s not that we don’t need to protect intellectual property at all. But the protections must take into account that innovation is often a cumulative process, with each step piggybacking on the ideas before it. Like “Paul’s Boutique,” the software that drives smartphones is composed of a vast array of ideas from multiple sources. Everybody infringes to some extent on everybody else. Overly strong intellectual property laws that stop creators from using earlier innovations could slow creation over all and become a barrier for new technologies to reach the market. One of Apple’s patents , for instance, appears to grant it ownership over any application based on a user’s location. Think of the Google map feature that pinpoints where you are. Or imagine an app showing nearby hospitals or the best deals in nearby pizzerias. If Apple enforced the patent aggressively, it could foreclose a vast array of innovation. To compound the problem, critics argue, the Patent and Trademark Office regularly issues patents on inventions that are obvious or not new. Sometimes the patents are written too broadly. Apple, for instance, has patents on the concept of moving objects around on a mobile device’s screen using multiple touches. Not the specific instructions; the concept. Broad patents can even capture applications that the patent holder never envisioned. Facebook did not succeed because it was the first social networking technology. It succeeded because of how it unfolded the social networking model among student communities. Still, two months before Facebook’s initial public offering, Yahoo sued it for patent infringement , arguing that “Facebook’s entire social network model, which allows users to create profiles for and connect with, among other things, persons and businesses, is based on Yahoo’s patented social networking technology.” Broad patents can hinder innovation by allowing dominant businesses to stop future inventions that would disrupt their business model. “Who has patents?” asked the Stanford economist Tim Bresnahan, an expert on technology policy. “It’s the guys who have been around for a while, not the guys who have done a lot of innovation lately.” Overly broad patents have given birth to an entire new industry of “patent trolls,” whose only business is to buy patents and sue for royalties. TufAmerica, for instance, has made a business out of buying the rights to old songs and suing artists who sample them without permission. Intellectual property rights could be improved to better serve their purpose of encouraging innovation. Carl Shapiro, an expert on information technology on President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, has suggested patent reforms , including making it easier to challenge patents after they are issued, culling the roster of overly broad or ambiguous claims, and allowing those accused of infringement to claim independent invention as a defense. Perhaps software should not be patentable at all. In rulings since the 1970s, the Supreme Court has determined that abstract concepts like mathematical formulas cannot be patented. It has struck down two software patents and ruled against patents on diagnostic techniques because they were based on laws of nature. And it has asked an appeals court to reconsider a decision on patents over advertising online . Yet for all the concern over excess, intellectual property protections seem only to grow stronger. In 1998, for instance, Congress extended copyright protection to 70 years after the death of the author, from 50. Notably, the legislation applied to works of art that had already been created and hence needed no further incentive to come into being. Software patents will never be banned, of course. Indeed, software patents exploded after an appeals court in 1998 upheld a patent on a method to pool the assets of mutual funds using a mathematical algorithm, establishing the patentability of a business method and the software to run it. And the America Invents Act of last year, a measure expected to curb some of the excesses of patent law, came up short, allowing only a small window of time for companies to challenge new patents and forcing companies that challenged a patent to waive the right to do so again in court. Intellectual property, meanwhile, keeps growing. The United States patent office awarded 248,000 patents last year , 35 percent more than a decade ago. Some will spur innovation. But others are more likely to stop it in its tracks. | Inventions and Patents;Copyrights and Copyright Violations;Intellectual Property;Suits and Litigation;Computers and the Internet;Law and Legislation |
ny0147840 | [
"business"
] | 2008/07/13 | The Man Who Dared to Question Ethanol | IT wasn’t too long ago that a loose coalition of anti-ethanol forces was bemoaning the futility of its fight. After failing to block huge new ethanol mandates in the Senate last December, Jay Truitt, until recently the chief lobbyist for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, complained about the “fervor” and “spirituality” that surrounded ethanol on Capitol Hill. “You can’t get anyone to consider that there is a consequence to these actions,” he said, adding, “We think there will be a day when people ask, ‘Why in the world did we do this?’ ” That day has arrived sooner than Mr. Truitt, or most anyone else, anticipated. Of course, much of the turnabout is attributable to relentless price increases at the grocery store that have caused many people to argue that the land used to grow corn for ethanol should be used for food instead. But the changing perceptions about ethanol have been helped along by the most unlikely of characters, a bearded and mild-mannered economist with a dry sense of humor and an encyclopedic knowledge of the arcana of American farm policy. Until January, Keith Collins was the longtime and widely respected chief economist for the Department of Agriculture. In that position, he was a frequent booster of government policies that encouraged biofuel production. In the months after his departure, he was hired by Kraft Foods Global to analyze the impact of biofuels on food prices . He delivered a stunning, and unexpected, roundhouse to his former employers. The Bush administration had said biofuels were a minor factor in rising food costs. In a May 1 press conference, Edward P. Lazear, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said, “The bottom line is that we think that ethanol accounts for somewhere between 2 and 3 percent of the overall increase in global food prices.” A month later, in Rome at a United Nations conference on the food crisis, the agriculture secretary, Ed Schafer, echoed Mr. Lazear’s analysis in defending American biofuels policy. But Mr. Collins pointed out that the administration’s analysis was more like a back-of-the-envelope calculation, and that it hadn’t accounted for the impact of biofuels on crops other than corn. The push for ethanol has led farmers to grow more corn and less of other food crops, one factor in rising prices for commodities like wheat. Based on his own analysis, Mr. Collins maintains that biofuels have caused 23 to 35 percent of the increases in food costs. (The ethanol lobby dismissed Mr. Collins’s analysis as a “Krafty use of corn demand data.”) “I looked at a little bit more recent period,” said Mr. Collins, who appears uncomfortable in his role as a hired gun and treads carefully so as not to insult his former employer. “I was looking at a period when corn going into ethanol was rising much faster than what they looked at.” His move to Kraft came amid an aggressive effort by the Grocery Manufacturers Association to change perceptions about ethanol while food prices were high. The association hired the Glover Park Group, a politically wired public relations firm in Washington, to help it develop a more effective strategy. Scott Faber, lobbyist for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, declined to comment. The Glover Park Group wrote in its proposal to the association, “We must obliterate whatever intellectual justification might still exist for corn-based ethanol among policy elites.” It also recommended identifying and recruiting “third-party validators.” Mr. Collins said he didn’t believe his hiring was part of an anti-ethanol campaign. Instead, he said, he was simply asked by Kraft Foods for his thoughts on biofuels’ impact, and he ultimately wrote those up in a 34-page paper. He also notes, correctly, that the turnabout in the ethanol debate has a lot more to do with relentless price increases than with P.R. strategists and his remarks. “High prices are the dominant factor,” Mr. Collins said. “Without that, this coalition would not have gotten the legs they have gotten.” Nonetheless, his criticism of the administration’s analysis was closely followed by a more thorough analysis from the Department of Agriculture. In comments made before a Senate subcommittee last month, Joseph Glauber, Mr. Collins’s successor, said the impact of biofuels on food prices was actually closer to 10 percent; the previous analysis had neglected to consider biofuels’ impact on soybeans, he said. In an interview, Mr. Glauber said his analysis simply looked at a broader set of assumptions than the earlier one by the administration; for instance, he included the impact of soybean-based biofuels on food prices. While saying he might “quibble” with some of Mr. Collins’s assumptions, he said the analyses were similar. “It just goes to show people have different ways of portraying these numbers,” he said. “I don’t think these analyses are all that different.” EVEN so, Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, has asked the U.S.D.A. inspector general to investigate why such an error was made and perpetuated. “It is unfortunate that two high-ranking officials from the same agency have made such incompatible fact-based statements,” Mr. Flake wrote in a June 26 letter to the inspector general, adding that the U.S.D.A. “must be able to produce and disseminate clear and accurate information, particularly when it pertains to the culpability of U.S. policy in skyrocketing food prices.” Mr. Collins said his remarks did not contradict his work at the Agriculture Department. Back then, he said, he never anticipated that corn would hit $7 a bushel. “We expected stronger prices for corn,” he said. “If we got the prices we anticipated — high $3s — everybody would be happy. Ethanol would be cruising along just fine.” | Ethanol;Food;Prices (Fares Fees and Rates);Agriculture;International Trade and World Market;Agriculture Department;Kraft Foods Incorporated;Biofuels;Lobbying and Lobbyists |
ny0242347 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2011/03/17 | Antonio Reid to Join ‘X Factor’ | In the latest round of changes among executives at the major record labels, Antonio Reid, a top hit maker at the Universal Music Group, will leave the company to become a judge on “The X Factor.” “The X Factor” is a British show by Simon Cowell whose American version will begin on Fox in September. Mr. Reid, who is known as L.A., is the chairman and chief executive of the Universal Island Def Jam Music Group. He has a history of signing and producing star talent like Justin Bieber. Mr. Reid was offered the “X Factor” job and signed a deal this week, according to an executive who was apprised of the deal but was not authorized to speak on the record. Mr. Reid is under contract to Universal through the end of 2011, but will likely be released early, according to that executive. Representatives of Universal, Fox and Syco, Mr. Cowell’s company, which produces “X Factor,” declined to comment. Mr. Reid’s move was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter. Attention has been heaped on Mr. Cowell’s search for “X Factor” judges, in part because the singing competition is popular in Britain. He has encouraged the speculation, and expressed interest in having people like Paula Abdul, a former judge on “ American Idol ,” on board. On the show, each category of singers is paired with a judge who mentors the singers. “The judges compete along with the contestants,” Mr. Cowell said in an interview in January. Mr. Reid’s future at Universal has been uncertain since the beginning of this year, when Lucian Grainge became chief executive and set out on a broad $138 million cost-cutting campaign. Known as a big spender, Mr. Reid was also caught between Mr. Grainge and Barry Weiss, a former Sony Music lieutenant whom Mr. Grainge hired for an unspecified top-level job . In January, Mr. Reid was said to have been offered a new label deal at Universal , where he has worked since 2004, but he turned it down. | Universal Music Group;Television;Music;Fox Broadcasting Co;Reality Television |
ny0048988 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2014/11/12 | Mali: New Ebola Case Is Confirmed as Response to First Was Wrapping Up | Mali, which was just coming to the end of 21-day quarantines for 108 people linked to its first Ebola case , now has a second, the government announced Tuesday. The new case, in the capital, Bamako, was not linked to the first case, a 2-year-old girl from Guinea who died in the northwestern town of Kayes on Oct. 24, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization said. The W.H.O. and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have known for at least 24 hours that a new cluster of possible Ebola cases existed in Mali, but did not announce it because they were waiting for laboratory confirmation of at least one case. Information Minister Mahamadou Camara said Tuesday evening on Twitter that a case had been confirmed and that a clinic in Bamako had been quarantined. | Ebola;Mali |
ny0283982 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2016/07/12 | Spurs’ Tim Duncan Retires After 19 N.B.A. Seasons and 5 Titles | After 19 years and five championships with the San Antonio Spurs, Tim Duncan announced Monday morning that he would retire at age 40. Duncan was an elite player on an excellent Spurs team for his entire career. The Spurs made the playoffs every year in his tenure, never with a winning percentage lower than .610, and won five titles, with Duncan the finals’ most valuable player in three of them. He also won the league M.V.P. Award twice. A relative latecomer to basketball growing up in the Virgin Islands, the 6-foot-11 Duncan was initially a swimmer. He was the No. 1 pick in the N.B.A. draft after four years at Wake Forest. (The Spurs had the top pick as a result of a rare down season largely caused by an injury to David Robinson.) The player selected just after Duncan, Keith Van Horn, has been out of the league for a decade. Duncan initially starred in a “twin towers” lineup with Robinson, winning two titles. After Robinson’s retirement in 2004, Duncan carried on as the team’s star, winning three more N.B.A. crowns, most recently in 2013-14 over the Miami Heat in LeBron James’s last year there. Duncan’s low-key nature often kept him out of the spotlight, but the sheer force of his accomplishments pushes him onto just about every list of the greats. Duncan ranks fifth in career blocked shots (3,020), sixth in rebounds (15,091), seventh in games played (1,392) and 14th in points (26,496). Duncan’s playing time had gradually been reduced in recent years, and he had ceded his starring role on the Spurs to Kawhi Leonard. Though he started 60 of the 61 games he played this season, he hit career lows in just about every category. But he was an All-Star as recently as 2015. Duncan’s retirement was as quiet as Kobe Bryant’s was colorful and protracted. The Spurs released a statement highlighting his achievements, but without a quotation from the player. That did not stop many others from singing his praises on Monday: Now Duncan is highly likely to join Bryant in the Hall of Fame in 2021. | Basketball;Spurs;Tim Duncan |
ny0179478 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2007/08/17 | Liberty Stays Alive in Playoff Bid | Janel McCarville scored 18 points and Shameka Christon added 12, including the go-ahead free throws with 9.8 seconds remaining last night, to help the Liberty beat the host Washington Mystics, 73-72. The victory helped preserve the Liberty’s chance at securing the Eastern Conference’s final playoff berth. The Liberty (14-18), winners of two of its last three games, pulled within a half-game of the Mystics for the fourth seed. Cathrine Kraayeveld added 15 points for the Liberty, which won three of four games from Washington to win the season series and earn the tie breaker. “We played with a sense of urgency, and that’s what we needed to do,” Christon said. DeLisha Milton-Jones had 21 points and Alana Beard added 19 for the Mystics (15-18). The Mystics lost for the third time in four games. Beard missed a jumper from the corner at the buzzer. The Liberty closes the regular season with two home games, against Connecticut tonight and Chicago on Sunday. | New York Liberty;Washington Mystics;Basketball |
ny0218650 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2010/05/26 | Ex-Attorney General in Canada Cleared in Traffic Death | OTTAWA — Citing new evidence, a special prosecutor on Tuesday dropped all charges against Ontario’s former attorney general, Michael Bryant, stemming from a traffic altercation last summer in Toronto in which a bicycle messenger died. The prosecutor, Richard Peck, a lawyer from British Columbia, told the court that the messenger, Darcy Allan Sheppard, had previously harassed and frightened motorists and that his blood alcohol level on the night he died was double that permitted for anyone driving a motor vehicle. He also outlined what he said was Mr. Sheppard’s history of alcohol and drug addiction as well as prior legal skirmishes. “Our conclusion is that Mr. Bryant had been attacked by a man who unfortunately was in a rage,” Mr. Peck told reporters. “In such circumstances he was legally justified in attempting to get away.” Mr. Bryant, who as attorney general championed severe and controversial traffic safety laws, had been charged with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous driving causing death after the Saab convertible he was driving collided with Mr. Sheppard’s bike, and the episode quickly escalated . After the crash, witnesses reported, and surveillance cameras filmed, Mr. Bryant driving against oncoming traffic with Mr. Sheppard clinging to the side of his Saab convertible. Mr. Sheppard died of injuries sustained after he struck a fire hydrant and fell from the car. Because during his tenure as attorney general, Mr. Bryant had appointed prosecutors and judges in Ontario, Mr. Peck was brought in from Vancouver to handle the case. On Tuesday, Mr. Peck told a judge in Toronto that “given all of the evidence, in particular new information that has been discovered since the charges were laid,” a conviction was unlikely. According to Mr. Peck, Mr. Bryant had celebrated his wedding anniversary at a restaurant and was driving with his wife along a fashionable section of Bloor Street when he stopped for a red light at a pedestrian crossing. At that point, Mr. Sheppard pulled up and stopped his bike directly in front of the convertible. Mr. Bryant’s car then stalled and lurched forward, striking the bike’s rear wheel, Mr. Peck said, frightening Mr. Bryant and enraging the messenger. The Saab then lurched a second time, striking the bike and sending Mr. Sheppard, screaming, onto the car’s hood. Mr. Peck said Mr. Bryant put the car in reverse in an effort to get away from Mr. Sheppard, but the messenger grabbed onto the outside of the car as it headed up the wrong side of the street. At a news conference, Mr. Bryant was asked why he did not lift his foot from the accelerator while Mr. Sheppard clung to his car. “It is not a morality play about bikes versus cars, couriers versus drivers, or one about class, privilege or politics,” Mr. Bryant said. “It’s just about how in 28 seconds, everything can change.” Yvonne Bambrick, the executive director of the Toronto Cyclists Union , an advocacy group, said she was surprised that Mr. Bryant’s case did not even make it to trial. “Cyclists get a $110 ticket for not having a bell,” Ms. Bambrick said. “Now he’s not even getting ticketed.” | Bryant Michael;Bicycles and Bicycling;Ottawa (Ontario);Decisions and Verdicts;Accidents and Safety;Sheppard Darcy Allan |
ny0153878 | [
"us"
] | 2008/01/17 | Two Views in the White House on an Economic Fix | WASHINGTON — As President Bush weighs a stimulus package to jump-start the sagging economy, a debate has broken out inside the White House over how hard to push Congress to make Mr. Bush’s tax cuts permanent — a priority for the president, but one that Democrats say would kill the plan before it is even considered. On one side, according to people familiar with the deliberations, is a powerful group of pragmatists, including Henry M. Paulson Jr., the treasury secretary; Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff; and Ed Gillespie, counselor to Mr. Bush. They argue that the need for a stimulus is urgent, but have expressed concern that the administration may have to scale back its ambitions for permanent tax cuts to get a package through Congress. On the other side, these people say, are staunch economic conservatives like Keith B. Hennessey, the new director of Mr. Bush’s National Economic Council. They have reservations about the need for an economic rescue package and maintain that if the White House proposes one, it should use the plan as leverage to press lawmakers into making the tax cuts permanent. Mr. Bush, who has been traveling in the Middle East, has not yet received any formal recommendations from his economics team. But he is expected to make a stimulus package the centerpiece of his State of the Union address. He is due back in the Oval Office on Thursday, and is planning a conference call with Congressional leaders to solicit their views. The president’s tax cuts, which lowered rates for individuals and investors, are set to expire at the end of 2010. Mr. Bush has said repeatedly that he will devote his last year in office to making them permanent, a vow he reiterated in a speech in Chicago before leaving for the Middle East. “In a time of economic uncertainty,” the president said, “we ought to be sending a clear signal that taxes will remain low.” Vice President Dick Cheney has also been a strong supporter of the tax cuts, although it is not clear what role he is playing in the current debate. On Wednesday, the White House dismissed any suggestion that some of the president’s top advisers believed they might have to cede their ground. Tony Fratto, the deputy White House press secretary, said such reports were “flat-out wrong,” though he declined to offer specifics. The debate casts a fresh spotlight on the White House economic team, a little-known collection of forecasters, strategists and business executives who have struggled for influence inside an administration that has long been preoccupied with terrorism and the war in Iraq. It is a team that has often been in flux. Mr. Bush is on his third treasury secretary, Mr. Paulson, who was wooed away from his job as chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs by Mr. Bolten, himself a former executive there. (The first one, Paul H. O’Neill, cooperated in a tell-all book after he left, and the second, John W. Snow, was unceremoniously pushed out the door.) Mr. Bush has had four National Economic Council directors; Mr. Hennessey replaced Allan B. Hubbard, an Indianapolis businessman who has known Mr. Bush since their days at Harvard Business School together. And there have been five chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisers, a group now headed by Edward P. Lazear, who is on leave from his job as a Stanford University business professor. In an interview Tuesday, Mr. Lazear said the president was “very firm in terms of his principles that the tax cuts need to be made permanent.” And while Mr. Lazear declined to discuss the administration’s strategy — his job is that of economic forecaster, not political strategist, he said — he also made clear that the White House understood the political realities it faces. “We’re not doing this just to play games here,” he said. “So we obviously want to propose something that we feel would do the American economy some good, and that means it has to be enacted.” Within the current economic team, Mr. Paulson clearly wields the most clout. With his Wall Street credentials, he has Mr. Bush’s ear, as well as that of some leading Congressional Democrats, including Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York. Kenneth M. Duberstein, a Republican strategist who is close to Mr. Paulson, calls him “first among equals.” Mr. Schumer said that he has told Mr. Paulson it would “cause real problems” for the White House to insist that a stimulus package be linked to permanent tax cuts. One Republican close to the White House said he believed Mr. Paulson and the other pragmatists would ultimately persuade the administration that it would be worth making some concessions to get a rescue package through Congress. “They’re not going to start off signaling that they’re going to be flexible, but Paulson and Bolten and Gillespie know that this is going to be a negotiation,” said this Republican, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Their view is a stimulus is essential and their No. 1 priority, and therefore everything else has to be negotiable to achieve the priority. It’s a huge shift.” Mr. Paulson came into the administration viewed as someone who could bridge the divide with Democrats, yet he has had some difficulty doing so. His effort to forge a bipartisan agreement to revamp Social Security never got off the ground, although he was able to nudge the administration toward a more liberal policy of helping homeowners in the subprime mortgage crisis. As a whole, the economics team has also drawn criticism for overly optimistic economic predictions. At the end of November, on the same day that Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, hinted strongly that the Fed would lower interest rates to stave off a downturn in the economy, Mr. Paulson and Mr. Lazear offered a rosier economic forecast for 2008. Mr. Lazear predicted “solid growth,” and Mr. Paulson said the economy remained “broadly healthy,” while adding, “I expect the expansion to continue.” On Tuesday, Mr. Lazear defended those predictions, saying they were in keeping with what most economists believed at the time. But he also said that the economic team had known since August, when the housing crisis grew especially acute, that it might have to consider an economic rescue package. “We still have not heard from the president as to what he wants to do on this,” Mr. Lazear said Tuesday. “He’s been focused on the Middle East.” | United States Economy;Taxation;Bush George W;United States Politics and Government;Washington (DC) |
ny0166624 | [
"business"
] | 2006/01/03 | After a Resilient '05, Wall St. Isn't Counting Out '06 | It was probably fitting that "Chicken Little" was a big movie in 2005. Everywhere investors looked, it seemed, the sky was on the verge of falling. Wall Street worried as the Federal Reserve pushed short-term interest rates higher and the yield curve flattened. There were concerns that consumers would reduce spending as gasoline prices surged after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast. All the while, many fretted about a bubble in housing and the impact if that bubble popped or slowly deflated. But the economy proved more resilient than the worriers expected. Consumers continued to spend. The housing market did not collapse. Economic growth has been robust. And the stock market even had a year-end rally going -- with the Dow Jones industrial average flirting with 11,000 -- until it fizzled in the final weeks. So it is not surprising that Wall Street has muted the alarms about 2006. Over all, analysts are relatively bullish in their outlooks. But concerns remain about the health of consumer spending and the effects of higher interest rates. Five Wall Street analysts who were surveyed predicted that the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, which closed 2005 at 1,248.49, would end 2006 between 1,170 and 1,400. Ralph J. Acampora Managing director of research Knight Capital Group Ralph J. Acampora's market forecast for next year might be summarized as doom and boom. While he says he expects the stock market to rally between 5 and 7 percent in the first quarter, Mr. Acampora warns investors that they may be headed to a four-year low by the middle of 2006. "I expect a very noticeable decline of somewhere between 20 and 25 percent," he predicted. "I am guesstimating that it will make a bottom or end in late third quarter." He is looking at a year-end S.& P. price of 1,170. One investor's bad news, however, can be another's buying opportunity. And Mr. Acampora sees the beginning of another bull run. "Stocks could be awfully attractive," he said, speculating that investors will move toward large-cap equities and that growth stocks will outperform value. "We are going to go crazy at this bottom." Mr. Acampora, who accurately predicted in 1997 that the Dow would reach 10,000 by 1999, is a longtime forecaster but somewhat of a maverick among investment strategists. Instead of analyzing economic fundamentals, Mr. Acampora studies the market's trading momentum, and he says he firmly believes history supports his views. For one, the current bull market run is more than three and a half years old; over the past century, the market has experienced a major cycle every four years with the exception of the stock market crash of 1987, Mr. Acampora said. Moreover, the stock market typically declines in the second year of any president's administration. Mr. Acampora advises investors to sell their stocks in home builders, utilities and other businesses sensitive to interest rates within the first few months of the new year. Investors should wait patiently until the market slumps, he says, and then buy technology growth stocks, which have lagged during the recent rise. In the meantime, investors can enjoy a relatively strong market, in which the Dow will surpass 11,000 early this year. "This is a gift from God," Mr. Acampora. "You got the last rally before your decline." Richard Bernstein Chief United States strategist Merrill Lynch The consensus view on Wall Street is that the Federal Reserve's interest rate increases will come to an end sometime early next year. But Richard Bernstein, widely known as a bear, argues that the Fed's work is far from over. "It is important to remember that the Fed has never -- never, never, never -- gotten a tightening cycle right," he said. "I don't mean to sound overly negative, but the Fed will be tightening for longer than people think." As a result, Mr. Bernstein expects a "flattish market" with a price target of 1,225 for the S.& P. 500, a slight decline from 2005. Merrill Lynch projects very low single-digit corporate earnings growth of as much as 5 percent, based on its economic outlook. Mr. Bernstein is worried especially about the effect of higher interest rates on the global economy. The rise in the price of gold suggests that inflation expectations are mounting rapidly. A flattened yield curve and major housing slowdown are the horizon. And then there is the tail-off in consumer spending. He predicts that could affect not just the American market, but could also spread to emerging economies. "The U.S. consumer is 20 percent of the global economy and the primary buyer of goods from emerging markets," Mr. Bernstein said. "If the U.S. consumer slows -- it doesn't have to implode -- emerging markets will feel that pinch." Still, Mr. Bernstein sees a few safe havens for investors -- and even a few opportunities. At the top of his list are the health care companies, which he expects will be strong performers even if other areas of the economy struggle. "Everybody loves to talk about health care as a very sexy growth sector," he said. "However, the sector's best relative performance generally comes when other sectors begin to erode." Consumer staples may also be attractive. And Mr. Bernstein favors telecommunications and utility stocks. "Wireless and big telecom are growing at the same rate next year," he said -- about 8 or 9 percent. "But the big guys are cheaper and they offer a significantly higher dividend yield." David Bianco Chief equity strategist UBS Securities Even if consumer spending slows down this year, David Bianco says that does not mean equity investors are doomed. An increase in industrial spending could arise to take its place. That bodes well for America's heavy manufacturing businesses. "I am very vocal on the view that the industrial sector is going to be the best performing," Mr. Bianco said. "I am most bullish on capital goods companies, machinery companies and even conglomerates." Domestically, he suggests there has been significant underinvestment for 20 years because of deflation on energy and commodities. American companies "are still catching up," he said. Moreover, new capital outlays from federal transportation legislation and the recovery effort after Hurricane Katrina and Rita are likely to lead to large contracts. But the biggest boost could come from demand overseas, as companies in fast-growing markets like China, India and the Middle East expand. "The companies that dominate capital expenditure -- energy, utilities, mining and transportation concerns -- will be spending more as the demand for energy, commodities and capital goods increases," Mr. Bianco predicted. "The best way to benefit from globalization is to own the suppliers." Of course, not every industrial company may benefit from this boom. Mr. Bianco warns that investors may want to avoid materials companies in the S.& P. 500, like International Paper and United States Steel, because they are more involved in primary commodities than processing. The troubled airlines and automobile manufacturers are similar exceptions. Mr. Bianco also urges investors to largely avoid the telecommunications sector, which he views as under siege from Internet telephony. "This is a significant threat, and one that shouldn't be underestimated," he said. "We all tend to underestimate the margin damage when staring at long-lasting, structural, fierce competition." The overall picture may be similarly bleak. Mr. Bianco expects the S.& P. 500 to rise to 1,250 over the next year, about 1 percent. He projects corporate earnings growth to remain flat, and gross domestic product growth to fall from to 2.5 percent, down from about 3.7 percent expected for this year. Stuart G. Hoffman Chief economist PNC Financial Services Group Stuart G. Hoffman says he expects 2006 to be another year of "moderate but still favorable" growth for the economy, despite significant headwinds. The Federal Reserve will raise interest rates two more times in the first few months of 2006, he said, and then will probably hold them steady as long as the economy maintains a neutral position. Consumer spending will still be a positive force, but it will be more tempered than it was the last two years. And a cooling housing market, along with fewer Americans borrowing against the value of their home, will take away some momentum, he says. Corporate profits will continue to grow. But they will be in the low single digits, compared with growth in the low teens last year. The S. & P., Mr. Hoffman projects, will end the year between 1,350 and 1,400 -- a gain of 5 to 7 percent, compared with the 3 percent it climbed in 2005. There are other bright spots in his forecast. He expects the economy to create about two million jobs next year, about the same as in 2005. Consumer wages will also rise a bit faster. "Incomes will go up at a pretty reasonable pace," Mr. Hoffman said. And unlike this year, he said, they will more than stay ahead of inflation as energy prices stabilize. Mr. Hoffman expects the heavy manufacturing industry to reap big gains. That is because he expects companies to spend more to increase productivity with better technology as well as to replenish their inventories, which are currently low. "Business investment, more in technology, will show a very strong year on top of what were very good gains in 2005," he said. "There is enough cash sitting on the balance sheets of small-business America that will help fund this kind of capital spending. And they won't be held back by a modest rise in interest rates." Thomas M. McManus Chief investment strategist Banc of America Securities Thomas M. McManus is relatively bullish about the year ahead. He projects that the S.& P. will rise to 1,335. He expects the Federal Reserve to take a breather from increasing interest rates after two more meetings. And he says he believes that the spread between short-term borrowing costs and long-term lending proceeds, or yield curve, will grow steeper -- not flatter. Mr. McManus sees capital expenditures rising over the next year, but not for the reasons economists typically give, which is increased demand from manufacturers or cash-rich corporate balance sheets. Instead, Mr. McManus says he believes that companies will be spending more because they envision bigger profits in the future. The oil industry, he says, is a case in point. In December 2004, a six-year oil futures contract was trading at more than $36 a barrel. Today, it is trading at around $57. "The market has given oil producers more visibility that prices will be extended into the future," he said, and the companies have responded with rapid expansion and hiring." This, of course, benefits heavy manufacturing companies, like Caterpillar, which rank high on Mr. McManus's list. But while oil companies may continue to post strong financial results, he is less sure about their prospects as investments. "A year ago, we felt pretty strongly about energy and it worked out for us," Mr. McManus said. "Energy is still O.K., but I am not as convinced on a risk-reward basis." This year, Mr. McManus feels more confident about large-cap growth companies like Nike and Procter & Gamble, which are big enough to generate earnings even if the economy slows. "I think that large-cap growth is going to have its day in the sun," Mr. McManus said. "They are cheap, with price-to-free-cash-flow less expensive than anytime in the past 10 years." Still, at least one equity class worries him in the months ahead: high-dividend yielding stocks like REIT's and utilities. While a reduction in the dividend tax rate caused the price of many of those stocks to rise steeply over the last two years, Mr. McManus cautioned that it would be difficult for those high appreciation rates to continue. "We would rather people focus on dividend growth potential rather than dividend yield," he said. | UNITED STATES ECONOMY;INTEREST RATES;STOCKS AND BONDS;ECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND TRENDS |
ny0011055 | [
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] | 2013/02/24 | Wake Forest Ends Miami’s Run in the A.C.C. | C. J. Harris made five 3-pointers and scored 23 points as host Wake Forest beat No. 2 Miami, 80-65, on Saturday, ending the Hurricanes’ 14-game winning streak and sending them to their first Atlantic Coast Conference loss this season. “Over all, we weren’t prepared before the game, and they came out and punched us in the mouth,” Miami guard Shane Larkin said. Durand Scott had all 17 of his points in the second half for the Hurricanes (22-4, 13-1), the last team in the six Bowl Championship Series conferences to suffer its first league loss. It was the best start to A.C.C. play since Duke went 16-0 in 1998-99. On Saturday, the Demon Deacons (12-14, 5-9) shot 54 percent and reeled off 12 straight points in the second half to pull away. Their smallest lead over the final nine minutes was 11 points. “Who would have ever thought Wake Forest beating Miami at home would have been a court-rushing scene?” Larkin said. GONZAGA 81, SAN DIEGO 50 Kevin Pangos scored 18 points, and No. 3 Gonzaga (27-2, 14-0 West Coast Conference) beat visiting San Diego (13-16, 6-8). The Bulldogs clinched at least a tie for the W.C.C. regular-season title, their 12th league title in 13 seasons. And with Miami’s loss, the Bulldogs, who have set a team record for regular-season wins, put themselves in position to rise to second in the Associated Press poll. Gonzaga has never been ranked that high. FLORIDA 71, ARKANSAS 54 Mike Rosario scored 15 points to pace a balanced attack that helped No. 5 Florida (22-4, 12-2 Southeastern Conference) beat visiting Arkansas (17-10, 8-6). However, the freshman Michael Frazier II, one of the Gators’ top reserves, sustained a concussion in the second half. He will be sidelined indefinitely. KANSAS 74, T.C.U. 48 Jeff Withey scored 18 points, and No. 9 Kansas (23-4, 11-3 Big 12) routed visiting Texas Christian (10-17, 1-13) to avenge a stunning loss to the Horned Frogs on Feb. 6. Kansas, which has won three in a row since its three-game losing streak, gave Coach Bill Self his 499th win. The Jayhawks put on a show for about 200 former players, coaches and staff members on hand to celebrate the program’s 115th anniversary. The 9 first-half points scored by T.C.U. were the fewest in any half in the last 15 years of Big 12 games, and the fewest allowed in a half by Kansas since Cornell scored 9 on Jan. 2, 1996. LOUISVILLE 79, SETON HALL 61 Gorgui Dieng scored a career-high 23 points to help No. 10 Louisville (22-5, 10-4 Big East) pull away from visiting Seton Hall (13-15, 2-13). Dieng was 10 of 11 from the field as the Cardinals won their third in a row to move into a three-way tie for second in the Big East. ARIZONA 73, WASHINGTON ST. 56 Kevin Parrom matched his career best with five 3-pointers — in six tries — in scoring a season-high 19 points to lead No. 12 Arizona (23-4, 11-4 Pacific-12) past visiting Washington State (11-17, 2-13). The Wildcats were ahead by as many as 21 points early in the second half. KANSAS ST. 81, TEXAS 69 Rodney McGruder scored 20 points, and No. 13 Kansas State stayed in the race for its first regular-season conference championship since 1977 with a victory at Texas (12-15, 4-10 Big 12). Four players scored in double figures for the Wildcats (22-5, 11-3), who are tied for first in the Big 12 with Kansas. OKLAHOMA STATE 73, WEST VIRGINIA 57 Le’Bryan Nash and Markel Brown each scored 16 points to lead five Oklahoma State players in double figures, and the No. 14 Cowboys (20-6, 10-4 Big 12) overcame a terrible start to win at West Virginia (13-14, 6-8). The Mountaineers shot 30 percent for the game. VILLANOVA 60, MARQUETTE 56 Darrun Hilliard scored 22 points to lead Villanova to a home win over No. 17 Marquette (19-7, 10-4 Big East). The Wildcats (18-10, 9-6) beat a top-25 conference opponent for the third time this season. OREGON 77, STANFORD 66 Johnathan Loyd had season highs of 15 points and 9 assists to lead No. 23 Oregon to a home victory over Stanford (16-12, 7-8 Pac-12). Carlos Emory had 19 points for the Ducks (22-6, 11-4), who gave Coach Dana Altman his 600th career win and kept themselves tied with Arizona atop the league standings. V.C.U. 75, XAVIER 71 Troy Daniels scored 19 points, and No. 24 Virginia Commonwealth (22-6, 10-3 Atlantic 10) overcame a 17-point deficit in the second half for a victory at Xavier (15-11, 8-5). V.C.U. forced 22 turnovers — 12 of them in the second half during the big comeback. Daniels set a team record for 3-pointers in a season while leading the comeback. | Basketball;College Sports;Wake Forest;Miami University;College basketball |
