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ny0218155 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2010/05/11 | ABN Amro to Forfeit $500 Million | The former ABN Amro Bank agreed to pay $500 million for violating the Bank Secrecy Act, the Justice Department said Monday. The bank has accepted responsibility for its conduct, the department said in a news release . From 1995 through December 2005, the bank altered payment documents so they did not include references to countries under sanction by the American government, according to the department. Even after the bank put in controls so the records would not be changed to hide activity, “a limited number” of transactions with such countries occurred in 2006 and 2007, the department said. ABN Amro, now part of the Royal Bank of Scotland , said in April 2007 that it had set aside $500 million for an eventual settlement in the matter, Michael Geller, a spokesman for the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, said in an e-mailed statement. The conduct discovered by the department “reflects a regrettable period,” he said. The bank also was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. ABN Amro used “similar stripping procedures” in processing United States checks, foreign exchange transactions and letters of credit involving nations under sanction, the department said. | ABN AMRO Holding NV;Royal Bank of Scotland Plc |
ny0060661 | [
"business"
] | 2014/08/15 | Eurozone Recovery Stalls, With Weakness in Germany and France | PARIS — This was supposed to be the year that the European economy decisively broke free of its shackles. But after a dismal round of economic growth reports on Thursday, the main question appears to be whether the eurozone will avoid tumbling back into recession. Germany and Italy both contracted 0.2 percent in the second quarter, compared with the first, official data showed, and the French economy stagnated yet again. The region was beginning to falter even before the latest round of tit-for-tat sanctions with Russia over Ukraine further clouded the outlook. With the Continent’s three main engines sputtering, the gross domestic product of the 18-nation eurozone did not expand at all from the first quarter of this year, when it grew only 0.2 percent. The latest figure from Eurostat, the European Union statistics agency, equates to a meager 0.2 percent annual rate. “It’s fairly clear that the eurozone recovery is coming apart at the seams,” said Nicholas Spiro, managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy in London, as most of the bloc is either “in recession or flirting with it now.” The reports drew renewed calls for more aggressive stimulus from the European Central Bank to restore an economy that has been hobbled by millions of people out of work and price pressures so weak that deflation is a genuine threat. Weakness in the European Union, with its more than 500 million consumers and one-quarter share of world G.D.P., bodes poorly for the already shaky global outlook. Credit is shrinking rapidly in China, while Japan’s economy shrank 6.8 percent in the second quarter at an annual rate. Even the United States, which reported last month that second-quarter growth rebounded to a 4 percent annual rate after a dismal start to the year, has been posting disappointing numbers of late. The International Monetary Fund last month cut its forecast for 2014 global growth to 3.4 percent from the 3.7 percent it forecast in April. Economists had been forecasting that the eurozone economy would grow as much as 2 percent this year after a 0.4 percent decline last year. After the report on Thursday, many analysts were revisiting their outlooks for a possible downward revision. Lena Komileva, chief economist at G Plus Economics in London, said that the figures showed there was a “real risk” that the eurozone was headed back into recession and that they added to pressure on the European Central Bank to adopt stronger monetary stimulus. “Not only does this render the E.C.B.'s anemic growth forecast of 1 percent for 2014 unrealistic,” she added, “but it is hard to see just what will keep the recovery growing.” Another cause for concern on Thursday was the specter of deflation: Eurozone consumer prices rose last month just 0.4 percent from a year ago, Eurostat said, confirming an earlier report. And of the 18 nations in the bloc, prices rose on a monthly basis in only two — Germany and the Netherlands — and declined in 15 others; they were flat in Malta. That added to fears that Japan-style deflation was becoming more likely. Investors piled into German sovereign debt, considered the safest asset in Europe, and the yield on the 10-year bond, which moves in the opposite direction to price, fell at one point below 1 percent for the first time. “The current no-growth, negative-price reality in the eurozone already leaves little hope for restoring jobs, living standards or public debt sustainability,” Ms. Komileva said. Some positive signs did appear on Thursday. Economic growth picked up in several so-called peripheral euro members: Spain grew 0.6 percent on a quarterly basis, up from 0.4 percent at the start of the year; Portugal, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden all returned to growth after contracting in the first quarter; and Cyprus and Greece moved closer to the break-even mark, suggesting that their steep declines might be nearing an end. And the downturn in Germany, the eurozone’s largest economy, followed by France and Italy, could prove to be temporary. Economists said the latest figures were skewed by unusually fair weather in the first quarter, which bolstered construction growth to a level that was not sustained in the second quarter. But other indicators have pointed to a rough patch ahead for Germany, which remained relatively healthy through the worst of the economic crisis across the rest of Europe. The ZEW index of economic sentiment, released on Tuesday, showed morale among analysts and investors in the country plunging in August to its lowest level in more than 18 months. And German businesses have warned that the European Union’s economic sanctions against Russia could hurt the domestic economy. The eurozone’s most immediate problems are rooted in the need for households and businesses to cut debt and in a dearth of demand that has left more than 18 million people in the unemployment line. After the sovereign debt crisis led Cyprus, Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek bailouts and raised fears about Spain and Italy’s ability to remain in the euro bloc, governments agreed to a policy of fiscal austerity. While the overhauls won a reprieve from the market, demand declined further as governments cut spending and raised taxes. The data reported Thursday raised the likelihood that Europe was headed for a deflationary trap, as flat or declining G.D.P. would weigh further on the labor market and keep downward pressure on prices, said Carl B. Weinberg, chief economist and managing director of High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, N.Y. “There’s no inflation anywhere in sight,” he said. Inevitably, considering the refusal of Germany and some other nations to weigh using the traditional lever of fiscal policy to stimulate growth, all eyes are now on Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank. At its meeting last week, the central bank left monetary policy intact, with its main interest rate at a record-low 0.15 percent and its deposit rate at negative 0.1 percent. Mr. Draghi has pledged to provide banks with a new round of cheap loans to bolster lending to smaller businesses. But many economists have also called for the bulk buying of debt on the open market — a policy known as quantitative easing — as a last-ditch attempt to restore credit and keep prices from the downward deflationary spiral that would further weaken borrowers and banks and sap investment. Mr. Draghi has said the central bank is considering quantitative easing, but many analysts are skeptical that it can be done within the constraints the central bank faces. “Q.E. is a political nonstarter,” Mr. Spiro said, as “we don’t believe Mr. Draghi will be able to get the support of German politicians.” Mr. Draghi, for his part, has sought to keep the spotlight on promises of structural changes made by the recalcitrant governments in France and Italy. “It’s pretty clear that the countries that have undertaken a convincing program of structural reforms are performing better — much better — than the countries that have not done so, or have done so to a limited extent,” he said in a news briefing last week. Mr. Weinberg said it was misleading even to speak of a recovery in the eurozone, considering that the bloc’s G.D.P. remained more than 2 percent lower than its level in early 2008, before the global financial crisis. “I think we’re still in a depression that began six years ago,” he said. “The difference between a recession and a depression is that you have a natural bounce-back from a recession, but a depression needs a policy response.” | Economy;Germany;France;European Monetary Union;EU;Europe |
ny0225708 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2010/10/17 | Pelosi Renounced by Candidates in Her Own Party | PERRY, Ga. — As if embattled Congressional Democrats did not have enough on their hands, some are opening up a new front in their fight to save their seats — against Nancy Pelosi , the speaker of the House and a leader of their own party. Representative Jim Marshall, a Democrat here in central Georgia, spent much of a debate on Thursday night renouncing Ms. Pelosi, whose liberal views and San Francisco district have always been anathema to this region. “Pelosi was never my choice for speaker,” Mr. Marshall said, eliciting boos from a skeptical audience in an arena here at the Georgia National Fair. Mr. Marshall actually voted for Ms. Pelosi as speaker but said he had not wanted her for the job and would not vote for her again. As the midterm campaign barrels through its final weeks, more Democrats — many but not all in conservative districts in the South — are backing away from Ms. Pelosi and declaring their independence. The more outspoken, like Mr. Marshall, are also running television commercials to drive the point home. Mr. Marshall’s latest opens with a gaggle of hippies mugging for the camera. “Georgia is a long way from San Francisco,” the narrator says. “And Jim Marshall is a long way from Nancy Pelosi.” At the same time, many of these Democrats, including Mr. Marshall, have received financial aid from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, whose chief fund-raiser is Ms. Pelosi. The money comes despite votes by many of these Blue Dog Democrats against major Democratic initiatives like the health care bill. “They haven’t turned off the spigot, and they’re not going to,” said Doug Moore, a spokesman for Mr. Marshall. So far this year, the committee has given more than $600,000 to Representative Bobby Bright, an Alabama Democrat, who voted against the health care bill and now says he will vote against Ms. Pelosi. He began running a commercial last week saying that his constituents “don’t want a liberal running the House.” Biting the hand that feeds you and feeding the one who bites you are not always successful strategies, but they underscore the stakes in the Nov. 2 elections. Democrats are doing whatever it takes to try to keep their majority. And they have Ms. Pelosi’s blessing. “I just want them to win,” Ms. Pelosi said in a recent interview on “NewsHour” on PBS when asked about the defectors. “They know their districts,” she added. “They are great communicators, very eloquent communicators to their own constituents.” Other Democrats are swallowing hard, questioning the wisdom of helping out colleagues who, if re-elected, would oppose their agenda and weaken their party leadership, particularly if the Democrats hold the House by just a few seats. Mark Mellman, a Democratic strategist, conceded that supporting the nay-sayers carried risks. “We’ve found that too much attack on Democratic priorities and Democratic figures doesn’t necessarily bring a lot of benefit and can suppress the base,” he said. “Could there be problems?” Mr. Mellman asked. “You bet. But more people are concerned about winning than about whatever post-election problems we might have.” The number of defecting Democrats is hard to quantify since some, like Mr. Bright in Alabama and Representative Gene Taylor of Mississippi, have said that they would not vote for Ms. Pelosi while others have only signaled that they might not. Representative Travis W. Childers of Mississippi boasts in a commercial that he has “voted against Nancy Pelosi 267 times.” Representative John Adler, a Democrat of New Jersey, has called Ms. Pelosi divisive. Still, in the debate here on Thursday, Mr. Marshall promised, “There will be enough conservative Democrats to assure that she will not be the speaker.” His Republican challenger, Austin Scott, retorted that the only way to guarantee that Ms. Pelosi would not be speaker would be to vote Mr. Marshall out. Mr. Scott further told viewers that because of Mr. Marshall’s stance, the Democratic leadership would surely strip him of his committee assignments and render him powerless to help the district, where Robins Air Force Base is the major employer. Mr. Marshall disagreed, saying, “I don’t expect that there will be retaliation against Democrats who take a principled position like this one.” Some Democrats had already distanced themselves from Ms. Pelosi, but their overt declarations that they would not vote for her are relatively new and are intensifying. Of course, in many districts, the Republicans started the fight over Ms. Pelosi, forcing Democrats to respond and shift attention from defeating their Republican adversaries. It is easy to see why they would drag her in. A CBS News poll early this month showed that 44 percent of all registered voters viewed her unfavorably, while just 15 percent viewed her favorably. (A full 40 percent had no opinion.) Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist, said the Democrats who were distancing themselves from Ms. Pelosi had no choice. “They’re losing, and they’re losing because they’re tied to the Democratic Party in general and Nancy Pelosi in particular,” he said. Dennard Scoggins, 69, a retired school principal attending the debate here to support Mr. Scott, bore that out. “Mr. Marshall is a good man, but he just is a — ” Mr. Scoggins said, stopping to search for the right word. “A Democrat.” Many Democrats are now boasting about how often they vote with the Republicans. When his Republican challenger said that Mr. Taylor “chooses Nancy Pelosi over Mississippi,” Mr. Taylor issued a statement saying that of the 1,466 votes he had cast since January 2009, “Nancy Pelosi agreed with my vote 34 times,” or 2 percent of the time. Republicans are delighting in the chaos they have caused. In South Carolina, Representative Joe Wilson, the Republican who yelled “you lie” at President Obama during his health care speech to Congress last year, has linked his Democratic challenger, Rob Miller, with Ms. Pelosi, though Mr. Miller has never been in Congress. Though Mr. Miller has received money from the Democrats, including $2,000 several months ago from Ms. Pelosi, he now blames her for Washington’s problems and says he would not vote to keep her as speaker. Wesley Donehue, a senior adviser to Mr. Wilson, told The Associated Press that Ms. Pelosi “should have signed a prenuptial agreement” with Mr. Miller, adding, “The man is trying to divorce her and take all of her money.” | Pelosi Nancy;Elections;Democratic Party;United States Politics and Government;House of Representatives |
ny0229209 | [
"business"
] | 2010/07/15 | S.E.C. Seeks Comments on Proxy System | WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday that it wanted to hear from the public about several issues related to the proxy system, the process by which shareholders elect directors and vote on corporate governance proposals. The commission voted unanimously to issue what it calls a concept release, which seeks comment on three broad areas of the proxy system: the accuracy, transparency and efficiency of the voting process; communications and shareholder participation; and the relationship between voting power and economic interest. The inquiry could lead to the first overhaul of the system in 30 years. Commissioners noted on Wednesday that significant changes had occurred in recent decades in shareholder demographics, technology and the structure of share holdings. The S.E.C. chairwoman, Mary L. Schapiro, said the commission was also seeking information about the role of proxy advisory firms, which advise institutional shareholders, like pension funds, how to vote on corporate matters. “Both companies and investors have raised concerns that proxy advisory firms may be subject to undisclosed conflicts of interest, may fail to conduct adequate research or may base recommendations on erroneous or incomplete facts,” Ms. Schapiro said , adding that the inquiry “will fully probe these issues.” The commission has been examining the proxy system for some time. It has proposed a rule that would require a company, under certain circumstances, to include in its proxy materials a shareholder’s or group’s nominees for director. Also, the financial regulation bill approved by the House of Representative and awaiting final action in the Senate authorizes the S.E.C. to issue rules that would give shareholders the ability to nominate directors and make use of company proxy materials. Comments on the proxy issues will be accepted for 90 days at www.sec.gov . | Securities and Exchange Commission;Stocks and Bonds;Boards of Directors;United States Politics and Government |