ny0085820 | [
"sports",
"autoracing"
] | 2015/07/11 | Kyle Larson on Pole After Rain | Rain canceled qualifying for the Sprint Cup and Xfinity Series races at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta. With the starting grids set on points, Kyle Larson will be on the pole beside Brad Keselowski for Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 at the mile-and-a-half track. | Car Racing;Kyle Larson |
ny0184013 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2007/12/13 | Looking Through Lens of Time, Mangini Did the Right Thing | Hempstead, N.Y. Waves of news media will begin traveling to Foxborough, Mass., on Friday for what many expect will be a gory sacrifice Sunday when the 3-10 Jets meet the 13-0 New England Patriots. Meteorologists predict a snowstorm; football experts predict a Patriots avalanche. While the Jets are tumbling into darkness, New England is steamrolling toward perfection, trying to become the first team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to go undefeated. In addition to having the allure of an undefeated team, Sunday’s game has the tantalizing ingredient of revenge. Last September, the Jets turned the Patriots in to the N.F.L. after a Patriots staff member was caught videotaping the Jets’ defensive signals during the season opener at Giants Stadium. The Jets lost, 38-14, and Spygate was born. The N.F.L. fined Bill Belichick $500,000 and ordered the team to forfeit its first-round draft pick in 2008 if it made the playoffs for violating league rules. The Patriots were also fined $250,000. What is astounding about the Spygate saga is how some members of the news media turned on Jets Coach Eric Mangini, lambasting him for being a tattletale and showing disloyalty to Belichick, his former mentor. What a convenient juxtaposition of priorities: the same people who, in principle and in informal conversation, condemn the antisnitch rhetoric of the street also blast Mangini for turning in the Patriots. We complain about a culture of silence in which people see wrongdoing but hold their tongues, in which those entrusted by the public look the other way and adhere to an artificial code in order to maintain the status quo. When an N.F.L. head coach outs his former boss for cheating, he is pilloried. Some even chided Mangini for breaking an unspoken rule among N.F.L. coaches against turning one another in. On Wednesday, a reporter asked Mangini about the unspoken rule. “I don’t know what unspoken rules there are or aren’t,” Mangini responded, “but what I can tell you is I’ve covered this topic extensively and it’s a league matter. There’s really nothing else I have to add to it.” The Patriots, of course, have been on a search-and-destroy mission, obliterating every team in sight, most recently the Pittsburgh Steelers. Last month, I thought the hapless Jets would be flogged without mercy, beaten by 60 points as punishment for the franchise’s perceived transgression. Sunday’s game would be a sacrifice, not merely a lopsided loss. Public humiliation of Mangini. But the more I think about the filming escapade, the more I feel that Mangini, much more than Belichick, should be offended. Mangini did what he was supposed to do: he turned in an opponent who was putting his team at a potential competitive disadvantage. I would have turned in New England in a heartbeat. Don’t tell me about what Mangini did or did not do when he was with New England. Mangini was a Patriots assistant from 2000 to 2005. The Patriots signed his checks, his loyalties accrued to New England. When Mangini signed with the Jets, his allegiance followed. Where’s the complexity? If I’m Mangini, the fact that my mentor was the one doing the filming makes it even worse. My position to Belichick would be: “You know that I know you cheat and you’re still going to come to my stadium and roll tape? Now I’m really angry.” Let’s put some blue in that Patriots streak. On Wednesday, Mangini responded to news reports that the Jets videotaped the Patriots during last season’s playoff game. Mangini said the Jets had asked for and received permission to film. On the face of it, Spygate is a silly story that has legs because of Sunday’s game and the Patriots’ perfect record. Given the bizarre events of the season with players and coaches seemingly out of control, the greatest potential crisis to the league — and beyond — is a loss of honor. On Wednesday, a stunned Arthur Blank stood before reporters in Atlanta, dumfounded that his coach, Bobby Petrino, had sneaked out of town like a thief in the night. Blank said he felt betrayed. Under what code was Petrino operating? Mangini could have observed the oafish code of silence and let Belichick and the Patriots slide. The consequences might have been devastating. On Wednesday, Darrelle Revis, the Jets’ rookie cornerback, offered the most perceptive observation with a simple question: What would have happened had the Jets discovered that Mangini knew the Patriots were cheating, but said nothing — because Belichick was his mentor? Answer: Mangini would have lost this team back in September; the subsequent implosion would have made the Atlanta disaster seem like “The Love Boat.” “Your team is like your family,” Revis said. “That’s where your loyalty is.” So, the news media can sing “Danny Boy” all they like as Mangini leads his team into Foxborough for what appears to be certain doom. I wouldn’t be so quick to predict a rout. The Patriots have Belichick and Brady and Welker and Moss. But for the first time all season, the Jets have right on their side. | Mangini Eric;Football;New York Jets;Belichick Bill |
ny0011044 | [
"sports"
] | 2013/02/24 | Ice Fishermen Not Immune to Doping’s Reach | WAUSAU, Wis. — The ice fishermen spent a week on the frozen lake, and on the last day, after emptying perch and bluegill from their buckets and scrubbing bait from their hands, several winners of the World Ice Fishing Championship were ushered into their rooms in the Plaza Hotel. There, an official from the United States Anti-Doping Agency ordered them to provide urine samples for a surprise test to detect steroids and growth hormones — drugs not normally associated with the quiet solitude of ice fishing. “We do not test for beer, because then everybody would fail,” said Joel McDearmon, chairman of the United States Freshwater Fishing Federation. With doping a rampant problem throughout sports, drug testing has arrived at the most unlikely places, including the chilly Big Eau Pleine Reservoir, where competitors hide fish in their pockets and prize patience over power. The leaders of the sport of ice fishing have started a long-shot bid to take their lonely pursuit to the Olympics. A berth in the Winter Games would come with many obvious advantages, but first there are hurdles to clear. Once the anglers shuffled off the ice and put down their rods, they had to submit to the same examinations as world-class sprinters and weight lifters. In sports like ice fishing, where speed and strength are not necessarily at a premium, an agent from an international antidoping federation can seem like, well, a fish out of water. After all, ice fishing is not a particularly physical sport. Most days are spent crouched low around the ice hole in snow pants, kneepads and improvised shin guards made out of foam. The hardest part is staying warm — most anglers forgo gloves in order to better feel fish tugging on the rods. Fishing officials puzzled over whether doping would even help anglers jigging for panfish, roughfish and crappie. Image Oyunbold Battumur of Mongolia. Officials wonder if drugs would help in the sport. Credit Darren Hauck for The New York Times “We kind of joked about that,” McDearmon said. “You’re obviously not going to have anybody out there oxygen doping or something like that.” Bill Whiteside, a previous gold medal winner from Eau Claire, Wis., said that physical strength often had little to do with fishing success. “It’s not the best athlete that usually wins the events,” he said. “A lot of times it’s the experienced older guys.” Ice fishing is not the only fringe sport that has embraced drug testing. Competitors in darts, miniature golf, chess and tug of war were all tested in recent years, according to the sports’ organizers and the World Anti-Doping Agency . Some of those sports are gearing up for long-shot Olympic bids of their own. Others are aiming to ensure that no competitor, no matter the scale of the competition, has an unfair advantage. “Doping is fundamentally contrary to the spirit of the sport,” reads the World Minigolf Sport Federation’s rule book . That doesn’t stop some people from trying. Two minigolfers tested positive for banned substances, out of 76 tested in 2011, according to the World Anti-Doping Agency. That year, one chess player also tested positive, as did two bowlers, eight roller sport athletes and one tug-of-war competitor. To some of the lifelong fishermen who huddled together in subzero temperatures for the annual event last weekend, the tests served as a reminder of the distance between Wausau, Wis., and Lausanne, Switzerland, headquarters of the International Olympics Committee. After five days of scouting the ice to get a feel for the lake, fishermen representing 11 countries took part in the two-day tournament, including, for the first time, some from Mongolia and Japan. Anglers pay out of their own pockets to attend the international competition, and the only opening ceremony consisted of a reception at the Fillmor, a pub. Ice Fishermen Not Immune to Doping’s Reach 13 Photos View Slide Show › Image Darren Hauck for The New York Times Some anglers said they were astonished, and already drinking cocktails after the competition, when the surprise drug tests were announced. “I wasn’t drinking out there, but when I got in I had one,” said Myron Gilbert of Brooklyn, Mich., a member of the United States team and a previous gold medal winner. When he learned of the tests, he said he thought to himself, “I’ve got booze in my system!” The sport’s rules are simple. Fishermen have three hours to catch as many fish as they can; the angler with the heaviest haul wins. They drill holes into the 20-inch-thick ice — there’s no limit to how many — and they are not allowed to leave their rods unattended. The sport is in many ways a game of strategy. Many European and Asian anglers aim for a huge volume of perch and other small fish; American teams are known for loading up on heavier fish, like crappies. Secrecy is key. Many anglers keep fanny packs around their waist, where they stash their fish with the furtiveness of a shoplifter in order to keep rivals from noticing and encroaching on a fruitful hole in the ice. As the competition unfolded last week, Big Eau Pleine Reservoir became a perforated chessboard as anglers drilled hole after hole, using subterfuge and misdirection to ward off rivals. With temperatures dropping throughout the week, the larger fish became less active — a major blow to the Americans. “Only small fish are biting, and our guys were prepared for the crappies,” said Greg Wilczynski, a former coach who led the United States team to a gold medal in 2010. At the end, the Americans finished fourth, thanks largely to Chad Schaub, 30, of Greenville, Mich., one of only two competitors to catch 25 fish, Wisconsin’s legal limit. The Russians were the clear winners, with a four-and-a-half-pound haul. When the final results were announced inside a hotel ballroom, the Russian fishermen leapt from their seats and exchanged hugs in a scrum. As the dancing and cheering quieted down, four of the anglers were asked to come forward and take the elevator to their rooms — a private place where they could concentrate on providing urine samples. | Recreational fishing;Ice;Doping;Olympics |
ny0119196 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/07/18 | N.Y.U. Expansion Plan in Greenwich Village Wins Key Council Vote | After being scaled back some more, New York University ’s plan to expand its campus in Greenwich Village over 20 years won crucial approvals from a City Council committee on Tuesday, all but assuring that the city will give the university the go-ahead to proceed with its much-debated development. The university, with 50,000 students and 17,500 workers, has long complained that it has far less space per student than other prominent universities and needs new classrooms and dormitories to attract students, accommodate a growing enrollment and end some of its costly leases. But many residents of the Village and university faculty members have opposed the large project from its inception, arguing that it would erode the quiet, low-rise character of one of the city’s signature bohemian and student quarters. The university’s plan calls for adding four buildings to land already largely occupied by two sprawling university apartment complexes south of Washington Square Park. Its initial plan would have added an Empire State Building’s worth of floor space to the seven buildings that make up the apartment complexes: Washington Square Village and Silver Towers, which occupy roughly 12 city blocks between Third and Houston Streets. But under pressure from opponents and the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, the university agreed in April to trim the project’s size by 17 percent to 19 percent, depending on who was counting. The plan was further modified in June by the city’s Planning Commission, which eliminated a university proposal for a hotel and several stores outside the project’s footprint, but gave the university extra classroom and office space in one of the four planned buildings. It was the zoning and other changes recommended by the commission, along with modifications sought by council members, that were approved on Tuesday, first by the Council’s zoning subcommittee and then by its full Land Use Committee. The full committee’s vote was 19 to 1, with Councilman Charles Barron of Brooklyn dissenting. The full Council is scheduled to vote on the plan on July 25. After the vote, the Council released a statement indicating that Margaret Chin, who represents Greenwich Village, had secured commitments from the university to reduce the aboveground size of three of the buildings by an additional 17.4 percent, cutting one near Mercer Street from 11 stories to 4 and leaving more light and space around the three buildings. The changes amount to a 26 percent reduction in space from N.Y.U.’s original plan . Speaker Christine C. Quinn applauded the new plan, saying it assured that N.Y.U. would remain a good neighbor while promoting “the growth of the city by allowing the university to be more competitive.” Alicia D. Hurley, the university’s vice president for government and community affairs, said she was delighted by the committee vote because it gave the university “the opportunity to be able to grow in predictable fashion over the next two decades” and minimize the impact of expansion by “doing it on our property in Greenwich Village.” Construction would not begin until 2014 and would take 20 years to complete. However, many members of the full-time faculty — 40 percent of whom live in the two affected apartment complexes — were not pleased by the vote and predicted that the dust and noise of construction would ruin their pleasure in working for the university. “A 26 percent reduction won’t make daily life any less horrific for 20 years at least,” said Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies. Opponents like Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, urged council members, particularly Ms. Chin, to reject the plan and require N.Y.U. to go back to the drawing board. They said the plan would require selling off public parkland, eliminate open space in a park-starved neighborhood and violate the so-called towers-in-the-park concept under which N.Y.U. was given the land to build the two apartment complexes. University officials argued that if they could not build on that parcel, they would have to continue buying up, tearing down or converting buildings, which would further damage the neighborhood’s character and infuriate residents. In a statement, Mr. Berman called the Land Use Committee’s approval “a slap in the face to the thousands of area residents and the countless N.Y.U. faculty and staff workers who called for the plan to be voted down.” “We will take this battle to the full Council,” he added, “and possibly beyond.” On the large southern half of the parcel under the approved plan, N.Y.U. would tear down its athletic center and build a dormitory and academic building. On the parcel’s northern half, it would build two boomerang-shape academic buildings in the space between the four slablike apartment buildings of Washington Square Village. | New York University;Greenwich Village (NYC);Land Use Policies;City Council (NYC);Colleges and Universities;Area Planning and Renewal;New York City;City Councils;Zoning |
ny0110295 | [
"us"
] | 2012/05/15 | Executive Order on Same-Sex Marriage Rights in Rhode Island | Gov. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island on Monday ordered all state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere and to afford those couples many of the same rights and benefits that heterosexual couples get. By issuing an executive order, Mr. Chafee, an independent, reaffirmed a 2007 opinion by the state attorney general, which he said state agencies had followed inconsistently. An effort to legalize same-sex marriage in Rhode Island failed last year, with the legislature approving civil unions for gay couples instead. Gay rights advocates said that among other things, the order would help ensure that insurance plans regulated by the state provide the same benefits to same-sex couples who were married in other jurisdictions that they do to heterosexual couples. | Same-Sex Marriage Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships;Chafee Lincoln;Rhode Island;Marriages |
ny0086201 | [
"business"
] | 2015/07/17 | Car Sales Soar in Europe, but Recovery Called ‘Fragile’ | European auto sales surged 15 percent in June, the biggest month-on-month increase in more than five years, the European carmakers’ association reported on Thursday. Still, analysts remained cautious because of the uncertainty caused by the Greek financial crisis. The region posted its 22nd consecutive month of growth in auto sales, with 1.36 million units bought, lifting half-year sales by 8 percent to 7.1 million, the group said. Carlos Da Silva, an analyst for IHS Automotive, said the stronger-than-expected growth was because of two extra calendar days of sales in June compared with May, as well as the effect of end-of-quarter accounting, when many automakers offer incentives to reach targets. “The market’s recovery is still fragile, even more so as a result of the ongoing turmoil in Greece,” Mr. Da Silva said. | Cars;Euro Crisis;Europe;Greece |
ny0173116 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2007/11/14 | Kurds and Arabs Shelter Side by Side in Distrust and Misery | SULAIMANIYA, Iraq , Nov. 7 — On a barren, trash-strewn plain on the outskirts of this city, two groups — one poor and Kurdish, the other displaced and Arab — huddle side by side in distrust and suspicion. They are united only in their misery, their fear of the coming winter and their envy of those thriving nearby in Sulaimaniya, the largest city in the Iraqi region of eastern Kurdistan. The estimated 200 Kurds living in the tent city here say they find work one or two days a week as day laborers. A good day brings $10. Living in a tent with no running water keeps the overhead down. They move frequently, they said, and so their children — filthy, thin and barefoot — cannot attend school. A few have fled from the continuing violence in Kirkuk. Others, the locals said, are Qurag, the Kurdish word for Gypsy or Romany. A Kurd, who gave his name only as Ramazan, gestured at the tents of the Arabs who had come here to escape the killing in Baghdad and Diyala in the south. “We don’t like them — we have not forgotten Halabja and Anfal,” he said, speaking of Saddam Hussein’s murderous campaigns against Kurdish civilians. “They get food and supplies for free from the government,” another man said. “A tanker comes to give water to Arabs. We have to pay.” Other Kurds at the camp are more charitable, pointing out that the Arabs taught them to write their names in Arabic over time. This gained them free rations too, until the government caught on and cut them off with a severe reprimand. A hundred yards down the line of ragged tents, the Arabs are grouped together. Degrees of squalor are difficult to gauge, but they appear to be as poor as the Kurds. Some of their tents and blankets are marked U.N.H.C.R., after the initials of the United Nations refugee organization. Registered as internally displaced persons, they are entitled to meager rations, some bedding and a monthly allowance, they said. Hamza Muzahem, a community leader who arrived two months ago from the notoriously violent Baghdad neighborhood of Saydia, said he left his home after a letter with a bullet was slipped under his door. Mr. Muzahem needed no further warning; he had seen numerous Sunni neighbors slain by Shiite militias. His story is perhaps the least dramatic here. A well-dressed woman, stepping carefully through the dust in high heels, casually told a visitor of how her husband, a translator for the American military, was killed after neighbors discovered his line of work. A 4-year-old boy, Ali Al Jamoori Mohamed, lay on a tent floor to re-enact the killing of his mother and father in their home. He is being raised here by relatives. A hollow-eyed 17-year-old, Khaled Mohamed Al Timini, recalled how his parents and two brothers were taken from their car and executed on the streets of Dora, another violent Baghdad neighborhood. That same day, he said, he left his house and all his belongings behind and made his way to this camp. He said he could not concentrate, had stopped attending school and had found no work here. Still, he is thankful. “It is safe here,” he said simply. | Kurds;Arabs;Iraq;Immigration and Refugees;United Nations |
ny0231620 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2010/09/13 | 2 Afghans Killed in Protest Over Planned Koran Burning | KABUL, Afghanistan — Two Afghans died in a remote area of eastern Afghanistan on Sunday when the police fired into a crowd protesting the planned burning of the Koran in Florida, a day after the burning had been called off. The deaths bring to three the number of Afghans killed in demonstrations tied to the threat made by Terry Jones , a Florida pastor, to burn the Koran on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. Mr. Jones relented under intense pressure from the Obama administration and others, but not before tapping a deep well of anger among Afghans. It was likely that many of those protesting on Sunday in Baraki-e-Barak, a district in western Logar Province, had not heard the news. Mass media is scant in the region. As of Sunday night there had been no reports on local television about a couple of Koran burnings that did take place on Sunday in Tennessee. The crowd chanted anti-American slogans, including “death to Americans,” “death to Obama,” and “death to Jews.” But its violence was directed at the Afghan government, which is seen as beholden to the United States. “A group of protesters engaged with police at around noon and started to throw rocks and bricks at police, wounding some policemen," said Din Mohammad Darwish, spokesman for the governor of Logar Province. The previous day, the demonstrators burned a police checkpoint, he said. On Sunday, the police fired to stop the crowd from advancing on the district center and burning it, said Mr. Darwish. The shots wounded six people, two of them critically, and they died while being taken for medical treatment. The planned Koran burning touched a raw nerve in a region deeply proud of its Muslim faith. “Afghans fought for 30 years against Communism and during mujahedeen time and Afghans are ready to die for their religion and customs and traditions,” said Maulavi Qalamuddin, a former Taliban from Baraki-e-Barak, who spent nearly seven years in detention at Bagram Airbase. “Whenever someone does something against their values and religion they are quick to anger.” He said that the protest reflected a broadly popular frustration with the government because the demonstrators included “shopkeepers, teachers and taxi drivers who have to deal with the government every day,” and not people from remote areas of the district. Muhammad Alam, a high school teacher in the provincial capital, agreed that there was serious disillusionment with the government, although he suspected that the Taliban had also stoked emotions on Sunday. “In Logar, there is a mixture of Taliban motivating people to do this demonstration and people not being happy with the current administration,” he said. “This regime is based on bribery. You cannot do anything unless you pay a bribe to the government. People are jobless. People are fed up with the current government.” When the Americans or other foreigners pay for projects, the money is whittled away by corrupt officials, he said. “Needy people cannot get anything at all, so that is why people are resorting to demonstrations to show their anger in any way possible.” Also on Sunday, NATO officials conceded that civilians may have been killed in a Sept. 2 strike aimed at a man believed to be the Taliban deputy shadow governor of Takhar Province in northern Afghanistan. A NATO statement said that an investigation confirmed that the man, who was associated with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, had been killed, but could not rule out the possibility that civilians were also killed. President Hamid Karzai, citing reports from local officials, said at the time that the airstrikes killed at least 10 civilians and wounded 3, including a parliamentary candidate who was in the convoy with several campaign workers. The candidate, Abdul Wahid Khurasani, said that the convoy of six vehicles struck by two NATO rockets was part of his campaign team and that the vehicles were draped with campaign posters. NATO officials disputed that description on Sunday. The NATO statement said there were no campaign signs on the vehicles. They said only one vehicle was struck. “We are very confident that the targeted individual was in the vehicle struck by the air weapons team and was killed,” said Italian Army Brig. Gen. Luigi Scollo of the Italian Army, the Joint Command operations chief for the NATO forces. “The question remains why an election official or candidate was traveling with a known terrorist.” | Demonstrations Protests and Riots;Jones Terry (Pastor);Koran;Afghanistan War (2001- );Afghanistan |
ny0154934 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2008/01/23 | Village’s At-Large Voting Is Found to Be Biased | Citing a history of official discrimination against Hispanic voters, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the way municipal elections are conducted in the village of Port Chester, N.Y., violates federal election law. The ruling by the judge, Stephen C. Robinson of Federal District Court in White Plains, came in a 56-page order issued as the capstone to a six-day trial last spring. During the trial, the federal government argued that the village’s at-large voting system — in which all village residents can vote for all candidates on the ballot — was unfairly weighted against Hispanics. As part of his ruling, Judge Robinson ordered the village to submit a “remedial plan” to fix the at-large system within three weeks. “This court is persuaded that there is some history of official discrimination in Port Chester that continues to touch the rights of Hispanics to participate in the political process,” Judge Robinson wrote. The federal government sued the village in December 2006, charging that the at-large system — as opposed to a system in which separate districts elect separate candidates — violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The suit claimed that the system denied Hispanic voters the opportunity to constitute a majority in any area and thus inhibited them from electing their preferred candidates. Lawyers from the village argued that Hispanics had been invited to participate in the election process, but had often declined. They suggested that the problem was one of voter apathy or partisan politics rather than one of racial polarization. In his order, however, Judge Robinson took issue with those claims, as well as others. “Defendants argued throughout this case that, given time and assuming the continued growth of the Hispanic population of the village, the Hispanic community could come to dominate the political landscape in Port Chester even under the current at-large system,” the judge wrote. “This court, however, is not charged with projecting what might happen years or decades from now; rather we are forced with the current political reality in the village.” To that end, Judge Robinson ordered the village to draw up plans to change the at-large system. In his order, Judge Robinson seemed inclined to favor a system presented at the trial by Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociology professor and demographer at Queens College. Dr. Beveridge proposed redrawing the village, which is in Westchester County, into six voting districts and to have each district elect its own member to the Board of Trustees. Judge Robinson said he would wait to rule on plans until the village submitted its own proposal to the court. Anthony G. Piscionere, who is representing the village in the case, issued a statement Tuesday afternoon saying he had expected the decision but was still disappointed. Mr. Piscionere said the village had yet to decide on an appeal. In one of its more striking passages, Judge Robinson’s order quoted papers filed by village lawyers that at one point said: “It is very unsettling for a community to be observed and judged by those that do not live there or barely know its history or its people.” The judge responded in his order: “That the village still fails to recognize its violation of federal law, and instead naively attributes this court’s ruling to a purported lack of understanding of the village’s history, may be indicative of an even larger problem in Port Chester.” | Discrimination;Voter Registration and Requirements;Hispanic-Americans;Politics and Government;New York State |
ny0111814 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/02/19 | ‘The Mystery of the Mayan Medallion’ at the Long Island Children’s Museum | GARDEN CITY, N.Y. LIKE most of the fifth graders on a recent visit to the Long Island Children’s Museum , Gianna Bloom, 10, was fascinated by the skeleton, the dark passageways and the fearsome gods in the exhibition “The Mystery of the Mayan Medallion.” The archeology-themed exhibition, which runs through May 6, allows visitors to follow the path of a fictional scientific team that disappeared while exploring the lost city of Palenque deep in the Mexican rain forest . But Gianna drew the line at exploring a “spider hole” in the wall that invited visitors to stick in a hand for a bite, a way of familiarizing them with the local fauna. “No,” she said, as she promptly turned around and headed for a presentation about Maya gods in a nearby cave. “I don’t want to lose a hand.” Other students, meanwhile, roamed the simulated ruins, making sarcophagus rubbings and learning about the Maya civilization’s history of advanced writing and math systems as well as their impressive knowledge of astronomy. “It’s a very observation-oriented exhibit,” said Maureen Mangan, director of communications for the museum. The quest for the exhibition’s titular medallion requires finding four glyphs — symbols that stand for words or ideas — in various parts of the display, then hitting the right symbol combination on the wall to light up the treasure alcove. However, it comes with a cheat sheet to help stumped visitors solve the puzzle. “We didn’t want to make it too difficult for the parents,” Ms. Mangan said. The recent visit by students from the Florence A. Smith School No. 2 in Oceanside began with the first of the three rotating classes scrambling over a rickety entrance bridge, which was actually only a couple of inches off the ground, and speeding off like eager Indiana Jones cadets. “Do we get to keep what we find?” one student yelled over his shoulder. Several students lingered at a display of food consumed by the Maya, including cacao, which they considered the food of the gods and also used as currency. Others investigated the skeletal remains of what might have been a Maya king and expressed disappointment that his jade-coated teeth had been taken by tomb robbers. Most of the students completed the glyph search quickly, activated the display and stepped back, shouting: “We did it! We did it!” Afterward, they gazed with satisfaction at the illuminated treasure: a medallion resting on plastic jade jewelry and guarded by a coiled serpent. Another fifth grader, Olivia Degen, 10, of Rockville Centre, had obviously done her homework. Asked by a museum educator at the food display what the Maya might have added to the bitter cacao mixture to make it drinkable, she immediately replied, “Sugar.” Leading the way to another tomb section, she pointed to a symbol that looked a bit like a happy cartoon creature. This, Olivia explained, was what archeologists called the “star wars” glyph, a reflection of the Maya strategy of planning wars in accordance with astronomical events. “They had wars with people,” she said, incredulously, “depending on what the stars said.” Gianna, of Oceanside, was especially taken with a series of drawings of gods in a creepy cave passageway complete with hanging vines. She paused over a deity depicted with claws, fangs and a serpent headdress, designated as Ix Chel. “Look, this is so cool,” she said to Jill Hissong, of Rockville Centre, a chaperone whose daughter, Natalie, is in one of the classes. “That’s the rainbow goddess,” Ms. Hissong said, bending to read in the dim light. She added that Ix Chel was the goddess of childbirth and weaving but could also cause floods. Like Gianna, many children were leery of the exhibition’s spider hole attraction, a 4-by-2-inch rectangle positioned in one of the tomb walls. After each person’s hand is “bitten” by a sharp shot of air, a screen above the hole lights up to identify the creature inside. A nearby book filled with photos of snakes, spiders and scorpions explains that this is the Freya rustica spider, a menacing-looking, light brown creature whose bite actually contains venom no deadlier than a bee sting. “Go on,” one boy muttered scornfully at his companion poised in front of the hole. “It’s just a puff of air.” “I know that,” his friend yelled back, still hesitating. The traveling exhibition was developed in 2006 by the Arkansas Discovery Network , a group of seven museums and educational centers in the state that focuses on creating interactive museum experiences, and was financed by a grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation . Aimee Terzulli, director of education for the Long Island Children’s Museum, said the exhibition was chosen because of its emphasis on “dramatic role playing” that helped students learn the subject matter. A variety of workshops, including simulated archaeological digs on March 3 and April 10, will supplement the show. The fact that the Maya were mostly from southern Mexico and northern Central America was another factor influencing the decision to bring the exhibition to the museum. “We have a concentration of people from that area on Long Island and knew it would be a good cultural connection for them,” Ms. Terzulli said. All three classes visiting the museum from the Florence A. Smith school had just completed research papers on indigenous cultures of the Western Hemisphere, including the Maya, according to Mary Hegmann, a science and social studies teacher there. “It was nice for them to be able to see what they had studied in books actually come to life,” she said. Although the exhibition was about an ancient world, it was hard to keep the modern one out. Several students, for instance, didn’t bother using the paper handouts to mark down the glyphs during their quest, Ms. Mangan pointed out. “They just took pictures of them with their cellphone,” she said. | Art;Garden City (NY);Long Island Children's Museum;Education (K-12);Mayans;Children and Childhood;Archaeology |
ny0027658 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2013/01/26 | Super Bowl — Ravens’ Pollard Delivers Loud Words and Big Hits | OWINGS MILLS, Md. — In the Baltimore Ravens’ locker room, Bernard Pollard blends into the background. Terrell Suggs, the veteran linebacker, has a daily habit of cranking up the volume on his stereo system to a decibel level that could be described as “ear bleeding,” though it barely manages to drown out his own voice. Wide receiver Jacoby Jones sings. Linebacker Ray Lewis shrieks. It is a noisy place, packed with personalities. And then there is Pollard , a strong safety who generally keeps to himself until game day, when he channels a boatload of inner rage into hits that render unusually large human beings into lesser versions of themselves. “Guys are afraid to run across the middle against him,” defensive end Arthur Jones said. Last Sunday, in the Ravens’ 28-13 victory over the New England Patriots for the A.F.C. championship, Pollard reinforced his reputation as a man who hurts people — Patriots in particular. In the fourth quarter, running back Stevan Ridley lowered his helmet and struck Pollard head-on, Ridley’s body going limp as he fumbled. The Ravens recovered the ball and later scored to cement a berth in the Super Bowl against the San Francisco 49ers. Image The Ravens' Bernard Pollard tends to converse by yelling, even on the phone, an ex-teammate says. Credit Gregory Bull/Associated Press Ridley was merely the latest member of the Patriots organization to sustain an injury after being hit by Pollard, joining the likes of Tom Brady (knee, 2008), Wes Welker (knee, 2010) and Rob Gronkowski (ankle, 2012). Pollard, a seventh-year veteran, said there was never any malicious intent. “This is a violent sport,” he said, adding: “I ask you the question: If I came to your house with the doors locked, and I just kicked it down and tried to steal stuff, you’re going to defend your house, right? So that’s the stand I take. We got grass behind us, and we have an end zone that we have to defend.” Pollard does not try to intimidate people, he said. It just seems to happen. This week, when he discovered that a television reporter had borrowed the chair from his locker so he could interview another player, Pollard glared at him. “I’m going to use my fist on you!” he said. Then he smiled. “I’m joking, man. Don’t sue me.” (The reporter, for the record, looked terrified.) Ryan Moats, a former running back who was a teammate of Pollard’s on the Houston Texans, said Pollard’s primary mode of self-expression was yelling — not because he is angry, but because this apparently is the only way he knows how to communicate. Moats said he once tried to explain to Pollard that normal people talk, especially on the phone. It did not do much good. “Very confident individual,” said Moats, who compared the 6-foot-1, 225-pound Pollard to the former Philadelphia Eagles safety Brian Dawkins, who carried himself with the same relentless tenacity. “There are very few people in the game who are like that, where it just pours out of them.” Moats, who runs his own graphics-design company, recently teamed with Pollard to design an iPhone app based on the card game bourré. As one can imagine, Pollard was extremely hands on. He knows what he wants and how he wants it, said Moats, who could not recall Pollard conceding failure, not once, not at anything. Image The Ravens’ Bernard Pollard, right, stopped Patriots receiver Wes Welker last Sunday in the A.F.C. championship game. Credit Jared Wickerham/Getty Images “And that’s the way he plays the game,” Moats said. “He’s one of the most sure tacklers I’ve ever gone up against. He’s going to get a piece of you every time, all the time. He’s going to do everything he can to get you on the ground. It’s his passion.” Befitting his growing stature in the league, Pollard has multiple nicknames. He has been known to refer to himself as Chocolate Therapy (for his dance moves) and as the Bonecrusher (for obvious reasons). Jones, in the most glowing way possible, calls Pollard a “Christian thug.” “He loves the Lord, but he means business,” Jones said. Pollard’s confidence reveals itself in the locker room, where he has no qualms about being naked. He will conduct full interviews in the nude. Pants are the enemy. When local journalists gave Pollard their “good guy” award after the 2011 season for being accommodating, they presented him with a pair of boxer shorts, in the hope that he would wear them. His own teammates have encouraged him to use a towel or two. When Pollard was younger, authority figures sometimes struggled to keep him in line. Joe Tiller, his former coach at Purdue, said Pollard was “not the easiest guy to manage.” When Pollard was a junior, he and Tiller got into a highly publicized shouting match during a preseason practice. As Pollard left the field, Tiller extended the length of Pollard’s suspension each time he opened his mouth: one day, two days, three days. “He’s a high-intensity guy,” Tiller said in a telephone interview, “and I doubt that’s changed.” Pollard remains a man of extremes, and unapologetically so. He is not in the business of making friends. “I really don’t care if you like me,” he said. “I really don’t care if you don’t like the things I say. It’s not going to stop me from being who I am.” | Football;Ravens;Super Bowl;Playoffs;Patriots;Bernard Pollard |
ny0155958 | [
"business",
"worldbusiness"
] | 2008/06/11 | Energy Agency Reduces Forecast for Oil Demand | Global oil demand is expected to grow at a slower pace than previously expected this year as a result of record prices and shrinking subsidies in some emerging countries, a leading energy forecaster said on Tuesday. But because of lagging investments in new sources of oil, the growth in consumption is still expected to outpace new supplies, according to the latest monthly report by the International Energy Agency, a policy adviser for industrial countries. “These abnormally high prices are largely explained by fundamentals,” the report said. “Supply growth so far this year has been poor and higher prices are needed to choke off demand to balance the market.” Oil consumption is expected to reach 86.8 million barrels a day in 2008, 800,000 barrels a day higher than in 2007. In January, the energy agency expected demand to grow by 2 million barrels a day this year. In its latest report, the agency pared its forecast by 80,000 barrels a day from last month. It is the fifth time that the energy agency has cut its outlook in the face of rising prices. In part, demand will slow as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Taiwan lift some fuel subsidies. Energy subsidies in developing countries have been blamed for shielding consumers from the true cost of energy, and encouraging consumption. In developed countries, oil demand is expected to fall by half a million barrels a day this year, almost entirely on a drop in consumption of 510,000 barrels a day in the United States, to 20.28 million barrels a day. Still, slowing demand in industrialized countries will be more than offset by growth in China and the Middle East. Chinese oil demand is expected to rise by 410,000 barrels a day, reaching 7.95 million barrels a day this year, while Middle East consumption is expected to rise by 330,000 barrels a day, to 6.84 million barrels a day. The energy agency expects the global market to remain tight and expects only modest expansions in new oil supplies as large producers like Russia and Mexico disappointed the market and investments from OPEC producers lagged. Oil supplies increased by 490,000 barrels a day in May to reach 86.6 million barrels a day. Most growth in extra supplies will come from nonconventional sources, like natural gas liquids, gas condensates, synthetic fuels from Canada or bio-fuels, the agency said. The mandate of the I.E.A., which was established after the oil shocks of 1974, includes coordinating the emergency responses of industrialized countries when supply is disrupted. The last time the energy agency intervened was in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina knocked out production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. The precise impact of higher costs on energy consumption remains uncertain but many analysts believe that the agency’s forecasts are still too optimistic. Energy analysts at Merrill Lynch, who pared down their outlook for global demand this year, said oil prices would have to rise even more in order to suppress consumption globally. “While demand destruction is on the way, oil prices may still spike further in the near-term to cause behavior change in consumers and governments alike,” Merrill Lynch said in a report released Monday. “In effect, demand rationing will likely have to occur at a large scale before we see a reversal of the recent price trends.” Meanwhile, a new federal government study forecast that gasoline prices would peak at $4.15 a gallon in August. Gasoline jumped above $4 for the first time on a national average last weekend. In its last report, the federal Energy Information Administration had forecast gas prices would peak at $3.73 a gallon in June. Oil prices, which are up 40 percent this year, fell $3.04, settling at $131.31 a barrel on Tuesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The drop came as the dollar rebounded strongly against the euro. Oil prices have risen more than sixfold since 2002. The rapid rise in oil prices is turning into a major political issue in the United States and Europe, stoking inflation and contributing to slower economic growth. Rising energy costs are expected to be discussed at the forthcoming Group of Eight meeting in Japan this weekend. But despite the concerns over economic growth, investors and energy executives seem increasingly comfortable with the prospect of rising oil prices. Several prominent Wall Street banks predict that oil will touch $150 to $200 a barrel in the short term. The chief executive of Gazprom of Russia, one of the world’s largest energy companies, said Tuesday that he expected prices to reach $250 a barrel “in the foreseeable future” because of competition for energy resources. For the first time since the oil rally began in 2002, the agency raised the possibility that countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development could engineer an emergency release of their strategic oil stocks to push down prices. The move would be politically delicate, since the stocks are kept to make up sudden supply disruptions caused by wars, but would reflect the growing unease of government in the face of record prices. “There is also another supply response to consider: an I.E.A. strategic stock release,” the report said. “Given that OPEC countries are running close to flat out, the market can take comfort that the I.E.A. is watching developments very closely and is prepared to act quickly if necessary.” | Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline;International Trade and World Market;International Energy Agency |
ny0255972 | [
"business",
"economy"
] | 2011/08/05 | Time to Say It: Double Dip May Be Happening | Double dip may be back. It has been three decades since the United States suffered a recession that followed on the heels of the previous one. But it could be happening again. The unrelenting negative economic news of the past two weeks has painted a picture of a United States economy that fell further and recovered less than we had thought. When what may eventually be known as Great Recession I hit the country, there was general political agreement that it was incumbent on the government to fight back by stimulating the economy. It did, and the recession ended. But Great Recession II, if that is what we are entering, has provoked a completely different response. Now the politicians are squabbling over how much to cut spending. After months of wrangling, they passed a bill aimed at forcing more reductions in spending over the next decade. If this is the beginning of a new double dip, it will have two significant things in common with the dual recessions of 1980 and 1981-82. In each case the first recession was caused in large part by a sudden withdrawal of credit from the economy. The recovery came when credit conditions recovered. And in each case the second recession began at a time when the usual government policies to fight economic weakness were deemed unavailable. Then, the need to fight inflation ruled out an easier monetary policy. Now, the perceived need to reduce government spending rules out a more accommodating fiscal policy. The American economy fell into what was at first a fairly mild recession at the end of 2007. But the downturn turned into a worldwide plunge after the failure of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 led to the vanishing of credit for nearly all borrowers not deemed super-safe. Banks in the United States and other countries needed bailouts to survive. The unavailability of credit caused a decline in world trade volumes of a magnitude not seen since the Great Depression , and nearly every economy went into recession. But it turned out that businesses overreacted. While sales to customers fell, they did not decline as much as production did. That fact set the stage for an economic rebound that began in mid-2009, with the National Bureau of Economic Research , the arbiter of such things, determining that the recession ended in June of that year. Manufacturers around the world reported rapidly rising orders. Until recently, most observers believed the American economy was in a slow recovery, albeit one with very disappointing job growth. The official figures on gross domestic product showed the United States economy grew to a record size in the final three months of 2010, having erased the loss of 4.1 percent in G.D.P. from top to bottom. Then last week the government announced its annual revision to the numbers for the last several years. New government surveys indicated Americans had spent less than previously estimated in 2009 and 2010 on a wide range of things, including food, clothing and computers. Tax returns showed Americans even cut back on gambling . The recession now appears to have been deeper — a top-to-bottom fall of 5.1 percent — and the recovery even less impressive. The economy is still smaller than it was in 2007. In June, more American manufacturers said new orders fell than rose, according to a survey by the Institute for Supply Management . The margin was small, but the survey had shown rising orders for 24 consecutive months. Manufacturers in most European countries, including Germany and Britain , also reported weaker new orders. Back in 1980, a recession was started when the government — despairing of its failure to bring down surging inflation rates — invoked controls aimed at limiting the expansion of credit and making it more costly for banks to make loans . Those controls proved to be far more effective than anyone expected, and the economy promptly tanked. In July the credit controls were ended, and the economic research bureau later determined that the recession ended that month. By the first quarter of 1981 the economy was larger than it had been at the previous peak. But little had been done about inflation, and the Federal Reserve was determined to slay that dragon. With interest rates high, home sales plunged in late 1981 to the lowest level since the government began collecting the data in 1963. Now they are even lower. There is, of course, no assurance that a new recession has begun or will do so soon, and a positive jobs report on Friday morning could revive some optimism. But concerns have grown that the essential problems that led to the 2007-09 recession were not solved, just as inflation remained high throughout the 1980 downturn. Housing prices have not recovered, and millions of Americans owe more in mortgage debt than their homes are worth. Extremely low interest rates helped to push up corporate profits, but companies have hired relatively few people. In any other cycle, the recent spate of poor economic news would have resulted in politicians vying with one another to propose programs to revive growth. President Obama has called for more spending on infrastructure, but there appears to be little chance Congress will take any action. The focus in Washington is now on deciding where to reduce spending, not increase it. There have been some hints that the Federal Reserve might be willing to resume purchasing government bonds , which it stopped doing in June, despite opposition from conservative members of Congress. But the revised economic data may indicate that the previous program — known as QE2 , for quantitative easing — had even less impact than had been thought. With short-term interest rates near zero, the Fed’s monetary policy options are limited. Government stimulus programs historically have often appeared to be accomplishing little until the cumulative effect suddenly helps to power a self-sustaining recovery. This time, the best hope may be that the stimulus we have already had will prove to have been enough. | US Economy;Recession and Depression |
ny0264367 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2011/12/06 | Ireland’s Austerity Hailed as Example of Financial Survival | DUBLIN — As European leaders scramble to overcome the Continent’s debt crisis , many are pointing to Ireland as a model for how to get out of the troubles. Having embraced severe belt-tightening to mend its tattered finances, Ireland is showing glimmers of a turnaround. A year after it received a 67.5 billion euro bailout, or about $90 billion at current exchange rates, modest growth has returned and the budget deficit is shrinking. But the effects of austerity have pummeled Ireland’s fragile economy, leaving scars that are likely to take years to heal. Nearly 40,000 Irish have fled the country this year alone in search of a brighter future elsewhere; the trend is expected to continue. “This is still an insolvent economy,” said Constantin Gurdgiev, an economist and lecturer at Trinity College in Dublin. “Just because we’re playing a good-boy role and not making noises like the Greeks doesn’t mean Ireland is healthy.” The German chancellor, Angela Merkel , recently praised the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, for setting an “outstanding example,” while the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy , declared that Ireland was already “almost out of the crisis.” Underneath the surface, however, the grinding reality of Irish life belies those glowing commendations. Salaries of nurses, professors and other public sector workers have been cut around 20 percent. A range of taxes , including on housing and water, have increased. Investment in public works is virtually moribund. On Monday and Tuesday, Mr. Kenny’s government is announcing an additional 3.8 billion euros in tax increases and spending cuts for 2012 that will affect health care, social protections and child benefits. Retail sales fell 3.8 percent in October from a year earlier as spending was down even on things like school textbooks, shoes and other basic goods. At a Spar convenience store in the center of Dublin, Samantha O’Donnell, a mother of two, filled her shopping basket with some necessities, then put a few back on the shelf. “A lot of people are just trying to get by week to week,” said Mrs. O’Donnell, who said her salary as a nursing assistant had been cut. To Sean Kay, a professor of politics at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware , Ohio , and the author of a recent book examining Ireland’s crisis, Mrs. O’Donnell’s experience is typical. “The Irish are being praised for doing what they were asked to do, which is important for bringing investors back to the country,” he said. “But for the Irish people, it’s not paying off.” There are signs of improvement. Compared with the previous year, exports are up 5.4 percent for the first nine months of 2011, driven by gains from Pfizer , Intel, SAP and other multinational companies that were drawn to Ireland in the 1990s and 2000s by its low taxes, well-educated English-speaking work force and access to the European market. New information technology companies like LinkedIn and Facebook have recently arrived. Prospects for local technology companies are improving, too. Brian Farrell founded Tethras with a partner three years ago to develop mobile applications for smartphones. He now has 16 employees and hopes to double his work force in the next 18 months. “Every time you turn the radio on, companies in I.T. are hiring,” Mr. Farrell said, referring to information technology. Gross domestic product grew 1.2 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, compared with a decline of 0.4 percent for all of 2010 and 7 percent in 2009. The interest rates that Ireland would pay its international creditors if it were not on a financial lifeline have also fallen, to 8.7 percent today from 14 percent in August, in part because investors hope that European policy makers will resolve the broader debt crisis. But that is still above the level that led Ireland to seek a bailout and too high to allow for sustainable finances. The budget deficit has fallen to around 10 percent of gross domestic product this year from a staggering 32 percent in 2010. But even under the best circumstances, it will not reach the Europe -wide target of 3 percent until 2015. Moreover, the recovery looks to be short-lived, probably putting that goal out of reach. The Economic and Social Research Institute, based in Dublin, recently cut its 2012 growth forecasts for Ireland in half, to under 1 percent. It cited an expected recession in the wider euro zone, in part because the austerity being pressed on much of Europe by Germany and the European Central Bank is seen as worsening the prospects for recovery rather than improving them. “The present situation contains elements reminiscent of policy during the Great Depression , when a mounting crisis was confronted by an orthodoxy that resulted in great poverty that could have been avoided,” the institute wrote in a report. Pain is inevitable in any nation overwhelmed by its debts, which in Ireland continue to climb rather than fall as a percentage of gross domestic product. But the Irish example shows the dangers of taking from ordinary people to pay off creditors rather than sharing the burden more broadly. For example, welfare payments have steadily been reduced even as the unemployment rate has ticked up to 14.5 percent, and is forecast to remain high at least through next year. The Irish are not prone to protest, but now more are being organized, inspired by the Occupy movement in the United States . On a recent frosty night in Dublin, David Johnson, 38, an I.T. consultant, stepped outside a makeshift camp set up by the Occupy Dame Street movement in front of the Irish Central Bank. “This is all new to Ireland,” he said, pointing to tarpaulins and protest signs that urged the government to boot out the International Monetary Fund and require bondholders to share Irish banks ’ losses that have largely been assumed by taxpayers. “The feeling is that the people who can least afford it are the ones shouldering the burden of this crisis.” Joblessness would be much higher, economists say, if not for the rising tide of Irish people leaving for Australia , Britain and Canada as opportunities at home stagnate. Thousands of students and construction workers left this country of 4.5 million people after the economy slid into recession in 2008, most of them expecting to be away temporarily. But now, accountants, engineers, dentists and other high-skilled professionals are moving with their families. And many are not looking back, said Edwina Shanahan, a senior manager at Visa First, a company that helps set Irish citizens and others up with visas abroad. “The politicians said things would get better,” she said. “But things are instead a disaster zone for many.” Deirdre Cronin, 29, an accountant in Cork , plans to move in the new year with her husband and two young children to Australia, which has become a mecca for tens of thousands of Irish seeking a brighter future. “We feel we would never be able to give our children an opportunity” in Ireland, she said. “We’re going to work hard out there, and earn a decent living.” The exodus of workers from declining areas to growing ones is one way economies rebalance. But it could take years to do so. In the meantime, many Irish acknowledge that they fear that the hard gains Ireland has eked out could be swept away if Europe’s leaders fail in their latest effort to prevent the crisis from fracturing the monetary union. “The euro zone is entering a very serious slump, and it is not certain the euro will survive in its current form,” said Simon Johnson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ’s Sloan School of Management and a former chief economist at the I.M.F. “Why Ireland would want to spend its time being a model student in the context of the broader European mishandling of the situation, I don’t know.” | Ireland;Euro Crisis;Budget;Economy |
ny0292937 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2016/06/29 | Hard-to-Sell Assets Complicate European Banks’ ‘Brexit’ Risks | Even before Britain voted to cut ties with the rest of Europe, large European banks with global ambitions and sprawling operations in London were struggling. Now, as banks scramble to assess the impact of a British exit from the European Union, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Barclays and others face increased pressure from investors. While they recovered some ground on Tuesday, the stock prices of these banks have fallen sharply after the British vote, on increased fears that they will be unable to sell the billions of dollars of derivatives, securitized mortgages and other hard-to-value and sell securities that they so desperately need to get rid of. Mike Mayo, a banking analyst with CLSA, refers to what he calls the 5 C’s in describing what ails the big European banks — a number of which he has worked for during his peripatetic career. These are costs, complexity, capital markets, currency risks and central banks, which engineered the superlow interest rates that are squeezing margins. “The pain is not going away anytime soon,” he said. Britain’s decision, however, also raises more existential questions about the futures of these entities, which over the decades became rooted in the notion that London was — and would always be — the financial locus of Europe. While it is not expected that European banks will immediately resettle their London-based bankers and traders in Zurich, Hong Kong, Frankfurt or New York, the vote — and its political consequences — certainly challenges the view that London will continue to be the spiritual and financial hub of these institutions. It was precisely this mind-set that led Deutsche Bank, Barclays and Credit Suisse to hire many thousands of investment bankers and traders to staff fast-growing London offices in the 20 years leading up to the financial crisis. The wisdom at the time was that destinies were being driven by high-risk, high-return trading businesses tapping into a global finance boom centered largely in London. During the heyday, in fact, all three banks were led by executives who rose through the ranks on the strength of their expertise in peddling bonds and derivatives to global investors. Anshu Jain of Deutsche Bank and Robert E. Diamond at Barclays were based in London, while Brady Dougan at Credit Suisse made constant trips to the firm’s office there from New York and Zurich. As regulators forced banks worldwide to cut back on risky businesses in recent years, worried boardrooms unceremoniously replaced the old guard with new leaders who were ordered to exit chancy areas that consumed the cash needed to fund new strategies in areas like wealth management. By any measure, it has not been an easy job. In a global financial environment that is both risk-averse and lacking enough ready buyers and sellers, offloading billions of dollars of mortgage securities, interest rate derivatives and leveraged loans has been a herculean task. Making the job harder is that the traders and investment bankers at these large banks are highly compensated, have big egos and are generally resistant to change. The new head at Credit Suisse, Tidjane Thiam, has had more of a problem in this regard than his peers. The result has been a bank more or less in open revolt . Perhaps the best way to assess a bank’s broad risk profile is to look at its exposure to Level 3 securities, which it is required to disclose regularly. Level 3 assets are securities that because they are so opaque and complex trade very rarely, if at all. So instead of seeing where a stock, bond or more complicated item is trading now, or even a few weeks ago, and then using this information to determine how much the investment is worth, valuing a Level 3 asset requires risk managers to, quite literally, make a guess. The process has come to be known on trading desks as “mark to myth” as opposed to the official vernacular of mark to model. According to their 2015 annual reports, Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse are sitting on the largest piles of Level 3 assets: 36 billion pounds for Barclays, 32 billion euros for Deutsche Bank and 31.5 billion Swiss francs for Credit Suisse. In June 2013, financial analysts at Berenberg, a German bank, highlighted the Level 3 exposures at these three banks in particular in warning of their investment prospects. At Credit Suisse, for example, Berenberg said that Level 3 assets were 133 percent of the firm’s core capital cushion. The percentage for Deutsche Bank was 96 percent and for Barclays, 49 percent. The bank’s advice to investors? Sell. Since then, Deutsche Bank’s shares have fallen by 64 percent, Credit Suisse’s by 65 percent and Barclays’ by 53 percent. Reflecting concerns among investors with regard to the risky assets they own, the three banks trade at steep discounts to their book value; Deutsche Bank leads the way at 70 percent. And there are few signs that the selling will let up soon, as a growing number of hedge funds have increased their bets against European banks. George Soros, who became known as the man who broke the Bank of England with a bet against the British pound in 1992, made a multimillion-dollar wager against Deutsche Bank after the British vote to leave the European Union. His Soros Fund Management took a short position of 0.51 percent of the bank’s stock on Friday, when the referendum results were announced. Marshall Wace, a London-based hedge fund, took a similar position that day. Both moves were disclosed in regulatory filings in Germany, where investors are required to disclose their short positions once they hit a threshold. This month, Mr. Thiam sent an email to employees attributing Credit Suisse’s low stock price to short positions taken by hedge funds. In a similar vein, a team of German academics published a study last year in which they concluded that the higher a bank’s exposure to these types of assets, the greater the chances that it might default at some point. In an interview on Tuesday, one of the paper’s three authors, Jan Riepe, a finance professor at the University of Tübingen, argued that the uncertainty surrounding Britain’s future in Europe made these banks an even riskier bet, as it will be all the harder to get rid of these securities in such an environment. “All this Brexit uncertainty is drying up the markets,” Mr. Riepe said. “And because many of these assets are traded over the counter in London, it is even more difficult to value them. It’s very dangerous for the banks.” | Brexit;Deutsche Bank;Credit Suisse Group;Barclays;Europe;Banking and Finance;EU;Great Britain;Stocks,Bonds;Derivatives |
ny0262622 | [
"us"
] | 2011/12/04 | New England Moves to Preserve a More Recent Heritage | LINCOLN, Mass. — In a region that prizes center-chimney Colonials, shingled Capes, saltboxes and other homes that have helped shape New England’s unmistakable sense of place, Polly Flansburgh’s boxy, low-slung house does not leap out as historic. Built in 1963 in the modern style, Ms. Flansburgh’s home seems a better fit for Los Angeles or Palm Springs than for this town, not far from where Henry David Thoreau built his cabin in the woods. But one of the nation’s oldest preservation groups recently helped Ms. Flansburgh protect the house with an easement — a legal agreement ensuring that it cannot be torn down or significantly altered, even if it gets new owners. The group, Historic New England , is now seeking to protect certain modern houses along with the more traditional New England homes it has helped preserve for generations. It started doing so in 2008, after some notable modern homes in the region were torn down to make way for the McMansions of the real estate boom. “There was just no appreciation for the value of them,” said Jess Phelps, the team leader for historic preservation at the group, which has 81 easements on properties around the region, mostly houses in the Federal and Georgian styles. Modern homes, most of which date from the 1940s through the ’60s, were often built on large lots and with less sturdy materials than older housing stock, Mr. Phelps said, making them all the more tempting targets for demolition. So far, Historic New England has secured easements on only three modern houses: two here in Lincoln, where more than 60 such homes were built, and one in New Canaan, Conn., where dozens of modern houses remain. But the effort is raising awareness about the potential historic value of such homes in the region, Mr. Phelps said, which is a crucial first step. “We have a lot of First Period houses, very old houses,” he said, “so there’s this preconception of what we’re interested in.” Although Lincoln has plenty of traditional New England homes, it became a laboratory for modernist architecture, after Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus School, built a house here in 1938 while teaching at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. (The house is now owned by Historic New England and is open to the public.) Similar-minded architects followed, also building small colonies of modern homes in nearby Lexington and Belmont and on the Outer Cape. While their creations might seem out of place here, they match the ideals of Thoreau, said Alexander Gorlin, an architect whose book with the photographer Geoffrey Gross, “ Tomorrow’s Houses: New England Modernism ,” came out this year. Mr. Gorlin said the plain, functional style of modernism, meant to blend into the landscape, echoed Thoreau’s desire to live simply and in harmony with nature. Gropius, he added, was inspired by another early New England thinker, Ralph Waldo Emerson. “There was a very specific intention on the part of Gropius to use Emerson as a kind of touchstone in creating a new architecture that had no reference to the past,” Mr. Gorlin said. Ms. Flansburgh, whose late husband, Earl, was an architect who designed their house and several others in the area, said that some had been “totally destroyed and replaced by neo-Georgian monstrosities.” She was granted the easement this year to ensure that her house would survive; even the gravel yard and the white pine trees that surround it cannot be removed under the agreement, since the landscaping around the house is part of the design. A few miles away, the children of Henry B. Hoover, another modernist architect, sought an easement in 2008 on the house their father designed in 1937 and raised his family in. Mr. Hoover’s son, Henry Hoover Jr., said he had seen several modern homes torn down and wanted to protect theirs from people who might consider modernism “a Johnny-come-lately” and want to build something else on the two-acre lot once he and his surviving sister, Lucretia Giese, are gone. “Modernism is loved in some quarters but not others,” Ms. Giese said as she showed a visitor around the compact brick and wood house on a hill, with plate-glass windows looking out on a rocky landscape. “People are less willing to adapt their own needs to what’s there.” Certain features of modern design might seem a bad fit for the New England climate: flat roofs, for example, which can make winter “knuckle-biting time,” Mr. Hoover said. The long winters can also be hard on some of the building materials, like the corrugated plastic roof on the carport of the Hoover house, which also creates a broader preservation challenge. “The durability of the materials really poses some issues,” said Shantia Anderheggen, easement administrator at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has easements on a modernist home in New Canaan and another in Los Altos Hills, Calif. But while protecting modern homes brings new complexities, Mr. Phelps said, there was also an unusual benefit: getting advice from the original owners. Needless to say, that is impossible with a 17th- or 18th-century house. “With really old houses, we don’t have that connection,” Mr. Phelps said. “It adds a richness.” | Architecture;Historic Buildings and Sites;Real Estate and Housing (Residential);New England States (US);Historic New England |
ny0069915 | [
"us"
] | 2014/12/25 | California: San Jose Clearing Out Homeless Enclaves | After closing the Jungle, the nation’s largest homeless camp, officials in San Jose, Calif., are aggressively cleaning out other encampments before they grow. The San Jose Mercury News reported that more than 200 homeless sites have been counted in San Jose over the last 12 months. Last weekend, workers cleared out 15 to 20 people who had set up a makeshift tent city on a lot beneath a downtown overpass. Starting in early November, homeless people set up tents, started fires for cooking and warmth, and left mounds of trash in the area. Now the fence surrounding the lot has been repaired and reinforced with razor wire. In early December, officials cleared out the last of roughly 200 people who had been living in the Jungle, a 68-acre encampment in central San Jose. Some of those people were moved into subsidized housing and others have been given rental subsidy vouchers. The city also is close to housing some homeless people in motels. Last week, the county Board of Supervisors asked the city to research ways to expand shelter space as well as possibly buying prebuilt mini-homes, something that has been tried in other cities as an alternative to shelter beds. | San Jose CA;Homelessness;Public Housing;Squatting |
ny0006919 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/05/28 | Selling a Madoff Home | The lush white mansion for sale at 34 Pheasant Run in Old Westbury on Long Island makes a grand first impression. It has a long, winding driveway; a tennis court; a two-bedroom pool house surrounded by lavish gardens; a parade of antiques in its hallways; and marble in hues of lapis and gold throughout the ground floor. In many ways, the house is quite beautiful. But it is also a place full of shadows, a haunting just visible in its empty silver picture frames and in the red, white and blue signs that hang on every door: “United States Marshal,” the signs say. “No Trespassing.” The shadow behind all that opulence is other people’s money. This was one of the residences of Peter B. Madoff, chief compliance officer at the firm owned by his older brother, Bernard L. Madoff. Image The rear of Peter B. Madoff’s former home in Old Westbury, on Long Island. The asking price for the property is $4.495 million. Credit Uli Seit for The New York Times Peter Madoff pleaded guilty last year to a host of crimes, including falsifying documents and lying to regulators. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to forfeit all of his and his family’s assets to the government, so they could be sold, piece by piece, and the proceeds distributed to victims of his brother’s Ponzi scheme. The Marshals Service took possession of the Old Westbury home in January, and late last month it put the property on the market for $4.495 million. “When dealing with a home this grandiose, the outside world can lose sight of where all these fine things come from,” Kevin Kamrowski, a deputy United States marshal, said in an e-mail. “Everything in this home was obtained on the backs of other people.” When the Marshals Service takes over a property, a well-practiced process is set in motion. First, the house is secured and the locks are changed; motion-sensing security systems and surveillance cameras might be installed. (In the foyer of the Madoff property, there is a sturdy-looking gray box standing on an ornate little table. Feel free to wave at it.) Image Items that are not part of the house itself are appraised and tagged. The Marshals Service will sell them at auction to the public. Credit Uli Seit for The New York Times Next, contractors are hired to do a bit of maintenance, and a real estate management company brings in a local agent to sell the property. In a high-profile case, the Marshals Service helps to select the sales team. An important preliminary: Every single piece of property that is not a part of the house itself is indexed, appraised and tagged. At the house on Pheasant Run, in the 600-square-foot formal living room, a forest of little white tags swing from every surface. They are on gold-color lamps, crystal candlesticks and a delicate wooden coffee table piled high with books, including “Dog Painting: The European Breeds,” “Dog Painting: A Social History of the Dog in Art” and “A Breed Apart.” Above the fireplace, centered over a mantel of dark wood and darker marble, the dog theme continues, with a painting of what appears to be a chocolate Labrador retriever. Nearby, a painting of a blond toddler playing with another dog — also large, but this time shaggy — hangs in a gilded frame. In the library, two smaller dogs reside together in a frame above a sofa. Image Crystal candlesticks and other items were tagged for sale. Credit Uli Seit for The New York Times And if you were to take them off the wall, you would find a little white tag behind every one. Even the patio furniture, the dog dishes in the kitchen, and bottles of gin and Cognac in a mirrored bar in the corner of the library are tagged and numbered. Once the house is sold, its contents will be auctioned to the public, in what will surely be one of Long Island’s best-attended tag sales. Despite these little touches, the house generally does not feel like a criminal’s lair. Indeed, like any other high-priced home for sale, it has been carefully staged to show its prettiest face to potential buyers. A bit of landscaping was done here, some robes were hung in an immense bathroom over there, and there was even an elaborate picnic spread arranged in a basket on the kitchen table, complete with checkered napkins and cutlery. “This was staged with, believe it or not, my recommendations and the hard work of the U.S. Marshals office,” said Shawn Elliott of Shawn Elliott Luxury Homes and Estates, the broker brought in to sell the property. “Every single book in here was actually taken off the shelf, tagged and numbered, and then put back.” One book, however, was left out, prominently displayed on a table in the library: “A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 1: You Shall Be Holy,” by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin. Image A collection of walking sticks tagged for sale in the foyer. Credit Uli Seit for The New York Times As a part of the staging, the asset forfeiture division of the Marshals Service tries to remove personal effects, like clothing, that might walk away during a tour, or might remind potential buyers of who once padded down these hallways in his slippers. A small bedroom is stacked high with cardboard boxes full of clothing and other items that will eventually go to auction. Photographs removed from frames are returned to the family. Even with a name as notorious as “Madoff,” there is no felon discount on a home like this. Bernard Madoff’s Manhattan apartment was sold for $8 million and Peter Madoff’s Park Avenue two-bedroom for $4.6 million, prices in line with the market at the time. Some personal belongings can even fetch inflated prices, like Bernard Madoff’s Mets jacket, which sold at auction in 2009 for $14,500. Some potential buyers who have come through the Old Westbury house have been curious about the Madoffs, Mr. Elliott said. But for his part, he tries to think about the scandal as little as possible. “The less I know about a situation, for me, the better,” Mr. Elliott said. “My job as the real estate broker on this is to get the victims as much money as humanly possible.” Mr. Elliott has received offers on the property, but none has been accepted yet. When the house is finally sold, the proceeds will go to a victims compensation fund administered by the Justice Department, which has so far recovered more than $2.3 billion for Madoff victims. A separate fund for property and proceeds associated with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities is being administered by Irving Picard and has recovered $9.345 billion. Though Peter and Marion Madoff’s primary residence was in Manhattan, they owned the house in Old Westbury for more than 20 years, and despite best efforts, that amount of history can be difficult to completely scrub away. Last week, there were still a few signs of the lives lived in that house before: a pair of reading glasses on a marble countertop; two jars of marmalade left in a bare refrigerator; and inside a long pearl box in Mrs. Madoff’s bathroom, a single artificial fingernail tip, painted a warm shade of cotton candy pink. | Real Estate; Housing;Peter B Madoff;Bernard L Madoff;Long Island;Marshals Service;Justice Department;Ponzi and Pyramid Schemes;Old Westbury NY |
ny0117111 | [
"technology"