ny0147920 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2008/07/14 | Rare Indeed: A Chain Committed to Selling Out-of-Print Books | Small, niche booksellers have been closing right and left, but that has not deterred Barnes & Noble from expanding into one of their businesses. For eight years, the retail chain ran a small rare- and out-of-print-book department in its large store in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. When that store closed this spring, many customers assumed that the modest experiment would end, too. Instead, the company has decided to relocate the department to a larger store on Broadway and 66th Street, where it will soon be moved from the third floor to a more prominent location on the second floor. The books include fiction first editions as well as arts and design books; prices range from $45 to several hundred dollars. Although Barnes & Noble says it does not plan to replicate the effort in other stores, it is also not taking its commitment lightly: it is spending a significant sum on the department, installing custom display cases with locked glass doors. The department is the pet project of Karen Catalanotti, a Barnes & Noble manager who set it up in Chelsea and has moved with it, now running the Upper West Side store. She says she culls her selections from the chain’s warehouse for buyback books at Fifth Avenue and 18th Street, the chain’s original location. Those titles are subsequently researched, priced and cataloged, and also listed for sale online. In the brick-and-mortar store, “We only sell 300 to 400 of these books a year,” Ms. Catalanotti said, “and I only replace as many as we sell every other week. It’s a novelty that suits this neighborhood.” When John McWhinnie, a rare book dealer in Manhattan, learned that the Chelsea store and its rare books section were closing, “I experienced the kind of feeling you don’t usually have in terms of Barnes & Noble,” he said. He was pleased to learn that it was relocating. Nevertheless, some of the new neighbors are nervous. One is Dorian Thornley, an owner of Westsider Books, a small used book store across the street from the Barnes & Noble on 82nd Street and Broadway. “That’s it for me,” he said at the thought that Barnes & Noble might open rare-books sections in other locations. CELIA McGEE | Barnes & Noble Incorporated;Books and Literature;Retail Stores and Trade;Manhattan (NYC) |
ny0295707 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2016/12/19 | Austria’s Far Right Signs a Cooperation Pact With Putin’s Party | BERLIN — The leader of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party has signed what he called a cooperation agreement with Russia’s ruling party and recently met with Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the designated national security adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump of the United States. Word of the agreement with Russia was the latest sign that the Kremlin is forging bonds with political parties across Europe in what some European leaders suspect is a coordinated attempt to meddle in their affairs and potentially weaken Western democracies. Many of these efforts are murky and involve obscure groups, and it is unclear whether President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has any direct involvement. The Freedom Party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, reported the signing of the agreement with United Russia, Mr. Putin’s party, on Monday on his Facebook page, where he also disclosed that he had visited General Flynn a few weeks ago in Trump Tower in New York. “Internationally, the Freedom Party continues to gain in influence,” wrote Mr. Strache, a dental technician who has led the party since 2005. How Far Is Europe Swinging to the Right? Right-wing parties have been achieving electoral success in a growing number of nations. The Trump transition team did not respond to request for comment on the meeting. The Freedom Party, founded in the 1950s by ex-Nazis, surged this year to nearly capture the largely ceremonial presidency of Austria in May, but was defeated in a final runoff on Dec. 4. Still, its ascendance, alongside the rise of rightist parties in many European countries and with Mr. Trump’s victory, has raised new questions about political realignment across the continent. Mr. Strache’s trips to New York and Moscow were clearly intended to convey the impression that the Freedom Party, which still leads all opinion polls ahead of the two mainstream parties that have governed Austria since World War II, has international standing and intends to continue vying for power. A text of the cooperation agreement, published in Russian on the website of United Russia and in German on the website of an Austrian journalist, Claus Pandi, outlined plans for regular meetings and collaboration where suitable on economic, business and political projects. It said the accord was valid for five years, but was not legally binding. It was signed for United Russia by Sergei Zheleznyak, a deputy to the party’s general secretary who is among the Russian officials barred from the United States since March 2014 for supporting the Russian actions in Crimea. In welcoming the Austrians at party headquarters, Mr. Zheleznyak specifically mentioned Europe’s “migration crisis” as a field for cooperation, according to United Russia’s website. The Freedom Party presidential candidate, Norbert Hofer, had indicated he might use a little-noticed power of the president to dismiss the federal government, or at least some ministers, a move most observers forecast would precipitate new national elections. Europe’s Rising Far Right: A Guide to the Most Prominent Parties Amid a migrant crisis and discontent with the European Union, many far-right parties have achieved electoral success. Here are eight of the most noteworthy. Aside from sowing domestic ferment in Austria, a Freedom Party-led government would press to lift the sanctions imposed on Moscow for its 2014 seizure of Crimea and meddling in war-torn eastern Ukraine. On Facebook, Mr. Strache said Monday that having the United States and Russia stand together would be important to solving the crises in Syria and Crimea and “to get rid of the sanctions that damage the economy and are in the end useless.” Austria jealously guards its neutrality, adopted after the allies withdrew from the country in 1955, and there is considerable nostalgia for the Cold War role played by Vienna as a venue for United States-Soviet summits. In that spirit, the Freedom Party has long leaned toward Moscow. In the presidential campaign, Mr. Hofer had argued strongly that European sanctions imposed on Moscow should be dropped, a stance he reiterated in a lengthy interview with Russian television late last week. Russian media loyal to the Kremlin have emphasized for over a year that the influx of some one million migrants, many of them Muslim, has divided and weakened Europe, where Germany, Austria and Sweden bore the main burden of absorbing the newcomers. The Freedom Party is also anti-migrant, and seeks deep changes in the European Union, while stopping short of calls to follow Britain’s exit from the bloc. Pyotr Tolstoy, deputy speaker of the Duma, or lower house of Russian Parliament, said there was a need for open dialogue to improve ties with parties across Europe, United Russia reported from the signing of the agreement. This was especially important, Mr. Tolstoy was quoted as saying, “in today’s politically correct world, when everyone is hiding their real thoughts and feelings.” | Politics;United Russia;Austria;Michael Flynn;Vladimir Putin;US Foreign Policy;Russia;Europe |
ny0110489 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/05/13 | Woman in Group of Transgender Performers Dies in Brooklyn Fire | She was 25 and curvaceous, and she often drew admiring glances in the gritty Brooklyn neighborhood where she was known to invite men for visits to her apartment, her neighbors and the authorities said. Called Lorena, she brought two men to her apartment, at 43 Furman Avenue in Bushwick, either late Friday night or in the early hours of Saturday, the police said. About 4 a.m., a fire broke out in the apartment. A passer-by ran into the four-story building and began banging on doors, according to Meta Green, a neighbor. In the ensuing chaos, everyone seemed to emerge from the building — except Lorena. Firefighters arrived, as did officers from the 83rd Precinct. When the blaze was extinguished, at 4:37 a.m., Lorena was discovered, “unconscious and unresponsive,” the police said, and paramedics declared her dead at the scene. A Fire Department spokesman, James Long, said that firefighters using thermal imaging equipment found the body on a bed. The cause of the fire was being investigated by fire marshals, Mr. Long added. The police said Saturday night that the victim’s name was Lorena Escalera. According to neighbors, she was born male. Though the fire has been deemed suspicious, investigators have found no evidence of accelerant, said one law enforcement official. The police were still awaiting a determination on the cause from fire marshals. The victim’s roommates said that when work was done on the electrical system, they created holes around the electrical outlets and filled them with cardboard, the official said. On the streets, many recalled a young and friendly woman; now, investigators were trying to reconstruct her life. One investigator said the police had learned that Ms. Escalera was well known as a member of a celebrated group of transgender performers called House of Xtravaganza. Oscar Hernandez, 30, a mechanic, said she had had some of her ribs removed in an effort to slim her waist. “For a man, he was gorgeous,” Mr. Hernandez said, noting Ms. Escalera’s flowing hair and “hourglass figure.” Gary Hernandez, 25, a neighbor, said that Ms. Escalera had worked as an escort and that he regularly saw her advertising her service on an adult Web site. “She was always on her laptop posting ads about herself,” said Mr. Hernandez (who is not related to Oscar Hernandez). “Still, she was a nice person.” A debris pile outside the apartment, which is above a funeral home, contained many colorful items. Among them were wigs, women’s shoes, coins from around the world, makeup, hair spray, handbags, a shopping bag from Spandex House, a red feather boa and a pamphlet on how to quit smoking. The whereabouts of Ms. Escalera’s two visitors were not known, though Mr. Green said he was told by the passer-by that two men were arguing in front of the building at the time of the fire. Elsewhere early Saturday, firefighters in Queens extinguished a small fire in a wooded area of Forest Park and then discovered the charred body of a man, officials said. The fire, at 86-2 Park Lane South in the park in Woodhaven, was concentrated on the man’s body, officials said. Nearby, they found a shopping cart, spackling buckets and clothing. The dead man was not immediately identified by the authorities. “The fire is being investigated both by fire marshals and police,” Mr. Long said. | Deaths (Fatalities);Fires and Firefighters;Transgender and Transsexual;Brooklyn (NYC);Bushwick (NYC);New York City |
ny0202754 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2009/08/29 | Cano’s Three-Run Homer in 10th Lifts Yankees | The fine print on the back of a Yankees ticket does not guarantee drama. There have been duds at the new Yankee Stadium this season, and that is the risk of purchasing the most expensive seats in the majors. But there is also an exceptional chance for a memorable finish, more than there has been for decades in the Bronx. The Yankees delivered their 12th game-ending hit of the season Friday, beating the Chicago White Sox , 5-2, on Robinson Cano’s three-run homer with two outs in the 10th inning. The 12 game-ending hits are the most for the Yankees since 1978, when they had 13 and won the World Series. This Yankees team has the best record in the majors at 80-48, recovering in style from a series loss to the Texas Rangers this week. Brian Bruney (4-0) earned the victory with a scoreless inning after Phil Hughes, who struck out the side, and Mariano Rivera had done the same. C. C. Sabathia worked the first seven innings, striking out 10. “I would rather win them early than win with a walk-off,” Bruney said. “That means we’re in a lot of close games. But for the bullpen, it’s beneficial. We’re pitching in a lot of tight games, like it’s going to be in the playoffs.” The White Sox had retired 15 of the last 16 hitters when Hideki Matsui came up in the 10th with two outs and no base runners against the left-hander Randy Williams. Matsui walked, and Jerry Hairston Jr. ran for him. Williams then walked Nick Swisher to put Hairston in scoring position. Cano batted next. In his last at-bat, he saw 10 pitches but ended with a strikeout. He was 0 for 4 and had failed twice with runners in scoring position, bringing his average to .201 in that situation. “I would say it’s bad luck,” Cano said. “Most of the balls, I make contact and put in play, just at them. But I can’t lie to you. I look and say I want to get better.” This time, Cano drilled a 2-2 slider into the Yankees’ bullpen, where Alfredo Aceves gleefully scampered for the souvenir. Cano pointed to the home dugout before his giddy romp around the bases, ending with the ritual helmet toss and, eventually, the pie in the face from A. J. Burnett. On a night in which the wind knocked down other potential home runs — including a shot to center by Alex Rodriguez earlier in the 10th inning — there was no doubt about this one. It was Cano’s 21st home run of the season, and the first he has ever hit to end a game. “Molina told me from left field to center field, it’s not carrying, but if you hit to right field, the ball is flying to right field,” Cano said, referring to catcher Jose Molina. “But I didn’t want to go to the plate and think about pulling the ball. I was looking for something to get a hit.” Cano was in position to win the game because of the Yankees’ defense in the seventh. Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon had homered against Mark Buehrle, but two doubles cut Sabathia’s lead to 2-1 with no outs in the seventh. With one out and runners at second and third, Ramon Castro came up. He chopped a ball to third baseman Rodriguez, who fired home to get Carlos Quentin and preserve the lead. On the next play, Rodriguez dived to smother a single down the line by Jayson Nix. Sabathia had induced 24 swinging strikes Friday, his fastball, slider and changeup all working well. But he could not fan the rookie Gordon Beckham with a full count, and Beckham singled through the first-base hole. Alex Rios scored to tie the game, and Swisher charged the wet ball and came up throwing. Swisher has made long lollipop throws this season, often allowing an extra base to the batter. This had the elements to be an adventure. “It was like throwing a bar of soap,” Swisher said. “The catcher was at second base, and if there was something hard-hit to me, I knew exactly where I was going to go. In that situation, I wasn’t worried about runners advancing.” Swisher said he had worked with the pitching coach Dave Eiland on his technique, hoping to improve so he could stay in games without being replaced for defense. He made his case with a one-hop strike to Molina, just up the line. Molina gathered it and tagged out Castro to end the inning. “Swish came up huge,” Sabathia said. “That was a very big play. Alex came up huge with his play down the line. These guys definitely bailed me out today.” The runs cost Sabathia a chance to be the majors’ first 16-game winner, but he did not mind. He was happy to contribute to a night that will be remembered for an overdue final flourish by Cano. “Awesome,” Molina said. “It’s about time he does some of that stuff.” | Baseball;New York Yankees;Chicago White Sox |
ny0143423 | [
"business"