] | 2012/10/19 | Google Shares Drop After Earnings Disappoint | SAN FRANCISCO — Google released a disappointing earnings report on Thursday that sent its stock price plummeting and reflected the challenges the company faces as it tries to make money in a mobile world. For Google, mobile has been a mixed blessing. Smartphones and tablets are bringing in new users — and the advertisers that follow them — but it makes less money on mobile ads than on desktop ads. The company reported that the price advertisers paid per click on an ad — referred to as cost per click — decreased 15 percent from the same period last year. This was the fourth consecutive quarter that number has declined, even as the number of paid clicks on ads climbed 33 percent, largely because people see Google ads on their phones on lunch break or in bed, not just when they are in front of a computer. The challenges of making money in a mobile world were not the only reason that Google’s net revenue and earnings per share fell significantly below analysts’ expectations. Motorola Mobility, the ailing cellphone maker it recently acquired, is bleeding money. Still, the report showed that Google was grappling with the mobile revenue riddle. And Google is not alone. The problem is also stumping technology companies like Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. Just as the Web upended traditional business models for print publications more than a decade ago, now mobile is disrupting Web businesses. “All of these mobile devices are generating clicks that are just less valuable to advertisers,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners, who said mobile ad clicks cost half of what clicks on desktop Web ads cost. “The supply part is doing so well, but the supply’s going to continue and continue to grow and they could devalue their inventory.” As usual, Google was scheduled to release its earnings after trading closed, but because of a financial publisher’s error, the company mistakenly filed the report with the Securities and Exchange Commission several hours earlier than planned. The stock price immediately plummeted more than 9 percent, or $68, before Nasdaq halted trading in its shares in the early afternoon. Shares ended the day down 8 percent and rose 1 percent in after-hours trading. Google executives took pains Thursday in the conference call with analysts to reassure investors that it was prepared for the challenges from mobile, and that it was already shifting its business models to adjust. “Monetization on mobile queries right now is a significant fraction of desktop,” Larry Page, Google’s chief executive, said. He said Google was exploring new ways to make more money as people increasingly used phones and tablets in addition to and instead of desktop computers, and said it was “uniquely positioned to get through that transition and to profit from it.” “I am not worried about this in terms of our business at all,” Mr. Page said. “I think it’s an opportunity for us.” The company said it was on track to generate $8 billion in the coming year from mobile, including ads and sales of apps. It did not break down how much of that would come from advertising, but said it was a large majority. Also, the decline in click prices was not just because of mobile ads, said Patrick Pichette, Google’s chief financial officer, but also because of other factors including currency headwinds, the balance between developed and emerging markets, the number of ads shown on Google sites versus other sites in its network and changes in types of ads. But the explosion of mobile users and ads has presented difficulties. Google has 55 percent market share in mobile ad revenue, and 95 percent for mobile search ads, according to eMarketer, the digital advertising research firm. Yet the ads cost less in large part because advertisers are not yet convinced that they are as effective as desktop ads. People click on ads on smartphones more often than they do on desktop computers, 5.1 percent compared with 2.4 percent of the time, according to Marin Software, which makes technology for advertisers to use to buy ads on Google, Bing, Facebook and other sites. That is because ads take up more space on cellphone screens and are more likely to answer the kinds of immediate questions asked on mobile devices, like “Where is a bar near the ballpark?” said Gagan Kanwar, director of research and partnerships at Marin. People make purchases after clicking on ads 4 percent of the time on desktops and just 2 percent of the time on phones, so mobile ads are worth less, he said. Still, Mr. Kanwar said, that is changing as Google and other companies invent new kinds of ads, like ones that let people click a phone number in a mobile ad to call a business, and new ways to track whether an ad leads to a purchase, like Google Offers with Groupon-style coupons. “The gap is starting to close, so you’re going to see more demand from advertisers to be on these devices, so we do think this is a short-term thing,” he said. Another mobile challenge for Google is that a majority of mobile searches happen on Apple devices, for which Google pays Apple a share of revenue, said Jordan Rohan, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. The company reported third-quarter revenue of $14.1 billion, an increase of 45 percent over the year-ago quarter. Net revenue, which excludes payments to the company’s advertising partners, was $11.33 billion, up from $7.51 billion. But net income sank to $2.18 billion, or $6.53 a share, from $2.73 billion, or $8.33 a share. The miss on expectations was more surprising because Google shares had an outstanding quarter, increasing 35 percent over the last three months, in part because of strong performance in new businesses like display advertising as well as stumbles by competitors like Facebook. Long the leader in search advertising, with 75 percent market share, Google has now become the leader in the other forms of digital advertising, display and mobile, according to eMarketer. Before the recent rally, the shares had been held back by concerns over antitrust and privacy investigations by regulators in the United States and elsewhere as well as concerns about Motorola and the potential of new Google businesses in the face of slowing search advertising growth. This was the first quarter that Motorola Mobility was included in full-quarter earnings, and its performance weighed on Google’s results. It lost $527 million in the quarter, despite deep cuts and layoffs. The Federal Trade Commission is preparing a staff recommendation to sue Google over antitrust violations before the end of the year. This week, European regulators warned Google that it faced penalties if it did not amend its privacy policy. Google blamed R. R. Donnelley & Sons, the publisher, for the early release of its earnings. Donnelley said it was investigating the error. Google was trigger-happy online on Thursday. The earnings release arrived while reporters were gathered at a Google news event to introduce its new laptop running the Chrome operating system. As reporters began whispering and running out of the presentation, Google announced that it had also erroneously published the Web site announcing the new laptops, before the scheduled release time. Later in the day, YouTube went down for some users — just before Google was set to broadcast its earnings call on YouTube. The earnings release was such an early draft that it said “pending Larry quote” at the top where Google planned to insert a quote from Mr. Page. A parody Twitter account, @PendingLarry, immediately appeared, with posts like, “I mean ... it’s 4:30 somewhere in the world, right?” | Google Inc;Company Reports;Stocks and Bonds |
ny0217782 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2010/05/05 | Honduras: Truth Commission to Study Coup | The Honduran government inaugurated a truth commission Tuesday, charged with investigating the events surrounding the coup last June that ousted former President Manuel Zelaya. The commission’s chairman, former Vice President Eduardo Stein of Guatemala, promised that the panel would interview both opponents and supporters of the coup. International human rights groups say that attacks on opponents of the coup have continued under the new government of President Porfirio Lobo. | Honduras;Coups D'Etat and Attempted Coups D'Etat |
ny0183669 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2007/12/23 | Brooklyn Mall Is Oasis and Anomaly | Ten, 9, 8, 7, 6 nights before Christmas and Santa is in full effect outside the Nextel store on the Fulton Street Mall. He cranks up the skipping soca rhythm on the backing tape and kicks it to the crowds pouring off the buses and trudging with bulging shopping bags down Brooklyn’s bustlingest outdoor retail strip. “Siii-lent night, hooo-ly night,” croons Santa, real name Maurice Sylla. “Come get your pho-o-one. Nextel got your pho-o-one.” A smiling young woman shoots him a look and asks “What’s up with your belly?” Under his loose-fitting red suit, Mr. Sylla has none to speak of. “Ah, black Santa bring sexy back,” Mr. Sylla fires off between lines of a pitch. “Tra la la la la, we got free phones,” he sings. Up and down the street, beneath the phony Grand Opening banners and the 70% Off signs, before the grand portals of the original Abraham & Straus store (now Macy’s), the midway atmosphere is thick in the postwork chill of evening. Barkers, known on the mall as flier guys, shout on top of one another. “Cellphone-service-no-credit-check-no-Social-no-contract!” “Every day ladies, up to 50 percent off every day!” Even the dental clinics have flier guys. Bootleggers selling DVDs and cigarettes from the inner pockets of their coats send up a riverine murmur, “Checkitoutcheckitoutcheckitout.” This is the old Fulton Street Mall in twilight, a chaotic throwback to the era before the sanitization and, yes, mallification of New York City’s retail districts. For every Nextel or Children’s Place or Foot Locker on the mall there is an immigrant-run mom-and-pop store offering off-brand electronics or no-brand suits or a trifecta of cellphones, gold teeth and sneakers. Not all are thriving — many, in fact, claim to be doing terribly — but they are somehow managing to pay some of the highest rents in the city, thanks to the 100,000 shoppers who flock to the mall’s 200 stores each day. The usual Christmas trappings, other than Mr. Sylla, are, in truth, in fairly short supply on the mall (though there is an official Santa-and-carols event for two hours on Saturdays). Window displays are less likely to include mechanized elves than signs like the hand-scrawled one in the window of ABC Superstores, “No shopping cart / no baby stroller / no baby stroller / no shopping cart.” And the mall is, without a doubt, headed for change, with the walls of gentrification literally closing in as high-end condo complexes march into place on all sides. But for now, the Fulton Mall, just west of Flatbush Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, remains an oasis and an anomaly, a half-mile haven in the midst of some of Brooklyn’s most affluent neighborhoods that caters largely, though certainly not exclusively, to the tastes and budgets of working-class people of color. Which suits shoppers like Michelle Abel, a tutor at the Brooklyn Public Library, who stood on the sidewalk on Wednesday checking off items on a long shopping list, just fine. “Everything I need is right here,” Ms. Abel said. “Clothes for my sister, Nintendo DS for my baby sister, a doll set for my little cousin, cologne for my father, a toy for my baby nephew.” Early Wednesday morning, the wigs in the window of M & M Beauty Supply were already rotating on their pedestals, lacquered tresses catching and throwing back the weak sunlight. Outside Universal Credit Furniture, the tattered red-white-and-blue bunting twitched in the breeze. At Goldmine Jewelers, Jah and his friend Mech from Bushwick were beating the crowds. They studied the necklaces and nameplates and diamond-encrusted gold skull pendants in the window, debating the fake and the real. “That chain will get you, you’ve got to look real, real close,” said Mech, pointing to a thin string of yellow and white dots that bore a resemblance to gold and diamonds. “Those who don’t know about gold get beat,” said Jah. “Get beat in the head,” Mech agreed. Jah and Mech were the first customers in the store. After a round of negotiations, a salesman handed Jah a tiny box across the counter. “Checkitoutcheckitout,” he said under his breath. Back on the sidewalk, Jah opened the box to reveal a ring for his wife, a small cluster of diamonds set in a thick band of gold. “Got him down to $300,” he reported proudly and headed off. Inside the store, the assistant manager, Lenny, who like Jah, Mech and many other denizens of the Fulton Street Mall, flatly refused to give a last name, gave a slightly different account of the transaction. Diamonds? “Not for what he paid for it,” said Lenny. “If it was a diamond ring and my salesman sold it for $50, he’d get fired.” All along the mall, flier guys took up their posts, warming up their pitches. Outside Electronic Outlet, where the manager, Mohammed Wasim, boasted, “Every year we have a grand opening,” the store’s longtime flier guy, Antonio Ayala, alternated between a booming yet nearly incomprehensible shout and a quieter but more unsettling impression of a man who has had a tracheotomy. “I got two idiomas,” Mr. Ayala explained, using the Spanish word for languages, then burst out, “T-mobile Cingular Nextel Sprint no credit check everybody approved!” Other flier guys sounded vaguely threatening. “Get a free cellphone, this is serious, yo,” implored a man outside Cellular Island. A competitor up the street urged: “Goldmine’s having a sale, right now .” An impressive number of them have a teardrop or two tattooed in the corner of one eye, a symbol with several possible meanings on the street, none of them good. “You got flier guys here, they may or may not have made a bad mistake, and this is the only job they can get,” said Leon Smith, a mall veteran who works outside a Verizon store. Mr. Smith, 31, his smiling face full of piercings, considers himself one of the upwardly mobile flier guys. Verizon paid his tuition while he earned an associate’s degree and is paying for him to earn another in information technology. He wants to get into design. Behind the counter in the store, Mr. Smith keeps a book of his drawings, including a phoenix-and-ankh jacket logo and an intensely worked paisley nightmare he calls “The Catastrophe of New York.” For now, though, handing out glossy 4-by-6 advertising cards is his living, and he prides himself on doing it well. “Verizon Wireless, bless you sister, happy holidays,” he greeted one woman Monday morning, pressing a flier into her hand. “Oye, mamita,” he greeted the next. “I got oxtail next week, sister,” he called, perplexingly, after a third. Down the street at the Fulton Hot Dog King, Mary Blue set a hot dog down on the counter by the window, her shopping bags on the floor and herself on a stool. It was her first trip to the Fulton Mall in years. “It changed for the better here,” she said. “Better quality, better selection.” Ms. Blue, a retired home health aide, said she had tried for a few years to get her shopping done near her home in East New York. But the jeans and shirts and other clothes she wanted to buy for her 10 grandchildren weren’t up to par. “This year, I said, ‘I’m going shopping Downtown.’” In front of Quick Strike, where Monique Samms and Crisei Tait stopped to ogle pink Air Jordan sneakers, Crisei said she shopped at the Fulton Mall because the smaller stores there — she called them side stores — would cut deals that the chain stores would not. “You can talk them down in price,” said Crisei, 15. Fulton Street’s first heyday was in an era before enclosed shopping centers, when department-store titans like Namm’s and Loeser’s shared the street with A & S. The modern Fulton Mall dates to the 1970s, when merchants persuaded the city to revitalize the fading strip by widening the sidewalks, narrowing the street and limiting traffic to buses. Like the rest of the borough, the mall, once known for outbursts of gunplay, has grown considerably safer over the years. But even as it prospered, the mall’s persistent scruffiness, because of, among other factors, the paradox that small stores are willing to pay more per square foot than major national chains, began to stand out in the spiffed-up Brooklyn. “With all the housing stock that we have now and the demographics in the communities that surround Downtown Brooklyn,” said Joseph Chan, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, an economic development group, “the fact that there’s not a Bed Bath & Beyond, a Pottery Barn, a Pier 1 in the downtown of a city of 2.5 million people is odd.” And so the mall’s transformation, predicted for years, seems about to finally begin. The old Albee Square Mall, an enclosed shopping center within this stretch of Fulton Street, closed this year to make way for City Point, a high-rise tower that will house people, businesses and, on the ground floor, major retail tenants along the lines of Target. Albert Laboz, one of the street’s biggest property owners and chairman of the Fulton Mall Improvement Association, said that deals were in the works with several leading retailers. “I think you’re going to see a nice transition in the next few years,” he said. A nice transition, of course, is not nice for everyone. But Mr. Chan said that the Fulton Street Mall would never become Madison Avenue. “Having greater retail diversity means having more choices,” he said. “It doesn’t mean eliminating what’s there today. The reality is it’s never going to be all or nothing.” So perhaps there is a future there for a man like Charles Hallback, the self-proclaimed Grand Hustler of Fulton Street. Mr. Hallback, 47, better known as Chief, has been a flier guy in the neighborhood for years; he had one stint hawking colonics for a health food store around the corner on Livingston Street. On Thursday morning, he was standing on the corner of Fulton and Bond Streets singing the praises of the neighborhood’s newest business. “IHOP is open down the block, y’all, at Bond and Livingston,” he announced. “IHOP is open since yesterday, it ain’t all about pancakes.” Across the street, in front of the Nextel store, Mr. Sylla, 43, a former fashion designer who has been on disability since a car accident, set down his takeout container of chicken soup and prepared to do battle. “All that good stuff keeps Santa warm,” he said. “Let me take the mike real quick.” As the street began to thin out Thursday evening, Mr. Hallback was still at it. “IHOP is down the block,” he called. “I’m the announcer, the black Paul Revere is here!” So was Mr. Smith. “I got chitlins next week,” he called after a woman. In front of the Nextel store, Mr. Sylla found himself surrounded by a cluster of a dozen shoppers dancing to his beats. He kicked into high gear. “Jump, jump, jump!” he called out, rapping rapid-fire. For a few minutes, the cellphones went unmentioned. | Brooklyn (NYC);Fulton Mall;Retail Stores and Trade;Christmas |
ny0181226 | [
"business"
] | 2007/06/18 | Private Equity Deal Expected for Lexicon Pharmaceuticals | Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, a developer of treatments for diseases like irritable bowel syndrome, is expected to announce today that it has signed deals with two private equity firms that will invest nearly $300 million into the 12-year-old publicly held company. In the first deal, the Invus Group, based in New York, will spend $205 million this year to raise its stake in the company to 40 percent. Invus will acquire warrants to buy 16.4 million shares in Lexicon for $3.09 a share, and will buy about 20.4 million shares for $4.50, or a 46 percent premium over Friday’s closing price. As of March 31, Invus held about 4.5 million shares in Lexicon. Invus will also have the right to buy up to an additional 9 percent of Lexicon stock, giving it a total of 49 percent, and can also require the company to hold two additional share sales. Lexicon will also add three seats to its eight-member board, giving Invus the new seats. In the second deal, worth $60 million, Symphony Capital Partners, a New York-based firm that specializes in biopharmaceutical products, will invest $45 million into a new company that will hold the licenses for Lexicon’s first three drug candidates, including treatments for cognitive disorders and irritable bowel syndrome. Symphony will also give Lexicon $15 million for general purposes. Lexicon will have the right to acquire the new company at a price that will range from $72 million in its second year to $90 million in the fourth and final year of the agreement. Based in The Woodlands, Tex., Lexicon uses gene knockout technology in its research and has collaborated with larger industry players like Bristol-Myers Squibb and Genentech. As of Friday, its market value was $241.2 million. | Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures;Drugs (Pharmaceuticals);Lexicon Pharmaceuticals |
ny0036201 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2014/03/17 | Undercover TV Reports on School Security Raise Ethical Questions | The three news reports followed the same format: Television reporters walked into schools with hidden cameras, under the premise of testing the security measures. Each time, the anchors provided a sobering assessment of the findings. “One of the more depressing reports I’ve seen in a long time,” said Matt Lauer, the “Today” show host, after a report showed unsettling lapses in security. “What we uncovered may shock you,” Chuck Scarborough warned viewers of WNBC in New York. Similarly, an anchor with the NBC affiliate in St. Louis prefaced a story by saying, “Some of it will disturb you.” School shootings, especially the 2012 attack in Newtown, Conn., have prompted not just a reassessment of safety measures, but also a rash of efforts by news organizations in recent months to assess the effectiveness of safety protocols. But these episodes have raised broader questions about the ethical and practical implications of this type of reporting. In some cases, things can go disturbingly wrong. That’s what happened in suburban St. Louis in January when an employee of the news channel KSDK walked into Kirkwood High School unannounced and began to roam the hallways. After several minutes, he aroused the suspicion of the school’s office staff. Soon, the whole school was in lockdown. Police officers rushed to the scene, teachers turned off the lights and crowded students into the corners of their classrooms, and worried parents raced to check on their children. Jen Wilton, who has two sons at the school, said she was frightened when one of them texted to tell her about the lockdown. The news station had crossed the line, she said. “They certainly didn’t do me any service,” she said. “I have a few more gray hairs because of it, and it terrified my kids and a lot of other kids.” Critics say these kinds of undercover efforts do not provide an accurate portrait of school safety, and question whether they serve any public good. Some journalists question whether the news organizations become too much a part of the story, and whether it is dangerous for reporters to wander into schools now that students and staff are often on heightened alert. “I think that for a news organization to just go on this type of random fishing expedition, there has to be a really good journalistic purpose,” said Bob Steele, a professor of journalism ethics at DePauw University. “There has to be some reason that you’re doing that, that you are testing something in particular based on some sort of evidence other than just, ‘school security is a problem in our country.’ ” Covertly testing the public defense structure has essentially become a tradition for reporters. After the Sept. 11 attacks, several outlets tried to sneak banned items through airport security lines. After the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, a Tampa television station carried out the ill-conceived stunt of parking a Ryder truck in front of a federal building and walking away. In 2011, a newspaper parked a car at a spot considered potentially vulnerable near the Port Authority bus terminal in New York City, to test the police response. The episodes often do not end smoothly. The Tampa reporter was detained, questioned and scolded by federal agents before being released. In Fargo, N.D., a correspondent who entered a school clandestinely in December was investigated for trespassing but avoided charges when her station agreed to keep her away from school-related news coverage for 90 days. But some journalists contend that the news value of covert reporting outweighs the potential downsides. The story that was broadcast during the “Today” show in December served as a warning to parents that they should become aware of what is going on in their children’s schools, said Alexandra Wallace, senior vice president of NBC News. In that news package, a reporter visited five schools in the New York area and was able to get into one without being stopped by any security guards or school staff. “I don’t know how you see what the truth is if you don’t go in that way,” Ms. Wallace said, referring to the hidden camera technique. “The moment you show up with a big camera, things look a lot better.” Ms. Wallace, who has two school-age children, says she and other parents regularly think about school safety precautions. Indeed, news outlets often portray themselves as valuable members of the community in framing their undercover reports. Jeff Rossen, who reported the “Today” show piece, opened by saying that his daughter was in elementary school, “so this really hits home for me.” Al Tompkins, the senior faculty for broadcasting and online at the Poynter Institute, said that this approach missed the mark. “What happens is you’re spending all this energy and time investigating school safety when that’s already the single safest place for your child anyway,” he said, adding that this “sort of reaffirms the false notion that my kids are really in danger at school when they’re not.” News outlets should also weigh the risk of what they are doing, said Mr. Steele, the DePauw professor. For instance, he asked, what if wandering into a school caused such alarm that the school security officer pulled out a gun? How would the reporter react in such a situation? NBC News consulted its lawyers and school security experts, and carefully studied the school policies and state laws before undertaking its report for the “Today” show, Ms. Wallace said. KSDK opened its report in January by saying that it “spent a lot of time determining how to approach it from a procedural and legal standpoint.” But in St. Louis, something clearly went wrong. KSDK was not able to gain access to four of the five schools it tried to enter. But at Kirkwood High School, John Kelly, a KSDK employee, walked in and wandered the corridors for more than three minutes before going to the office and asking to speak with someone about school security. Without identifying himself as a reporter, he left his name and phone number and asked where the bathroom was. When he left and went off in a different direction, it raised alarms. Staff members called his phone number and it went to his voice mail, which identified him as a KSDK employee. When the school called the station to confirm, the station would not do so, even though school officials said they would otherwise have to order a lockdown. Soon afterward, that’s exactly what they did. Thomas Williams, the Kirkwood school district superintendent, was outraged. “Is it O.K. for them to set a fire and see how fast the fire department responds?” he asked. “It’s a safety issue. It’s not responsible. It’s the wrong way to do it.” After initially defending its report, KSDK apologized to Mr. Williams, who said the station told him that the people who could have verified the reporter’s identity were at lunch when the school called. In a subsequent apology that led its newscast three days after the episode, the station said it was changing its practices to make sure that it never happened again, though it did not specify what changes it was making. Despite the potential pitfalls, some community members and school officials are in favor of undercover reports. Sonya Hampton, the PTA president at the Sojourner Truth school in Harlem, applauded the WNBC investigation, in which a reporter was able to gain unimpeded access to seven of the 10 New York City schools it approached. (Sojourner was not part of the experiment.) “If you were doing your job, you would have never let them get there,” Ms. Hampton said. “They caught you off guard. If that’s what it takes to get attention, then, yeah, that’s a good journalist.” | News media,journalism;School shooting;Security;NBC News;KSDK;Poynter Institute;WNBC;K-12 Education;St Louis |
ny0110082 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/05/24 | At Niagara Falls, Maid of the Mist Tour Fleet Is Endangered | NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — The Maid of the Mist tour boats have plied the roiling waters of the Niagara Gorge since the 1840s, taking tens of millions of visitors, including the future King Edward VII (1860), Marilyn Monroe (1952) and Mikhail Gorbachev (1983), past the American Falls to the base of the Horseshoe Falls, whose staggering height and swirling mist feel almost biblical. “It’s like ‘The Ten Commandments,’ ” shouted a drenched Gargeyi Baipa, a recent passenger from India on one of the boats, referring to the 1956 film that depicted the Exodus. Now, the Maid of the Mist Corporation, a small fleet owned and operated by a local family for the past 41 years, finds itself confronting its own possible exodus. In February, for the first time in the company’s history, the Maid of the Mist lost its contract to run tours on the Canadian side of the falls, after the Ontario government awarded the operation to a California company. That loss cost the Maid company more than half its yearly revenue, but it stands to lose something perhaps even more precious: access to its winter boat storage and fueling area across the Niagara River, on land it has long leased from the Ontario government. Without a place to put its boats in the winter months, the company cannot function, and there are no easy solutions for a replacement site. The Maid of the Mist operates in a relatively calm stretch of the Lower Niagara River that is hemmed in by the falls, rough rapids downriver and steep cliffs on either side. While there is a dock for boarding on the New York side, there is no room for storage. The rapids a mile north make it impossible to safely motor the boats elsewhere at the end of the season. And a land route is out of the question: there is no access from the American side, and the only access road leading to the river banks in Canada is too narrow to fit a boat and trailer. Indeed, the company’s two largest boats were brought down in pieces and assembled on the shore. That leaves one option for alternative storage — new construction on the New York side of the falls. But possible sites are few. Moreover, New York officials have cautioned that the necessary environmental reviews, permit applications and construction could take over two years. That is when the California company, Hornblower Cruises and Events , based in San Francisco, will take control of the Canadian tours, along with the storage area there. If the Maid of the Mist interrupts its boat service in New York for lack of a storage area, that could render its contract with the state void. Equally problematic is the fact that any state-owned site eyed by the company for a new storage location would have to be put out to bid; there is no guarantee that the Maid of the Mist would win it. While state officials seem sympathetic to the quandary the family faces, they are saying little publicly. “New York Parks is committed to providing boat service out of the United States side of the falls,” said Angela P. Berti, a spokeswoman for the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. “The Maid of the Mist has been a wonderful partner for New York State Parks.” The Maid of the Mist, meanwhile, is working tirelessly to find an interim solution. It has identified the property of a former power plant as a possible location for winter storage. It recently hired a high-powered lobbying firm to pull any levers in state government — including at the state parks office, which holds the company’s contract, and the governor’s office. “We don’t intend to go anywhere,” said Christopher M. Glynn, the president of the Maid of the Mist, which his father, James, bought in 1971. “We like what we do. We want to stay in business.” Business on the New York side has been good lately, bolstered by the general tightening of the border in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a new requirement that visitors must show a passport to cross from the United States to Canada, which is keeping more tourists on the American side of the river. A series of Canadian newspaper articles criticized the terms of the tentative 2008 contract that the Maid of the Mist had reached with the Canadians, faulting the government for awarding the contract without inviting competing bids, which might have yielded more money. Ontario’s Niagara Parks Commission reopened the bidding, and Hornblower, which operates boat tours at Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay and at the Statue of Liberty , won the contract, with its boat tours scheduled to start in spring 2014. The commission, in announcing the Hornblower deal, said it represented “an increase of more than $300 million in revenue compared to previous agreements.” Mr. Glynn said the Maid’s revised bid had been competitive with Hornblower’s. Some critics are now challenging the amount of money that New York receives from the Maid of the Mist, which last year had about 2.5 million passengers on its Canadian and American tours combined. In Canada, adults pay $19.75 each ride, while in the United States, tickets are $15.50. Under a no-bid contract signed in 2002, the company pays New York State about 10 percent of its annual revenue; last year the Maid of the Mist paid $1.48 million. “The Hornblower agreement triggered a lot of questions,” said Assemblyman John D. Ceretto, a Republican who represents the Niagara Falls area. “It was much more of a lucrative deal.” If another boat company were to take over the New York tours, the Maid of the Mist name, which is controlled by the Glynns, could disappear. According to a sampling of passengers on a drizzly spring day, there is a surprising amount of affection for the moniker and the history. “It’s a pretty romantic name, you’ve got to admit,” said Steve Wynn of Punta Gorda, Fla., who was visiting Niagara Falls with his wife, Gina, to celebrate his 50th birthday. “I think the name’s got to stay.” Linda Koltes of Minnesota agreed. “It would be a shame to lose Maid of the Mist,” she said, pulling a poncho provided by the tour company tight against the spray. “History’s the whole idea. That’s what makes it special.” The name derives from a rather dark legend in which a local Indian tribe appeased the thunder god Hinum by sacrificing its prettiest virgin. Each year, one girl was chosen to go over the falls in a birch-bark canoe. Sitting in his offices, which are lined with photographs of famous passengers, including a young Mick Jagger and a forlorn Princess Diana, Mr. Glynn jokingly distanced himself from the legend. “It’s a terrible concept,” he said. “I shudder to think about it.” “But,” he added, “the name is a registered trademark in New York and Canada.” | Maid of the Mist Steamboats Co;Hornblower Cruises and Events;Boats and Boating;Niagara Falls (NY);New York State;Canada;Ontario (Canada) |
ny0272136 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2016/05/28 | British Man Sentenced to 40 Years in Al Qaeda Plot to Attack London Airport | An operative for Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen who was trained in bomb-making by Anwar al-Awlaki and agreed to carry out an attack targeting Americans and Israelis at Heathrow Airport in London was sentenced to 40 years in prison on Friday in Manhattan. The operative, Minh Quang Pham, 33, never carried out the attack after returning home to Britain in summer 2011, and in a letter to the judge, he said he had only agreed to the plot in order to get out of Yemen and return home. Mr. Pham, who was extradited from Britain to the United States last year, pleaded guilty in January to three terrorism-related charges. But the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said Mr. Pham had not carried out the attack because he knew he was under surveillance by the authorities after returning to Britain. Mr. Pham traveled secretly to Yemen in 2010, swore allegiance to the terrorist group, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or A.Q.A.P., and worked on its online propaganda publication, Inspire. Under questioning by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he said that while he was in Yemen, he approached Mr. Awlaki, an American-born radical Muslim cleric who had become A.Q.A.P.’s leading English-language propagandist, and volunteered to “sacrifice himself” in a suicide attack upon returning to Britain. He said Mr. Awlaki taught him how to mix chemicals to make an explosive device, and even showed him how to tape bolts around the bomb to act as deadly shrapnel when the device exploded. Mr. Awlaki had also said to target the airport attack on arrivals from the United States or Israel. The judge, Alison J. Nathan of Federal District Court, said she agreed with the government’s position that Mr. Pham had intended to conduct the bombing and condemned his role in what she called a “murderous plot.” She said Mr. Pham had been a “trusted, skilled and, for a time, dedicated participant” in A.Q.A.P, and that she believed aspects of that continued even after he returned to Britain. The government had suggested a 50-year sentence. Anna M. Skotko, a prosecutor, told the judge that there was no evidence Mr. Pham had disavowed his allegiance to the terrorist group. “He was a full-grown, well-educated adult,” she said. “He was not a naïve child who lost his way and was looking for a group of friends.” She said Mr. Pham chose to go to Yemen “because he wanted to martyr himself.” “He chose to go there,” she said, “because he wanted to cause destruction in the West, and that has remained with him to this day.” Mr. Pham, weeping at one point, told the judge that he had made a “very serious mistake.” “My thinking was wrong at the time,” he said, adding, “All I can say is I have reformed.” Mr. Pham, who was born in Vietnam, lived in Britain since childhood. His lawyer, Bobbie C. Sternheim, had asked the judge to impose a 30-year sentence, the minimum. Ms. Sternheim noted that her client had willingly spoken to the F.B.I., had owned up to his mistakes and had not engaged in violence when he returned to Britain. She added, “We should be hopeful that people who make mistakes can reform.” Judge Nathan, before imposing the sentence, noted that Mr. Pham, in his letter, said he had renounced terrorism and extreme ideology. “I don’t know whether these statements represent Mr. Pham’s true beliefs,” the judge said. “I hope that they do.” | Al Qaeda;Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula;Minh Quang Pham;Heathrow Airport London;Terrorism;Airport;Great Britain |
ny0197590 | [
"business"
] | 2009/10/22 | Executives and Czar Combined on Compensation Talks | It was, from the start, a delicate dance — a minuet in the measure of money and politics. For months, in the basement of the Treasury Department , Washington’s pay masters pushed one way, and the seven beleaguered giants of the bailout era pushed the other. In the end, Kenneth R. Feinberg , the Obama administration’s special master of compensation, reduced the pay of the companies’ top earners. But his ruling, which came to light Wednesday, will not bring an end to big paydays at the companies. Indeed, despite the remarkable government intrusion into these private enterprises, senior executives at some of the companies will enjoy multimillion-dollar pay packages this year, mostly in the form of stock. Other employees will earn even more. Interviews with officials, consultants and corporate executives involved in pay review suggest that the companies themselves — the American International Group, Bank of America, Citigroup, Chrysler, General Motors, and the two car companies’ finance affiliates, GMAC and Chrysler Financial — played a central role in the process and its outcome. Both camps recognized from the beginning that bailout politics, as much as economics, would shape the final decision, according to people involved in the process. The popular resentment directed at companies that have received billions of taxpayer dollars — and at Washington for providing the bailouts — was never far from participants’ minds, these people said. In a meeting with A.I.G. executives, for instance, representatives of the insurance giant suggested that the head of one of its business units receive pay on par with an industry chief executive. “Tell me how I justify that?” asked Mary Pat Fox, a consultant working on Mr. Feinberg’s team. The room fell silent. Mr. Feinberg declined to discuss the review, which began this summer, with a series of meetings with the companies’ executives. Each company provided its own list of the 25 most highly paid workers in 2008. In the months that followed, the executives argued time and again that slashing pay would drive away talented employees, the very workers they needed to help turn their companies around. At times, the basement war room grew so crowded that meetings spilled into the office of Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who is now a prominent economic adviser to the Obama administration. A.I.G. refused to cancel some pay contracts that fell outside Mr. Feinberg’s purview. At one point, A.I.G. executives expressed frustration with the contracts. A.I.G., they said, was having trouble identifying just who its most highly paid employees were. Bank of America, for its part, sent its head of trading and investment banking, Thomas K. Montag, to argue on his team’s behalf. But some concessions were inevitable. Citigroup, for instance, sold its commodities trading unit, Phibro, to avoid a confrontation with Mr. Feinberg over a $100 million payday for Phibro’s star moneymaker, Andrew J. Hall. Others dug in. Chrysler Financial executives initially asked to be freed from the review since the company had repaid its bailout money. But Chrysler Financial’s holding company owed the Treasury money, so the request was refused. One surprise from A.I.G. came in a disclosure for an executive in the category of “other compensation.” The total in that category for 2008 was $1.5 million, reflecting flights on the company’s corporate jet. By late July, the pay team, in consultation with two prominent compensation experts, Lucian A. Bebchuk and Kevin J. Murphy, devised a 20-page document laying out Mr. Feinberg’s demands for information. The companies were ordered to turn over minutes from their board’s compensation committee meetings over the past year, the stock awards for top executives during the last two years, and any performance measures that were used to determine compensation in the last two years. Mr. Feinberg’s most controversial demand was that the companies disclose how much stock each of the top 25 executives held. Typically, only the top five make such disclosures in securities filings. The pay team immediately received phone calls from the companies’ compensation managers, who called the request overly broad. But by mid-August, the companies complied. Michael Murray, who heads compensation at Citigroup, was the most upset. He told the pay team it was awkward for him to go to each of the executives and ask how much stock they held because many considered the question of whether they had sold shares over the years a personal matter. Bank of America was particularly concerned that it might lose employees if Mr. Feinberg restricted pay. The bank was in the midst of integrating its operations with those of Merrill Lynch, which it agreed at the height of the crisis last year to buy. When Bank of America submitted the names of top executives to Mr. Feinberg, its representatives pointed out that 45 of the top 100 employees at the bank and Merrill had left. | Executive Compensation;Feinberg Kenneth R;Treasury Department;Banks and Banking |
ny0004385 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2013/04/19 | Emirates Seize Terror Suspects | DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Security authorities in the United Arab Emirates said on Thursday that they had arrested seven members of a “terrorist cell” affiliated with Al Qaeda accused of plotting attacks in the Emirates and in neighboring oil-producing states, according to the official WAM news agency. The suspects, all citizens of unspecified Arab countries, had also been “planning to recruit people and to promote the work of Al Qaeda, in addition to providing the organization with funds and logistical support to facilitate the extension of their activities to some countries in the region,” the news agency said, citing an unidentified official source. “The source said that the State Security Prosecution will start investigation of the accused. Once these procedures are completed, they will be brought to trial,” the news agency said, without giving further details. The United Arab Emirates rank among the West’s strongest regional allies and form the area’s most developed business and financial hub at a strategic location on the Persian Gulf. The federation projects itself as a bastion of political stability in a volatile area dominated by the regional powers Iran and Saudi Arabia, attracting billions of dollars in investment from lands seized by the turmoil of revolt, like Syria, Egypt and Tunisia. The arrests reported on Thursday follow a series of other actions designed to thwart an upsurge in Islamic sentiment in some parts of the grouping. In December, the authorities arrested 94 members, including women, of a local affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood called al-Islah, or Reform. They were accused of conspiring with foreign groups and plotting to seize power. Another group of 11 Egyptians, said to belong to a "secret cell," was arrested early this year, accused by Dahi Khalfan, the police chief, of seeking to destabilize the Western-backed gulf states and battling their rulers. The latest arrests were reported two days after Sheik Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and deputy supreme commander of the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces, met with President Obama during a two-day visit to the United States and said on Tuesday that the emirates stood by “all countries of the world against all acts of terrorism, regardless of their sources or motives.” He also condemned the “act of terror” at the Boston Marathon on Monday, when two explosions killed three people and wounded 170. | United Arab Emirates;Al Qaeda;Terrorism |