] | 2008/10/03 | Short-Sellers Profit From States’ Struggles | While regulators were sprinting to save the financial system last month, someone was making a lot of money — by betting against the State of New Jersey. It is not clear who. But trading records suggest that in the panicked days when exotic derivatives were bringing the American International Group to its knees, traders were using the same kinds of derivatives, called credit-default swaps , to profit from New Jersey ’s rising tide of red ink. Speculators have long been able to short-sell stocks, making money when share prices fall. But derivatives are now making it possible, in effect, to short municipal bonds. If you think you are the first to determine that New York’s budget is going to suffer because of the financial crisis , then you, too, can wager on it. The world of municipal finance has many hidden weak spots — the very playground of short traders — because governments are required to disclose far less about their finances than companies are. “There are hedge funds that already, for at least a year, have been getting into this,” said Douglas A. Love, an economist and a member of New Jersey’s State Investment Council, which oversees the investment of that state’s pension fund. “It’s a sophisticated game and it has risks. But that’s the market.” This form of market betting could force local governments to face up to long-simmering problems instead of sweeping them under the rug. But it could also increase the cost of raising money or, in an extreme case, drive investors away entirely if a city’s finances are perceived as shaky. Already, the housing slump has left some places struggling to balance their budgets as revenues dwindle and the credit crisis takes its toll. Credit-default swaps are essentially a form of insurance. Bond investors can buy the swaps to protect themselves in case the issuer fails to pay its debt. But the swaps can also be used to speculate on the creditworthiness of an issuer, whether a company, a state or some other body of government, like a turnpike authority. The weaker its finances become, the more the value of the swap rises. Investors can now bet on the creditworthiness not just of New Jersey, but also of Illinois, Texas, New York City and dozens of local government bodies, including the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority and the Los Angeles Unified School District. The municipalities in play tend to be those that issue a large of number of bonds and are familiar to investors. In the case of New Jersey, someone bought five years’ worth of default protection on the state’s debt in mid-July, on a day when the price edged to $41,000, from $40,000, for $10 million worth of bonds. (Traders do not have to own the bonds to buy the related swaps.) The price then floated up gently until mid-September, when suddenly Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch was sold and A.I.G. had to be bailed out by the Federal Reserve, all in the space of a few days. Instantly, investors everywhere were risk averse, and the price of a five-year swap on New Jersey’s debt jumped to $84,000 for $10 million in bonds. For the buyer in mid-July, that is a jump in value of more than 100 percent in just two months. Suresh Sundaresan, a professor of finance and economics at Columbia, cautioned against reading too much into such market movements. The municipal swaps market is thinly traded, he said, making it hard to know what forces are driving its ups and downs. In some places, a single big trade can affect the market. Many traders are not speculators, he said, but insurance companies or other institutions buying protection for bonds they hold. Still, he added, “if you have a notion about the underlying health of a municipality, and you think that this is eventually going to reveal itself to the market, then the simplest thing for you to do is go and buy a credit-default swap.” Statistics on trading volume are not publicly available. But market sources said that swaps are traded to protect about $1 billion to $2 billion of municipal bonds each week, double the volume a year ago. The municipal bond market, meanwhile, has been reduced to gridlock in the last couple of weeks by the financial crisis. Even when the market returns to more normal conditions, state and local governments could face additional scrutiny because they share some of the characteristics now clouding financial institutions. With great latitude in their accounting practices, poor enforcement of the rules and a big dose of actuarial science, some states and cities appear to be running big pension funds as opaque as the complex portfolios of mortgage-backed securities that now plague the nation’s banks. “This kind of nontransparency is precisely what has landed us here” in the credit crisis, Mr. Sundaresan said. “If you’re not transparent, if you’re opaque, then in some sense, you’re borrowing money from the investing public without fully discharging your fiduciary duty. I’m very troubled by this.” Like some others, he thinks traders’ exploiting the situation could do some good, in much the same way that short traders serve an important function by putting pressure on weak companies to strengthen themselves or be acquired. “To some extent, the opaqueness might be mitigated,” Mr. Sundaresan said. Market sources said it would be impossible for traders to “blow up” a city or a state with credit-default swaps because governments do not issue stock. When traders have helped drive companies to destruction in the last few weeks, they have generally used complex strategies that combined stock positions with credit-default swaps. In July, Lehman Brothers alerted clients that Illinois was “a potential buy opportunity” for short traders, because credit-default swaps on its debt were relatively cheap. Illinois has a budget deficit and a sickly public pension fund, Lehman Brothers observed. But Standard & Poor’s had rated it double A — just like Texas, which has a budget surplus and copious oil and gas money. The discrepancy suggested that Illinois had been overrated and was ripe for speculation. “They’re looking at Illinois and saying, ‘the spreads are low because they’ve got bogus accounting,’ ” said Mark Ruloff, an actuary and director of asset allocation for Watson Wyatt Investment Consulting. “The market sees through some of the opaqueness.” As the market turned, though, a trader actually would have made a bigger profit with a credit-default swap on Texas. Amid the financial chaos of mid-September, when the value of swaps spiked, Texas was hit by Hurricane Ike . Hurricane insurance for property on its Gulf Coast was available only through a state-run pool. So the price of protection against a Texas default rose even more. Lehman Brothers also suggested trades on places including Florida, which was on the hook for hurricane damage; Nevada, which was dependent on the gambling business; and New York City, because its fiscal health was closely linked to Wall Street. Lehman, which declared bankruptcy last month, was one of the largest market makers in municipal credit-default swaps, along with Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. The loss of trading capacity and expertise could crimp the municipal swaps market. But other factors are driving the market’s growth. Municipal credit-default swaps, created in 2004, mostly gathered dust until 2007. After the insurance companies that specialized in municipal bonds became troubled, credit-default swaps emerged as an alternative form of insurance. Even though municipalities rarely default on their bonds, the insurance was popular because it made municipal bonds seem utterly foolproof. That sense of heightened security made the bonds easier to sell, lowering communities’ borrowing costs. In May, a municipal credit-default swap index, the MCDX, was introduced by Markit, a financial data company. The index allows traders to take positions on whether government creditworthiness overall is heading up or down. Its debut coincided with the bankruptcy filing of Vallejo, Calif. The city of 117,000 ran out of money after promising its police officers and firefighters much richer benefits than it could afford. That filing created more interest in municipal credit-default swaps. It also cast a bright light on the possibility that some governments had promised benefits they could not pay, even though their financial statements and credit ratings seemed fine. Mr. Love, of the New Jersey investment board, has recalculated the value of the pensions promised to the state’s public workers, using the method that a bank would use to measure its book of business. He found a $56 billion deficit, more than three times the $18 billion that the state was disclosing in its bond offering statements. The state Legislature uses the lower number when approving new benefits and balancing the budget. “The thing you’re sensing is that the capital markets are in one world, and the actuaries and bond counsels and the legislators are in another world,” Mr. Love said. “And that sounds like an arbitrage opportunity.” | Short Selling;Subprime Mortgage Crisis;Credit Default Swaps;Derivatives (Financial Transactions);Government Bonds;New Jersey |
ny0122386 | [
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] | 2012/09/16 | Penn State Gives Bill O’Brien, and Fans, First Win of Season | STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Matt McGloin had been waiting to make this call. The seconds were ticking down in Penn State ’s 34-7 win Saturday over Navy, so McGloin, the senior quarterback, got teammates Jordan Hill and Gerald Hodges to sneak behind the rookie coach Bill O’Brien to douse him with a bucket of water. “I said: ‘Hey listen, it’s his first win as a head coach. You’ve got to give it to him,’ ” McGloin said. McGloin threw for 231 yards and 4 touchdowns, Allen Robinson torched the Midshipmen secondary with 136 yards and 3 touchdowns, and the Nittany Lions (1-2) rolled to the morale-boosting win after two draining losses to open a season of change in Happy Valley. “In many ways, it was a long time coming,” O’Brien said. “All the hard work they’ve put in this week, it finally paid off. But it’s just one win. We’ve got to soak it in tonight but get back to work on Monday.” Penn State had not won a football game since Nov. 19 at Ohio State. That was soon after the former assistant Jerry Sandusky was charged with child sexual abuse and Joe Paterno was fired. O’Brien was hired in January as Paterno’s replacement, and the Penn State program was slammed with N.C.A.A. sanctions in July for the university’s handling of the Sandusky case. Among the penalties, the program was forced to vacate all its wins since 1998, so technically, that 20-14 victory over the Buckeyes did not count. The Nittany Lions last official win was 35-10 against Wisconsin on Nov. 22, 1997. “When you think about all the things they’ve been through — it’s a pretty neat group of kids,” O’Brien said. “I just feel great for these football players here at Penn State today.” Gee Gee Greene ran for 70 yards for the Midshipmen (0-2) and scored on a 12-yard run to end the Penn State shutout with 10 minutes 3 seconds left. Too little, too late, for mistake-prone Navy. Penn State forced four turnovers, and Navy had seven penalties for 41 yards. “It’s uncharacteristic of us,” Navy Coach Ken Niumatalolo said. “We didn’t play well. I didn’t coach well. We’ve got to play mentally perfect to have a chance against a team like Penn State. We didn’t come close, not even close.” Faint chants of “Bill O’Brien” echoed in the stadium after the two teams exchanged handshakes at midfield after the final whistle. The Nittany Lions avoided going 0-3 for the first time since 2001. “For Coach O’Brien, that was big because of all the hard work he’s put in for us,” said Hill, who recovered a Navy fumble. “And for us, too. All the hard work that we’ve put in and everything we’ve been through. Just to get one game under our belts, one win under our belts, now we feel like we’re just going to get it rolling.” McGloin was 13 of 21 passing. Robinson caught five passes, securing his status as the favorite target in the revamped Penn State offense. “I think it was all about game-planning and good route combinations called,” Robinson said. Navy limped home to Annapolis with another double-digit loss. “We’re going to have a hard time beating high school teams if we don’t take care of the football, much less a program like Penn State,” Niumatalolo said. Miller, whose feet heavily taped because of a right ankle injury, was ineffective in the pocket, rushing 18 times for 21 yards and going 6 of 13 passing for 17 yards and an interception. “He’s still a little ginger on that ankle,” Niumatalolo said. “Not everything that happened was his fault; he was running for his life.” Much of Navy’s yardage came in the fourth quarter with the game well in hand for Penn State. Before they left the field, the Nittany Lions started a new tradition by gathering in front of the Blue Band to sing the alma mater. | Football (College);Pennsylvania State University;United States Naval Academy |
ny0202736 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2009/08/29 | Baghdad Mourns Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite Leader | BAGHDAD — The body of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim , an influential religious and political leader in Iraq , arrived here from Iran on Friday for the start of a funeral procession conducted amid extraordinary security and under the shadow of violence. The death of Mr. Hakim , a Shiite with close ties to Iran who supported the American invasion in 2003, came in “a sensitive and critical period, in a time we need the best of men who have experience and the best of men who have suffered and sacrificed,” Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said at a eulogy at the international airport here. It was a measure of Mr. Hakim’s stature in a badly divided nation that most of the country’s senior leaders, Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, attended the ceremony at the airport, as did foreign diplomats. Mr. Hakim led the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, once the largest Shiite political party, though it has lost ground to Mr. Maliki’s party in recent years. Even in mourning, the future of the party, its leadership and the prospects of a renewed alliance with Mr. Maliki, loomed. Both Mr. Maliki and Iraq’s Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, mentioned Mr. Hakim’s son, Ammar, as the heir apparent of the party and his father’s political and religious legacy, a succession that has been widely expected but not made official. The younger Mr. Hakim, for his part, obliquely called on Mr. Maliki and others to join a new, predominantly Shiite political alliance formed only days before his father died, at 59, from lung cancer. “From this pulpit and through these painful feelings, I call upon those brothers and those dear who have not made their decision to join the alliance, to review their decision,” he said in remarks at the Buratha mosque in northern Baghdad, one of two where his father’s body was taken. Portions of the city were sealed off as Mr. Hakim’s body was moved from the airport into Baghdad for services attended by average Iraqis. The heavy security reflected heightened fears after a recent series of bombings, including the attacks against two government ministries on Aug. 19. The death toll in those attacks has risen sharply to 132, from the initial count of 95, as some of the hundreds seriously wounded died in hospitals, according to the latest count by the Interior Ministry. Mr. Hakim’s funeral occurred without reports of violence directed at mourners. Early Friday morning, however, two American soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad. The soldiers were part of the 13th Expeditionary Sustainment Command , which deals primarily in logistics, but the military provided no additional details. After Friday’s ceremonies, Mr. Hakim’s body was sent to the holy Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf. He is to be buried in Najaf on Saturday. | Hakim Abdul Aziz al-;Iraq;Shiite Muslims |
ny0141339 | [
"nyregion",
"thecity"
] | 2008/11/02 | Brooklyn Greenmarket Could Lose Out to Drugstore | FOR years, residents of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, have complained about a dearth of fresh produce in the neighborhood, and the problem seemed to only worsen in June with the closing of a Key Food on Third Avenue and 94th Street. So when word spread that a farmers’ market would open on Oct. 4 in the parking lot of the shuttered Key Food, much rejoicing ensued. The joy may prove short-lived. Three days before the market opened, an article in The Brooklyn Paper said that come January, the farmers and beekeepers would have to clear out or shut down to make way for a Walgreens drugstore. Michael Hurwitz, director of the city’s Greenmarket program, is hoping to persuade Walgreens to let the farmers stick around. At the same time, a number of local residents have rallied to save the market. David Marangio, a real estate agent, offered to help the farmers find a new location in the neighborhood. He has scouted a property on Shore Road, near the Belt Parkway. “Wherever it is,” he said, “it will be the destination.” Mr. Marangio, a native of neighboring Dyker Heights, moved to Bay Ridge three years ago after a sojourn in the Hudson Valley. Upon arriving, he was disappointed to find that many of the talismans of his Brooklyn childhood — the pork store, the pasta store — had been replaced by supermarkets and one-stop groceries. Like many of his friends, Mr. Marangio often found himself trooping off to the farmers’ market in Union Square. As the search for a permanent site continued, local residents were relishing what it would be like to have a Greenmarket permanently. On a recent Saturday, Mr. Marangio showed up just before 8 a.m. and bought a rib-eye steak and a bunch of beets. He went home, prepared lunch, and returned a few hours later for buckwheat honey, heirloom tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, a whole-grain baguette and a minty Peruvian herb called wakatay. Later, as the last vendors to call it a day stowed away their tables, Mr. Marangio dropped by the market for a third visit. He and his neighbors are trying to form a Bay Ridge food co-op, and some of his associates had been distributing surveys to gauge interest in the project. After picking up a stack of surveys, Mr. Marangio struck up a conversation with Harold Naupari, a farmer who lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, and commutes each day to 10 family-owned acres in Goshen, N.Y. Mr. Naupari sells tomatoes, corn, squash and beets, among other items. Asked to identify his wares, he began rattling off the names of vegetables. Mr. Marangio chimed in: “Huge, beautiful leeks!” And he added: “There’s no way this market won’t reopen in the spring. I’ll have the guys come to my house and sell at my house, whatever it is.” | Vegetables;Local Food;Supermarkets;Brooklyn (NYC) |
ny0020886 | [