ny0012704 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2013/11/28 | Flexing Autonomy, Pakistani Premier Picks Outsider to Lead Army | ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — In the most crucial appointment of his new term, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday chose a relative outsider, Lt. Gen. Raheel Sharif, to lead Pakistan’s powerful army. With the choice, the prime minister seemed to be skirting the line of confrontation with a military establishment that ousted him in 1999 but did not overtly cross it. General Sharif, who is not related to the prime minister, was the third in line for the post by seniority and comes from a noted military family, keeping with Mr. Sharif’s promise to take experience and tradition into account for the appointment. But in other ways the prime minister seemed to be flexing his independence from a military command that until recent years had run roughshod over civilian governments. Notably, General Sharif was not the favored candidate of his predecessor, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, a power player who is resigning this week after a tumultuous six-year stint at the top of the military. General Sharif had not held any clear first-tier commands, nor had he served in the influential Military Operations Directorate or come up through an intelligence background — all points on General Kayani’s résumé. Instead, Mr. Sharif shunted General Kayani’s favorite, Lt. Gen. Rashad Mahmood, into the position of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — a nominally more powerful job that in reality is subordinate to the army chief. Mr. Sharif thinks General Sharif “is more pliable than Rashad and not as close to Kayani,” said a senior American defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Like the prime minister, General Sharif comes from the eastern city of Lahore, which is the heartland of military influence in Pakistan. He comes from a family that is “more interested in the profession and less in politics,” said Talat Masood, a retired lieutenant general and a respected defense analyst. “Sharif is soldierly and professionally very sound. And, because of his background, the prime minister seemed to have greater confidence in him.” Image Lt. Gen. Raheel Sharif was appointed by the prime minister to lead Pakistan’s army. Credit Qamar Pervez/Reuters Accordingly, some Pakistani analysts saw the choice as evidence that Mr. Sharif was looking for someone slightly more biddable. But that kind of gamesmanship has come back to bite him before. During Mr. Sharif’s previous stint in power in the late 1990s, he passed over more senior generals to choose Gen. Pervez Musharraf as army chief — the man who would later depose and replace him in the 1999 coup. In an institution where legacy and heritage are prized, General Sharif, a 57-year-old infantry officer, does hold many credentials looked for in the army commander post. His brother, Shabbir Sharif, is a decorated war hero who died in Pakistan’s 1971 war against India, a connection that many Pakistani news outlets prominently noted in their profiles of General Sharif. Until now, he was in charge of the army’s training program, carrying out changes ordered by General Kayani to improve the army’s counterinsurgency capabilities as it faces a growing threat from Islamist insurgents based in the tribal belt, particularly the Pakistani Taliban. General Sharif inherits an army that, though it is still Pakistan’s most powerful institution, has seen its once unassailable authority somewhat eroded in recent years. The continuing onslaught of attacks from the Pakistani Taliban in recent years has become such a clear challenge that the country’s leaders, including General Kayani, have recently sought to open peace talks with the group rather than calling for a new military offensive. And a series of diplomatic and intelligence crises involving the United States, as well as changes in society like a more assertive news media and judiciary, have brought questions about the military’s role that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. The army is still revered by most Pakistanis, however. And under General Kayani, the military gained a new point of respect: Despite years of turmoil and conflict with the civilian government led by President Asif Ali Zardari, the generals chose to bide their time and allow a fully democratic transition rather than taking control themselves. The question now is whether General Kayani’s changes to the military culture that have rendered the prospect of a military coup a secondary risk will continue under General Sharif. Given the prime minister’s seeming comfort with the choice, and the opinion of senior military analysts, most saw continued restraint to be the most likely result. Other challenges remain. The American military withdrawal from Afghanistan next door as well as the continued and deeply unpopular C.I.A. drone strike campaign within Pakistani territory have kept apprehensions high among Pakistani officials. Despite often-strained relations, the Obama administration has continued to seek Pakistani military and intelligence cooperation on those issues, presenting a difficult balancing act for the country’s military leadership. | Pakistan;Ashfaq Parvez Kayani;Nawaz Sharif;Taliban;Military |
ny0290932 | [
"us"
] | 2016/01/31 | One Dead and Several Wounded in Shooting at Colorado Motorcycle Expo | Shots rang out when a violent confrontation between biker gangs erupted on Saturday at a motorcycle show in Denver, leaving one person dead and several others injured, the police said. The Denver police chief, Robert White, told reporters that the melee, involving firearms, knives and fists, broke out around 1 p.m. at the Colorado Motorcycle Expo at the National Western Complex. The fight pitted members of “possibly two motorcycle clubs” against each other with deadly consequences, he said. Four people were shot, one fatally, in what Chief White called “an exchange of gunfire” involving multiple shooters. Another person was stabbed, and three more suffered “lesser injuries” from what was “more than likely” a fistfight, he said. The victims were taken to Denver Health Medical Center, where a large number of police officers were stationed on Saturday night to “make sure the incident didn’t spread from the complex to the hospital,” Chief White said. The medical campus was placed on temporary lockdown earlier in the evening as a precaution. The motorcycle expo continued for hours after the fight, he said, as officers arrived at the scene and began investigating. But the second day of the weekend-long event had been canceled in a bid to keep the peace. Chief White said there would be a heavy police presence at the complex on Sunday as another event, an indoor dirt bike racing competition, continued as planned. “We are absolutely prepared in case the situation escalates,” he said. The police declined to identify the motorcycle clubs involved in the fight because the investigation was ongoing, but Chief White said that investigators were interviewing several people on Saturday night. The police are investigating news reports that off-duty officers from some branch of law enforcement may have participated in the fight, Chief White said, although he insisted that no officers from Denver were involved. “We have not verified absolutely that law enforcement was part of one of those clubs,” he said. “There were no Denver police officers involved in the incident, off duty.” Officials at Denver Health Medical Center said seven victims had been taken to the hospital, one dead, three in critical condition and three in stable condition. The medical examiner had not released the identity of the victim by Saturday evening. Bob Cook, a witness who spoke to The Denver Post, said he heard two gunshots and saw people duck for cover. There were pools of blood on the floor of the event space after the shooting, he told The Post, but soon they dried and expogoers walked over them as if nothing had happened. “Everyone is so desensitized,” he said. | Murders and Homicides;Denver;Motorcycles; electric bikes; electric scooters;Police;Colorado;Gang |
ny0042977 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2014/05/09 | For Yankees’ Tanaka, Batter’s Box Is Anything but Home | MILWAUKEE — Masahiro Tanaka’s split-finger fastball, slider and two-seamer, as well as his tenacity, have combined to make him a rookie sensation for the Yankees. But Tanaka struggles in one aspect of baseball. He cannot hit. “I’m at the bottom,” Tanaka said through an interpreter Wednesday as he pointed at the floor of the Yankees’ clubhouse in Anaheim, Calif. On Friday, Tanaka will have his first chance to bat since joining major league baseball, with a start in the Yankees’ interleague game at the first-place Milwaukee Brewers. Tanaka will also be looking to extend his winning streak to five games in the United States and 33 over all (combined between Japan and North America). Despite his dearth of offensive contributions, Tanaka is unbeaten in his last 40 starts, dating to Aug, 26, 2012. The Brewers play in the National League, whose rules apply at Miller Park. That means the Yankees will have no designated hitter and Tanaka will have to hit, or at least try to, despite having little experience at the plate in the major leagues or in Japan. Over seven seasons in Japan, his batting average in interleague play was .081. The Rakuten Golden Eagles, Tanaka’s former team, play in the Pacific League, which also uses the D.H., so Tanaka had few opportunities to hone his batting skills. In 42 career plate appearances during interleague play, dating to 2007, Tanaka had three hits, including one double and four runs batted in. He struck out 16 times. There was a time when Tanaka was slightly more proficient at the plate. Before he became a pitcher, he was a catcher and needed to possess at least a modicum of hitting skill. “I hit a home run in high school,” he said. Yovani Gallardo, who is 2-1 with a 2.47 earned run average, was set to start Friday for the Brewers. Tanaka did not seem to know much about him or what he threw, nor did he seem to care. “I’m not anticipating to swing now,” he said. Tanaka’s teammate Hiroki Kuroda is also from Japan, and although he played four years for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the N.L., his hitting is not much better than Tanaka’s. Kuroda’s career batting average in the majors is .102 in 206 at-bats, with 21 hits, including a double. All but eight of those at-bats came with the Dodgers. In anticipation of playing in a National League park, the Yankees’ pitchers took some batting practice on the field in Anaheim, and Tanaka looked pretty good, even hitting a home run. Granted, he was facing the pitching coach Larry Rothschild, who was lobbing balls over the plate. Tanaka said he took seriously his responsibilities at the plate, which may include bunting, should anyone get on base ahead of him. Based on the Yankees’ game against the Angels on Wednesday, in which the bottom four batters in the order — Yangervis Solarte, Brett Gardner, Brian Roberts and John Ryan Murphy — went a combined 7 for 15, there is a real chance someone could be on base when Tanaka bats. “I’m going to be in the batter’s box,” Tanaka said. “In certain situations, like bunting situations, I want to get that right. That will obviously help me as far as winning the game. Otherwise, I’m looking forward to it.” INSIDE PITCH Brian McCann said Thursday that he harbored no ill will toward Brewers outfielder Carlos Gomez, with whom he clashed at the end of last season. “I respect the guy,” said McCann, who was playing for Atlanta at the time of the spat. “I respect the way he plays. He plays hard every single night. I’m way, way over it.” McCann will be making his first appearance against the Brewers since Sept. 25, when he angrily confronted Gomez on the basepaths. Gomez had just homered and was taunting the Braves and pitcher Paul Maholm as he rounded the bases. As he approached home plate, McCann walked up the third-base line and challenged him. | Baseball;Brewers;Yankees;Masahiro Tanaka |
ny0219251 | [
"us"
] | 2010/05/06 | As the Oil Threatens, Lowering the Boom | ON EAST BAY, La. With the Gulf of Mexico oil spill prompting clients to cancel their plans to get themselves some redfish, the charter captain agreed, for a price, to head out in search of another sea creature. The mere sight of it sends hope and fear colliding into each other like unfastened cargo. The captain’s 24-foot Pathfinder skimmed for 20 miles through luscious backwaters. He turned down the Southwest Pass, took a cut into East Bay and, boom, there it was: Boom. With dull-orange skin, the boom stretched north for thousands of yards — like a Christo art installation — snaking, bobbing and, supposedly, protecting the sensitive shores from encroaching oil . Somewhere out there, BP was using submersible robots and other futuristic technology to stem a hemorrhaging leak caused by an explosion last month that killed 11 and destroyed an oil rig. The corporation’s latest hopes rest with a containment dome, four stories high and weighing 98 tons, that will be lowered nearly a mile below the surface and placed over the leak, which is releasing more than 200,000 gallons of oil a day. By comparison, the approach here, along the Louisiana shoreline, seems almost primitive. All day and into the night, people lay boom — maritime sandbags — because this is what you do in times of hazardous spills, to protect your livelihood, your home and the complicated ecosystem of which you are a part. But because boom seems to expect only strokes and kisses from the waves, it does not always work. For example, the Coast Guard reported that strong winds and choppy seas over the weekend had damaged about 80 percent of the boom laid out to protect the Alabama coast. “Some of it has been torn apart, some of it is reparable, some was relocated by the weather,” Petty Officer David Mosley of the Coast Guard said. “We’re looking to fix what we can fix, and replace what we can replace.” But the power of boom reaches beyond the physical and into the psychological, helping many people here along the Louisiana shore to brace against waves of helplessness and doubt. Now that fear of oil contamination has led the government to ban fishing in most of these waters, boom gives people something to do other than contend with an invasive species called the news media, share the latest oil-slick rumor and stare at the beckoning water. For the last several days, the Venice Marina at the bottom of Plaquemines Parish has been a fishless stew of whisper, resentment and opportunity. Here, a lawyer from Mississippi, looking to sign up charter-boat captains interested in suing somebody. There, a denizen of the marina, scolding a foreign journalist for killing the local business with unnecessarily dire reports. And everywhere, reporters, scientists and environmentalists paying idle captains for boat rides in pursuit of the latest tip that oil has been seen near the Chandeleur Islands, or down by Breton Sound. Adding to the confusion have been the reports of reports that government scientists were predicting that oil would hit land — now; no, now; no, no, now. But the locals say that out-of-towners don’t understand the fickle currents the way they do. One official used as a measure the body of someone drowned at Dauphin Island in Alabama, and found in Venice. At least there is boom, lots and lots of boom. BP, effectively the host of the disaster, is getting boom wherever it can, from around the world and from a local manufacturer, according to Mike Abendhoff, a BP spokesman wearing a purple Louisiana State University cap. This rush for boom is understandable, given that 760,000 feet of it may be needed in Louisiana alone, according to its governor, Bobby Jindal. Here in Plaquemines Parish, tensions centered on who got to lay the boom, how would they be certified and how much they would get paid — a reasonable concern, given the livelihoods lost. After days of meetings, confusion, de rigueur politics and the always-present questions of favoritism, a double-defense plan was developed. First there is the wonderfully named “Vessels of Opportunity” program. BP is paying local shrimpers, oystermen and others to help experienced subcontractors lay boom, including heavy-duty containment boom — rolled foam covered with polyvinyl chloride — in the open waters. Hundreds have sought to share in the opportunity caused by BP’s disaster, but so far, only 15 local boats are working, while 50 more are on standby, though getting paid. Those counting on this program to replace their lost income may soon be boarding a vessel of disappointment. Then there is the Plaquemines Parish program, also known as the Interior Waterway Strike Force Plan, the creation of the parish president, Billy Nungesser, perhaps the hardest-working man in Louisiana these days. Under his plan, which BP is ultimately paying for, local people have been hired to lay absorbent boom — rolls of polypropylene fiber that looks like cotton — around the hypersensitive marshes, but only if the marshes are under imminent threat. Boom matters, Mr. Nungesser said. To underscore the point, he boarded a barge that was about to deliver rolls of absorbent boom to a strategic location. He walked up to a detailed map of the local waterway that was marked with an asterisk and two words written in grease pen: “Oil Spot.” Was this information, coming from a boat pilot in the area, good? Or just another rumor? “They need to stop it here,” said Mr. Nungesser, and he was talking about boom. His finger, it turned out, rested on a spot very close to where that Christo-like boom snaked and bobbed along East Bay, beside a charter captain and his paying guests. They studied the dull-orange line of protection for a few minutes, then took the cut back into Southwest Pass to enter a wonderland of rippling bays and green-brown marshland, of snowy egrets floating like bits of linen above and jumping mullets announcing the abundance of larger fish below — all now relying on oil-based products to be saved from oil-based doom. | Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline;Gulf of Mexico;BP Plc;Louisiana;Accidents and Safety;Offshore Drilling and Exploration;Environment;Transocean Inc |
ny0043157 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2014/05/30 | Turkish Court Says YouTube Ban Is Unconstitutional | Turkey’s highest court ruled Thursday that a government ban on the video-sharing site YouTube was unconstitutional and a violation of freedom of expression. The Constitutional Court sent its ruling to the Telecommunications Authority, but it was not immediately clear whether the agency would lift the ban. Last month, the government removed a ban on Twitter a day after the court issued a similar ruling. YouTube was blocked in Turkey on March 27 after recordings from a secret meeting between Foreign Ministry officials detailing plans for possible military intervention against Syria were leaked to the site. The telecommunications agency said the ban was a “precautionary administrative measure” amid concerns over national security. | Turkey;YouTube;Censorship |
ny0097152 | [
"business",
"economy"
] | 2015/06/05 | Fewer Americans Seek Jobless Aid, and Productivity Decline Deepens | WASHINGTON — Fewer Americans sought unemployment benefits last week, the Labor Department said on Thursday, and worker productivity declined more sharply in the first three months of the year than previously thought. The new figures from the agency also showed that labor costs rose more quickly in the first quarter. Fewer unemployment claims indicate that job cuts remain low as employers are confident enough in the business outlook to retain workers. The Labor Department said applications for unemployment aid dropped 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 276,000. The four-week average, a less volatile figure, rose 2,750 to 274,750. Applications have been below 300,000, a historically low level, for 13 weeks. Applications are a proxy for layoffs, and the small number of people seeking benefits indicates job security. Many economists hope that the low level of applications is a sign that hiring will remain healthy, too. Jim O’Sullivan, chief United States economist at High Frequency Economics, forecasts that the jobs report for May, due Friday, will show that employers added 240,000 jobs. Applications “continue to show no sign of an uptrend, consistent with a still-strong trend in employment growth,” Mr. O’Sullivan wrote in a note to clients. Analysts predict that the jobs report will show that employers added 227,000 jobs last month, on top of the 223,000 added in April. They also forecast that the unemployment rate will remain 5.4 percent, a seven-year low. The number of Americans receiving unemployment aid fell to just below 2.2 million, the fewest since November 2000. That is a small fraction of the 8.5 million unemployed. Some of the unemployed have used all of their benefits, while others, like recent college graduates searching for work, are not eligible for aid. Worker productivity fell 3.1 percent in the first quarter, a bigger drop than the 1.9 percent decline estimated a month ago, the Labor Department said. Labor costs rose at a 6.7 percent rate in the first quarter, faster than the 5 percent increase first estimated. Growth hit a soft patch in the winter with the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, contracting in the January-March quarter . But economists say they believe that growth and productivity are rebounding. Still, productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, has been weaker in recent years, and economists are split on the reasons. Economists say they expect the overall economy to rebound in the April-June quarter as the effects of a harsh winter and other temporary factors fade. Productivity is the crucial determinant for rising living standards. Increases in efficiency allow employers to pay higher wages based on greater output without having to raise the price of their products, which can set off inflation. A slowing of productivity growth that has been evident recently has caused concern, and economists are divided over whether this is a short-term development or a longer-term problem. For all of 2014, productivity grew a modest 0.7 percent, even less than the 0.9 percent gain in 2013. From 1995 to 2000, productivity rose at an average annual rate of 2.8 percent, reflecting in part the strength the economy received from the Internet boom. But since 2000, productivity has slowed to an annual rate of 2.1 percent. The Federal Reserve watches productivity and labor costs closely to see if inflation pressures are intensifying. The long-term increase in labor costs has been well below the level that would set off inflation alarms at the central bank. The annual rates of increase have averaged just 0.8 percent since 2000, significantly below the 2.8 percent average gains from 1995 to 2000. | Productivity;US Economy;Jobs;GDP;Federal Reserve;Labor Department |
ny0003893 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2013/04/29 | Jason Terry Jabs Knicks as Celtics Stay Alive | BOSTON — Jason Terry was upright again Sunday afternoon, his chin and his jump shot in working order, his conviction strong and his missions clear: Save the Boston Celtics’ season. Extend an era. If at all possible, irritate the Knicks just a little bit more. It took five flicks of the wrist, in 66 seconds, to make it all possible. Terry scored the Celtics’ last 9 points in overtime, delivering a 97-90 victory at TD Garden, denying the Knicks a sweep and sending the series back to New York for Game 5. When he was finished, Terry, whose nickname is Jet, smiled and extended his arms into wings for a brief, celebratory flight. “As long as there’s time on the clock, as long as there is another game, it’s an opportunity for me to do something special,” Terry said. For Boston, this was poetic justice — repayment for the Knicks’ J. R. Smith’s elbowing Terry in the face in Game 3. While Smith served a one-game suspension Sunday, the Knicks ultimately buckled and Terry soared. The Knicks erased a 20-point deficit in the second half and a 5-point deficit in the final minutes of regulation, but there was little else to like after an afternoon in which they shot 34.4 percent and produced just 10 assists. Carmelo Anthony commandeered the offense, shooting 35 times, as if he intended to single-handedly replace Smith’s offense. But he converted just 10 of those shots and had 7 turnovers. “I was trying to win the basketball game,” said Anthony, who finished with 36 points and was trying to complete the first playoff sweep of his career. “It would have been a great feeling to close it out here in Boston, so I was trying to do whatever I could to win the basketball game.” As great a clutch shooter as Anthony has been in his career, this was a day the Knicks could have used Smith’s uncanny touch. Anthony missed three of four shots in overtime, including a rushed 3-pointer with 20 seconds left and the Knicks trailing, 93-90. He missed his last five shots in regulation, including two attempts on the Knicks’ last possession, with the score tied, 84-84. He also missed two free throws with 1 minute 50 seconds left in the fourth quarter and walked away shaking his head. “When the game is on the line, you’re going to give the ball to No. 7,” Raymond Felton said, referring to Anthony. “That’s what we’ve been doing all year; there’s no need to change it now.” Paul Pierce led the Celtics with 29 points, his best game of the series by far, and Kevin Garnett added 13 points and 17 rebounds in what might have been their final home game together. Jeff Green added 26 points. The Celtics were perhaps seconds away from elimination and an off-season of radical change, but Pierce said he never had any doubts. Game 4: Knicks vs. Celtics 12 Photos View Slide Show › Image Richard Perry/The New York Times “I already called my friends in New York yesterday, telling them I’d be there for dinner,” he said. Terry, who was signed to replace Ray Allen last summer, had been a bust in the series until Sunday. He finished with 18 points, perhaps inspired by Smith’s elbow. “He was definitely vocal,” Coach Doc Rivers said. “Someone said it yesterday — maybe that elbow, who knows — said it changed the events for all of us. Definitely, Jason Terry was angry that it happened.” So the Knicks left Boston still in search of their first playoff series victory in 13 years. They will try again Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden. The sour finish overshadowed a thrilling second-half comeback, spearheaded by Anthony and Felton, who scored 16 of his 27 points in a blistering third-quarter rally. Felton also gave the Knicks their first — and only — lead of the afternoon, 84-82, with an 18-footer with 1:18 left in the fourth. The Knicks trailed by 19 points at halftime — their biggest deficit of the series, by far — having converted just 11 of 38 shots (28.9 percent), with Anthony going 3 for 15. He was beyond erratic, shooting air balls, picking up offensive fouls, committing five turnovers and negating a Felton free throw with a lane violation. Terry put the Celtics ahead for good on a pull-up 3-pointer, for a 91-88 lead. Anthony hit a jumper, but Terry answered with a 13-foot fadeaway, then put the game away with two free throws. Smith has been as indispensable as any Knicks star this season, providing points, clutch shots, defense and fire. Until Sunday, he had played in every meaningful game — sitting out only the last two regular-season games. The suspension could not have come as a shock — there was ample precedent — but the ruling rankled the Knicks all the same. “I’m not even going to comment on that,” Coach Mike Woodson said before the game. “Not at all.” Under league rules, Smith was not permitted to attend the game. His Twitter feed has been silent since the suspension was announced. “He’s a little down, but he’ll rebound from it,” Woodson said. Without Smith, Woodson used Jason Kidd as his first guard off the bench, then filled the open minutes with Steve Novak and Quentin Richardson, none of whom could remotely replicate Smith’s firepower. Woodson effectively tightened the rotation to seven players for the second half. The Knicks’ bench produced just 7 points. “We obviously missed J. R. tonight,” said Tyson Chandler, who had 11 rebounds and kept the Knicks in the game with a series of tap-outs. “We still had our shots, though.” The Celtics jumped ahead in the opening minutes and took their first double-digit lead of the series in the second quarter while the Knicks unraveled behind a series of turnovers and clanked jumpers. Pierce had 17 points by halftime, matching his Game 3 scoring total, every swish eliciting a powerful roar, as if any one of those shots might be his last here. “We have to be confident going back home,” Anthony said. He added, “We look forward to Wednesday, I can tell you that.” | Jason Terry;J R Smith;Basketball;Carmelo Anthony;Knicks;Celtics |
ny0277159 | [
"sports",
"horse-racing"
] | 2016/11/05 | Breeders’ Cup Distaff Features a First Loss and a Final Win | ARCADIA, Calif. — For the last quarter of a mile, Songbird and Beholder refused to yield. They ran neck-and-neck, with their Hall of Fame jockeys looking for the tiniest edge. Gary Stevens, aboard Beholder, called it “just a street fight.” Beholder, a 6-year-old mare, landed the final blow, edging Songbird by a nose in the $2 million Distaff on opening day of the Breeders’ Cup on Friday at Santa Anita Park. Even the jockey Mike Smith had to agree it was “an amazing, amazing race” after Songbird, his 3-year-old filly, lost for the first time in 12 races. “It was fun to be part of a battle,” Stevens said. “The show that those two just put on is worth the price of admission for everybody that showed up. This was horse racing at its best.” It was a thrilling finish to the four Cup races Friday, three of which involved New York-based long shots winning on an 80-degree day. Nine Cup races will be run Saturday, capped by the $6 million Classic, in which California Chrome is the early favorite. Beholder ran 1 ⅛ miles in 1 minute 49.20 seconds and paid $8.60, $3.60 and $3 as the 3-to-1 third choice. Songbird returned $3.20 and $2.80 as the even-money favorite. “I’ve had some good feelings in racing, but this is tops right here,” said Stevens, a three-time Kentucky Derby winner. It was the final career race for Beholder, who finished with 18 victories and was never worse than second in 16 starts at Santa Anita, her home track. The Distaff was her third Cup victory after the Distaff in 2013 and the Juvenile Fillies in 2012. “You saw the real Beholder show up today, maybe even the best race she ever ran in her life,” Smith said, “and she had to do it to beat us.” When the win photo was shown on the video board, the crowd roared at the slight margin between Songbird, who was along the rail, and Beholder, who was on her outside. “Other than losing, it was an amazing, amazing race,” Smith said. “That much more and I’d have been the one hooraying.” Songbird set the pace through the early stages of the race, with I’m a Chatterbox and Beholder in close pursuit. By the top of the stretch, it was a two-horse duel, with neither Beholder nor Songbird willing to give an inch. “She put Songbird away three different times through the stretch,” Stevens said of Beholder, “and she kept coming back, like she wouldn’t go away.” Smith thought he could put a length or two between his filly and Beholder when they got to the far turn. “But, man, she jumped on me,” he said of Beholder. “I couldn’t do it.” Forever Unbridled was a further 1 ¼ lengths back in third and paid $4.40 to show. Stellar Wind, the 5-2 second choice, finished fourth in the eight-horse field, followed by I’m a Chatterbox, Curalina and Land Over Sea. Corona Del Inca was euthanized after sustaining multiple fractures of her right front leg. The injuries were much more serious than it appeared after she was pulled up at the top of the stretch by the jockey Pablo Falero. The day’s biggest upset belonged to Smith aboard the 11-to-1 shot Tamarkuz, who won the $1 million Dirt Mile by 3 ½ lengths. Oscar Performance won by 1 ¼ lengths in the $1 million Juvenile Turf, and New Money Honey won the $1 million Juvenile Fillies Turf by a half-length. | Horse racing;Breeders Cup;California Chrome |
ny0144618 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2008/10/21 | Aid Worker Killed in Afghan Capital | KABUL, Afghanistan — A foreign aid worker was shot dead as she walked to work on Monday morning in a residential area of the Afghan capital, Kabul, by two gunmen on a motorbike, police officials and witnesses said. The aid worker, Gayle Williams, 34, was one of a team of women working with a British Christian organization, Serve Afghanistan. Ms. Williams had been working for two years in Afghanistan directing projects for the disabled, the organization said in a notice on its Web site , serveafghanistan.org . She held British and South African citizenship. A Taliban spokesman told Agence France-Presse that the group was responsible for the attack, saying Ms. Williams was singled out because her organization was proselytizing. However, Serve Afghanistan, whose workers are all volunteers, has operated in Afghanistan since 1980 and is not known for proselytizing. Also on Monday, five children and two German soldiers were killed by a suicide bomber on a bicycle in a village in the northern province of Kunduz, the provincial police chief, Gen. Razaq Yaqoobi, said. The children were running behind the military convoy when the explosion occurred, the police chief said. The police also confirmed Monday the kidnapping of a former presidential candidate and member of Afghanistan’s royal family, Homayoun Shah Asifi, late Sunday night in the same residential district of Kabul, Karte Char, where Ms. Williams was killed. “Mr. Asifi was returning last night to his house and was abducted by four armed men driving a car,” the deputy police chief of Kabul, Gen. Ali Shah Ahmadzai, said. Mr. Asifi did not have his usual bodyguards and was driving with an assistant and his driver, General Ahmadzai said. The kidnapping was part of a spate of abductions of Afghans and foreigners in recent weeks. It may be part of moves by the Taliban to increase their terrorism campaign and increase pressure on the government and the international forces, and at the same time raise funds through ransom demands for their insurgency, Afghan and Western officials have said. Most kidnappings here are the work of local criminal gangs, many of which have connections with the police; the kidnappers demand and often receive high ransoms. The son of a rich banker was recently kidnapped, the police said. Ms. Williams was killed as she was walking to her office, dressed in pants, a long shirt and a blue veil. Construction workers at a building site across the road said they saw the passenger on the motorbike get off, shoot three bullets, remount and zoom off. Her face covered by her veil, Ms. Williams’s body lay on the pavement beside a wall for 20 minutes, the workers said, until police officers got there. “The woman was dead when police arrived,” General Ahmadzai said. Someone had thrown earth over the spot where she died. “It is very shameful to kill a woman,” said Fareed Ahmad, 45, a shopkeeper who said he was giving change to two girls on their way to school when he heard the three shots. The group Serve Afghanistan described Ms. Williams as an enthusiastic, stoic individual. “She never spoke of the rigors and privations of aid work in Kandahar, one of the most difficult places for a young woman to work in the world, but she kept a smile on her face and always had a good-humored chuckle at the difficulties she must have endured,” the organization said on its Web site. “She was killed violently while caring for the most forgotten people in the world; the poor and the disabled,” it said. Government officials said the killing might have been an attempt to undermine the next interior minister, Muhammad Hanif Atmar, who won a confidence vote for his appointment in Parliament on Monday, one Western diplomat said. Mr. Atmar, well liked among the international organizations in Afghanistan for his proven ability in two previous ministerial posts and for his clean reputation, will be taking over the most corrupt ministry in the country, the diplomat said. Mr. Atmar is likely to face resistance as he tries to enforce reforms and replace corrupt police officials, and the recent increase in violence may be an early sign of that resistance, the diplomat suggested. In a speech to Parliament, Mr. Atmar promised to improve security in the 80 violence-prone districts of Afghanistan, appoint more capable police officers and work closely with people and community leaders in a concentrated effort to bring security. | Afghanistan;Afghanistan War (2001- );North Atlantic Treaty Organization;Taliban;Kabul (Afghanistan) |
ny0291237 | [
"technology"
] | 2016/01/01 | In Reversal, Twitter to Let Politwoops Collect Politicians’ Deleted Tweets | Politwoops will once again be able to collect and publish the deleted tweets of American politicians after Twitter announced Thursday that it reached a deal with the organizations that run the website. Twitter revoked Politwoops’s access to its API, the back-end code used by developers of other applications, earlier this year. Christopher Gates, the president of the Sunlight Foundation, a transparency group that runs the website in partnership with the Open State Foundation and Access Now, wrote at the time that Twitter’s decision “truly mystified” him. Politwoops has helped shine a light on apparent attempts by politicians to distance themselves from their remarks on Twitter. Perhaps the most notable case was when several politicians deleted tweets praising the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl by captors in Afghanistan after questions arose about the soldier’s past actions. Mr. Gates said the Sunlight Foundation was notified when it started Politwoops in 2012 that its use of the API violated Twitter’s terms of service, but after implementing a “layer of journalistic judgment” they were able to continue operating “with blessings from Twitter.” But in a statement published by Gawker in June, Twitter wrote that “preserving deleted Tweets violates our developer agreement.” Image Twitter revoked Politwoops’s access to its API earlier this year. Credit Dado Ruvic/Reuters It added: “Honoring the expectation of user privacy for all accounts is a priority for us, whether the user is anonymous or a member of Congress.” At a conference in October, Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, seemed to indicate that Politwoops’s access to the API might be restored. “We have a responsibility to continue to empower organizations that bring more transparency to public dialogue, such as Politwoops,” he said at the time . Mr. Dorsey, who helped create the social network in 2006 and was ousted in 2008, returned as the company’s chief executive just weeks before the October conference. Twitter has been struggling with revenue and user growth this year. The statement from Twitter on Thursday did not elaborate on why the API access for Politwoops was restored. “We look forward to continuing our work with these important organizations, and using Twitter to bring more transparency to public dialogue,” the statement said. No timeline was provided for when the website will be operational again, but the Sunlight Foundation said it will be working on it “ in the coming days and weeks .” The Open State Foundation said in a statement that Politwoops would be revived in the more than 30 countries where it had operated and may be expanded to other countries. | Sunlight Foundation;Jack Dorsey;Open State Foundation;Politwoops;US Politics |
ny0223078 | [