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] | 2013/09/05 | Live, From Atlanta, an Unusual Hire | ATLANTA — Brandon Gaudin surveyed the four front-row chairs in the Georgia Tech radio booth last Saturday. “Where’s my spot?” he asked. “Right here?” He rendered a guess and dropped his gear. It was opening day for Yellow Jackets football and the biggest day in the professional life of Gaudin, the fourth man in 61 seasons to occupy the team’s radio play-by-play seat, whichever one it was. Gaudin propped up his iPad and dug out his smartphone — modern-day accessories to the trade’s traditional tools, like colored pens, a notepad, a depth chart, a flip card, a statistics sheet and a commercial break schedule. Someone identified himself as the fetcher of drinks for those in the booth. “The one legacy I’ve left,” Gaudin said, “is having the world’s smallest bladder.” He smiled at the self-deprecating joke, knowing he had not blathered about sports into a microphone long enough to establish a legacy of any sort. Less than an hour later, after a swig of water that would stay in his system for a while, Gaudin delivered his first unrecorded words to the Georgia Tech audience: “Live from Bobby Dodd Stadium. Welcome, everybody. I’m Brandon Gaudin.” There was no telling how many listeners heard that and said, “Who?” Football is a young man’s game, but the art of describing it on the radio has largely been the purview of those middle-aged and older. Georgia Tech athletics is affiliated with IMG College, which holds the multimedia rights to the football programs of 80 universities, making it the largest such network. On average, two jobs within that group become available each year, and 15 of the current IMG announcers have been calling games from the same campus for at least 30 years, longer than Gaudin, 29, has been alive. More than 150 people applied to succeed Wes Durham, who began announcing Atlantic Coast Conference games on Fox Sports South this season after 18 years at Georgia Tech. “You are looking for more than a guy who can just do the games on radio and host a chicken-and-green-bean event,” Durham said. “You are looking for versatility, on multiple platforms. It’s a much more flexible job than when I showed up at Georgia Tech.” Georgia Tech, with input from IMG, sought someone who could serve, as several officials put it, as an ambassador — not merely a radio voice for football and basketball, but a face to represent the university. “This goes so far beyond the game broadcasting,” Athletic Director Mike Bobinski said. “He must have the ability to stand in front of groups and tell the Georgia Tech story.” Bobinski had been at Georgia Tech for only two and a half months when Durham walked into his office in June to resign. The season opener against Elon, Durham’s alma mater, was less than three months away. Gaudin had announced games for Butler, his alma mater, for three years before noticing the Georgia Tech vacancy on a trade Web site. Image Brandon Gaudin was among more than 150 applicants for Georgia Tech’s radio play-by-play job. Credit Dustin Chambers for The New York Times He advanced past the first round of cuts, and IMG sent his name and about 30 others to Bobinski. The list dwindled to 10 names, then four. Gaudin was one of the finalists, in part because of his experience calling two Final Fours while at Butler. Among the prerequisites was the ability to relate to graduates, many of whom were old enough to be Gaudin’s father, and to understand the mind-set of an alumni base that took its football seriously but not with life-or-death gravity. Georgia Tech chose Gaudin, a man as boyish-looking as Brad Stevens, the basketball coach who also left Butler this summer, going to the Boston Celtics. When Gaudin is not working, he favors hoodies and jeans. He gobbles peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He relied on his mother to stock his apartment with supplies. He shoots continually at a Little Tikes basketball rim (for ages 3 and up, according to its box) hanging over his bedroom door. “My track record is, I’m sort of age-blind,” Bobinski said. Besides, Gaudin’s maturity, Bobinski said, “belies his time on earth.” Gaudin, who helped start a New York media management company at age 24, flew to Atlanta a day earlier than necessary for his all-day interview and huddled with people who had ties to Georgia Tech, including Durham, to study. He became well versed in Georgia Tech lore: the restored 1930 Model A Ford known as the Ramblin’ Wreck (the Jackets’ alternate nickname), the steam whistle that shrieks hourly on campus, the practice of referring to archrival Georgia as “that other team.” Three of the four finalists fit into what Tom Stipes, the general manager of Georgia Tech’s IMG sports marketing, termed the “sweet spot” in age, from late 20s to early 40s. Durham’s longtime basketball sidekick, Randy Waters, 62, with a voice familiar to listeners, was the other finalist. But Gaudin’s vocal stylings “jumped off the page,” Chris Ferris, an IMG vice president, said. “I thought this could be our guy the first time I heard his tape.” Bobinski said, “More and more, I hear people say this is becoming a young man’s industry.” Hiring a young announcer, he added, will allow Georgia Tech to “consciously integrate the person into our communications strategy.” That could mean making sales calls, dealing with sponsors and, as Durham did, recording voice mail greetings for athletic department staff members. The job surely includes being prominent on social media. Stipes said he expected Gaudin to be a “Twitter monster,” given that fans often turn first to a team’s play-by-play announcer for information or consolation regarding N.C.A.A compliance issues, coaching moves and player suspensions. But the primary responsibility remains calling games. Last Saturday, Gaudin found himself surrounded by human reminders of Georgia Tech’s mellifluous legacy. To Gaudin’s immediate right was the spotter Al Ciraldo Jr., whose father, now deceased, called games for 38 seasons. In the booth next door was the Elon analyst Taylor Durham, Wes Durham’s brother. “One in the books,” Gaudin declared after signing off from a broadcast of a 70-0 victory . The effort was relatively smooth, despite a few misreads of handoffs in Georgia Tech’s deceptive offense. Gaudin accepted an offer to be sent a copy of the audio for review. Sounding much like Coach Paul Johnson after the game, Gaudin said, “There are certainly things I would like to improve on.” | College football;Georgia Institute of Technology;Radio;Butler University |
ny0269513 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2016/04/19 | Potential G.O.P. Convention Fight Puts Older Hands in Sudden Demand | The last time Stuart Spencer courted delegates at a Republican National Convention, in 1976, he kept a roll of quarters in his pocket for when he had to run to the pay phones and call in reports to President Gerald R. Ford’s campaign headquarters. This year there will be no running. Two hip replacements later, the closest Mr. Spencer plans to get to the convention floor in Cleveland is the deck of his Palm Desert, Calif., home, where he calls in advice to Gov. John Kasich’s campaign almost every day. “I’m 89, man. I’m lucky to be here,” said Mr. Spencer, who last worked in politics 25 years ago. Political campaigns are often viewed as a young person’s game, especially in an era in which digitally savvy, data-fixated strategists track the behavior of millions of voters nationwide and target them with increasing sophistication and precision. But this year, as Republicans face the prospect of a contested convention, the party is turning to its oldest hands, who learned how to fight over delegates using walkie-talkies, loose-leaf notebooks and quick-footed young pages. The graying delegate wranglers like Mr. Spencer have a rare and suddenly sought-after skill: They understand the arcane rules and complicated interpersonal dynamics that can persuade often unpredictable state delegates to back a candidate for president. Many of them were foot soldiers in the 1976 battle between President Ford and Ronald Reagan and find themselves unexpectedly pulled back into the game. Paul Manafort, 67, all but disappeared from American politics in recent decades to advise international leaders, including strongmen like Ferdinand E. Marcos, the former dictator of the Philippines, and Viktor F. Yanukovych, the deposed former president of Ukraine. Now, though, Mr. Manafort, who worked for the Ford campaign 40 years ago, is the lead convention strategist for Donald J. Trump. “I wanted to do one more,” he said. Charlie Black, 68, who is better known today as the chairman of a Washington lobbying firm that represents clients like Airbus and Google, is helping the convention operation for John Kasich, the Ohio governor. “I thought I would sit in the bleachers,” said Mr. Black, who worked on Reagan’s behalf at the 1976 convention. 2016 Delegate Count and Primary Results According to the Associated Press, Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton have each won enough delegates to claim their party’s nomination for president. As it happens, the Cleveland convention in July will be a reunion of sorts for Mr. Black. One of Mr. Black’s field lieutenants in the Reagan delegate operation was a 24-year-old Mr. Kasich. Many Republican officials believe that a contested convention, one that begins without delegates knowing who the nominee will be, is all but certain this July. Though Mr. Trump has a lead of 744 delegates to 559 for Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, neither man seems likely to secure an outright majority of 1,237 by the convention. And without a majority, the convention votes again — on second, third and subsequent ballots if necessary — until one candidate attains the 50 percent plus one that will make him the nominee. Most delegates are not required to support whomever their state’s primary- or caucusgoers did after the initial ballots. Unlike the typical campaign effort, which involves trying to win over states or congressional districts or large blocs of voters, the convention involves a relatively tiny universe of people who will decide the candidates’ fate — 2,472 in all. When the Ford and Reagan campaigns were engaged in a delegate-by-delegate fight for the nomination, they mainly relied on thick paper dossiers stuffed with every knowable fact about their targets, from whom they married to whether they liked to play bridge or do needlepoint in their spare time. “It’s literally in the trenches, one person at a time,” said Mr. Black, who was just 28 at the 1976 convention. “We’re going to have to do it the old-fashioned way,” he added, “which is to make friends with people.” In many ways, the first contested convention of the 21st century could hark back to the 19th and early 20th centuries, when nominees were often picked after many rounds of balloting. Assets like money and media exposure will matter less than a candidate and his team’s ability to connect on a human level with a few thousand delegates in a hall. “You’ve got to know who they are, where they’re from, what they eat, what their hobbies are, where they went to college and on and on and on,” Mr. Spencer said in an interview by phone from Palm Desert. “That was true then. It’s true now.” In an example of how small the elder strategists’ circle is, Mr. Manafort and Mr. Black are also former business partners in a consulting firm they ran with Roger Stone, another 1976 alumnus who is also advising Mr. Trump this year, though in an informal capacity. Mr. Stone, who was a Reagan delegate wrangler at the time, said he especially admired how Mr. Manafort and the Ford team understood how to leverage the power and prestige of the White House in that battle. A state dinner with Queen Elizabeth, cocktails in the East Room, a personal visit from Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller — the Ford campaign threw all the perks of the presidency it could at delegates. “These guys were masters at this,” Mr. Stone recalled. Reagan, a former governor of California and Hollywood actor, tried to impress with his star power. He persuaded John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart to join him for dinners with delegates. But as he and his team learned, it was not the same as a call from the president. James A. Baker III, 85, who ran the Ford delegate operation and is staying neutral in this nomination fight, summed up the strategy of any effective delegate operation as: “Acquire delegates, protect your delegates and steal other delegates.” Mr. Ford, he said, was uniquely advantaged because of “something we called ‘the Maison Blanche.’” “You bring an uncommitted delegate to a dinner for the Queen of England, and it’s a fairly persuasive argument,” Mr. Baker added. While the Ford campaign had to be extremely sensitive to questions of corruption because scars from Watergate were still so fresh then, he said, “there are not a lot of rules about what you can and cannot do.” A popular joke at the time about the patronage and favors dispensed by the White House was that when Ford stepped off Air Force One, the band did not know whether to play “Hail to the Chief” or “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” Mr. Manafort, who has known Mr. Trump for 30 years, is keeping his counsel as to what perks of the Trump world he might dole out. Lunches at his Mar-a-Lago club, rides on the Trump 757, perhaps? Those and the celebrity allure of Mr. Trump are definitely assets, Mr. Manafort said. “Who would you want to sit in a room with if you were an undecided delegate? Do you want to sit with Ted Cruz or with Donald Trump?” he said. Mr. Cruz’s campaign, in keeping with its desire to seem as distant from Washington and the political establishment as possible, has hired mostly people with experience in internecine state convention battles. Mr. Spencer, who has been retired since 1993, said he was happy to be playing a role, even if at a distance. Although he cannot be in Cleveland — he had to give up campaign travel, just like golf and tennis, when moving around got too difficult — he said he could not resist the allure of one more race. “I’ll give it one last shot,” he said. | 2016 Presidential Election;Republican National Convention,RNC;Stuart Spencer;Republicans;Charlie Black;Paul Manafort;Donald Trump;Ted Cruz;John R Kasich |
ny0026795 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2013/01/18 | Carmelo Anthony Leads Knicks Over Pistons in London | LONDON — It was London, but it could have been Midtown Manhattan. With Spike Lee courtside, with the Detroit Pistons not looking any more formidable in England than they do at Madison Square Garden, the Knicks rolled to a 102-87 victory Thursday that had most of the sellout crowd of 18,689 cheering in approval. With Carmelo Anthony’s two-week fast behind him, with Iman Shumpert back on the court for the first time this season, the Knicks jumped to a 16-2 lead in the first quarter, fought off a Pistons counterattack in the second half, then coasted to the finish line, their four-day jaunt to England having worked out just fine. Technically, this was a road game for the Knicks. But only technically. There was plenty of Knicks blue and orange in the stands, and there were numerous jerseys with Anthony’s name on the back. Either a lot of former New Yorkers are living in and around London, or a lot of English N.B.A. fans are picking up on the Knicks, whose victory pushed their record to 25-13, behind only Miami in the Eastern Conference. Now the Knicks come back home, with two days of rest and practice before they square off with the Nets in the annual Martin Luther King Day game at the Garden. With the Nets bearing down on the Knicks in the standings, it is a game to point to — but not until the Knicks finish savoring their trip, and their victory. “It was great,” Knicks Coach Mike Woodson said. “We had great fan support here. It goes to show you that our sport is global, there’s no doubt about that. I thought the fans tonight were fantastic both ways, especially for us. And when they played our theme song to start the game, I think that really got our guys into the game — like we were at home, playing in front of our fans.” It was Anthony in particular who seemed to excite the crowd, and he lived up to his trans-Atlantic star billing by scoring 26 points, including three 3-pointers in the Knicks’ blistering start to the game, which also included Shumpert’s hitting a 3-pointer from the corner on his first shot of the season. This was the third regular-season N.B.A. game to be played in London, following the two 2011 games between the Toronto Raptors and the Nets, who were then still residing in relative anonymity in New Jersey. But this game, thanks to the presence of Anthony and the fact it was being broadcast live on British television, had a more vibrant feel than the other two. Image The Knicks' Iman Shumpert drives to the basket against the Detroit Pistons on Thursday. Credit Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters When the N.B.A. will come back to England for another game is not yet known. But the energy that was coursing through the O2 Arena did suggest that basketball has some legs in England, even if any number of people think the game is hopelessly obscured by all the attention devoted to soccer. And for what it’s worth, a number of those in attendance Thursday are soccer notables in England’s Premier League. So there was nothing but good feelings all around, expect perhaps in the Detroit locker room. “Being here has been a phenomenal experience,” said Amar’e Stoudemire, who had a strong game with 17 points in 20 minutes. He took advantage of some free time to be a genuine tourist by venturing to Wednesday’s Chelsea-Southampton soccer game. “We had a chance to really interact with the fans, half the team was able to go to the Chelsea match last night, and we’ve had a great experience here. The fans tonight were so appreciative of us playing, so it’s been great.” As for Shumpert, he started the game after a seven-month recovery from knee surgery. And he did just fine, scoring 8 points in 15 minutes while being credited with a steal, an assist and 2 rebounds. “It’s a tribute to him and how hard he’s worked to get back out on the floor,” Woodson said. “I’m happy as hell to have him back — he brings so much energy and his teammates feed off him. “That was one of the first first quarters in a while where we’ve been really good, and I think he had a lot to do with that,” Woodson added. Shumpert said he felt no pain in his left knee after the game, and added that he was hungry to play as much basketball as Woodson will allow. “I’m so happy that I’ve got a jersey on again; I can’t really think about my knee,” Shumpert said. “If it hurts, that’s the only time I’d think about it, and it doesn’t, so I’m fine.” So were the Knicks as they headed home, their nice little adventure concluded. REBOUNDS Knicks forward Rasheed Wallace played down suggestions his season was done, claiming he is on course to recover from a foot injury. “My season ain’t over,” he said. “I’m going to be back. I was laid off for three years, so one little foot injury ain’t going to stop me.” | Pistons;Knicks;Basketball;Carmelo Anthony |
ny0032549 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/12/20 | Taxi Industry Bids the Bloomberg Era a Not-So-Fond Farewell | When the moment arrived on Thursday to bid farewell to an administration it loathed, New York City’s taxi industry dispensed with any pretense of mixed emotions. At the final Taxi and Limousine Commission meeting of the Bloomberg era, industry officials chastised the city for failing to listen to them, condemned final rule changes to be voted on by the agency, and alluded to the myriad lawsuits that, quite often, had gone against the city in recent years. Ethan Gerber, the executive director of the Greater New York Taxi Association , a yellow taxi industry group that has frequently sued the city, offered a pointed send-off to David S. Yassky, the taxi commissioner. “There are those who spread happiness wherever they go,” he said to Mr. Yassky, paraphrasing a line attributed to Oscar Wilde, “and those who spread happiness whenever they go.” “Characteristically elegant,” Mr. Yassky said, smiling at least a little. But the administration did announce a triumph against a frequent rival. Mr. Yassky and Eric T. Schneiderman, the state attorney general, said they had reached an agreement with a prominent taxi operator who will pay nearly $750,000 in restitution to drivers who were charged illegally high rates to lease their cabs and medallions. The operator, Evgeny Freidman, will also pay $500,000 in fines, according to Mr. Schneiderman’s office, and his companies will be required to appoint an internal compliance officer. Mr. Yassky called the settlement “a huge development in the taxi industry,” adding that some operators had developed “a sense of impunity” concerning the treatment of drivers. In a phone interview on Thursday, Mr. Freidman declined to discuss details of the settlement but chafed at Mr. Yassky’s suggestion that he had stolen from drivers. “I understand, going out they need to have a whole big thing,” he said, adding that he had once been close with Mr. Yassky, raising money for some of his political campaigns. “O.K., go for it. But don’t make it personal on me.” As WABC first reported on Thursday, three of Mr. Freidman’s taxi businesses also owe a total of more than $3 million in back taxes, according to the state’s Department of Taxation and Finance. In May, Mr. Freidman sued Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg after a heated exchange at Madison Square Garden. According to the suit, Mr. Bloomberg told Mr. Freidman he would “destroy your industry,” adding an expletive, when his term was up. The case is pending. Mr. Bloomberg has worked aggressively to reshape the taxi industry, frequently drawing its ire. The administration overcame a court challenge to a plan to expand street-hail service beyond Manhattan, placing thousands of green livery cabs on the streets this year. More muddled is the fate of the city’s so-called Taxi of Tomorrow plan for a near-uniform fleet of yellow cabs. The city is appealing a State Supreme Court ruling that struck down the plan in October, but Bill de Blasio, the mayor-elect, has in the past opposed the vehicle. Mr. de Blasio has said that he will replace Mr. Yassky. The vehicle, a Nissan NV200, is available as an option for the industry but will not be required, as the administration had initially intended for most operators, unless the appeal is successful. On Thursday, the commission also voted, 6 to 1, with 1 abstention, to require that all taxis undergo crash-testing with their plastic partitions inside, after a grace period. When questioned by a fellow commission member, Nora C. Marino, Mr. Yassky said that the Nissan NV200 was believed to be the only taxi that currently met this requirement. “Isn’t that kind of a coincidence?” Ms. Marino asked. Opponents have accused the administration of using the rule as a last-ditch attempt to get more Nissans on the road. For some, though, the administration’s departure was bittersweet. Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance , recalled fondly that Mr. Yassky had overseen a fare increase meant to increase drivers’ pay. After the meeting, she and Mr. Yassky embraced. “You did a fine job,” Ms. Desai told him. Then a driver stepped in to offer his thanks. “My hat salutes for you,” he said. | NYC;Taxi and Limousine Commission;Taxis;Mike Bloomberg;Bill de Blasio;David Yassky |
ny0174606 | [
"us"
] | 2007/10/26 | Randall Forsberg, 64, Nuclear Freeze Advocate, Dies | Randall Forsberg, who as a typist at a peace institute in Sweden in the 1960s began studying the potentially terrifying consequences of nuclear proliferation, then helped start the nuclear freeze movement that culminated in the largest political demonstration in American history, died on Oct. 19. She was 64 and lived in Manhattan. Her death, at a Bronx hospital, was caused by cancer, said her sister, Celia Seupel. Dr. Forsberg, who went on to earn a doctorate in international studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, focusing on disarmament, is widely credited with creating the concept of a nuclear freeze — a mutual and verifiable halt by the United States and the Soviet Union on the testing, production and deployment of all nuclear weapons. That simple idea gained increasing public support in the late 1970s and early ’80s as an alternative to the complexities of the arms race, with its continuing posturing and intermittent negotiations about megatonnage, throw weight and inspections. By 1982, nuclear freeze proposals had been approved by dozens of town, city, county and state legislatures throughout the country, and by referendums in eight states. The effort peaked on June 12, 1982, with a mass march through Manhattan and a gathering of more than 700,000 people in Central Park, according to crowd estimates. By then, there were more than 5,000 disarmament groups, large and small, throughout the United States. But the movement lost momentum that year when a resolution urging President Ronald Reagan to negotiate a bilateral freeze with the Soviet Union failed by two votes in the House of Representatives. The movement slowed even further in 1984 with the re-election of Reagan, who had pushed for a $240 billion buildup in MX missiles, cruise missiles and Trident submarines and for creation of a missile defense shield, popularly known as Star Wars. “The grass-roots people who poured in thousands of hours over the last few years through their work on the freeze are tremendously disappointed and frustrated,” Dr. Forsberg said a year later. “We felt that degree of commitment and devotion had to make a difference, and the shock of what happened in the 1984 elections left us reeling.” Some historians and military experts argue that Reagan’s insistence on increasing military spending, combined with economic and political instability in the Soviet Union, led to the downfall of the Soviet bloc and to the eventual, if often tenuous, improvement in relations between the United States and Russia. Randall Caroline Watson was born on July 23, 1943, in Huntsville, Ala., into a family with “a few Georgia plantations ravaged by Sherman’s troops floating around in our past,” she once said. Her father, Larkin Douglass Watson, was an actor who later moved the family to New York where, under the name Douglass Watson, he appeared for 15 years on the NBC soap opera “Another World.” Ms. Watson graduated from Barnard in 1965 and soon began teaching English at a private school in Pennsylvania. Two years later, she married Gunnar Forsberg, a young Swedish student, and moved to Stockholm. They later divorced. Besides her sister, of High Falls, N.Y., Dr. Forsberg is survived by her mother, Genie Loaring-Clark Watson of Greenwich, Conn.; and a daughter, Katarina Forsberg of Medford, Mass. By the time the Forsbergs arrived in Stockholm, the Swedish government had established the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Ms. Forsberg was able to walk in off the street and get a job as a typist. Her introduction to the complexity of the nuclear weapons race came when she began reading what she was typing. By her account, Ms. Forsberg could not believe that the 1963 talks on a comprehensive test ban treaty had broken down over a dispute between Washington’s demand for seven on-site inspections a year and the Russians’ insistence on no more than three. She wondered, Why not compromise on five? Soon she was writing her own research papers on the arms race. In 1974, divorced and the mother of a 5-year-old, Ms. Forsberg moved to Boston and began studying arms control at M.I.T.; she received her Ph.D. in 1980. By then, she had opened the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, in suburban Brookline. Based on her studies, Dr. Forsberg concluded that despite a limited nuclear test ban treaty signed in 1963, arms-control experts had given up on complete disarmament, and even on substantial reductions. They had replaced it with the idea of managing a permanent, equalized arms race. Her idea was to reduce nuclear stockpiles and bring a halt to the introduction of newer, more lethal weapons. In 1983, a year after the rally, Dr. Forsberg received the so-called “genius award” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In 1995, President Bill Clinton appointed her to the Director’s Advisory Committee of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. In 2002, she challenged Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts in his campaign for re-election, entering the race as a write-in candidate about two weeks before the election to protest his vote authorizing military action against Iraq. She received more than 22,000 votes. Two years ago, Dr. Forsberg was appointed as the first holder of the Anne and Bernard Spitzer chair in political science at City College in New York. In 1982, addressing the rally, Dr. Forsberg looked out over the crowd and exulted: “We’ve done it! The nuclear freeze campaign has mobilized the biggest peacetime peace movement in United States history. The politicians don’t believe it yet.” “Until the arms race stops,” she continued, “until we have a world with peace and justice, we will not go home and be quiet. We will go home and organize.” | Atomic Weapons;Arms Control and Limitation and Disarmament;Demonstrations and Riots;Deaths (Obituaries);United States Politics and Government;Forsberg Randall |
ny0041981 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2014/05/11 | Caron Butler Finds Rejuvenation in Return to L.A. | LOS ANGELES — When the N.B.A. lockout ended late in 2011, the Los Angeles Clippers had grand designs. They were flush with assets: loads of salary-cap space, plenty of draft picks and some promising young players who could be used as trade chips for a franchise player to complement Blake Griffin. The first call made by Neil Olshey, then the general manager, was to Caron Butler, who was coming off knee surgery. Olshey offered an above-market-price deal — $24 million over three years — quickly locking Butler up. Olshey was willing to overpay for a reason. Healthy or not, Butler provided credibility to a team that was desperate for it. His presence was a sign to Chris Paul that the team was serious about winning immediately. Shortly afterward, Paul agreed to a trade to the Clippers. Butler’s previous coaches Rick Carlisle and Pat Riley loved his competitiveness and leadership, and Phil Jackson was sorry the Lakers had traded him. So when Butler returned to Staples Center on Friday as a member of the Oklahoma City Thunder, no longer a starter and mired in a shooting slump, few Clippers were surprised when he buried three fourth-quarter 3-pointers, each putting the Thunder ahead, as Oklahoma City seized a 2-1 lead in the teams’ Western Conference semifinal series with a 118-112 victory. “Caron knows to keep shooting,” Clippers center DeAndre Jordan said. “If he misses four in a row, he’s going to shoot the next four like they’re going in.” The series, which resumes Sunday, took on a nastier tone when it moved to Los Angeles for Game 3. Griffin’s nose was bloodied when he ran into Serge Ibaka’s elbow. Paul and Kevin Durant, friends off the court, traded harsh words on it, drawing matching technical fouls. Matt Barnes and Kendrick Perkins, who are not good friends, were called for technicals as well. In that heated environment, the Thunder felt fortunate to be turning to an experienced hand like Butler. Over the summer, the Clippers sent him and Eric Bledsoe to Phoenix in a deal that landed them J. J. Redick, a superior outside shooter. A month later, Butler, on an expiring contract, was sent to Milwaukee, near where he grew up. His introductory news conference was held in his high school gym. Butler, who was jailed as a teenager, had turned his life around by getting a job at a burger joint. Fighting back tears, he called his return to Wisconsin “a dream come true.” But Butler injured his left shoulder, and the Bucks floundered. By late February, they offered to buy out the rest of his contract, which would allow him to seek a spot with a contender. He considered joining Miami, San Antonio and Oklahoma City. Derek Fisher, a guard in his second stint with the Thunder, said, “If you’re fortunate to be in the league for eight, 10, 12-plus years, I think you start to really understand that despite the contracts, the playing time, the All-Stars — or not — winning is really the only thing that makes you special in this league.” Butler, 34, said the move to Oklahoma City rejuvenated him. Over the final 22 games of the regular season, Butler shot 44.1 percent on 3-pointers, and he started twice in the Thunder’s first-round playoff win over Memphis. Still, he had made just 3 of 17 field-goal attempts in the Clippers series before Friday’s binge from behind the arc. The last of the 3-pointers gave the Thunder a 102-100 lead; they never trailed again. “He hasn’t shot the ball,” Oklahoma City Coach Scott Brooks said Friday. “You’re going to have that as a player, as a team. But you have to have a foundation to know that: ‘You know what? I’ve been there. It’s going to turn for me.’ And it did for him tonight.” Although the Thunder are populated with veterans like Fisher, Perkins and Nick Collison, Butler has been able to act as a leader, too. He warned his teammates after Friday’s victory not to become complacent now that they had seized control of the series. If Butler wins a title with Oklahoma City, it will be particularly meaningful. He has a championship ring from 2011 with the Dallas Mavericks, but he injured his knee that January and watched the finals in street clothes. He also missed an All-Star Game because of an injury. In the Clippers’ playoff opener two years ago, Butler broke his hand, which was supposed to keep him out for four to six weeks. Instead, he missed one game and then played with a soft cast. “It means everything to be healthy and have an opportunity to compete and be the guy that can put the team over the hump,” Butler said. “I’m relishing that moment, and that’s the reason I came here.” | Basketball;Caron Butler;Clippers;Oklahoma City Thunder |
ny0228805 | [
"us"
] | 2010/07/08 | Guantánamo Detainee Pleads Guilty in Terror Case | WASHINGTON — A Guantánamo Bay detainee on Wednesday pleaded guilty to conspiring with Al Qaeda and to providing material support for terrorism, setting up the first conviction before a military commission under the Obama administration. The detainee, Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi, a 50-year-old Sudanese man captured in Afghanistan, admitted to a military judge that he had engaged in hostilities against the United States in violation of the laws of war. A jury of military officers next month will determine his prison sentence, which will be constrained by terms of a plea agreement that remains under seal for now, said Capt. David Iglesias of the Navy, a prosecutor and spokesman for the commissions. “This represents progress in our country’s ongoing struggle against terrorism,” said Captain Iglesias, who was in Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. “We’ve got someone who admitted under oath to some pretty serious violations under the laws of war.” In an e-mail exchange, Paul Reichler, a civilian lawyer who is helping to defend Mr. Qosi, declined to comment. At the hearing, Mr. Qosi acknowledged following the Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996 and serving variously as a quartermaster, cook, bodyguard and driver at Qaeda compounds. After the Sept. 11 attacks, and the invasion of Afghanistan, Mr. Qosi was captured by Pakistani forces in the Tora Bora mountains in December 2001, turned over to the United States and taken to Guantánamo. While his role in Al Qaeda was relatively low-profile compared with the accusations against several other detainees, Mr. Qosi’s case is significant because he is the first prisoner convicted of war crimes by a military commission under President Obama. As a candidate, Mr. Obama criticized the commissions system established by President George W. Bush, and one of Mr. Obama’s first acts was to suspend the trials. His administration later worked with Congress to overhaul the rules, and it defends the revamped system as fair, although the American Civil Liberties Union contends that they remain flawed. Still, the inclusion of the “material support for terrorism” charge in Mr. Qosi’s case was notable because David Kris, the assistant attorney general for national security, told Congress last year that it would be a mistake to include such an offense in the commissions system. Mr. Kris testified that because the offense was not generally considered to be part of the traditional laws of war, its use could make convictions vulnerable to reversal and could undermine the system’s legitimacy. Nevertheless, Congress kept the offense in its 2009 legislation overhauling the commissions. Mr. Iglesias said prosecutors used the charge against Mr. Qosi because it was in the law Congress had approved. He also noted that Mr. Qosi had in essence waived his right to appeal on the grounds that providing material support to terrorism is not a valid offense under the laws of war. “You waive your right to appeal a specific argument by pleading guilty, and he pled guilty to material support,” he said. “We don’t expect there to be any appeal.” Mr. Qosi’s guilty plea made him the fourth detainee to be convicted by a military commission since Mr. Bush ordered their creation in November 2001. In March 2007 and August 2008, respectively, David Hicks of Australia pleaded guilty and Salim Hamdan of Yemen was found guilty to providing material support for terrorism. Both received short prison terms and are now free. In November 2008, Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, a Yemeni accused of making propaganda videos for Al Qaeda, was convicted on several charges after he refused to mount a defense. He received a life sentence. Although the Bush administration established the military commissions system with an eye toward providing flexible trial rules and swift convictions, the system has had a rocky history. It took years to develop rules for the new system, and the first charges against a group of detainees, Mr. Qosi among them, were not filed until 2004. The trials became bogged down in legal challenges culminating in a 2006 Supreme Court decision, in a case brought by Mr. Hamdan, striking down the system. Lawmakers have since passed legislation twice overhauling it. Also Wednesday, Germany announced that it would accept two detainees who had been cleared for release but could not be repatriated for their own safety. Their identities were not disclosed. | Afghanistan War (2001- );Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Cuba);Terrorism;Qosi Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-;Al Qaeda |