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] | 2010/11/17 | In B.C.S., No Reward for Sportsmanship | Two days after college football fans watched in amazement as Wisconsin defeated Indiana by an astonishing 63 points, the Hoosiers were still dealing with the fallout. The players were not made available to the news media as they normally are each Monday. Coach Bill Lynch refused to give the landslide loss more than cursory attention, even as it rekindled a debate about his tenure at Indiana. “The points jump out at everybody,” Lynch said, “but we can’t let that affect where we are and what’s ahead of us. The reality of it is that it was a loss.” In defeating Indiana, 83-20, on Saturday, Wisconsin matched the most points by a team in a Big Ten Conference game since Ohio State ’s 83-21 victory over Iowa in 1950. The 83 points were the most for Wisconsin since it beat Marquette by 85-0 in 1915. The shellacking raises larger questions for big-time college football, which continues to labor under the weight of contradictions and hypocrisy. Where is the sportsmanship? Where is the compassion? Where is the mercy? The answer is that they have been devoured by the Bowl Championship Series beast. Granted, lopsided scores are nothing new. On Oct. 7, 1916, Georgia Tech defeated Cumberland College, 222-0. Apparently, Georgia Tech Coach John Heisman wanted revenge after a 22-0 loss to Cumberland in baseball that year. Routs are not new, but the motivation for running up the score has a contemporary twist. Teams in the current B.C.S. generation have greater motivation than their predecessors to score big and score often. The B.C.S. system compels coaches to go for the kill week in, week out. Instead of extending their hand, they step on each other’s knuckles. The computers, which account for a third of the B.C.S. formula, do not factor in margin of victory. But you can be sure that big numbers on the scoreboard open the eyes of the voters in the coaches and the Harris polls, the other two components in the B.C.S. equation. The Badgers want to be invited to the Rose Bowl for the first time since 2000. If Wisconsin, Michigan State and Ohio State win the rest of their regular-season games, they will tie for the Big Ten title. The league’s tie breaker stipulates that the team with the highest B.C.S. ranking goes to the Rose Bowl. Wisconsin (7) is ranked ahead of the Buckeyes (9) and the Spartans (12). This is the system and the players know it. As Indiana quarterback Ben Chappell said Saturday, “This day and age, with the B.C.S., it’s on us to stop them.” Lynch knows it, too: “We got beat every way possible by a great football team. We played a quarter and a half and really were playing pretty well and then Chappell gets hurt. We didn’t handle it very well.” Those coaches who do not understand the rules of the B.C.S. era will suffer the consequences. On Oct. 9, Minnesota Coach Tim Brewster became enraged when Wisconsin went for a 2-point conversion after taking a 41-16 lead with 6 minutes 39 seconds left. The conversion failed, but that didn’t placate Brewster. “I thought it was a very poor decision by a head football coach and he’ll have to live with that,” Brewster said after the 41-23 loss. “It was wrong. Everybody in here knows it and everybody in college football knows it. It was wrong.” The system made Badgers Coach Bret Bielema do it, though he couldn’t say that. Wisconsin was compelled to go for 2 to earn style points. Instead, Bielema said that he was coaching to win and was following his conversion chart, which tells coaches when they should mathematically go for 2. “You know what?” he said at the time. “If we’re playing and somebody is going to go for 2 against me because they’re up 25, that’s what they should do; that’s what the card says.” That explanation might not have satisfied Brewster, but he won’t get a chance for a rebuttal. Minnesota fired him on Oct. 17. Presumably, Bielema wasn’t consulting that same card on Saturday when the Badgers entered the fourth quarter with a 59-13 lead, but they certainly kept scoring. Through a spokesman, Indiana’s president, Michael McRobbie, declined to comment about the game, saying he did not discuss intercollegiate athletics publicly. What’s there to say after a 63-point loss? The B.C.S. system discourages mercy and compels top-tier teams to position themselves for the B.C.S. championship game or other lucrative B.C.S. bowl games. The system encourages highly ranked teams like Wisconsin to post enormous victories over lesser opponents. Ranked teams that win close games against poor teams lose style points with voters. Consider that Texas Christian, ranked third in the B.C.S. standings, lost some ground to No. 4 Boise State after beating San Diego State by only 40-35 on Saturday. Consider some scores from this season: ¶ Oregon 72, New Mexico 0 ¶Oregon 69, Portland State 0 ¶Stanford 68, Wake Forest 24 ¶Wisconsin 70, Austin Peay 3 ¶Ohio State 73, Eastern Michigan 20 ¶Auburn 52, Louisiana - Monroe 3 ¶ Oklahoma 52, Iowa State 0 ¶Oregon 60, U.C.L.A. 13 Wisconsin’s 63-point victory exemplified a lack of sportsmanship, compassion and mercy, but it crystallized a system that has made those concepts obsolete by encouraging the mighty to crush the weak. Mercy? There is no mercy. | University of Wisconsin-Madison;Indiana University;Bowl Championship Series;Football;College Sports |
ny0108103 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/05/05 | Hundreds Mourn the 7 Victims of a Bronx Car Crash | On Friday morning, the day before Jazlyn Gonzalez was supposed to receive her first holy communion, she arrived at the Church of St. Raymond in the Bronx for the last time, in a shiny white coffin. It came in a procession of seven hearses that rolled up under bleak gray skies, announced by the tolling of a church bell. The hearses had to double- and triple-park on the street outside as, one by one, the coffins bearing 10-year-old Jazlyn in her white communion dress, her mother, aunt, two young cousins, grandmother and grandfather were carried up the church steps. It was a funeral Mass to bless a family dealt an incomprehensible loss. Miguel Alberty, the father of one of Jazlyn’s best friends, said he did not cry until he saw the smallest of the coffins. Then the tears flowed. “It’s too much,” he said. “If you ask me, it’s seven too many.” Months of preparing for the communion ceremony — and years of building families and lives — were cut short Sunday when a Honda Pilot driven by Jazlyn’s mother, Maria Nuñez Gonzalez, 45, struck a median barrier on the Bronx River Parkway and plunged 60 feet off an overpass into a nonpublic area of the Bronx Zoo, killing everyone inside. In addition to Ms. Nuñez Gonzalez and her daughter, the other passengers were Maria Nuñez Rosario, 39, and her daughters, Naily Rosario, 7, and Marlyn Rosario, 3; and Ana Julia Martínez, 81, and Jacobo Nuñez, 85, who had arrived just last week from the Dominican Republic to attend Jazlyn’s first communion. The funeral Mass at St. Raymond, a Roman Catholic church, drew hundreds of mourners, some of whom arrived hours before the 9:45 a.m. service and waited outside the black wrought-iron gates. Residents of the apartment building across the street peered down from their windows; some of the Catholics among them silently crossed themselves. “I feel there is a hole in my heart,” said Mr. Alberty’s daughter, Mikaela, 9, who has been sitting next to Jazlyn’s empty chair at St. Raymond Elementary School all week because no one has wanted to touch her books or pencil case. Gwendolyn Bowell, 70, a home attendant, said she could not help but give thanks for her own large family of 6 children, 14 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren. “I feel for them very much,” she said. “It was so fast. It was so many from one family.” Inside the church, Msgr. John Graham said the Mass in English and in Spanish, and included hymns and prayers that were requested by family members: “The Lord Is My Strength,” “He Is Risen” and the “Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.” Calling the accident “a nightmare,” Monsignor Graham told the mourners in the pews that the seven would “become one with Christ.” Quiet sobbing echoed through the sanctuary. “Give them eternal peace,” said Yanet Gomez, 43, as she left the church at the end of the service. “They simply went early.” The accident, which is still under investigation, occurred after Ms. Nuñez Gonzalez lost control of the car while speeding on an elevated section of highway, careering into the median and then flying over the guardrail (police estimated that she was driving 68.5 miles per hour in a 50-m.p.h. zone). In response to criticism that the roadway was unsafe, state transportation officials began installing new concrete barriers this week to supplement the four-foot-tall guardrails. Family members said that Ms. Nuñez Gonzalez had picked up her parents from a relative’s home, and was driving them, along with her sister and the three children, to a church service; she had planned to take them home for a family dinner. Ms. Nuñez Gonzalez and Ms. Nuñez Rosario had worked together in custodial services at Fordham University, and dozens of their friends and colleagues lined up outside the church to honor them. “It’s not just co-workers, it’s family,” said Fernando Bonilla, 51, a custodian who described the sisters as “top-notch workers” who always pulled their weight. “All I’ve been doing is praying to God since it happened.” Monsignor Graham said that St. Raymond’s had been devastated by the loss, and would plant a tree on the grounds in Jazlyn’s memory. “On Saturday, she was going to receive Jesus for the first time,” he said. “She is now with Jesus forever.” After the funeral Mass, relatives climbed into a white stretch limousine that displayed the names of the dead on its side, spelled out in blue, yellow and pink tape with bouquets of matching roses. The family buried Ms. Nuñez Gonzalez, Ms. Nuñez Rosario and the three children at the church’s cemetery. The coffins for the sisters’ parents were to be flown to the Dominican Republic for burial. Several women sobbed as they were helped into the limousine, and one kept asking: “¿Por qué? ¿Por qué?” “It was a sea of caskets,” said Monica Martin, 68, as she was leaving the church. “I have never seen that before, and hope I never will again.” | Traffic Accidents and Safety;Funerals;Bronx (NYC);New York City;Deaths (Fatalities);Bronx River Parkway (NY);Nunez Gonzalez Maria |
ny0069230 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2014/12/06 | Searching for a Closer, Yankees Acquire Andrew Miller | On the same day the Yankees acquired the man they hope can replace Derek Jeter, they also signed a player who could become a successor to Mariano Rivera. Within hours of announcing that they had traded for shortstop Didi Gregorius , the Yankees announced they had agreed to a four-year contract with Andrew Miller, a dominant left-handed relief pitcher who may become their closer. The deal is for $36 million. Brian Cashman, the Yankees’ general manager, said Miller had an offer for $40 million, but chose to pitch for the Yankees. Cashman said he was still open to re-signing David Robertson, the free-agent reliever who served as the team’s closer last season. Robertson’s agent has been in contact with other teams, and so far his price has been too high for the Yankees, even in light of how well he performed after Rivera retired. “I am not opposed to continuing to pursue someone that has known closing abilities,” Cashman said. If Robertson goes to another team, the Yankees can pick as their closer either Miller or Dellin Betances, the large right-hander who had a stellar season in 2014 in the setup role. Either way, Betances and Miller will make an imposing pair of bookend relievers. One is 6-foot-8 and nasty from the right side, and the other is 6-foot-7 and devastating from the left. Cashman would not say which pitcher would get the closer’s role if it were between Miller and Betances, perhaps because not even the Yankees know yet. “That’s premature for me in the wintertime,” Cashman said. “I’m not in that mode. I’m actually in the mode of, well, this was an opportunity too good to pass up, especially without a draft pick attached to it. It protects us and gives us diversification and reinforces our efforts to continue to have a strong bullpen.” While Gregorius still needs some development — he may platoon at times with Brendan Ryan — Miller is at the top of his field. One of the best relief pitchers in baseball since the Boston Red Sox moved him to the bullpen full-time in 2012, he has managed to fulfill his promise, though in a role different from the one he started in. He was drafted by the Detroit Tigers with the sixth pick overall in the 2006 draft, one pick ahead of Clayton Kershaw, four ahead of Tim Lincecum and five ahead of Max Scherzer. A year later, Miller was traded to the Marlins as part of the megadeal that sent Miguel Cabrera to the Tigers. But Miller struggled as a starter, going 20-27 with a 5.70 earned run average with 7.1 strikeouts per nine innings. As a relief pitcher, though, he has flourished. With a more streamlined repertoire that includes a good fastball and a devastating slider, he has accumulated 235 strikeouts in 1672/3 innings for a rate of 12.6 strikeouts per nine innings, and his E.R.A. is 3.38. Last season with the Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles, where he was dealt at the nonwaiver trade deadline, he had 103 strikeouts in 621/3 innings, and a 2.02 E.R.A. He has allowed nine home runs in the last three seasons. | Baseball;Andrew Miller;Didi Gregorius;Yankees |
ny0079473 | [
"us"
] | 2015/02/17 | TV News and the Idea of Truth | I haven’t been a guest on very many television shows, much to my mother’s dismay. But I have been the guest of both Jon Stewart and Brian Williams, the newsy comedian and the comedic newsman who announced very different sorts of leave-taking last week. As they depart — Mr. Stewart honorably, Mr. Williams with his integrity in doubt — I found myself recalling very different experiences on their shows. Mr. Williams’s half-hour “NBC Nightly News,” the most widely watched program of its kind in the United States, was businesslike and slick , if not exactly searching. A producer called to ask if I could opine about Google Glass. I didn’t know much about it, beyond my observation that people wearing it looked foolish. But I agreed, because I figured my lack of expertise was their problem more than mine. During the taping, I met neither Mr. Williams, who displayed a fine sense of comic timing in talk-show appearances, nor the reporter for that segment. Instead, several handlers moved me among rooms. I sat at a desk and was asked to give a lot of opinions in no particular order; they’d find something usable. I asked and answered my own questions. They took one sentence of it and put it on air. Mr. Stewart’s “Daily Show,” whose comedic approach and smaller ratings belied its significant influence on the American political scene, was very different . I asked a producer there, Hillary Kun, whether we should prepare some questions and answers in advance, as I had found routine on the few news shows I had done. She recoiled, saying something about prearranged ideas eroding the show’s integrity. Mr. Stewart came to the dressing room before the taping. He asked many questions — the kind people ask when they are actually interested. Unlike many powerful people, he listened, so that each thing he asked was based on a previous answer. I could see he was working out some essential truth that I represented, for use on the show. Then he found it. My return to the India my parents left would be like his going back to the Lithuania shtetl. Imagine the guilt-tripping! On Mr. Stewart’s show, the truth was a process; on Mr. Williams’s, it was an outcome. “The Daily Show” deconstructed purported truths. “Nightly News” took precarious facts and fallible “experts” and constructed them into something purporting to be Truth. An under-told aspect of Mr. Stewart’s legacy is how much his deconstructing spirit meant to many in the less open parts of the world. On a reporting trip to China some years ago, I was struck by the risks young people took to download the show illegally and, in some cases, to subtitle and disseminate it for others. I telephoned one such Stewart fan in Beijing to ask how she was coping with his departure. “We hope he can delay his resigning until after the 2016 election,” said Maggie Chen, a 32-year-old pharmacist who devotes two or three hours a day to subtitling “The Daily Show.” Almost every night, or sometimes at 6 a.m. before work, she downloads show clips and the accompanying English subtitles, translates them into Chinese, and spreads them across her sizable social media following. It’s not about the content. “We’re not interested in your politics,” she said, adding: “We’re interested in the style of the show, and the idea that you can use jokes to tell the truth.” As a young Chinese woman living through a widening crackdown on free speech, Ms. Chen admires the show’s exploration of “the things behind the news or within the news.” It gives public life a drama that is lacking in Chinese news. “In China, news is news, and interesting things are interesting things,” she said. “They are different.” She said “The Daily Show” taught her that patriotism and criticism are compatible. “Jon Stewart always shows he’s American. He shows certain kind of bad things about America, but the idea that he can do that makes us feel America is good. Because we cannot do that.” I asked what Ms. Chen would say to Mr. Stewart if they met. “I want to say, ‘Thank you and I love you, and thank you for giving us the happiness,”’ she said. Join an online conversation at http://anand.ly and follow on Twitter.com/anandwrites | US;Jon Stewart;Brian Williams;TV;News media,journalism |
ny0027531 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2013/01/19 | Myanmar to End Assault Against Kachin Rebels | BANGKOK — After weeks of intense fighting near the border with China, the Myanmar government on Friday announced what appeared to be a unilateral cease-fire in its offensive against ethnic Kachin rebels. The government also said it would pursue peace talks, but it was unclear how the rebels would react to the government’s overtures. The announcement of a cease-fire, to start Saturday, was made during the main evening newscast and came only hours after Parliament approved a resolution calling for an end to a year and a half of fighting. Myanmar’s actions have come under increased scrutiny by an international community fearful that the country, an emerging democracy, will backslide. China, an ally worried about an influx of refugees, as well as the shells that have landed on its side of the border, had also been vocal and called for a cease-fire, according to Xinhua, China’s state news agency. Many questions remain about the cease-fire, including whether the military — which has been gaining territory almost daily — will comply with the order. Myanmar, also known as Burma, was ruled by a military junta until 2011 and is still transitioning to more democratic rule, with the roles of its leaders still evolving. President Thein Sein — who is not the commander in chief under the country’s new Constitution — had suggested several times that the army was not supposed to go on the offensive but was to act only in defense, though it has been unclear how strongly he was pushing the army to stop fighting. Friday’s announcement was much more detailed, including a precise time (by 6 a.m. Saturday) when the cease-fire was supposed to go into effect. One leading Kachin voice, the Rev. Samson Hkalam, the general secretary of the Kachin Baptist Convention, said by telephone that he was skeptical of the announcement. “According to our experience, the declarations by the government are one thing,” he said. “What the army does is another.” He also said the cease-fire was limited. “There are many areas that Myanmar troops occupy,” he said. “The cease-fire applies to only one area.” According to the government announcement, the cease-fire applies to the area around the town of Lajayang, the site of the major fighting . It is not known what that means for the rest of Kachin State, where the rebels control pockets of territory. The statement said the military had “concluded its conditional mission” in the Lajayang offensive and had secured the “safety of troops.” It said there had been more than a thousand “battles” between the rebels and government troops since Dec. 10. The government also said the military had suffered many casualties, but did not give a number. A military officer, however, said 218 troops had been killed and 764 wounded since Nov. 15, according to an official tally. The officer requested anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. The cease-fire announcement came as the commander in chief of Myanmar’s armed forces, Vice Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, is on an official visit to Singapore and Malaysia. The Myanmar military has intensified its campaign against the Kachin rebels since the end of December, and witnesses have described frequent shelling in and around the town of Laiza, the rebel base. The central government’s relationship with its many minorities is considered a crucial gauge — for those inside and outside the country — of the reforms that Mr. Thein Sein has been carrying out since coming to power in March 2011 and that have helped lead to a suspension of sanctions by the United States and other countries. The hostilities with the Kachin have already increased tensions among other ethnic groups, a point underlined by a statement issued by the leaders of the Wa, a group that has a cease-fire agreement with the government but still has thousands of men under arms. The statement, which was co-signed by two other groups, warned of a return to civil war in Myanmar. “The country will return backward” if the fighting does not stop, the statement said. The debates leading up to the cease-fire have been notable for the relative absence of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader and Nobel laureate, who was quoted this week as saying that she would not take a major role in trying to end the fighting because it was not the purview of her parliamentary committee. Instead, the speaker of the lower house of Parliament, Thura Shwe Mann, a former general, commanded the spotlight. He rushed the motion for an immediate halt to hostilities in Kachin State to a vote — without discussion — because he said the issue was “vital for the country,” according to Burmese news reports. The strong call was notable because it appeared to reflect the growing influence of Parliament — an institution that did not exist under military rule. Before the Myanmar government’s announcement, official Chinese news organizations reported that Burmese refugees fleeing the fighting had entered southwestern China, where many were living with relatives and friends. The reports, which appeared this week, said the number of those arriving in China was growing, but did not give estimates. An article published online by People’s Daily , controlled by the Communist Party, said some hotels near the border between Yunnan Province and Kachin State were fully booked. The Myanmar Army has been pressing a campaign against the rebel Kachin Independence Army since June 2011, when a 17-year cease-fire collapsed. The rebels controlled a large area in Kachin State and protected it as an autonomous region. The fighting has disrupted Chinese hydroelectric projects in the region and jade mining, an important part of the border trade in Yunnan. Thousands of Kachin, who are mostly Christian, crossed into Yunnan after the breakdown of the 2011 cease-fire, and many took shelter in refugee camps. Chinese Christians provided aid, as did ethnic Kachin living in China, who are called Jingpo in Mandarin. Last August, officials in Yunnan forced most of the refugees to leave the camps and return to the war zone, drawing criticism from Human Rights Watch and other groups. | Kachin State Myanmar;Refugees,Internally Displaced People;Military;China;Chinese People's Liberation Army;Myanmar,Burma |
ny0167700 | [
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] | 2006/01/08 | Who's on First? What's ... | GARDEN CITY - ON the surface, all appeared to be sweetness and light as the 19 Nassau County legislators gathered at the Nassau Community College gymnasium here on Tuesday to be sworn in for a new term in office. Presiding Officer Judith A. Jacobs, a Democrat, served as M.C. at the ceremony and won three standing ovations. Fellow officials hugged and kissed her. The Republican minority leader, Peter J. Schmitt, called her "my friend." Thomas R. Suozzi, the county executive, called for bipartisan cooperation. The musical strains of police bagpipers and a Freeport school chorale filled the hall. Orators orated. Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim clerics prayed for peace and good will. But as soon as the formalities were over, the political knives were out. The usually routine business of electing a presiding officer and minority leader for the new term turned into a cross-party free-for-all like nothing in the County Legislature's 10-year history. Mr. Schmitt joined forces with two dissident Democrats, Roger Corbin and Lisanne Altmann, in an attempt to unseat Ms. Jacobs as presiding officer and replace her with Mr. Corbin. Ms. Jacobs fought back with a complicated counterstrategy that, oddly enough, depended on her dropping out of the Democratic Party, at least on paper. (One blogger called the tactical switch "a Judy-Jitsu.") Then, when opponents questioned the legality of her moves, her allies won a court order temporarily thwarting the Legislature from deciding the leadership issue at all. A crowd of some 200 people waited in the legislative chamber here on Tuesday afternoon while the legislators, their aides and party leaders closeted themselves in caucuses, whispered in hallway huddles and barked into cellphones. By the end of the day, the meeting had been canceled, with no vote taken. One legislative aide called the chaotic afternoon the "disorganization meeting." With the dispute tied up in litigation in State Supreme Court, the Legislature was left in limbo, with the court case adjourned until Thursday. Regardless of the outcome, the Legislature's future may be irrevocably changed, with implications for both parties and for the Suozzi administration, politicians say. The disarray damages Mr. Suozzi's image as he prepares to run for the Democratic nomination for governor, said Desmond Ryan, a Republican lobbyist. "If he can't deal with 19 legislators in Nassau," Mr. Ryan said, "how's he going to deal with 211 in Albany?" And locally, he said, "what it really does is open Pandora's box." As an aide to Suffolk's county executive in the 1970's, Mr. Ryan saw party splits and coalitions emerge in the Legislature there. With party discipline now apparently eroding in the Nassau Legislature, he said, "all 19 people think they're county executive." Whatever ad-hoc alliance emerges from among the 10 Democratic and 9 Republican legislators to finally elect a presiding officer may not hold together for any other purpose, politicians predicted. New alignments of support and opposition may have to be forged for each new issue that arises. "Coalitions are, at best, very fragile and don't last very long," said Arthur J. Kremer, a Nassau Democrat and former State Assembly committee chairman. The split in the Democratic ranks "could undermine everything they tried to accomplish in the last four years," he said. "For the Republicans, this gives them an opportunity to portray Democrats as being unable to govern," he said. But average citizens want their legislators to be independent, and not bow to party bosses, said Ms. Altmann, one of the dissident Democrats. "It's not a bad thing," she said. The rivals in the power struggle all claim the high moral ground for themselves while variously accusing one another of ambition, greed, power-grabbing and betrayal. "It's time for a change, time for new ideas," Mr. Corbin said. If he becomes presiding officer, he said, the Democrats would retain control of the Legislature's committees, but Republican proposals would also be considered, and the two parties would cooperate more. Mr. Corbin, who was deputy presiding officer under Ms. Jacobs last term but has complained about being passed over for various posts, would be Nassau's first black presiding officer. Ms. Altmann, who would become his deputy, said she wanted the Legislature to be more productive and to be more of a watchdog over the Suozzi administration. She also makes no secret of her ambition to run for county executive herself. Mr. Schmitt, who has been the Republican minority leader since his party lost its majority in the legislature in 2004, said that with the Democrats divided, he could wrest the presiding-officer post for himself. But he said that would be unfair, since voters elected a Democratic majority. He said his party's aims were noble: "We agreed to support Roger to break the logjam." But Ms. Jacobs accused the Republicans of political mischief, interfering with the majority's internal affairs to dictate the choice of presiding officer and shutting out most of the Democrats. She called the move "a return to the smoke-filled room" and an effort to claw back control of the county for the Republicans, who she said had run Nassau into near bankruptcy. Michael D. Dawidziak, a prominent political consultant, viewed both sides' claims with skepticism. "This is all spin," he said. "This is race to see who can put best spin on it, and they're all trying to get the best deal." Similarly, Mr. Kremer said: "Right now, all of them are sitting there naked. All these emperors have no clothes now. Republicans wanted the ploy of sharing power. Roger wanted to vault over Judy. The Democrats can't keep themselves united. All sides are exposed to being the 'me' party." Money and patronage are at stake as well as authority and prestige. The presiding officer is paid $67,500 a year and controls committee appointments and the majority's budget and staff. The deputy gets $62,500. The minority leader is paid $63,500 and controls a share of the legislative budget and staff. Other legislators are paid $39,500 a year. Barring further twists, the leadership fight now hinges on esoteric legal arguments and the intricacies of the county charter. By law, when the legislators vote for their leaders, the one receiving the most votes becomes presiding officer. The job of minority leader goes to the highest vote-getter who is not a member of the same party as the presiding officer. The coalition's plan was to have eight of the nine Republicans and the two dissident Democrats vote for Mr. Corbin, giving him 10 votes in all and making him presiding officer. One Republican would vote for Mr. Schmitt. The remaining eight Democrats would presumably support Ms. Jacobs, but since she and Mr. Corbin were both Democrats, she could not be minority leader, allowing Mr. Schmitt to continue in the post. That is where Ms. Jacobs's countermove comes in. Her sudden change of enrollment on Tuesday, from Democrat to unaffiliated, meant she was no longer of the same party as Mr. Corbin, she argued, so her eight votes would indeed make her the minority leader, sidelining Mr. Schmitt. Ms. Jacobs hoped that the threat of that happening would prompt the Republicans to abandon their effort to unseat her. Not so fast, the coalition argued. Under state law, changes in party enrollment do not take effect until after the next general election, so Ms. Jacobs would not cease to be a Democrat for another 10 months. But Ms. Jacobs's supporters countered that those election rules were meant to prevent voters from quickly switching into another party to unduly influence a primary and that they did not apply to becoming an unaffiliated voter -- and even if the rules did apply, they would be an unconstitutional bar to free association. The Jacobs forces obtained a court order temporarily blocking the Legislature from selecting a minority leader while her party status remains in dispute. The coalition then decided to delay any voting on either leadership post until the courts or election officials resolve the matter. Mr. Schmitt called Ms. Jacobs's tactic "obstructionist" and "a desperate attempt to hold on to power." He accused Mr. Suozzi of orchestrating the move and demanded that he "call off his attack dogs." Though Mr. Suozzi endorsed Ms. Jacobs, he denied interfering with legislative affairs. Mr. Corbin expressed frustration. "This is a sham," he said. "It's a circus. It's an outrage." Ms. Jacobs said Mr. Corbin and Ms. Altmann were making common cause with the opposition party without ever asking fellow Democrats for their support. She invited them to come "back in the fold" and said that if a majority of the Democrats in the Legislature wanted a new leader, she would step aside. Edward Ward, a spokesman for the Republicans, said that three Democratic legislators had separately approached him about breaking ranks. The rift in the majority "didn't just happen yesterday," he said. Mr. Kremer mused that the turmoil in the Legislature might even give extra impetus to Mr. Suozzi's Albany ambitions: "He can say, 'Now you see why I want to get out of Nassau County!' " | LONG ISLAND (NY);LEGISLATURES AND PARLIAMENTS |
ny0217088 | [
"us"
] | 2010/04/15 | Former Student Sues Brown University Over Rape Accusation | A former student has sued Brown University in federal court, saying university officials interfered with his efforts to clear his name after another student, the daughter of a prominent Brown alumnus and donor, accused him of rape. In documents unsealed Monday, the former student, William McCormick III, said the university had failed to follow its own disciplinary policies and sent him home to Wisconsin after the woman’s father made calls to top university officials. The rape accusation was never reported to the police by Brown or the woman, according to the lawsuit. Within a month, Mr. McCormick had agreed to a private settlement with the woman’s lawyer: if he withdrew from Brown, she would not file criminal charges. In a statement, a spokeswoman for Brown said the university and its employees had acted appropriately. “As in all instances, the university respects and maintains the confidentiality of student and employee records,” said Marisa Quinn, the university’s vice president for public affairs. Mr. McCormick’s lawyer declined to comment on the lawsuit, and a lawyer for the accuser and her father did not return calls. Some advocates for students say that university policies are particularly one-sided when it comes to sexual misconduct cases and that the McCormick case highlights a legal gray area in which students at private universities can be accused of potentially serious crimes, but are not always given access to the same due-process rights afforded by the police or in a court of law. “They have tended to favor the accusers rather than the accused,” said Adam Kissel of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education , which focuses on students’ rights issues and has criticized the sexual misconduct policies at Duke, Columbia and other universities. “It’s almost as if guilty when charged is the policy, instead of innocent until proven guilty.” At a hearing on Monday, Judge William E. Smith of Federal District Court in Providence, R.I., questioned why Brown never reported the alleged attack to the police. “The thought that with all the people involved in this matter at different levels, a determination is made to not tell law enforcement, even the Brown Police Department — I’m having trouble getting that,” Judge Smith said, according to The Associated Press. He also characterized the lawsuit as “a mess” and told Mr. McCormick’s lawyer, J. Scott Kilpatrick, that some of the assertions appeared to be unsubstantiated. According to his lawsuit, Mr. McCormick arrived at Brown in the fall of 2006 as a star wrestler and straight-A student with a financial aid scholarship to attend the university. He was assigned to live in the same dorm as the female student. In the first few days of school, the lawsuit describes the two as becoming “friendly, but not romantic.” But Mr. McCormick quickly drew attention in the dorm, the lawsuit says: his 250-pound frame cut a “physically imposing figure,” and the woman’s friends began describing him as “creepy” and called him her “stalker.” The woman first told her resident coordinator that Mr. McCormick was following her. According to an e-mail message from a Brown associate dean that is part of the court record, the student was initially reluctant to name Mr. McCormick and complained that she “did not want to have anything bad happen.” The message also indicated that the woman’s parents had called a high-level Brown official to discuss the matter. The lawsuit claims that Brown employees pursued the complaint vigorously, pressing the student to divulge Mr. McCormick’s name and pressing her to add to her complaint. According to the lawsuit, at one point the student felt that the officials were “yelling at her” and that the ordeal was taking time away from sailing practice and studying for a chemistry test. Eventually, with the help of her resident coordinator, she wrote a statement asserting that Mr. McCormick had raped her. After the student amended her complaint to include rape, Brown officials met with Mr. McCormick and presented him with a one-way ticket home to Wisconsin. According to the lawsuit, they denied his requests for a copy of the complaint against him and he was not given an opportunity to provide his version of events. He was told only that he faced a complaint of “sexual misconduct,” the lawsuit asserts. The McCormick case is not the first time Brown has been sued over a sexual misconduct case. In 1998, the university settled a lawsuit with Adam Lack, a student who was suspended for a semester after another student accused him of having sex with her without her permission. His accuser later acknowledged she was drunk and did not remember the incident. The story led to a national debate over what constitutes rape, and how colleges should handle such cases. “The escalation of the story was the same in both cases,” said David Josephson, an associate professor of music at Brown who acted as an informal advocate for Mr. Lack. Mr. Josephson said he sat in on a meeting with Brown officials at the request of Mr. McCormick's representative. “The case smells to me of injustice — left, right and center,” he said. Courts have traditionally been reluctant to challenge the internal policies of private universities. In 2000, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in favor of Brandeis University in a similar sexual misconduct case, arguing that the university did not have to offer due process to a student who asserted that his date-rape case had been mishandled. In court documents, Brown said it took appropriate action to safeguard one of its students from a possible attacker. Mr. McCormick’s lawsuit asserts, however, that the university interfered with his access to potential witnesses and refused to provide documents that might exonerate him. The lawsuit also asserts that a Brown dean arranged for Mr. McCormick to face an administrative hearing rather than have his case heard by a panel of peers, faculty and deans. The university’s “actions and inactions,” the lawsuit asserts, “had the intended effect of largely crippling William’s ability to defend himself.” Mr. McCormick, who is now a junior at Bucknell University, asserts that the agreement he reached soon after the rape accusation is invalid because he was coerced to sign it under threat of criminal charges. Lawyers for his accuser have asked the judge to dismiss the case because under the settlement, Mr. McCormick gave up his right to sue. The case was initially filed in September under seal in Rhode Island state court at the request of Mr. McCormick, who argued he did not want to be seen violating the confidentiality terms of his agreement with the student. It was moved to federal court in October. | Colleges and Universities;Sex Crimes;Suits and Litigation;Brown University |
ny0013006 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2013/11/19 | U.N. Agency Seeks Details on American Held in Iran | The family of Amir Hekmati, a former American Marine who has been incarcerated in Iran for more than two years even though his espionage conviction was overturned, has been contacted by the United Nations for details on his case, Mr. Hekmati’s sister said Monday. The sister, Sarah Hekmati, said that representatives from the United Nations human rights agency had reached out to her in recent weeks. The Iranian government has not explained why it has continued to hold Mr. Hekmati, an American of Iranian descent who was taken into custody while on a visit to see his maternal grandmother and other relatives in 2011. Mr. Hekmati, 30, disappeared for three months, and then was charged with espionage, tried and sentenced to death. The verdict was overturned and a new trial was ordered in March 2012. But that retrial has never happened, and the charges against him — if any remain — have never been stated by the Iranian judicial authorities. Mr. Hekmati and his family have repeatedly said he is innocent of any wrongdoing and do not understand why he was ever arrested. The specific wing of the United Nations that contacted the family — the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, based in Geneva — is in the midst of drafting principles that would establish the right of detained people to mount legal challenges. While such principles would be nonenforceable, they would nonetheless be a political embarrassment to United Nations member states that violate them. Iran’s incarceration of Mr. Hekmati, of Flint, Mich., who served in the Marines for four years, has become another festering issue in the estranged relations between the United States and Iran, which broke diplomatic ties more than three decades ago. Image Amir Hekmati, a former American Marine, has been incarcerated in Iran for more than two years. Credit Uncredited/FreeAmir.org, via Associated Press In a telephone interview, Mr. Hekmati’s sister said that Iranian relatives who have been permitted to visit him in Tehran’s Evin Prison reported that his mood had become increasingly pessimistic in recent weeks. The election of Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, this summer had brought an initial burst of hope that the government might be more inclined to release him as a show of good will toward the United States. “He said they should either pardon me or try me,” she quoted the relatives as saying. Mr. Rouhani has vowed to improve relations with the United States and other Western countries as part of a broader effort to ease Iran’s economic and political isolation. While most of that effort has been directed at resolving the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, American officials have said they have raised the issue of Mr. Hekmati repeatedly with their Iranian counterparts during the most recent nuclear negotiations in Geneva, which are set to resume on Wednesday. President Obama personally raised Mr. Hekmati’s case with Mr. Rouhani during their breakthrough telephone conversation on Sept. 27, as the Iranian leader was departing from his visit to the United Nations, American officials have said. Mr. Hekmati’s Democratic congressional representative, Dan Kildee, has made his case a priority and has sought to reassure his family in Flint that the issue is being pressed with senior American officials and intermediaries who deal with Iran. At Mr. Kildee’s urging, dozens of fellow lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for his release and signed a letter urging the State Department to “explore all options” to achieve it. In an interview while visiting New York on Monday, Mr. Kildee said that he approached the problem “as though Amir was a member of my family.” Mr. Kildee also said an Iranian decision to release Mr. Hekmati would likely be viewed favorably by members of Congress, many of whom are leaning toward intensifying sanctions on Iran. The congressman also said he had sent a letter directly to Mr. Hekmati, dated last Friday, in which he urged him not to lose hope. “I am certain there have been dark days, but I hope you can take some comfort in knowing that I, along with your family, are doing everything we can to get you home.” | UN;Amir Mirzaei Hekmati;Daniel T Kildee;Iran |
ny0067865 | [
"business",
"international"