ny0040869 | [
"sports",
"golf"
] | 2014/04/13 | Augusta’s Designated Fill-In Bests Rory McIlroy | AUGUSTA, Ga. — Miguel Ángel Jiménez, whose six-under-par 66 Saturday was the low round of the week, is one of seven players 50 or older who teed off Saturday at the Masters. There were six touring professionals and Jeff Knox, the tournament representative and course record-holder, who played as the marker for the two-time major champion Rory McIlroy, the 51st competitor to make the cut. Playing in 3 hours 5 minutes in front of the kind of claustrophobic gallery more often seen when Tiger Woods is in contention, Knox, 51, did more than hold his own. He finished with a two-under 70 to beat McIlroy, whose scorecard he was keeping, by one stroke. “Jeff’s a great player,” said McIlroy, a former world No. 1. McIlroy, 24, added: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone putt the greens as well as he does around here. He was really impressive. I was thinking of getting him to read a few of my putts out here.” Knox, who as a marker plays when an odd number of golfers make the cut , set the course record of 11-under 61 while playing from the member tees. The patrons following Knox and McIlroy in the morning easily outnumbered the people following Bubba Watson and John Senden, the final group of the afternoon. Asked what it was like playing in front of so many people, Knox smiled and said, “They weren’t following me.” ONLY ONE MORE FOR CRENSHAW Ben Crenshaw, a two-time Masters champion, announced that the 2015 tournament would be his last. Crenshaw, 62, posted scores of 83 and 85 this year to miss the cut of four over by 20 strokes. He made two birdies in the two rounds. He took 60 putts, only two more than the 36-hole leader Bubba Watson. The difference was Watson’s drives the first two days averaged 299.25 yards to Crenshaw’s 238.50. The course simply has grown too long for Crenshaw. “A lot of times I thought that I could have stepped down earlier,” Crenshaw said. “It is hard.” Crenshaw, who won here in 1984 and 1995, has missed 17 of the last 19 cuts, including the past seven, during which his stroke average was 79.2. At six over on Thursday when he entered Amen Corner, Crenshaw chose the cathedral of golf to confess to his longtime caddie, Carl Jackson, that his competitive days at the course were nearing an end. “I said, ‘Carl, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and next year would be a good year,’ ” Crenshaw said. “I’m very, very happy with it.” BIRTHDAY FOR AMATEUR Oliver Goss of Australia, the only amateur to make the cut, celebrated his 20th birthday by carding a 76. Goss, a sophomore at Tennessee majoring in kinesiology, had two birdies, two bogeys and two double bogeys and was serenaded by the crowd at the 18th, which sang “Happy Birthday.” “Which was great,” Goss said. The attention that comes with being the only amateur left is “absolutely crazy,” Goss said. He added: “It’s something I’m not used to. I’m not sure what the future holds, either. It’s great. I’m just glad to have all the support I’m getting from Tennessee and Australia. It’s wonderful.” COUNT TO 10, OR 70 When he finished Friday at four over for the tournament, Jason Day eschewed a practice putting session for a gym workout “to let out some anger.” As he said, “I’ve been putting since Thursday, and obviously that’s not helping.” After making the cut on the number, Day, the No. 4 player in the world, who can ascend to No. 1 with a victory, came out Saturday and shot a 70, his first under-par score of the week. “I went to the gym and let some anger out and came onto the course today a little sharper,” he said. OFF AIR IN NEW YORK A blackout of the Masters for more than 20 minutes in the New York market was caused by a disruption at the CBS Broadcast Center in Manhattan that affected the network’s programming feed to WCBS-TV, Channel 2, said Mike Nelson, a network spokesman. He said no other markets lost the signal to the tournament. From about 3:39 to 4:01 p.m., the screen showed only a station logo, but no message was posted to explain the situation or apologize. RICHARD SANDOMIR | Golf;Masters Golf,Masters;Rory McIlroy;Miguel Angel Jimenez;John Senden;Bubba Watson |
ny0051962 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2014/10/23 | British Police Arrest Woman Suspected of Planning Terrorism | LONDON — As Western concerns mount over the number of young Muslims seeking to join jihadist forces in the Middle East, the British police said Wednesday that a 25-year-old woman had been arrested in Bedfordshire, north of London, on suspicion of preparing “terrorist acts” related to the fighting in Syria. The nature of the accusations was not specified, but the police operation was the latest in a string of raids intended to thwart attacks in Britain or to restrain young people drawn to the militant group Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, which is waging a bloody campaign to create a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. The police said they were searching two properties in Bedfordshire and had taken the woman to a police station in central London. She was not identified. The arrest came days after American law enforcement authorities intercepted three teenage girls from the Denver suburbs at the international airport in Frankfurt as they tried to travel to Syria. News reports said two of the girls, sisters of Somali descent, and a third, a friend of Sudanese descent, had been reported missing by their families on Friday. The families did not know why the teenagers had left, according to the Arapahoe County sheriff’s office in Colorado, and they have been reunited. It was not clear whether they would face criminal charges. Britain is part of an American-led coalition conducting airstrikes against Islamist State forces, but it has restricted its campaign to striking targets in Iraq and to helping train and supply Kurdish forces in the north. The United States is also attacking the militants in Syria , most significantly in recent days to contain jihadist forces seeking to overrun the town of Kobani on the Turkey-Syria border. The British authorities are fighting a parallel battle at home, where at least 500 young Muslims have reportedly traveled to Syria to join jihadist forces. Last week, Mark Rowley, an assistant police commissioner and Britain’s most senior counterterrorism officer, said the police had disrupted several plots inspired by the Islamic State to kill people on the street. “The volume, range and pace of counterterrorism activity has undergone a step-change,” Mr. Rowley said in a statement, with more than 200 terrorism-related arrests this year and “exceptionally high numbers of counterterrorism investigations the likes of which we have not seen for several years.” “These plots are of varied sophistication, from individuals planning to carry out spontaneous yet deadly attacks, to more complex conspiracies,” he said. “Almost all seemingly are either directed by or inspired by terrorism overseas.” Last week, five men accused of plotting to attack police officers and soldiers on the street appeared at a London court. The drumbeat of alarm has been depicted in British news reports as reminiscent of the days after July 7, 2005, when four suicide bombers killed 52 people in the London transit system. | Great Britain;Terrorism;ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State;Police;London |
ny0073012 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2015/03/14 | U.S. Clinician With Ebola Under Care in Maryland | An American clinician infected with Ebola while working with the aid group Partners in Health in Sierra Leone was evacuated on Friday to the National Institutes of Health clinical center in Bethesda, Md., as new details emerged that suggested the patient may have exposed some colleagues to the virus. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, would not identify the patient to protect his privacy. “His condition is unfortunately serious, but this is a serious disease, and hopefully over the next days we can turn him around,” Dr. Fauci said by telephone, after having just left the patient’s room. “We’re going to do everything in our power to try to get him well,” he said. “We have a responsibility when an American gets infected to take care of them and bring them back to their homeland, and that’s what we did here.” Several health workers in Sierra Leone said the American had felt dizzy and collapsed while working at a hospital in the Port Loko district. He tested positive for Ebola on March 10. Colleagues helped him up, and they are now considered contacts who may be infected. None have tested positive for Ebola. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday that plans were being made to bring several Americans who may have been exposed to him to the United States for monitoring and isolation. “It’s hard for me to understand what else you can do if one of your colleagues or patients collapses,” said Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard professor of medicine who is a co-founder of Partners in Health. “You take care of people as with every other illness that’s communicable, and you’re exposed. I would be deeply disappointed if those are exposures that result in another case.” Whether the man was infected in the group’s Ebola treatment unit, where he was training in the high-risk zone, or in the government hospital, where Partners in Health supports the resumption of health care services, was unknown. Ebola was diagnosed on Friday in a Sierra Leonean working at the same hospital, but officials said the cases appeared unrelated. Dr. Farmer said his group would be staying in Sierra Leone . “These people, they’re trying really hard,” he said of the nation’s medical workers. “They don’t have enough help. These hospitals get shut down and women don’t get prenatal care.” While the virus has killed about 10,000 people in three West African nations, only a handful of Americans have fallen ill. The United States has a network of 55 Ebola treatment centers in 16 states and Washington, with more than 72 beds available, a C.D.C. spokesman said. | Ebola;Sierra Leone;NIH;Partners in Health;CDC;Africa |
ny0186543 | [
"nyregion",
"new-jersey"
] | 2009/03/22 | He Who Dares to Mention Police Pay | East Brunswick ANOTHER budget season has arrived in the tense municipal chambers of New Jersey, the first since the economy began its slide toward who knows where, and with it a fresh set of worries about what to do when the bills come due. Layoffs loom. Revenue gaps widen. The word “furlough” has entered daily conversation. So unsettling have the numbers proved, in fact, that some elected officials have begun to ask aloud a question that previously was uttered only in private: How much more can we afford to pay our police? “The public is unaware of how expensive this is,” said L. Mason Neely, the chief financial officer in this sprawling Middlesex County township for the last 34 years. “It may be time to rethink the whole structure of how we deal with public safety and what we pay, and how soon we retire people.” When you say things like that in public — as Mr. Neely has for decades now, longer than almost anybody in the state — you get two reactions: outrage from the police and firefighters, whose dangerous jobs are a bulwark against chaos; and whispered assertions of support from local officials who have watched public safety costs consume ever-larger portions of their budgets, but who have to face, as Mr. Neely does not, the voters and the powerful unions that shape elections. “I can’t tell you how many people privately say, ‘I agree, it’s a big problem,’ but they’re intimidated,” Mr. Neely said. So it was a sign of just how dire times are when a prominent Democratic county executive, Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr. of Essex County, stood beside the Republican mayor of the small Bergen County borough of Closter, Sophie Heymann, at a press conference a few weeks ago and called for reforms to the binding arbitration system that governs police and fire contracts. “Everybody is discussing it — this is like the No. 1 issue now in the state,” Mr. DiVincenzo said last week. “Everybody supports it, everybody knows it’s the right thing to do, but who would stand up and be counted?” When police officers and firefighters hit a wall in contract talks, they have a right unique among the state’s public employees: to seek a settlement from a state-appointed arbitrator. They are not permitted to strike, so binding arbitration was established several decades ago as a way to give them more leverage in negotiations. But a series of recent arbitration awards in police contracts — with 4 percent annual wage hikes at a time when many workers are instead facing pay cuts or the unemployment line — seemed to buttress the longtime complaint of many local officials: that the system is weighted toward the public safety unions, and has driven compensation costs to levels that are hard to sustain, especially in tight times. “I don’t know how we’re going to do it — we’ve already cut everything else but police in the last two years,” said Ms. Heymann, 80, who has been mayor for two years, and who was working on her town’s budget this week. Revenues are down $500,000 from last year, but among the higher costs she faces is $65,000 more in police salaries, mandated by a recent arbitration agreement. “Unfortunately, I can fight all I want, but it’s not going to help my poor borough, because we’re going to be stuck now for the next three years paying that 4 percent increase every year.” Mr. DiVincenzo’s attention was concentrated on the issue by his own looming date with an arbitrator, for the law enforcement personnel who account for a third of the county’s 3,400 employees. He has offered a three-year contract with a 3 percent wage increase in the first year, and nothing in the last two. “This county will be bankrupt,” he said, if an arbitrator awards a contract with 4 percent increases like Closter’s. “I have nothing but respect for them and the job they do, but I have a job to do, too,” he said. “Maybe it’s suicidal, but the taxpayers can no longer afford it.” The union that represents about three-quarters of the state’s law enforcement officers disagrees. “Overall, I don’t see the mass number of awards or people getting these awards that shows it’s a problem,” said James Ryan, spokesman for the New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association . “One of the things I worry about with these economic conditions is that, the way we’re set up in New Jersey, with so many small towns, the biggest expense in any municipal budget is typically going to be your police department, so it’s very easy to pick on.” A survey by the state P.B.A. of its 33,000 members during the first two weeks of March found that 20 percent of the police agencies in New Jersey are considering layoffs that would eliminate up to 325 jobs. Over the last three years, the survey found, 297 law enforcement jobs were lost in the state. But in Mr. Neely’s office here, a few steps down the hall from the Police Department, he just keeps adding up the numbers, and they just keep growing more alarming. The average salary for a patrolman in New Jersey with 7 to 10 years’ experience, according to the state P.B.A., is $83,000, before overtime. Salaries tend to be highest in the suburbs nearest New York: Eighteen of the 22 officers in the Closter Police Department make more than $100,000. What worries him most, though — and what he has spoken out about most loudly, earning the enmity of public safety unions — is what happens after officers retire. There are about 46,000 public safety officers currently on the job, and they can typically retire with 65 percent pay and fully paid health benefits after 25 years, regardless of age. New Jersey had 31,726 retired officers and firefighters in 2007, the most recent year for which numbers are available, according to the State Division of Pension and Benefits. “He could easily be retired for 40 years, so you’re paying him 40 years of pension for having worked 25 years,” Mr. Neely said. “That’s very expensive, and that’s the culture change I’m talking about that we need to rethink.” In New York, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Gov. David A. Paterson have proposed establishing a minimum retirement age of 50 for the police and firefighters, and requiring them to work 25 years, rather than 20, before full retirement benefits kick in. But no one on this side of the river has floated anything similar, and Mr. Neely isn’t holding his breath. “It hasn’t surfaced yet,” he said, and it won’t “until the Legislature feels enough pressure, either through not being re-elected or someone makes it an issue.” In the last few weeks, governing bodies in about 10 towns in Bergen County, Democratic and Republican alike, have passed resolutions supporting reforms for binding arbitration, and Mr. DiVincenzo has been trying to collect enough support to persuade somebody in Trenton to sponsor a bill. “I told him I would gladly stand with him hand in hand on the steps of the State House to call for some relief,” said Timothy C. McDonough, the mayor of Hope Township in Warren County, and the president of the League of Municipalities . “The support is absolutely there, but I think a lot of mayors and county officials are just so frustrated that they think it’s a fight that’s never going to be won.” Mr. Neely was working on his budget last week, too, wondering what he would have to cut to make it balance, glad that some other voices had joined his chorus, but also skeptical that anything will change before he himself retires. He is 69, and has long been eligible, but is not yet willing. “I’m not fully depreciated yet,” he said, using the language of his trade for his value as an employee, and then he punched some more numbers into his adding machine. | Police;Wages and Salaries;New Jersey |
ny0001319 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2013/03/19 | Jets Sign Outside Linebacker Antwan Barnes | The Jets bolstered their pass rush Monday by signing outside linebacker Antwan Barnes to a three-year contract. Barnes had 11 sacks in 2011 for the San Diego Chargers. His strength is as an edge rusher in passing situations, but the Jets’ lack of depth on the outside could give him a chance to start. Barnes, 28, played for two seasons under Coach Rex Ryan when Ryan was the defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens. | Football;Jets;Antwan Barnes |
ny0052250 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2014/10/13 | As Putin Talks Near, Both Sides Take Steps to Defuse Ukraine Tension | DONETSK, Ukraine — Russian and Ukrainian officials on Sunday continued a series of measured steps aimed at decreasing tensions before the countries’ presidents meet this week to discuss the six-month conflict in Ukraine’s east. Despite the continuing fighting over disputed territories, President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine said he believed that a full cease-fire could soon be achieved under a peace plan that he and Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, had endorsed. On Sunday, Russian news agencies reported that Mr. Putin had ordered troops deployed on the Ukrainian border to return to their bases. It was the second time this year that Mr. Putin had announced that military exercises along the Ukrainian border had been completed and that 17,600 soldiers would be withdrawn to their usual bases. Mr. Putin ordered the pullback from the Rostov region, which borders Ukraine, in a meeting with his defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, the Interfax news agency reported, citing Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov. The presence of Russian troops along the border was seen by the West as a possible preparation for an invasion of Ukraine, or as a staging ground for Russian troops to secretly fight alongside Ukraine’s separatists. Russia has denied both allegations. In May, Mr. Putin announced in a meeting with diplomats from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that a military exercise in western Russia near the border with Ukraine had been completed and that soldiers would withdraw from the region, though many remained. Mr. Poroshenko said on Sunday that he expected “difficult negotiations” with Mr. Putin when the two meet in Milan for the Asia-Europe Meeting this week. In a transcript of an address published on his official website, Mr. Poroshenko said that he desired “unshakable independence, territorial integrity, inviolability of borders, and the restoration of peace.” “We believe it will already become possible in the coming days to achieve a full cease-fire,” Mr. Poroshenko said. Rebel leaders claimed that Mr. Poroshenko had agreed to give away several disputed territories, including Donetsk International Airport, in an accord supposedly signed last week. Mr. Poroshenko has not confirmed that a deal is in place. In his speech, Mr. Poroshenko said the Ukrainian Army’s defense of the Donetsk airport had become “a symbol of courage and heroism,” the sort of praise that would be unlikely if the territory were being forfeited. | Ukraine;Vladimir Putin;Russia;Petro Poroshenko;Military;Donetsk Ukraine;Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe |
ny0286468 | [
"science"
] | 2016/09/13 | The New Ghost Snake in Madagascar | A new species of snake — pale gray, with white and black spots — was discovered on a rocky plateau in northern Madagascar. Researchers are calling it Madagoscarophis lolo, after the Malagasy word for “ghost.” The snakes of the Madagoscarophis genus, generally active at twilight and at night, are called “cat-eyed snakes” for their vertical pupils. The new 20-inch specimen was found during an expedition in 2014, and a DNA analysis confirms that it is a new species . Although the scientists do not yet know its population size, the ghost snake was found in a protected national park and they do not believe it is endangered. | Snake;Madagascar |
ny0144538 | [
"business"
] | 2008/10/26 | You Don’t Always Know When the Sky Will Fall | NOW, as the great Phil Rizzuto used to say, for “some high hops and short stops” — only not in sports, but in finance and life. First, I get a certain amount of mail asking why I was unable to spot the stock market crash in advance, sell short and become rich. And why was I unable to foretell the future, so my readers could avoid losses and make money? Well, I am just a person. I don’t have any magical powers to foresee the future. In this case, I did not foresee the catastrophic mistake, as I view it, by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. to allow Lehman Brothers to fail. That failure left a gaping hole in the financial services industry, and blew away confidence that the Feds knew what they were doing. Months ago, one of the greatest of American economists, Anna Jacobson Schwartz, who was co-author with the late Milton Friedman of “A Monetary History of the United States,” accurately said that American banks did not face a liquidity crisis, but that they might soon urgently face a solvency crisis. In other words, banks would have ample reserves to lend but might lack assurances that they could meet all their financial obligations if those loans went bad. She was right. In fact, bankers have had so many losses and faced so much uncertainty that they dared not lend, for fear of killing their banks with bad loans — so we have actually had a solvency crisis. (By the way, it’s a disgrace that Mrs. Schwartz, a mainstay of economic insight since before World War II — as well as my late mother’s college roommate at Barnard — has not been a Nobel laureate. That hints at a dismal sexism in the dismal science.) The solvency crisis exploded when, in mid-September, Mr. Paulson allowed Lehman Brothers to die a sudden death. I would never have believed that it could happen, which shows one of my many limitations as an economist and a human being. I assume that the future will be much like the past, but sometimes it isn’t. After Lehman, I felt sure that the government would realize its mistake and issue blanket solvency guarantees to banks. But that didn’t happen, the stock market fell apart, credit went icy cold and the wheels started to come off the economy. This also took me by surprise. The failure of government to limit the loss possibilities from credit-default swaps has also been a mystery to me. And credit-default swaps themselves are something of a mystery. They are derivative instruments that supposedly insure a bond or similar entity against default. In fact, they are a wager about the possibility of default of anything, and the potential payouts for the wagers that have been made are many times larger than the value of all the subprime mortgage bonds that ever were. The need for the government to take action seemed so clear — and still seems so clear that I cannot believe a day passes without its happening. But the days pass, nothing happens, and I am proved wrong again. And I lose some of my life savings and it hurts. Now let me move to another point: all of the recent misery, including the stock market’s plunge, the disasters at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the loss of retirement savings. These did not happen out of the blue. The catastrophe of giving bonds ratings far higher than they deserved did not happen by chance. And endlessly rosy reports from banks and investment banks about their health did not result from a butterfly flapping its wings in China. Human beings did these things. The harm to the American people and to the world has been substantial. There has been real pain here. Why is it taking so long to find out who did what and whether laws were broken? That’s what prosecutors are for. And, closer to home, a talented makeup artist who works with me almost daily in my TV appearances asked what happened to people in a recession. (She is young.) I said that fear and insomnia happened to most people but that a few million would actually lose their jobs and millions more would lose income. “What do they do?” she asked, looking worried. “They find other work or live off their savings,” I said. “They certainly cut back on their spending.” “What if they don’t have any savings?” she asked. “I don’t have any savings,” she said. “No one I know except you has any savings.” She looked extremely worried. This is perhaps the main lesson of this whole experience. It is basic but still unlearned: human beings must have savings. This is not just a good idea. It’s the difference between life and death, terror and calm. So start saving right now, and don’t stop until you die. FINALLY, I’ll turn to the oil companies. When crude was skyrocketing, the beautiful people wanted to beat Exxon Mobil, Chevron and BP into a pulp. Many people assumed that oil barons controlled prices, made “obscene” profits and made life difficult for ordinary citizens. But the price of oil has fallen by more than half from just a few months ago. Gasoline prices are at levels no one thought we would ever see again. Very expensive projects that the oil companies commenced, like extracting oil from tar sands in Canada, may now be major money losers. What do you say, folks? Let’s acknowledge that we were a bit hasty. The oil companies are just corks bobbing up and down on the ocean of worldwide demand and supply, exactly as the oil companies said they were. They are not going to be starving, but they are clearly not the invincible demons that their enemies said they were. Now that we see how vulnerable they are, is there any reason to hit them with a surtax? Will we ever learn that they are just dust in the wind, like the rest of us? Probably not. | Subprime Mortgage Crisis;Stein Ben;Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (2008);Economic Conditions and Trends;United States Economy |
ny0264338 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2011/12/06 | Intrepid Museum Leaders Try to Help Cuomo Re-election | Just as the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum is seeking to expand onto state property in Midtown Manhattan, some of its trustees have been pressing the rest of the board to contribute to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ’s re-election campaign by buying tickets to his birthday party on Tuesday night. The party, organized by the governor’s 2014 campaign committee but billed as a birthday gala, will be at the Intrepid museum, the aircraft carrier on the Hudson River. The singer Mary J. Blige is scheduled to perform for the attendees, who will pay as much as $50,000 a table. Among those who have been trying to drum up support for the event are the chairmen of the tax-exempt foundation that operates the museum, Charles de Gunzburg and Richard T. Santulli. They and two other trustees signed a letter to their fellow board members, including Barbara Walters, about 10 days ago, encouraging them to buy tickets to support the governor, who “has worked hard and fearlessly for us.” The letter went from Mr. de Gunzburg’s museum e-mail address to more than 20 other trustees. Beneath the subject line “To Intrepid Trustees,” it said, “We are fully committed to this governor” and “it is important that we, as board members, support him at this great event.” The letter ended by providing an e-mail address for the finance director for Mr. Cuomo’s campaign, Jennifer Bayer Michaels. A spokesman for the governor, Josh Vlasto, declined to comment on the appropriateness of the letter, but said, “The holding of an event at the Intrepid will have absolutely no bearing on any determination the state may make with respect to this matter.” Mr. de Gunzburg and Mr. Santulli did not respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman for the museum said in a statement: “The letter sent to foundation board members was sent in error, but was meant as a personal appeal. Intrepid board members are leading philanthropists and are frequently given the opportunity to donate to different causes that might interest them.” Charitable organizations like the Intrepid foundation usually steer clear of such political activity for fear of jeopardizing their federal income tax exemption. On its Web site, the Internal Revenue Service says that contributions to political campaign funds “clearly violate the prohibition against political activity.” One test of whether that rule has been violated is “whether the board chairman was inviting people to an event in his role as chairman of the board,” said Abby Levine, legal director for advocacy programs at the Alliance for Justice in Washington. Ms. Levine, who advises charitable organizations on how to comply with federal tax laws, was not familiar with the Intrepid case, but she said she discouraged tax-exempt organizations from using their lists of employees or trustees for communications involving political campaigns. The fund-raising appeal came while museum officials are trying to persuade state officials to allow the construction of a building on a lot across the West Side Highway from the aircraft carrier. The building would house the Enterprise, the prototype for the space shuttles, which is scheduled to arrive at the museum next summer . The Intrepid has used the lot for parking for several years under an agreement with the State Transportation Department. But after NASA awarded the Enterprise to the museum in April, Intrepid officials decided to build an $85 million science and space museum there. To do so, they need permission from state officials to build on the land and a zoning change. Intrepid officials have begun trying to raise about half of the estimated cost of the new building from government agencies. So far, the Cuomo administration has not promised any money. | Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum;Cuomo Andrew M;Campaign Finance;New York State;Tax Credits Deductions and Exemptions;Manhattan (NYC) |
ny0051029 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2014/10/07 | A Glance at Death’s Repose, in Pursuit of Spooky Tales | The question was about the shotgun shells. Had anybody actually used shells that were made that way, or were they just keepsakes? “Actually used,” Ernie Kassoff said from behind a lectern. Mr. Kassoff said the shotgun shells had been made with ashes from a body that had been cremated. Tell that to an audience of mystery writers, as Mr. Kassoff did on Sunday, and possible plot points whirl. “I thought, ‘What could I do with that?’ “ said Triss Stein, who has written two mysteries set in Brooklyn, where she lives. “It’s so weird, and that’s what writers want.” And that was who spent a day at a cemetery: about 40 mystery writers, some published, some hoping to be, most from the New York chapter of Mystery Writers of America. The cemetery that opened its gates to them was Woodlawn, the resting place in the Bronx of notables like Duke Ellington, Herman Melville, Fiorello H. La Guardia and Joseph Pulitzer, not to mention Ruth Snyder, who was electrocuted for the “double indemnity” murder of her husband, Albert. (She was buried in a grave marked Brown, her maiden name.) In the name of research, the writers were shown a demonstration grave. An aquamarine velvet curtain was pulled back so they could look into an empty crypt in a “community mausoleum,” a modern building with space for 3,500 bodies. They were also taken into a mausoleum built for two, a Wall Street mogul and his wife (who was crushed in a revolving-door accident at the Plaza Hotel). And they listened to Mr. Kassoff, who works for a company that builds crematories. They also heard from best-selling authors, including Heather Graham and Lawrence Block, who took to Twitter almost as soon as he arrived. “At Woodlawn Cemetery,” he posted. “Need men’s room or grave of someone we don’t like.” Presumably not his grandfather, who he said was buried at Woodlawn, but that was a real mystery. He said the cemetery had not been able to tell him where the grave was. “I think they’ve lost the old boy,” Mr. Block said. Image Ernie Kassoff, who works for a company that builds crematories, gave a talk about the process. About 40 writers attended. Credit Brian Harkin for The New York Times Susan Olsen, Woodlawn’s director of historical services, said later that no Block named Louis — the first name of Mr. Block’s grandfather — had ever been buried at Woodlawn. “I have looked up every Block,” she said, adding that she had tried other spellings, just in case a long-ago record keeper had made a mistake. Ms. Olsen knows that names matter to mystery writers. She is one herself. “I moved to New York 13 years ago,” she said, “and I went to a murder mystery writing workshop because everyone who moves to New York has got a novel in them, and those who moved here because they got fired need to kill off their last boss.” She is at work on her second novel. Her first is unpublished, she said: “I’m an absolute chicken about looking for an agent.” She traced the idea for inviting mystery writers to learn about the cemetery to “Bad Blood,” a novel by Linda Fairstein, the former sex crimes prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Chapters 32 and 33 take place at Woodlawn and involve a disinterment. Also a detective, a court order for the exhumation, a van from the medical examiner’s office to take the body away and a chase. When cemetery officials read that section, they wondered how she had mastered the details. She told them her great-grandparents were buried there, and that she had been brought to the cemetery as a child, so setting a chapter at Woodlawn came easily. “This is a great place for writers to come up with names,” said R. Narvaez, the president of the mystery writers’ New York chapter. “You’re going, ‘I don’t know what to name this character,’ and there are all these great names here.” In the community mausoleum, someone asked if anything more than the name and date of death could appear as an inscription on a crypt. “I had one woman who said, ‘But we always knew him as Bubba,’ ” Ms. Olsen said. “No. We don’t allow nicknames.” The same rule applied to grave markers, she said. Only given names are allowed. But, in contrast to the terseness of the crypt, tombstones often have room for carved images, biblical quotations or sayings. The cemetery gets final approval. For some of the writers, Mr. Kassoff’s talk provided potentially tantalizing material. He noted that ashes could be made into jewelry. “Personally, I don’t want my mother or father in my cuff links,” he said, but it is possible to put them there, just as it is possible to put them into shotgun shells. Someone asked if the shells could be used to shoot someone. Mr. Narvaez was intrigued. “If you put your loved one into a bullet and shoot someone, who killed that person?” he said. “ ‘It wasn’t me, it was your own father.’ You could see how a story could start that way.” | Woodlawn Cemetery Bronx NY;Writer;Cemetery;Books;Woodlawn Bronx |