] | 2014/12/29 | ‘Monster Strike’ Gives Former Social Media Giant Mixi a Second Act | TOKYO — It was a familiar trajectory for a social network like Facebook that did not happen to be Facebook: One moment there were tens of millions of users and a multibillion-dollar stock market valuation. The next, a plunge toward whatever-happened-to-it oblivion. But the Japanese technology company Mixi, once the dominant social network in its consummately Internet-connected home market, is rewriting the ending to its story, thanks to a striking act of self-reinvention. Abandoned by most of its users and investors a year ago, Mixi has come storming back in a new field: mobile video gaming. The company is profiting from a hit smartphone game that it started marketing in late 2013 in what looked like a desperate attempt to stave off collapse. The game, Monster Strike, has been downloaded more than 20 million times, mostly in Japan, and it is earning Mixi about $2 million a day in revenue. It was the company’s first foray into game development — a success that feels as unlikely as, say, Myspace creating the next Angry Birds. “What we’re seeing is Mixi’s second coming, and it’s much bigger than the first,” said Serkan Toto, founder of Kantan Games, a consulting firm based in Tokyo. “They were on their knees when Monster Strike came out.” Kengo Inoue, 16, a high school student in Matsue in western Japan, said he had never heard of Mixi the social network. “All I know about it is it’s the company that makes Mon-Suto,” he said, using the popular slang name for Monster Strike. He has been playing it for about a year, he said, inhabiting heroic animated characters and battling dragonlike enemies, alone or with teams of friends. At his most “crazy” he regularly played for two hours at a time — stretching the definition of so-called casual phone gaming. On one level, Mixi’s turnaround illustrates how inexperienced challengers have dominated the relatively new business of mobile games, while established game developers from the home-console era have struggled to make a mark. The founders of King Digital Entertainment, the British start-up behind the hit Candy Crush Saga, got their start with an online dating service before moving into games. In Japan, the most successful mobile game developer, GungHo Online Entertainment, was little known until it released its popular game Puzzle & Dragons. Yet perhaps no game developer has come to the field after a previous rise — and fall — as meteoric as Mixi’s. Unveiled in February 2004, the same month as Facebook, by a 28-year-old Internet entrepreneur named Kenji Kasahara, its social network quickly attracted a following in Japan. The company went public two years later, and by late 2007 investors valued it at more than $3 billion. Image A screenshot from the smartphone game Monster Strike. It has been downloaded more than 20 million times, mostly in Japan. Credit Mixi For a while, it looked as if Mixi might become one of the few social networks to resist Facebook’s global onslaught. It was gaining users even after Facebook started a Japanese-language version, in 2008. At one point, 27 million people, or one in five Japanese, had a Mixi account. But eventually Mixi succumbed, as users turned to Facebook and other social networks like Twitter and Line, a popular messaging app. Last year, it stopped publishing membership data after the number of people who logged on at least once a month fell to half of what it had been at the company’s peak. Experimental ventures like matchmaking and photo-sharing services failed to catch on. Last year, Mr. Kasahara stepped aside as chief executive, succeeded by a 30-year-old former McKinsey consultant who had once trained as a jockey in Australia. Mixi’s stock dropped to 5 percent of its peak value. All of this was before Monster Strike. In the last year, the company has recouped all its stock market losses and then some as investors have poured back in. Content revenue — essentially all from Monster Strike — reached 19.4 billion yen ($161 million) last quarter, or about 90 percent of Mixi’s total income. In June, the head of the game-development division took over as president. “It was a big bet,” the new leader, Hiroki Morita, said in an interview, of the decision to expand into gaming. Although there were precedents — two big Japanese mobile gaming platforms, Gree and DeNA, had started in unrelated Internet businesses — Mixi “had fallen behind,” he said. To differentiate itself, Mixi decided it wanted a game that people could play face to face, Mr. Morita said, “something you could play with friends if you were out drinking, for example.” The company solicited prototypes from outside developers. The one it chose was from Yoshiki Okamoto, who had created the popular console-era franchise Street Fighter. The Monster Strike app made its debut on Apple’s app store in October 2013, and Mixi spent about $5 million on television commercials and other promotions — an unusually aggressive marketing campaign for a smartphone game. “It was a relief when we saw the numbers” for downloads, Mr. Morita said. Like many other mobile games, Monster Strike is free to acquire and play, but users can spend money on special characters and to extend their lives when they are wounded in battles or killed. In the last two months, Mixi has released versions of the Monster Strike app for South Korea, China and the United States, where it has ranked as high as 13th in weekly downloads in iPhone games, according to the app tracker App Annie . Mr. Toto, the games consultant, calculates that Monster Strike is “per capita, the most profitable game on the planet.” It helps, he said, that the game began in Japan, where people spend liberally on all kinds of products through their phones. And while a traditional video game developer would be under pressure to develop the next hit quickly, before users completed every level or got sick of trying, the free-to-play model is all about expanding and updating existing properties, giving Mixi time to grow into its new role. “It’s like a social network in that it never ends,” he said. Mixi has not bothered to tie Monster Strike to its own fading social network. Users can play alone, with nearby friends over a Bluetooth connection or remotely with their Line contacts. Masatoshi Kurosaki, 18, a high school student in Okayama, in western Japan, said he used Line to play with four friends about 80 percent of the time. He does not spend money on the game, he said, but some of his friends pay ¥20,000 or ¥30,000 (roughly $160 to $250) a year to buy characters — sums that can quickly grow for some players. Japanese regulators insisted on age-based limits two years ago. Mr. Kurosaki said, “Some people spend all the money that they earn from part-time jobs.” | Mobile Apps;Computer and Video Games;Mixi;Japan;Social Media;Monster Strike |
ny0146766 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2008/07/10 | Peacekeepers in Sudan Lose 7 in Ambush | DAKAR, Senegal — Seven international peacekeepers were killed and 22 wounded in a brazen day ambush by heavily armed men in trucks and on horseback in the Sudanese province of Darfur , United Nations officials said Wednesday. The attack, on Tuesday, was the deadliest on international forces in Darfur since September 2007, when 10 peacekeepers were killed in an assault on a base, and was a severe blow to the combined United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force that has struggled to protect civilians and itself. About 200 men in 40 trucks descended on a convoy of peacekeeping soldiers and police officers about 60 miles east of their base in El Fasher, the regional capital, as they returned from patrol. They had been investigating allegations of abuses by a rebel faction allied with the government. The militiamen had heavy weapons, including antiaircraft and antitank guns mounted on their trucks, and a fierce firefight raged for three hours. The peacekeepers took heavy casualties. Five Rwandan soldiers were killed, with police officers from Uganda and Ghana, a United Nations official in Sudan said. Officials did not say who was responsible for the attack, and it has become increasingly difficult to determine who is who in the kaleidoscope of rebel movements and militia groups vying to control Darfur. The conflict began five years ago as an uprising of non-Arab ethnic groups against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum. But as the rebel groups and Arab militias have splintered and alliances have formed and faded, the Darfur region has become increasingly lawless and chaotic. “It is just a free-for-all,” said a Western aid official in Sudan, speaking on the condition of anonymity because aid workers have faced retribution for talking publicly about the conditions in Darfur. “Security simply doesn’t exist.” Attacks on aid workers by rebels, militia and bandits have been on the rise, and aid workers in the region say it is increasingly difficult to provide even the basics to the millions of needy civilians. Rising food and fuel prices have made it harder still to help the 2.7 million people displaced by the conflict in Sudan and neighboring Chad. The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people have died from violence, hunger and disease since the conflict began. The new joint peacekeeping force, which took over from the African Union in January and was approved by Sudan after extensive negotiations, was supposed to help protect civilians from harm. But despite its goal of 26,000 troops, it has little more than a third of that number, most of whom are former members of the African Union force. The soldiers simply painted their green helmets blue. Further deployments have been stymied by logistical and political problems and stonewalling by the Sudanese government, United Nations and aid officials said. The prospects of a political solution to the Darfur crisis look equally grim. The part-time United Nations and African Union mediators who had sought in vain to jump-start the peace process resigned in frustration last month over lack of progress and have been replaced by a full-time mediator for both organizations. But with the rebel groups fractured and unwilling to unite to seek a settlement to the crisis, peace seems more distant than ever. “The peace process is going nowhere,” said Alex de Waal of the Social Science Research Council in New York. “There is absolutely no incentive for either side to make a move.” | Darfur (Sudan);United Nations |
ny0154131 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2008/01/26 | McCain’s Fiscal Mantra Becomes Less Is More | WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Senator John McCain said that, if elected, he would do what other presidents had tried but failed to do: cut government spending sharply enough to reduce the budget deficit while lowering taxes at the same time. In an interview outlining his economic approach, Mr. McCain emphasized his experience working on economic matters in Congress and laid out an unorthodox version of conservatism. After initially opposing President Bush’s tax cuts, he has become a supporter of making them permanent and of pursuing additional tax reductions, saying they are the best way to encourage economic growth. But unlike Mr. Bush — or other Republican presidential candidates this year — Mr. McCain favors government mandates to halt global warming and slow the growth of Medicare costs. His campaign says it would also cut financing for programs that the White House budget office has deemed ineffective, a list that includes Amtrak. Speaking at a law office here on Thursday, shortly after holding a fund-raiser in the reception area, Mr. McCain, of Arizona, offered warm praise for Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman. But he said it was unclear whether Ben S. Bernanke, the current chairman, was adequately handling the present slowdown. “Depending on the depth of this crisis that we’re in, we’ll find out whether he acted soon enough and whether he acted appropriately enough,” Mr. McCain said. “I don’t think it’s clear yet.” He also said that he would consider resuscitating the work of a bipartisan tax-reform commission, appointed by Mr. Bush, whose 2005 report on simplifying the tax code was largely ignored by the administration. Using the process that has been used to close military bases, Mr. McCain said he would ask Congress to vote yes or no on an entire tax-simplification program. With recession fears mounting, Republican candidates have increasingly focused on the economy in recent weeks. This presents challenges for Mr. McCain, who has already angered some primary voters with his stances on immigration , global warming and campaign finance. Likewise, he has angered some conservatives by changing his position over the years on tax cuts. Mr. McCain has joked on previous occasions about his lack of economic expertise. And in a debate earlier this month, he said that he would stimulate the economy by cutting government spending, a move that economists say would have the opposite effect. “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” he said last month, according to The Boston Globe. “I’ve got Greenspan’s book.” Recently, though, he has stopped making self-deprecating comments about his background and instead emphasized his role in helping to cut taxes and spending as “a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution.” Noting that he also later ran the Senate Commerce Committee, Mr. McCain said in the interview that he would feel no need to select a vice president with expertise in economic policy to balance his own foreign-policy experience. He also pointed to a recent Wall Street Journal survey of economists, many of them from Wall Street firms, which found that he was easily their top choice for president. “I don’t need any extra help,” he said. Mr. McCain described himself as being in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt, as a “free-enterprise, capitalist, full-bore guy” who nonetheless believes that the economy depends on government institutions “that need to do their job as well.” Mr. McCain begins the story of his economic education in 1982, when the country was in recession and he was first elected to the House. Once in Congress, he worked with Jack F. Kemp and Phil Gramm, two conservatives who were also in the House then, and Martin Feldstein, a Harvard economist who was an aide to President Ronald Reagan, to pass tax cuts and spending restraints. Mr. McCain said that Mr. Gramm — “a guy who taught economics for 12 years at Texas A&M” and who has endorsed Mr. McCain — had been an especially important mentor. “Those were my formative years,” Mr. McCain said. “We went from those abysmal situations when he came to office in 1981,” he said, referring to Reagan, “to a long period of economic growth and prosperity.” During Reagan’s years in office, unemployment and inflation dropped sharply. Tax rates generally fell, as did spending on government programs outside the military. But there were also two significant downsides to the 1980s economy, and Mr. McCain has made an issue of both at different points in his career. The budget deficit soared, because the cuts in domestic spending were not large enough to make up for the Reagan tax cuts and a military buildup. And middle-class incomes grew at a much slower rate than they had in the 1950s or ’60s. In the aftermath of his loss to Mr. Bush in the 2000 Republican primaries, Mr. McCain began emphasizing middle-class pocketbook issues. After having consistently voted for tax cuts in the 1980s, he was one of the few Republicans to oppose the administration’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. He said at the time that they benefited “the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans.” In the current decade, wage gains for most families have been even weaker than they were in the 1980s, and Mr. McCain has spoken during the campaign about the anxiety being caused by a globalization and technological change. Were he to win the Republican nomination, it is possible he would then put a bigger emphasis on such themes. “Change is hard,” he said in a speech in Detroit in October, “and while most of us gain, some industries, companies and workers are forced to struggle with very difficult choices.” To spur the economy, Mr. McCain has called for more spending on alternative-energy research. Spending on basic research, he said, could lead to a repeat of the Internet’s success story, in which government financing ultimately led to the creation of a huge private industry. He has also called for an expansion of community-college programs and an overhaul of unemployment benefits, to reflect the fact that people who lose their jobs now are often out of work for long periods. Mr. McCain now favors the extension of the Bush income tax cuts, saying that letting them lapse would amount to a tax increase that would damage the economy. He said the Democrats’ plans to allow the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for households making at least $250,000 would simply redistribute wealth and lead to an endless fight over who was truly affluent. “Americans don’t dislike wealthy people; they want to be wealthy people,” he added. On several occasions over the last year, Mr. McCain has said that tax cuts can reduce the deficit by spurring additional activity that, in turn, leads to more taxes being paid. But numerous studies have found that not to be the case. In the interview, Mr. McCain said, referring to tax cuts, “Whether they actually pay for themselves dollar for dollar, obviously there are differences in opinion.” During his campaign, Mr. McCain has focused much more on spending than on taxes. He has called for the end of earmarks, which are pet projects inserted into spending bills by legislators. They are “a very small part of the budget,” he said, “but so symbolic” — because they prevent politicians from having any credibility when they try to persuade the public about other budget cuts. The campaign has also said Mr. McCain would consider cutting the programs that the White House has identified as ineffective, which together make up 10 percent of the budget. The campaign has not specified which ones it would cut. In addition to Amtrak, the list includes various programs dealing with Defense Department communications, veterans’ disability and low-income heating assistance. He has spoken in detail about reducing Medicare costs, which budget experts say are the biggest long-term fiscal problem. He has proposed changing the way that Medicare reimburses hospitals and doctors so that it stops paying for care that fails to make people healthier. Both Reagan and the current President Bush vowed to cut spending enough to reduce the deficit but failed to do so. Mr. McCain said he believed he could succeed, even if he had not yet explained all of the cuts he would make. “I think the time is ripe for spending restraint,” he said. “We can make the case more strongly than ever before, particularly to our Republican base, because they’re angry and they’re upset and they’re dispirited.” | McCain John;Presidential Election of 2008;Economic Conditions and Trends;Budgets and Budgeting;Politics and Government;Tax Credits |
ny0221436 | [
"technology"
] | 2010/02/23 | Iceland Asks U.S. to Help Ensure International Loans | PARIS — Iceland is seeking the help of the United States to ensure that Britain and the Netherlands do not use a dispute over aid to depositors of its collapsed banks to hold up international loans, Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir said Monday in Parliament. Urour Gunnarsdottir, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said Ms. Sigurardottir told legislators that Foreign Minister Ossur Skarphedinsson had requested a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton of the United States. Ms. Gunnarsdottir said the request, sent last week, was “pending.” The announcement came as the Icelandic government and opposition officials met to discuss revised terms offered by Britain and the Netherlands on a $5.4 billion “Icesave loan.” That loan is to be used to reimburse those governments for repaying domestic depositors who lost their savings when Iceland’s three biggest banks, which had expanded aggressively in Northern Europe, collapsed in October 2008. The repayment terms remain the subject of intense debate. “Several points need more work and we feel these can be worked out in direct negotiations,” Reuters quoted Finance Minister Steingrimur J. Sigfusson as saying. “The aim here is to ease the payment burden.” The two countries are offering the tiny island nation sweeter terms after President Olafur R. Grimsson moved to block a previous agreement in early January, saying the measure should be submitted to a national referendum, in spite of — or perhaps because of — polls showing the debt deal would fail if put before voters. The referendum is to take place March 6. Many Icelanders argue that the depositor loan would impose an impossible burden on future generations. The International Monetary Fund agreed in November 2008 to give Iceland $2.2 billion in aid, of which just over $1 billion has been disbursed. The fund must carry out a second review of Iceland’s restructuring plan before it will release another $168 million, and that review is also necessary to unlock $690 million in aid from the Nordic countries and Poland. Ms. Gunnarsdottir stressed that Washington was not being asked to intervene directly in the depositor dispute. But she noted that the Iceland review had not been put on the fund’s agenda, raising suspicions that Britain and the Netherlands were blocking it to increase their negotiating leverage. “People here want to ensure that the I.M.F. funds and the Icesave deal are separate,” she said. Birgitta Jonsdottir, head of the opposition Movement Party in Parliament, said her party was “not at all” prepared to accept even the improved terms from the Dutch and British. “It’s like we’re speaking in Chinese and they’re speaking in Hindi,” she said. “We’re that far apart. But we are getting closer, and it’s good that we’re speaking.” | Iceland;Economic Conditions and Trends;International Monetary Fund;Banks and Banking |
ny0176104 | [
"business",
"yourmoney"
] | 2007/07/29 | Right Off the Vine, It’s the Tomato’s Time to Shine | Now is the time when the dream of a perfect tomato has the best chance of becoming a reality. Tomatoes prefer to stay close to home, so their in-season summer hops from farms to nearby farmers markets and stores keep them plump, juicy, fresh and compellingly delicious — almost good enough to tide their devotees through the pallid, flavor-challenged winter months. The United States produced nearly 3.7 billion pounds of fresh market tomatoes last year, according to the Department of Agriculture. Florida produces the most tomatoes by weight, followed by California, Virginia, Georgia and Ohio. The tomato’s star is rising, helped by year-round greenhouses, tasty new varieties and heightened interest in locally grown produce. Americans consumed an average of 19.9 pounds of fresh tomatoes each in 2006, up from 17.4 pounds 10 years earlier. Include processed tomatoes in the mix, and the figure soars to nearly 90 pounds per American a year — an impressive showing for this fruit-that-should-be-a-vegetable. PHYLLIS KORKKI | Tomatoes;Agriculture |
ny0219619 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2010/05/13 | Building Site’s Owner Acquitted in Laborer’s Death | The owner of a Brooklyn construction site who was charged with manslaughter after a day laborer was killed at his site two years ago was acquitted on all counts on Wednesday. The owner, William Lattarulo, was charged with several felony counts in June 2008 after the worker, Lauro Ortega, was crushed to death by dirt and debris as he was digging a trench at a site in East New York where Mr. Lattarulo was building a new coin laundry. The death occurred as the city, in the midst of a construction boom, was still reeling from a series of high-profile crane collapses and construction-related deaths . Manslaughter charges in construction cases are hard to prove, but the Brooklyn district attorney’s office had hoped the charges against Mr. Lattarulo would send a message to other builders that slipshod construction could result in prosecution. In addition to finding Mr. Lattarulo not guilty on the manslaughter charge, a State Supreme Court jury in Brooklyn acquitted him of criminally negligent homicide and two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment after an 11-day trial. “This was the city’s test case,” said Mr. Lattarulo’s lawyer, Stephen Mahler. “They were going to make a poster boy out of my client for all the building collapses that happen in the city every year.” Mr. Mahler added that his client was “elated and very relieved.” But Mr. Lattarulo still faces two civil lawsuits: one filed by the victim’s family, and another by a family that lived next door to the site in a house that eventually had to be knocked down, Mr. Mahler said. A spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office declined to comment on the acquittal. The prosecutors’ task was to prove that Mr. Lattarulo foresaw the dangers at the site and ignored them. Prosecutors said that Mr. Lattarulo was warned by workers and by a consultant that a trench that had been dug at the site, at 791 Glenmore Avenue, was unstable, and that he shrugged off the warnings. The authorities said that on the morning of March 12 2008, Mr. Ortega, an illegal immigrant from Ecuador, was in the trench digging a foundation for the new coin laundry beside a home that Mr. Lattarulo also owned. Because the laundry’s foundation was to be deeper than that of the home beside it, the home’s foundation needed an underpinning to prevent a collapse. But rather than heed the warnings that the trench was unstable, prosecutors said, Mr. Lattarulo directed Mr. Ortega to keep digging, causing part of the wall from the home to collapse and spill rubble on Mr. Ortega, killing him. Mr. Lattarulo, his lawyer said, had hired an architect to draw plans and an engineer to do periodic inspections. But rather than relying on a professional to complete the job, he chose to do it himself, and made an incorrect measurement that led to the collapse. But Mr. Mahler insisted that his client’s mistake did not amount to criminal negligence. “He worked in the ditch with them, he worked alongside of them, and he owned a valuable building and this was just an unforeseen accident,” he said. “He admitted that he made a mistake on the measurement, which led to them going deeper than the underpinning. But my defense for him was ‘Look, this didn’t amount to a reckless disregard for human life. No one contemplated that this guy would die as a result of this.’ ” He said it was unclear whether Mr. Lattarulo would continue with plans for the new coin laundry. | Lattarulo William;Decisions and Verdicts;Ortega Lauro;Brooklyn (NYC);Deaths (Fatalities) |
ny0160216 | [
"technology"
] | 2006/03/10 | Amazon Considering Downloads | Amazon.com is in talks with three Hollywood studios about starting a service that would allow consumers to download movies and TV shows for a fee and burn them onto DVD's, according to three people briefed on the discussions. If the advanced negotiations are successfully concluded, Amazon's service would position itself in the media world alongside rivals like Apple Computer's iTunes as a place where people go not just to order goods to be sent by mail, but to instantly enjoy digital wares as well. So far, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Brothers are engaged in the talks, said one person close to the talks who, like the others, asked not to be identified because the negotiations are continuing. Although it is not clear when it might begin, an Amazon downloading service would be sure to send waves through both the media and retail worlds. Players in both industries are racing to offer new ways to give technology-savvy audiences instant access to their favorite shows and songs, in a field crowded with potential rivals using Internet and on-demand technologies. Amazon, which was created as an online bookstore and now sells a wide range of goods, is already among the largest sellers of DVD's and VHS tapes. Other retailers, like Wal-Mart Stores and Target, are also working with the studios on new ways to distribute programming in digital formats. Keen to maintain as much control over their product as possible, the studios have also invested in new video-on-demand movie rental services like MovieBeam, which is backed by Walt Disney, and Movielink, which counts several other studios including Paramount, Universal and Warner among its backers. Warner is also involved in IN2TV, a service on America Online that offers a library of free vintage TV shows, and also plans to begin selling downloads of other programming this year. Both companies are divisions of Time Warner. None of these services so far plans to offer a way to let people buy, burn and keep DVD's -- or stream them at a lower price -- as the contemplated Amazon service does. Other retailers, however, are working to develop similar businesses. One advantage Amazon would hope to have over competitors is its ownership of the Web site imdb.com, which stands for Internet Movie Database. The site was acquired by Amazon in 1998 and is a repository for all manner of movie information for professionals and fans alike. One person involved in the deal said that as more people use search engines like Yahoo and Google to find their favorite videos, imdb.com would be a valuable asset because it appears, with increasing prominence, in the results of online searches. For example, when entering the name George Clooney on Google, the actor's page on imdb.com is the first of 17.1 million results that are cited. According to comScore Media Metrix, imdb.com is the most-visited movie Web site, having posted a 41 percent increase in unique visitors between February 2005 and February 2006. Last month the site had 15.1 million unique visitors, surpassing Yahoo Movies, whose tally of unique visitors declined 17 percent year over year, to 12.1 million. As previously reported, Amazon is also working on a digital download service for music and an Amazon-branded portable MP3 player to compete with Apple's market-leading iPod. Patty Smith, an Amazon spokeswoman, declined comment. Depending on the pricing of downloaded movies and the agreed split between the studios and Amazon, electronically selling DVD's to consumers could represent a way to increase profit margins, as the overall growth of DVD's has cooled. But the studios also face a delicate balancing act in ensuring that physical retailers like Wal-Mart, which account for the bulk of their existing sales, do not feel left in the lurch by the new digital endeavors. | AMAZON.COM INC;MOTION PICTURES;COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET |
ny0166457 | [
"us"
] | 2006/08/24 | South Carolina: Cadets at Citadel Report Sexual Assaults in Survey | Almost 20 percent of the female cadets at the Citadel last spring reported being sexually assaulted since enrolling at the state military college in Charleston, a survey released by the college found. About 4 percent of the male cadets also reported being sexually assaulted since joining the college, the survey said. The college opened its doors to women 10 years ago. Last year, 118 women and 1,770 men were enrolled. All the women and about 30 percent of the men were asked to complete the anonymous online survey. Of those, 114 women and 487 men responded. | Citadel;Sex Crimes |
ny0136578 | [
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] | 2008/05/04 | On the Ground, Counting Deer | MILLBURN DARKNESS was falling and people were settling down in their homes for the night when Susan Predl, who was just starting her workday, drove her van into the wilds of the South Mountain Reservation here. In the van were an assistant, Amy Schweitzer, and some important tools — two powerful spotlights, a laser range finder and a notebook for jotting down observations. Ms. Predl, a senior biologist with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, was about to count deer. The 2,047-acre reservation, spread through Millburn, Maplewood and West Orange and owned by Essex County, had been overrun by deer for years. Last year the county authorized its first hunt organized to cull the herd, and over nine days in January and February sharpshooters stationed in trees killed 213 deer. The controlled hunt in this densely populated area has spurred controversy among residents and people who consider hunting cruel, who have urged the county to find other ways to control the deer population. But now, weeks later, in the relative calm after the hunts, it was Ms. Predl’s task to estimate the number of deer remaining and help the county formulate plans for next year. This was actually her seventh run this season at formulating a census, using a method called distance sampling. During six previous trips, Ms. Predl and an assistant had scanned the woods with spotlights and spotted from 19 to 40 deer, at various distances from the van. Feeding the numbers into a software program, Ms. Predl calculated the reservation’s current deer density at 29 to 35 deer a square mile. The night’s results would prove comparable, showing that the South Mountain Reservation still had too many deer. And this was taken a month before the surviving females would start giving birth. Ms. Predl’s rides through the quiet reservation — off limits to humans after dusk — provided a quiet counterpoint to the noise of the protests and hunts. For years, antihunt forces staged demonstrations urging officials to find nonlethal alternatives to thinning the population. Sometimes, they hired lawyers to make their point. The county listened and experimented with a number of costly options, including an effort to trap the animals and ship them out of state. One such project involved sending the deer to a farm in upstate New York, but the “farm” turned out to be a slaughterhouse, and embarrassed officials halted transports. The deer, meanwhile, multiplied, in this, one of the last open areas of a congested county. In September 2007 Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr., the county executive, finally announced there would be a hunt. “I don’t like hunting at all, but in this situation there’s no alternative,” he said. Protesters demonstrated on Northfield Avenue in West Orange, holding signs saying, “Please don’t turn South Mountain into the killing fields.” But when the hunt actually started on Jan. 29, it drew only a handful of demonstrators. “It’s a tough emotional issue, but the majority of people realize something has to be done,” Ms. Predl said before starting her final inspection trip. “I think what helped Millburn officials make their decision was a woman suffering terribly from Lyme disease.” The disease is caused by bacteria that are spread by tiny, infected deer ticks. Counting deer is an imprecise science, and yet so much rides on the results, namely whether and where the county authorizes future hunts. On April 2, Essex County conducted an aerial survey by a helicopter with thermal infrared sensors. That method is expensive, but some believe it yields the most accurate count. Ms. Predl isn’t sure. “There really isn’t a preferred method of estimating the deer populations out there,” she said. By day New Jersey’s white-tailed deer are nearly impossible to spot, given their excellent camouflage of brown and gray. At night though, caught in the glare of a three-million-candlepower spotlight in a forest still bare of leaves, it’s a different story. “When you shine the spotlights, their eyes almost glow back,” said Ms. Predl, a 25-year veteran of the Fish and Wildlife Division. “In the dark you’ll see pairs of eyes looking back at you. Up here, besides the deer, we’ve seen a lot of raccoons and red fox here. One night I think I saw a coyote and a screech owl. Each animal has eyes that glow a slightly different color. It’s kind of amazing and fun.” For two-and-a-half hours she drove the van through the deserted park at about 10 miles per hour, holding a spotlight out the driver’s window with her left hand and steering with her right. Ms. Schweitzer, a state wildlife technician, held the second spotlight out the passenger-side window. “There’s our first Bambi, no, wait, there are three of them,” said Ms. Schweitzer, picking up the greenish glow of three pairs of eyes 60 yards away. So it went, over rutted roads near long-neglected picnic groves and campgrounds, and on busy perimeter roads like South Orange Avenue. There, as speeding cars and a New Jersey Transit bus whooshed by, Ms. Predl put on her hazard lights and drove while Ms. Schweitzer peered into the woods. The van posed a strange sight. Some drivers slowed down to gawk. “Are you all right?” one asked. At the end of the night Ms. Predl headed for home, in Warren County, eager to tabulate her findings. Essex County officials plan another hunt, and have embarked on a program to restore South Mountain’s ravaged understory with plants and build “deer exclusion areas.” The reservation will never be entirely clear of deer, nor should it be, said Dan Bernier, a Union County parks official who is a consultant for Essex. Union County has used hunts to thin deer from its largest park, the Watchung Reservation, since 1999 and estimates it now has 20 deer a square mile, close to the ideal number, he said. “You know you’re where you want to be, when you get it down to a point where people can grow tulips and tomato plants, and you don’t end up with a lot of deer carcasses on the road,” Mr. Bernier said. “We’re also seeing the beginnings of a recovery in the reservation. Shrubs have begun to leaf out in the area four feet or lower from the ground.” | Deer;New Jersey;Population;Hunting and Trapping;Animals |
ny0254055 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2011/07/27 | Sharpie Aims a New Campaign at Teenagers | SHARPIE, whose permanent markers were immortalized by NFL receiver Terrell Owens when he pulled a Sharpie out of his sock to sign a football after scoring a touchdown, is turning to more minor celebrities to promote its products. The marker company is officially introducing a revamped Web site on Wednesday as part of its 2011 back-to-school marketing campaign, which also features avid, though lesser-known, Sharpie fans, and urges consumers to “start something” with its products. Directed at teenagers, the campaign also includes new print, TV, Internet and cinema advertising, extensive use of social media, and new packaging, markers and colors. Sharpie, introduced in 1964 by the writing instrument manufacturer Sanford, is part of the office products business unit of Newell Rubbermaid. According to Budd Bugatch, who follows Newell Rubbermaid for Raymond James, it is the leading permanent marker and highlighter brand in the United States with a 60 percent share of the market. Back-to-school sales are vital for these products. Jason Gere, who follows Newell Rubbermaid for RBC Capital Markets, estimated that 27 percent of sales of all Newell Rubbermaid office products — which also include Rolodex and Paper Mate, Parker and Waterman writing instruments — occur in the third quarter, during the months of July, August and September. He said this figure was even higher for Sharpie. The new campaign, created by the Chicago office of Draftfcb, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, expands on a theme to “uncap what’s inside” introduced by the agency in 2009. “Sharpie can be a catalyst for self-expression,” and the new campaign “is an evolution” of this concept, said Gigi Carroll, senior vice president and creative director of Draftfcb in Chicago. The campaign is aimed at teenagers, said Sally Grimes, Sharpie’s global vice president for marketing, because they “use Sharpie in the most creative, inspiring ways. Teens have always been our primary user in the past, but we talked more to moms in the past.” Although Sharpie traditionally has been known as the marker used by celebrities to sign autographs, “true Sharpie celebrities are everyday advocates” using the markers for creative purposes, she added. Thus, the stars of the new campaign are four avid Sharpie users. They are Erica Domesek, a do-it-yourself aficionado who employs a new Sharpie fabric marker to turn a pencil case into a purse; Cheeming Boey, who uses pens to turn paper coffee cups into works of art that sell for as much as $900; Mark Rivard, who customizes skateboards with markers; and Marirose Weldon, a young singer and songwriter who uses a Sharpie Liquid Pencil to write lyrics. Each featured fan appears in a magazine ad that prominently displays the fan’s creation and the Sharpie product used to make it; the ad copy says “It starts with Sharpie,” and asks, “What are you going to start?” and includes the tagline, “Uncap what’s inside.” Running in July and August issues of teenage magazines like Seventeen and Teen Vogue, the magazine campaign includes a one-third-page ad showing the Sharpie products the fan used to create his or her work, which is shown in a full-page ad on the facing page. The smaller ads also contain QR codes that direct readers to a Sharpie mobile page with videos of fans. One 30-second TV spot — running through Sept. 25 on national network and cable TV channels like MTV, Fuse and Nickelodeon — asks viewers what the world would be like without self-expression, and depicts Sharpie-decorated items like a black and white guitar and dirt biker’s helmet. A second 30-second spot begins with a young man’s hands uncapping a pen to write “I love” on a sticky note; it ends with him creating a “Will you marry me?” sign made up of multiple sticky notes. The voiceover says, “With Sharpie’s collection of no-bleed pens, there is no limit to what you can say. Or do. What are you going to start? Sharpie. Uncap what’s inside.” The campaign includes similar digital display and video ads on teenage sites like Alloy and MTV, as well as cinema advertising, a first for Sharpie. Versions of both the TV spots and QR videos are being shown in about 1,200 movie theaters in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York through late August. Sharpie’s new Web site will display Sharpie’s “creative community” and ask visitors “What are you going to start?” It will also contain a new virtual gallery of user-generated Sharpie creations, and a new ability to search for products by color. The culmination of the campaign — which also includes the introduction of a highlighter with gel-stick technology that prevents smearing, the fabric marker, five limited-edition colors, and packaging redesigned for easier shopping — will come on Aug. 27. On that day, Sharpie will take over YouTube’s home page with an interactive mosaic of consumer-generated artwork, the ultimate expression of “what fans have started with Sharpie,” according to Ms. Grimes. She said Sharpie’s 2011 advertising expenditures and media mix would resemble last year’s. According to the research firm Kantar Media, Sharpie spent about $12 million on advertising in 2010, $9.26 million on television advertising, $1.8 million on magazine advertising, and $1.06 million on Internet advertising. In the third quarter of 2010, which included the back-to-school selling season, Sharpie spent $7.5 million, including $6 million on TV advertising, $551,000 on magazine ads and $909,000 on Internet advertising, Kantar Media said. Wendy Nicholson, a Citigroup analyst who follows Newell Rubbermaid, said the new advertising was “more lively than I’ve seen in a long time. You’ve got to give Sharpie credit for trying to use the digital medium in an aggressive and creative way.” Prof. Russell S. Winer, chairman of the marketing department at the Stern School of Business at New York University, called the advertising “a really interesting, multichannel campaign.” However, he warned that by focusing so heavily on young buyers, Sharpie was excluding “a large group of people — older consumers who do not necessarily use writing tools for creative purposes.” | Sharpie;Advertising and Marketing;Teenagers and Adolescence;Draftfcb;Social Networking (Internet);Online Advertising |
ny0151614 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2008/08/19 | In Battered Villages, Georgians Tell of Looting and Worse, if They Dare to Speak | KARALETI, Georgia — The young Georgian woman stood behind the entrance of a darkened home. Only her dark brown eyes were visible, peering from a mail slot at strangers walking toward the door. “Peaceful people!” she cried in relief, and swung the door inward, revealing two families standing in the shadows of their looted home. They had little food. Their house had been ransacked. For more than a week, the villages on the roads running south from Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, some 20 miles to Gori, a central Georgian city now under Russian occupation, have been a corridor of grief, violence and crime. The roads cross from the mountainous Ossetian enclave to territory that Georgia had controlled since the war between the two sides settled into a cease-fire in the 1990s. Their asphalt lanes serve as paths through a patchwork of villages reflecting central Georgia’s ethnic mix: Many villages were Georgian, many were Ossetian, and many were mixed, a blurry human boundary along a long-standing military front. But as the Russian armored columns drove south in early August, smashing the Georgian military from their path as they burst out of the enclave and seized Georgia’s main highway, parts of this patchwork were swiftly and violently rearranged. First, civilians were subject to rocket and artillery barrages. Then, once the Georgian military retreated so swiftly that it abandoned its dead, the Georgian civilians in and near South Ossetia faced a wave of retaliation and opportunistic crime. Since a cease-fire between Russia and Georgia began last week, the area has remained closed. It is a military zone sealed off by Russian military checkpoints, a land broken by roaming bands of looters that operated behind the Russian Army and made eerily empty by depopulation caused by flight. The Kremlin has allowed only official tours for journalists, accompanied by government minders, of the region, which Georgia has claimed endured organized intimidation and ethnic cleansing. The tens of thousands of refugees who staggered out to Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, took with them accounts of mass looting, of arson and, on what thus far seems a smaller scale, of killing on ethnic lines. The Ossetians, in their capital, have claimed in turn to have been subject to Georgian efforts at ethnic cleansing, and accused President Mikheil Saakashvili of war crimes. But the war on the ground, after setbacks the first day, surged in their favor with Russian help, and Ossetian civilians flowed southward into Georgia proper, as Georgians fled. On Monday, three journalists from The New York Times gained unaccompanied access to four of these villages — Akhaldaba, Variani, Shindisi and Karaleti — providing an unfiltered, though limited, view of the ill fortune and punishments endured by the civilian Georgian population caught in the war. The villages are in the southern part of the area where Georgia claims ethnic cleansing occurred and do not include any of the villages from which the most severe and chilling allegations have come. They also constitute a small area of the entire territory. But the scenes suggested that ethnic anger and a sustained, often unchecked period of looting reached nearly to the boundary of Gori, the city astride the highway that has been under a Russian-enforced martial law. Only in Akhaldaba, just outside Gori, where food was running short Monday because the village was still cut off, did the residents say that they had not faced privations beyond the initial barrages of artillery or rocket fire. In Variani, further up the road, the scene was bleaker. The Rev. Tadeoz Kebadze, the priest at a small Georgian Orthodox church, said that after the rocket attacks had come rounds of what he called “lawless marauders.” More than 1,200 of the village’s roughly 1,500 people had fled, he said. In Shindisi, the families gathered for a bus carrying sacks of rice and flour said they were too afraid to speak. One old man had a badly beaten face. When asked what had happened, another man answered in his place: “Nothing happened to him.” About 90 percent of the town’s residents had fled, a village elder said. The fear was palpable in those who remained. Many people trembled; their bloodshot eyes looked as if they had been crying for days. Out of earshot, a few men pulled a reporter aside. “They stole everything,” one said, of the looters. He placed the blame on Ossetian looters and not Russian Army soldiers. During the day, three families said that the looters had appeared afraid of the Russian troops and had not often operated around them, although journalists in the past 10 days have seen looters intermingled at times with Russian units. Almost all the people interviewed asked that their names be withheld, out of fear of reprisal while they lived in the lawless zone. Three were so reflexively jumpy by the experiences of the past week that they dashed into the remains of a store at the sound of an approaching car. The events the residents described underscored how hard it is to assess the scope and scale of the violence and crime, and eventually to assign precise blame. There is no clear estimate yet either of the number of dead and injured or of the number of refugees. Some Georgian residents said they had been robbed in repeated cycles of home invasion: Three or four armed men would show up with a truck or car, rush through the house and cart off whatever they desired, and then go away. Later, another car would arrive with a different gang. This went on for days, and apparently was committed by a legion of criminals. But assessing the origins of each individual offense was difficult. Victims spoke of looters from Ossetia, Russia, and, in one case, Chechnya. Complicating matters, two men said that looting had been conducted by their neighbors. And while some families said Russian troops had helped restrain the looting, on the approaches to Karaleti three Times journalists saw a Russian ambulance crew trying to pack the ambulance with items being yanked from a house. Many residents also said that the looting had subsided in the past two days. It was an open question whether this indicated that security had improved or simply that there was little left to steal. Not a single parked car was visible here in Karaleti, except those ruined by collisions or gunfire. In Variani, one aging car sputtered through the square in front of the church, and residents said the only other car in the village escaped being stolen because it was out of gas. In two other villages, no cars were seen. Two families said they knew of no one in town who still had a television; all had been stolen. Georgian refugees said the destruction grew worse northward along the road. But already in Karaleti, there were signs that armed men had set houses and buildings on fire, although such depredations were less widespread than what refugees have described in villages nearer to the Russian border. Dzhumbert Parkashvili described a much darker event. His brother, he said, had been kidnapped by a group of men. He had been standing outside during a lull in the looting when a gang of armed men seized them all. “We don’t know who took them,” he said. “Several of them spoke Russian, several of them spoke Ossetian.” Mr. Parkashvili fell silent and then began to shudder and weep. “It was five days ago, and no one knows anything about where they took him.” | Georgia (Georgian Republic);Immigration and Refugees;Looting;Robberies and Thefts;War Crimes Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity;Russia;Saakashvili Mikheil |
ny0162084 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2006/05/12 | 2 Small Queens Hospitals in a Struggle for Survival | As New York's hospitals suffer through financial losses and closings, a deal struck this week to sell two foundering hospitals in Queens offers a stark lesson in how hard it is to save failing hospitals. St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers, which filed last year for bankruptcy protection, has agreed to sell its two Queens hospitals to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center. But that deal was in deep trouble even before it was made public on Tuesday, in papers filed with the bankruptcy court. Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, which is not part of the deal, wants to buy one of the Catholic hospitals, Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica, and questions whether Wyckoff has the resources to save that hospital as well as the other one in the deal, St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst. Jamaica Hospital, one of the busiest in Queens, is less than a mile west of Mary Immaculate, making them direct competitors. And the parent corporation of Jamaica, MediSys Health Network, is in bad shape, losing money and deeply in debt. Jamaica officials say that if Wyckoff succeeds in strengthening Mary Immaculate, Jamaica could collapse as a result. Many people involved on all sides of the dispute say that the state's Department of Health has taken Jamaica's side; department officials declined to comment. Under the sale agreement, Wyckoff would pay St. Vincent $10 million in cash, take over $25 million of its debts, and allow St. Vincent to keep as much as $40 million in accounts receivable from care at the two Queens hospitals. The bankruptcy court will schedule an auction, probably next month, and other bidders can still come in to make offers until then. St. Vincent's plan seemed simple enough last year, when it proposed to sell two money-losing hospitals to someone who could keep them open, invest in them and turn them around. Instead, it has become a complex financial and political struggle involving several hospital corporations, city and state governments, labor unions and a bankruptcy court — all with their own agendas. Officials involved in the dispute say that there may not be a positive resolution, only a set of unpalatable choices. None of the region's big, financially healthy hospitals made an offer to St. Vincent. Many of those officials predict that whatever happens, it is very likely to require a large infusion of cash from the state. And even with that help, it could end in more bankruptcies, or the downsizing or closing of the Catholic hospitals. Guy Sansone, the president of St. Vincent, said that all of the objections are beside the point. His company needs to emerge from bankruptcy, he said, and it has worked hard for six months to reach a deal for Mary Immaculate and St. John's. Only Wyckoff made a formal offer. "These hospitals have been losing $4 to $5 million a month," Mr. Sansone said. For the sake of St. Vincent and the people of Queens, he said, "We're ready and we need to move forward." But David P. Rosen, president of Jamaica and MediSys, said that if Mary Immaculate becomes a strong competitor, that could "put us over the edge." A MediSys bankruptcy — though Mr. Rosen refused to use that word — could mean default on more than $200 million in debts to New York State, a powerful incentive for the state to help the company. Mr. Rosen's position has angered some elected officials. Helen M. Marshall, the Queens borough president, said: "He wants to block the only deal we have because that's too much competition. I can't have that attitude." She said she would like New York City's Health and Hospitals Corporation to consider taking over one hospital, but the corporation has not expressed any interest. Two entities have unquestioned power to kill any deal — the bankruptcy judge, Adlai S. Hardin, and the state Department of Health — and the dispute raises the unsettling possibility of a standoff between them. Mary Immaculate and St. John's are relatively small for urban hospitals, but they have more than 2,000 employees. They have existed in various forms since the 19th century and are all that remains of a once-robust network of Roman Catholic hospitals in the Brooklyn diocese. Both are used fairly heavily for their size, but smaller hospitals have found it hard to compete in recent years. These two serve communities with many immigrants and poor people who have no health insurance. There is widespread agreement that New York has too many hospitals, and the state is trying to develop a plan to shutter or shrink some of them. But that may not apply to Queens, which has 2.2 hospital beds for every 1,000 people, compared with 3.4 for the rest of the state. St. Vincent has insisted on selling the Queens hospitals together. MediSys, the parent of Jamaica, offered to buy Mary Immaculate, but not St. John's, and did not submit a binding proposal. Mr. Rosen acknowledged that his company would need a big infusion of cash from the state to make the takeover work. The Department of Health wants MediSys to get Mary Immaculate, and it is trying to persuade another hospital chain to take over St. John's, according to officials who have been in talks with the state. Local officials and St. Vincent executives contend that Jamaica would cut services at Mary Immaculate. Jamaica and Mary Immaculate are two of only four hospitals in Queens with Level 1 trauma centers, where the most seriously injured people are taken and which are expensive to operate. "I think it's clear that you can't have two trauma centers half a mile apart," Mr. Rosen said. "The money isn't there." But he insisted that a merger could increase services over all, but fewer would be available at Mary Immaculate. | Hospitals;Queens (NYC) |
ny0236134 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2010/01/14 | E.U. Markets Nominee Seeks to Reassure U.K. Finance Sector | BRUSSELS — The Frenchman nominated to oversee the European Union’s internal market told his critics Wednesday that he would regulate to strengthen supervision of financial services but would not seek to undermine the City of London’s dominance of the sector in Europe. Last month, the appointment of the Frenchman, Michel Barnier, provoked diplomatic tension between France and Britain when President Nicolas Sarkozy was quoted as saying that the English were “the big losers” in the E.U.’s internal battle over top jobs. The job of policing the E.U.’s market, which comprises almost 500 million consumers, is one of the most influential in the European Commission and includes responsibility for financial services. Appearing at a confirmation hearing in the European Parliament, Mr. Barnier, promised to push through tougher regulation of the markets. But also he said he would be “careful” in dealing with London’s financial institutions and would not take instructions from Paris. “I am not going to take orders from Paris, London or anywhere else,” Mr. Barnier told the hearing. “Let me give a cast-iron guarantee.” Challenged over Mr. Sarkozy’s gloating over his appointment, Mr. Barnier, added: “I read all the comments. I have been very serene. I am almost as phlegmatic as the Brits.” Mr. Barnier is a “retread,” having already served one term in Brussels, as commissioner for regional policy, before becoming France’s foreign minister, then agriculture minister. During a three-hour hearing he argued that regulation could help, rather than hinder, financial services. “I don’t think it is in the interests of the British financial sector,” Mr. Barnier told the hearing, “to continue to appeal to the taxpayer to make a contribution to put right the consequences of a crisis governments didn’t foresee, because of a lack of transparency and a lack of supervision.” In a statement, Syed Kamall, a deputy for London, said he was pleased that Mr. Barnier would meet with hedge and private equity funds and that he “recognizes the importance of the City of London to the economy of the E.U.” Mr. Barnier’s confident performance was in contrast to that of the designated commissioner for humanitarian aid, Rumiana Jeleva, a Bulgarian, whose future was uncertain after her hearing on Tuesday, when she was accused of failing to reveal all her financial interests for the period 2007-2009. The controversy surrounds whether she continued to play a role in a consulting company, Global Consult, while she was a member of the European Parliament, something that might have been a conflict of interest. On Wednesday, Reuters quoted the Bulgarian prime minister, Boiko M. Borisov, as saying that he believed Ms. Jeleva would be approved but that he had a “plan B” if needed. Meanwhile, the controversy over Ms. Jeleva’s business dealings deepened when the Web site EurActiv published details of her declarations to the Bulgarian Court of Auditors. The 2009 declaration stated she had “nothing to declare” in any of the categories, with apparently no property and no sources of income. The 2008 declaration included shares worth €2,500, or about $3,600, in Global Consult. The previous year’s declaration shows the same shares but also declares two properties and a share in a seaside villa covering 81 square meters, or 870 square feet, on 570 square meters of land bought in 2004 for €1,000. | European Union;European Commission |
ny0181159 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2007/06/04 | 3 Dead and 300 Hurt in Quake in China | BEIJING, June 3 (AP) — An earthquake in southwest China early Sunday left at least three people dead, including a 5-year-old boy crushed by debris, while injuring nearly 300, destroying buildings and forcing the evacuation of 120,000 residents, state news media reported. The quake struck the county seat of Ninger, in Yunnan Province, shortly after 5:30 a.m., said China’s official Xinhua News Agency, which reported a magnitude of 6.4, citing the government’s seismological bureau. The United States Geological Survey measured the quake’s magnitude at 6.2. Residents said that the initial quake lasted about a minute and that many residents fled their homes to find safety in open areas. Others moved into tents after their homes were damaged, said a retired schoolteacher who gave only her surname, Dong. She said that many older buildings had cracks in the walls or had collapsed after the quake. A Xinhua official said many of the residents were evacuated out of fear that old buildings would collapse. The quake damaged pipes, cutting off water supplies, and though electricity was still on in some areas, shops and schools were closed, Ms. Dong said. | China;Earthquakes |
ny0009566 | [
"technology"
] | 2013/02/18 | Tech Industry Sets Its Sights on Gambling | SAN FRANCISCO — Look out Las Vegas, here comes FarmVille. Silicon Valley is betting that online gambling is its next billion-dollar business, with developers across the industry turning casual games into occasions for adults to wager. At the moment these games are aimed overseas, where attitudes toward gambling are more relaxed and online betting is generally legal, and extremely lucrative. But game companies, from small teams to Facebook and Zynga, have their eye on the ultimate prize: the rich American market, where most types of real-money online wagers have been cleared by the Justice Department . Two states, Nevada and Delaware , are already laying the groundwork for virtual gambling. Within months they will most likely be joined by New Jersey. Bills have also been introduced in Mississippi, Iowa, California and other states, driven by the realization that online gambling could bring in streams of tax revenue. In Iowa alone, online gambling proponents estimated that 150,000 residents were playing poker illegally. Legislative progress, though, is slow. Opponents include an influential casino industry wary of competition and the traditional antigambling factions, who oppose it on moral grounds. Silicon Valley is hardly discouraged. Companies here believe that online gambling will soon become as simple as buying an e-book or streaming a movie, and that the convenience of being able to bet from your couch, surrounded by virtual friends, will offset the lack of glittering ambience found in a real-world casino. Think you can get a field of corn in FarmVille, the popular Facebook game, to grow faster than your brother-in-law’s? Five bucks says you cannot. “Gambling in the U.S. is controlled by a few land-based casinos and some powerful Indian casinos,” said Chris Griffin, chief executive of Betable, a London gambling start-up that handles the gaming licenses and betting mechanics of the business for developers. “What potentially becomes an interesting counterweight is all of a sudden thousands of developers in Silicon Valley making money overseas and wanting to turn their efforts inward and make money in the U.S.” Betable has set up shop in San Francisco, where 15 studios are now using its back-end platform. “This is the next evolution in games, and kind of ground zero for the developer community,” Mr. Griffin said. Image Facebook began allowing online gaming for British users last summer with Jackpotjoy, which makes slots and other casino games. Overseas, online betting is generating an estimated $32 billion in annual revenue — nearly the size of the United States casino market. Juniper Research estimates that betting on mobile devices alone will be a $100 billion worldwide industry by 2017. “Everyone is really anticipating this becoming a huge business,” said Chris DeWolfe, a co-founder of the pioneering social site Myspace, who is throwing his energies into a gaming studio with a gambling component backed by, among others, the personal investment funds of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, and Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman. As companies eagerly wait for the American market to open up, they are introducing betting games in Britain, where Apple has tweaked the iPhone software to accommodate them. Facebook began allowing online gambling for British users last summer with Jackpotjoy, a bingo site; deals with other developers followed in December and this month. Zynga, the company that developed FarmVille, Mafia Wars, Words With Friends and many other popular casual games, is advertising the imminent release of its first betting games in Britain. “All your favorite Zynga game characters will be there, except this time they’ll have real money prizes to offer you,” an ad says. “Play online casino games for pennies and live the dream!” Mr. DeWolfe’s studio, SGN, is also on the verge of starting its first real-money games in Britain. “Those companies that have a critical mass of users that are interested in playing real-money games are going to be incredibly valuable,” he said. Mark Pincus, the chief executive of Zynga, said the company was just following the market. “There is no question there is great interest from all kinds of people in games of chance, whether it is for real money or virtual rewards,” he said. Zynga, which has missed revenue expectations in the last year, is making gambling a centerpiece of its new strategy. It has just applied to Nevada for a gambling license. Casual gaming first blossomed on Facebook’s Web site, where players could readily corral friends into their games. It is now being rethought for mobile devices, so people can play in brief snippets as they wait for a bus or a sandwich. Some games mimic the slots and poker found in casinos; others emphasize considerably more creativity. The vast majority of casual game players play at no charge. A small number buy virtual objects in the game to speed their play or increase their status. Tech executives expect an equally small number to play for real money but believe they will bet heavily, making them much more valuable to the gaming companies. By Betable’s estimate, the lifetime value of a casual player is $2 versus $1,800 for a real-money player. Big Fish Studios, a Seattle developer, introduced Big Fish Casino, an iPhone app, in Britain last fall. “We started with a one-pence slot machine,” little more than a penny, said Paul Thelen, Big Fish’s founder and chief executive. “Now it is up to a maximum of about $50 a bet.” Average revenue per player is exceeding $20 a day, whereas in virtual currency it was 30 or 40 cents. Image Big Fish Studios introduced a casino app for iPhone in England last fall. “Like in Vegas, some people get lucky and some don’t,” he added. The powerful Las Vegas and Indian casinos have mixed attitudes toward online gambling. Caesars Entertainment in 2011 acquired the Israeli start-up Playtika, developer of the popular Facebook game Slotomania, for about $180 million, offering it a springboard into the digital world. But Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas magnate and major Republican Party donor, is opposed to online betting because he thinks children will end up gambling. In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie has had different qualms. He has vetoed two online gambling bills, the second earlier this month. One concern: the state’s take, a proposed 10 percent tax, was not large enough. The measure, which is likely to be refined and successfully resubmitted in the next few months, followed the state Constitution, which mandates that Atlantic City is the only spot in the state where gambling can take place. And so only the casinos were allowed to offer online games, although they could partner with tech companies; the actual computers allowing the gambling would have to be housed in the casinos. And of course players had to be over 21 and physically located in New Jersey. Meeting those last two requirements seems a tall order to Doug Creutz, an analyst at Cowen & Company who follows online gambling closely. “The Internet isn’t bound geographically,” he said. “There are other problems too, like preventing money laundering. Online gambling is going to be a complex issue that will take a while to sort out.” In the meantime, though, he notes that games themselves are sometimes changing to incorporate elements akin to gambling. Diablo III, the latest version of the popular role-playing series from Blizzard, was released last year with an in-game auction house where players could buy and sell loot that they had found. If they chose, they could literally take the profits out of the game. Since the loot was randomly generated, like the numbers on a slot machine, Blizzard had to remove the auction house game from the South Korean version of the game to satisfy the country’s strict antigambling provisions. Cesar and Edgar Miranda are two young developers who have won hackathons, where the goal is to build a game in a weekend. The brothers, who rent rooms from their parents in San Jose, have spent the last few weeks refining their game, Claw Crane. It is a simple variation of the grabbing game found in amusement arcades for decades: successfully secure a toy from a pile and you win. If Apple approves, the game, offering cash prizes, will be available in Britain later this month. A virtual money version will be available in the United States. “We saw the opportunity here,” said Cesar Miranda, 24. “Anyone can jump in and try and grab a piece of this market while it is still fresh. There’s a low entry to failure.” Neither he nor his brother, born in Mexico and raised in California, have even been near Britain. “I think the closest I’ve gotten is Las Vegas,” Cesar Miranda said. | Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry;Gambling;Silicon Valley;Zynga;Mobile Apps;Cesar Miranda;US states |
ny0225655 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2010/10/28 | Merkel Pushes E.U. Treaty Change | BRUSSELS — After eight years of bickering over the latest rewrite of the European Union ’s labyrinthine treaty, the last thing most of its 27 nations want is to do the same thing again. The question is whether they dare tell that to Angela Merkel , the German chancellor. Mrs. Merkel, with the support of Nicolas Sarkozy , the French president, has demanded alterations to the Lisbon Treaty, which came into force less than a year ago, to strengthen management of the euro. A two-day summit meeting in Brussels, starting on Thursday, will be dominated by the proposed alterations. Some officials are suggesting that any treaty changes should be technical and introduced through what has been labeled a “treaty change-lite” option, which would shortcut normal procedures. With tensions high, the meeting will test the ability of Germany and France, the leading architects of European integration, to achieve their aims despite broad opposition. Already, their decision to open up the treaty, which was announced last week in Deauville, a French seaside resort, has prompted a backlash. On Wednesday, Viviane Reding, the E.U. justice commissioner, described the declaration as “irresponsible,” reminding France and Germany that the European Union is made up of 27 nations. About a dozen countries voiced reservations at a meeting of E.U. foreign ministers this week. In the Deauville declaration, France agreed to support a change to the E.U. treaty, while Germany accepted France’s call to water down proposals to punish nations that fail to control their finances. Mrs. Merkel insists that treaty change is necessary to set up a permanent mechanism to support euro-zone nations close to default, and to put in place insolvency procedures. But, since treaty alterations require approval from each E.U. state, some fear that this could lead to unwinnable referendums. According to Joachim Fritz-Vannahme, director of European projects at the Bertelsmann Foundation, a German research institute, the Deauville declaration was a presentational error. “One cannot take a walk on the beach and, suddenly, announce you have found the way to save the euro — you cannot proceed like that,” he said. Yet Mrs. Merkel is in a tricky position. While the economic crisis has shown Germany that it needs to deepen economic cooperation, it is also, Mr. Fritz-Vannahme said, battling with the fact that “for the first time since the Second World War, there is an overwhelmingly Euroskeptical feel in the German political world and public opinion.” In May, after relentless pressure from the financial markets, Mrs. Merkel reluctantly helped create a large, but temporary, crisis fund for the euro zone. To make this permanent when its mandate expires, in 2013, Mrs. Merkel has said that she requires treaty change to satisfy Germany’s constitutional court. Her plan would require nations to restructure their debt, which would mean losses for private-sector creditors, before getting access to E.U. funds. They could also be deprived of their E.U voting rights, a move to satisfy German public opinion that the measures are tough. Other changes to the rules governing the euro are likely to be agreed this week. These will be based on changes proposed by a committee led by Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, the body where national governments meet. These would make debt a more important factor and create a new framework of penalties for nations that fail to stick to debt and deficit rules. Countries would be required to lodge funds with the European Commission and would first lose interest on them, then forfeit them completely, if they continue to be in breach of the rules. But the political debate will revolve around whether or not to rewrite the Lisbon Treaty, which was supposed to be the final word on institutional change for many years. Some say changing the treaty is unnecessary. Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister and a senior member of the European Parliament , said Wednesday that most changes would be introduced under clauses in the Lisbon Treaty. “Let’s examine the possibilities we see in the treaty,” he said. The two-day summit meeting is unlikely to take a firm decision but will probably leave Mr. Van Rompuy to examine the options for treaty change. But ultimately the most likely solution is the use of a simplified revision procedure, which would achieve most, but not all, of the alterations Germany wants. This would allow heads of government to make changes without convening a formal conference of the 27 nations or setting up a wider consultative committee. It would also avoid the need for any referendums, although it would not be suitable for more far-reaching changes, such as the proposed change under which governments would lose their E.U. voting rights if they stayed in breach of the rules. Luxembourg has already ruled out the idea of suspending voting rights, but Mr. Fritz-Vannahme said he believed that this measure was not Mrs. Merkel’s primary objective. In Berlin on Wednesday, however, Mrs. Merkel gave no hint of backing down, Reuters reported. “The new rescue mechanism has to be legally sound,” she said. “This will only succeed if there is a change in the E.U. treaties.” | Merkel Angela;European Union;Sarkozy Nicolas;European Commission;European Parliament;Euro (Currency) |
ny0064675 | [
"sports",
"worldcup"
] | 2014/06/27 | World Cup 2014: Algeria Advances by Tying Russia | CURITIBA, Brazil — Algeria qualified for the World Cup knockout stage for the first time, with Islam Slimani’s headed equalizer giving the team a 1-1 draw against Russia on Thursday and enough points to move on. Algeria, which finished second to Belgium in Group H, was the last advancing team to secure a spot in the Round of 16. Its progress, along with that of Nigeria, which qualified Wednesday, means Africa has two teams in the second round for the first time. The Algerians play Germany on Monday. The victory had Coach Vahid Halilhodzic shaking his head in apparent disbelief. “Algeria played a heroic match, and our qualification is perfectly deserved,” he said. Russia, needing a win to advance, went on the attack from the start and dominated the first half with its intricate and swift passing through the midfield. The Russians took the lead in the sixth minute when Aleksandr Kokorin powerfully headed in a cross. Slimani scored in the 60th minute after Russia goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev failed to catch a swinging left-footed free kick from Yacine Brahimi. However, there were indications on the TV broadcast that a green laser was directed toward Akinfeev just before the free kick was taken. Russia Coach Fabio Capello said his keeper was “blinded by the laser beam.” Failure to advance put pressure on Capello. Russia will host the 2018 Cup. | 2014 World Cup;Soccer;Algeria;Russia |
ny0079455 | [
"sports",
"hockey"
] | 2015/02/28 | Jaroslav Halak Sets Islanders Record With 33rd Victory | Jaroslav Halak set a team record with his 33rd win of the season, and Ryan Strome scored a power-play goal in the first period to lift the Islanders to a 2-1 victory at home over the Calgary Flames on Friday night. Halak stopped 26 shots but was denied a shutout with 20.9 seconds left on a goal by Josh Jooris that cut Calgary’s deficit in half. The Islanders had made the score 2-0 with 41.3 seconds remaining on Cal Clutterbuck’s empty-net goal. “I’m not happy about it,” Halak said, referring to the spoiled shutout bid. “But we got the goal and we won, 2-1. They don’t give up. They play until the last second. I was glad when it was over.” The Islanders moved 2 points ahead of the Rangers for first place in the Metropolitan Division. Karri Ramo stopped 37 shots for the Flames, who were without the injured Mark Giordano, their leading scorer, and missed a chance to move into a wild-card position in the Western Conference playoff race. BRUINS 3, DEVILS 2 Ryan Spooner scored his first N.H.L. goal with 2 minutes 14 seconds left in overtime, and visiting Boston defeated the Devils after blowing a two-goal third-period lead. Daniel Paille and David Pastrnak scored for the Bruins, who won for only the second time in nine games. Niklas Svedberg had 29 saves starting in place of Tuukka Rask, who had played in the last 18 games for Boston. Travis Zajac and Jordin Tootoo had goals for the Devils. Cory Schneider made 31 saves as the Devils lost their second straight and fell 9 points behind Boston in the race for the last wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. The Bruins, who swept the three-game season series, are 4 points ahead of idle Florida for the final wild-card position. AVALANCHE 5, STARS 4 Ryan O’Reilly scored on the first shot of a shootout, and that was enough for Colorado to win at Dallas. Colorado’s Semyon Varlamov stopped all three Stars shots in the shootout after O’Reilly lifted the puck over Dallas’s Kari Lehtonen and in off the crossbar. HURRICANES 3, CAPITALS 0 Anton Khudobin stopped 28 shots to earn his first shutout of the season and help Carolina beat visiting Washington. Brett Bellemore and Jeff Skinner scored, and Nathan Gerbe added an empty-net goal with 10.4 seconds left as the Hurricanes won for the fourth time in six games. Carolina, last in the Metropolitan Division, moved 3 points behind seventh-place Columbus. LIGHTNING 4, BLACKHAWKS 0 Ben Bishop made 28 saves for his second shutout, Steven Stamkos scored two goals, and Tampa Bay won at home over Chicago. Brian Boyle and Ryan Callahan also scored for the Lightning. Stamkos has 11 goals and 17 points in nine games against Chicago. The Blackhawks’ backup goalie, Scott Darling, stopped 25 shots. TIMONEN HEADS TO CHICAGO The Blackhawks acquired defenseman Kimmo Timonen from the Philadelphia Flyers for a second-round 2015 draft pick and a conditional 2016 fourth-round pick. Timonen, 39, a native of Finland, is set to return after being sidelined all season because of blood clots found in his leg and lungs last summer. He had been expected to retire after this season, although the trade could change his plans. | Ice hockey;Jaroslav Halak;NHL;Devils;Cal Clutterbuck;Islanders;Calgary Flames |
ny0110166 | [
"sports",
"hockey"
] | 2012/05/24 | Devils Start and Finish Strong in Game 5 | The match belonged with the epic encounters of 1994, a duel between two remarkably resilient teams that finally ended with a goal created by two fourth-liners. The Devils had shocked the Madison Square Garden crowd into silence by scoring three goals on their first five shots. The Rangers , though, would not lie down and battled back to tie Game 5 early in the third period, 3-3. The teams slugged their way up and down the ice trying to score the decisive goal, which finally came with 4 minutes 24 seconds remaining when Ryan Carter finished a centering pass from Stephen Gionta, who spent all but one regular-season game with Albany in the American Hockey League. Zach Parise added an empty-net goal with the Rangers desperately seeking the equalizer, and the emotionally draining evening was over. “For the players that are involved, you create history,” said Martin Brodeur , who stopped 25 shots. “Whatever’s going to happen in the next few days is what our rivalry will be all about, and I think for our fans it will be something great.” Eighteen years to the night after the Devils beat the Rangers in Game 5 of the 1994 Eastern Conference finals at the Garden to take a 3-2 series lead, the 2012 Devils beat these Rangers, 5-3, in the same building, and took the same series lead, 3-2. In 1994, Mark Messier guaranteed a Rangers victory in Game 6 in New Jersey and delivered it with three goals, and the Rangers went on to win the series and the Stanley Cup after 54 years of futility. Today’s Rangers may not have a Messier in their lineup, but as a group on Wednesday night, they showed the stoutheartedness of a Messier, even in defeat. Game 6 and a possible end to their magical season looms in Newark on Friday night. But a loss is hardly a foregone conclusion, not after their valiant recovery Wednesday. “We have to win one in their rink anyway,” defenseman Marc Staal said, stopping just short of a Messier-like guarantee. “We’ll be fine. We’ll regroup, get back and get back the next one.” Rangers Coach John Tortorella called it “a hard one to lose, after we crawled back into it.” He said his team “stopped making plays” after Marian Gaborik tied the game, 3-3, with his first goal of the series, 17 seconds into the third period. But, Tortorella said, “We’ll spend some time looking at some of the good things we’ve done here.” Throughout their season of achievement (best record in the conference), the one thing the Rangers had not done was erase a three-goal deficit. But they accomplished just that when Brodeur misplayed the puck outside the trapezoid and Gaborik pounced on it for an unassisted goal. Moments later a shot from Ilya Kovalchuk beat Henrik Lundqvist and the Devils celebrated, but the goal did not count — Kovalchuk had settled the puck with a high stick. The third period hurtled on, and the momentum seemed to be on the Rangers’ side. But Devils Coach Peter DeBoer said his team was not rattled. “We’ve had leads and lost them; we’ve been behind and come back,” DeBoer said. “We’ve seen just about every situation you can be in, and so I didn’t think we were uncomfortable. I didn’t feel any panic on the bench.” Then Gionta and Carter combined for the goal that turned what could have been a disastrous night for the Devils into a glorious one. The Devils dominated the first 10 minutes of the game, starting with the crushing body check Parise used to flatten Brad Richards by the Rangers’ bench 32 seconds into the game. At 3:43, Gionta, left alone by Derek Stepan after his stick flew up and struck Stepan in the face, buried the rebound of a Mark Fayne shot for his third goal in these playoffs. The 1-0 score was an ominous sign for the Rangers. The team that scored first had won every game. At 4:13, Adam Henrique’s shot bounced in off Patrik Elias, who was wrestling with Artem Anisimov in front of the net because Staal had taken himself out of the play with a futile dive for a puck to try to keep it in the Devils’ zone. Devils, 2-0. At 9:49, Travis Zajac finished a two-on-one started by Parise. Devils, 3-0. Meanwhile, the Rangers blew a couple of easy scoring chances to get back in the game. Ruslan Fedotenko circled the net and set up Gaborik for an easy tap-in, but Gaborik airmailed the puck over Brodeur’s goal. A Ryan McDonagh shot struck Brian Boyle and skidded just wide of the empty goalmouth. But at 15:41, Brandon Prust — back from a one-game suspension for elbowing Anton Volchenkov — beat Marek Zidlicky to a loose puck and swept it past Brodeur for his first career playoff goal. The score finally enlivened a crowd that had been sitting in stony silence. Now the Rangers were riding a tidal wave of emotion. Thirty-two seconds into the second period they drew within 3-2, when Anisimov’s shot bounced in off the skate of Ryan Callahan and the goal survived a video review. The Rangers continued to dominate the period. Callahan rang a close-range backhander off the inside of the post, and Brodeur had to scramble to stop some other Rangers chances as the Devils collapsed into a defensive shell. In the end, the Devils proved as resilient as the Rangers. “It was an adventure,” DeBoer said. On Friday night his team will either relive history by losing to the Rangers, or rewrite it by eliminating them. | New Jersey Devils;New York Rangers;Lundqvist Henrik;Brodeur Martin;Tortorella John;Hockey Ice |
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