ny0173903 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2007/10/27 | Iraq Plan to Add U.S. Troops at Kurdish Border Is Rejected by Turkey | ANKARA, Turkey, Oct. 26 — Turkey’s prime minister on Friday rejected an Iraqi proposal that included a military role for the United States in resolving a standoff over raids by Kurdish guerrillas across the rugged border into Turkey. The offer, made by a delegation of senior Iraqi officials, was rejected by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said it failed to meet his country’s demands in dealing with the guerrillas, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K. In its latest raid, on Sunday, the group killed 12 Turkish soldiers and took eight captive. “I can say that there is not really anything positive or anything that met our expectations,” Mr. Erdogan said, after his foreign minister, Ali Babacan, met with the Iraqi delegation here. The Iraqis proposed positioning American soldiers in border forts in the Qandil Mountains, a jagged area that has never been fully under the control of any government. Although American military officials were part of the delegation taking part in the meetings, it was unclear what role, if any, the military might ultimately agree to. The offer was intended to avert an incursion by Turkey’s military into Iraq ’s Kurdish region to fight the rebels. The Turkish Parliament has approved the use of troops to follow the fighters into Iraq if necessary, and the United States and Iraq have been trying at all costs to avert a conflict in the region, which is one of the few relatively peaceful areas of Iraq. Turkish troops continued to pour into staging areas near the border on Friday, while Turkish officials said that airstrikes had already been carried out inside Iraq. In spite of the rejection of the Iraqi offer, the head of the Turkish Army, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, said Friday that no broad attack was imminent. He said Turkish troops would wait until after Nov. 5, when Mr. Erdogan is to return from a visit to the United States, according to the state-run Anatolian News Agency. His comments were quickly qualified by the prime minister, however. “I cannot tell what will happen before my visit to the United States,” Mr. Erdogan said in a televised news conference. “We are now momentarily sensitive.” Meanwhile, a senior American general in Iraq played down the chances of any new American military commitment in the conflict. The officer, Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, the top American commander in northern Iraq, said that he had no plans to order his troops to confront Kurdish rebels in the mountains. The general, speaking to reporters in Washington over a video link from Iraq, was asked what American forces plan to do about fighters of the P.K.K. “Absolutely nothing,” he responded. His comments underscored a deep apprehension among administration officials and American military officers about playing any direct role in the tense cross-border situation that pits P.K.K. fighters against the Turkish military. In Baghdad, a military spokesman later said, in clarification, that the general’s answer referred to current military plans in the region. “We are not currently planning any role in that conflict,” the spokesman, Maj. Brad Leighton, said. “If the Iraqis request our assistance in those areas, then we’ll consider their request as we would consider any request for help from an ally.” The Iraqi offer, delivered by a delegation led by the minister of defense, Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassim, and the minister of national security, Shirwan al-Waili, suggested that multinational forces would take up positions at new border posts to be opened in the mountains to prevent infiltration of the P.K.K. guerrillas into Turkey. Turkey says about 3,000 rebels operate out of bases in the area. Mohammad al-Askari, a spokesman for the Iraqis, said the offer was for multinational forces to “monitor and control the border.” Iraqi officials also suggested that regular military contacts be conducted and that cooperation be improved among the United States, Turkey and Iraq, Mr. Askari told reporters in Ankara. Turkey, for its part, has demanded that Iraq and the United States take more robust steps, including the extradition of the militant leaders to Turkey, to stop attacks by the guerrilla group. Kurdish groups in northern Iraq claim that Turkey’s ultimate motive is to prevent the formation of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq by occupying its territory and ultimately controlling part of its natural resources. Turkey denies those accusations. “We have no desire for Iraq’s land, Iraqi petrol, and we have no problem with the Iraqi people,” said Cemil Cicek, Turkey’s deputy prime minister. “Our problem is the P.K.K.” | Turkey;Kurds;Iraq |
ny0258949 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2011/01/06 | Laundry Products Put Into Yet Another Form | CAN lightning strike twice in the laundry room? That is the multimillion-dollar question being asked by one of the nation’s largest marketers, the Dial Corporation division of Henkel, the German household products giant. Dial hit it big in 2009 with Purex Complete 3-in-1, which combines detergent, fabric softener and an antistatic treatment in a single laundry sheet. Skeptics wondered whether Dial would be able to put across such a different type of laundry product. For one thing, the recession was cutting into sales of household cleaners. For another, Dial had long been marketing Purex as a “value” brand, sold more on price than efficacy or new offerings. But Purex Complete 3-in-1 has been deemed a winner, reaching an estimated $100 million in first-year sales — a level achieved by few new products in their initial 12 months at retail. It was even designated one of “America’s hottest brands” by the trade publication Advertising Age. Now, for the new year, Dial is seeking to score a second success by bringing to the United States a laundry product that Henkel is already selling in countries like Germany, Israel, Italy and Spain: softener in crystal form, meant to replace liquids and sheets. The product, called Purex Complete Crystals Softener, is being billed as “a purer way to get laundry that smells clean and fresh for weeks.” It is making its way this month onto the shelves of American grocery, drug and mass-merchandise stores, priced around $4 to $7 for a 28-ounce package that can be used for 32 loads of laundry. A campaign for the new softener is to be introduced next month by Energy BBDO, the agency that created the ads to introduce Purex Complete 3-in-1. The budget is being estimated at $40 million to $50 million. Although an agency whose name contains the word “energy” seems to be fated for a product whose name contains the word “crystals,” Energy BBDO is actually the name for the Chicago office of BBDO North America, part of the BBDO Worldwide unit of the Omnicom Group. The campaign will include, in addition to television and print advertising, discount coupons, online ads, ads in stores and an extensive presence in social media. For instance, a group of so-called mom bloggers, whom Dial describes as Purex Insiders, have received samples of Purex Complete Crystals to write about on their blogs. The introduction by Dial of the next Purex Complete product is another example of how the recovery of the advertising industry has been gaining momentum. Not only is ad spending increasing over all, major marketers like Dial are committing to spending to bring out new products. “In this recession, we learned consumers are looking for value,” said Eric Schwartz, vice president for United States laundry care marketing at Dial in Scottsdale, Ariz., “but ‘value’ doesn’t mean just low price.” The word “value” can also mean “products that work differently,” Mr. Schwartz said, because even “in sleepy categories” like laundry care, “consumers are more than willing to try out new forms” if they are seen as better than traditional versions. Dial tested the laundry sheets under names besides Purex, in case consumers said they associated the brand only with lower-price mainstay products like liquid detergent. But “we found our brand is more extendable than we expected,” Mr. Schwartz said, so 3-in-1 and Crystals are part of a new Purex Complete line. It can cost less to market a new product under a familiar brand name than to try to make shoppers aware of a name they have not heard before. That is why, for example, Mars is bringing out a new candy, Peanut Butter Squared, as part of its well-known Snickers line, and the Nabisco division of Kraft Foods is introducing Heads or Tails — a sandwich cookie composed of a chocolate cookie and a vanilla cookie — as part of its Oreo DoubleStuf brand line. By contrast, the Frito-Lay North America division of PepsiCo announced in late 2007 that it would bring out a line of nuts and other snacks under a new brand name, True North. But it never really caught on, and the brand was sold this week to the DeMet’s Candy Company. To help sell consumers on the idea that Purex is more than just prosaic laundry products, the campaign for Purex Complete Crystals ends with a word, “Purextraordinary” that also appeared in the campaign to introduce the 3-in-1 laundry sheets. “The idea is that there would be a brand story of continual innovation,” said Dan Fietsam, chief creative officer at Energy BBDO, “a substantial innovation story in a category that isn’t known for a lot of innovation.” “Value is part of the story,” he added. “It leads with innovation, disruptive innovation.” A commercial for Purex Complete Crystals plays up its distinctive differences, among them that the product is to be added to the washer with the laundry at the beginning of the wash cycle rather than placed in the dispenser for liquid softener. In addition to appearing on TV and online, the commercial will run on LCD screens that are part of displays on store shelves. Dial is working on the displays, called LCD risers, with Zooka Creative, an agency in Sunnyvale, Calif. | Advertising and Marketing;Henkel KGaA;BBDO North America;Cleansers Detergents and Soaps |
ny0114312 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2012/11/19 | Georgia Urged to Stop Arrests of Saakashvili Officials | TBILISI, Georgia — Concerned that Georgia’s bitter political transition could turn into a wave of political reprisals, American officials have urged the new prime minister to stop the arrests of officials who served under President Mikheil Saakashvili , warning that politically motivated prosecutions could jeopardize Georgia’s chances of joining NATO . But a court in Tbilisi decided over the weekend to leave 12 Interior Ministry officials in detention pending their trial. The officials are accused of using illegal surveillance to record conversations discrediting Bidzina Ivanishvili , whose party defeated Mr. Saakashvili’s in parliamentary elections last month. Lawmakers from the rival parties must now share power in Parliament, but Mr. Ivanishvili, the new prime minister, said he would make it a priority to investigate officials leaving the government of Mr. Saakashvili, whose term ends next year. Philip H. Gordon, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, met with Mr. Ivanishvili on Friday and said that Georgia’s transfer of power was seen as “in some ways a model for the region.” But Mr. Gordon warned that prosecutions of officials who served under Mr. Saakashvili could be viewed as political payback. “Nobody wants to see, or get the perception, that all this is about retribution against political enemies rather than the rule of law,” Mr. Gordon said. “That’s the balance that the government is going to have to strike, as it absolutely rightly seeks to hold people accountable for their actions according to Georgian law — but also seeks to avoid giving the impression internationally and domestically that it’s going to use its power to execute retribution on other political leaders.” “I do think the members of NATO have been watching very carefully how this plays out,” he said, adding that they will be determining “whether the process with NATO should move forward.” Both Mr. Saakashvili and Mr. Ivanishvili have said they hoped to steer Georgia toward membership in the alliance. Tedo Japaridze, one of Mr. Ivanishvili’s top aides, said the United States seemed intent on protecting Mr. Saakashvili and his allies from prosecution. “They may try to save Saakashvili’s party and, moreover, their own reputations, because for nine years they have been supporting the government whose deeds have become the subject for investigation,” he said. Emotions ran high at the detention hearing, where the mayor of Tbilisi, a close ally of Mr. Saakashvili’s, argued that the result of the prosecutions could be a political setback for Georgia. “Every charge is fabricated and serves only political goals,” said the mayor, Gigi Ugulava, speaking to reporters after the court hearing. But the court said the defendants would remain in custody because they were flight risks and could intimidate witnesses or destroy evidence. At least 15 former and current officials from the Defense and Interior Ministries have been arrested in the past two weeks. | Ivanishvili Bidzina;Saakashvili Mikheil;Georgia (Georgian Republic);United States International Relations;North Atlantic Treaty Organization;Politics and Government |
ny0007181 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2013/05/10 | American Stabbed Outside U.S. Embassy in Cairo | CAIRO — An Egyptian man stabbed an American man outside the United States Embassy in Cairo on Thursday. It was not clear why. A spokesman for the embassy, David J. Ranz, said the man who was stabbed was a private American citizen not affiliated with the embassy. Egyptian security forces arrested a suspect, and the victim was taken to a hospital, Mr. Ranz said. He gave no further details about the American’s identity or condition. The stabbing took place at midday, despite the usual heavy presence of security forces in the area. The security situation in Cairo has deteriorated since the revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. Attacks on Americans remain rare in Egypt, but there are often protests near the embassy that trumpet anti-American sentiments. Last September, hundreds of youths battled security forces around the embassy to express outrage over a video made in the United States and posted online that was seen as mocking the Prophet Muhammad. | Egypt;Diplomats Embassies and Consulates;Assault;Cairo |
ny0111018 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/02/05 | Treatment of Grandmother After Fatal Police Shooting Is Criticized | After a police officer fatally shot an 18-year-old man in his Bronx apartment on Thursday, the man’s grandmother, a witness to the shooting, was taken into custody and held against her will for several hours, a friend of the family said on Saturday. The officer confronted the man, Ramarley Graham, who was in the bathroom, possibly trying to flush marijuana down the toilet. A moment later, a shot rang out, killing the teenager. While narcotics officers had followed Mr. Graham to the apartment on East 229th Street in Wakefield thinking he was armed, no gun was found, making the grandmother, Patricia Hartley, 58, a crucial witness. The shooting seems to be drawing the sort of close scrutiny that attended the killing of Sean Bell , who died in a hail of 50 police bullets in Queens in November 2006. Little is known of precisely what Ms. Hartley saw and what of that she has told detectives. But her treatment by the police in the hours after her grandson was killed could become a sticking point in the investigation. After Mr. Graham was killed, Ms. Hartley was taken to the 47th Precinct station house on Laconia Avenue and held for seven hours, said Carlton Berkley, a friend of the family’s who said he had retired from the police force as a detective in the 30th Precinct, in Upper Manhattan. Mr. Berkley added that Ms. Hartley was forced to give a statement about what happened. “She gave it against her will,” Mr. Berkley said. “She didn’t want to speak to the police.” Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, provided a timeline of Ms. Hartley’s interviews with detectives and prosecutors. At 7 p.m., he said, she was “naturally upset but cooperative.” Mr. Browne said Ms. Hartley spent five and a half hours at the station house. After her lawyer arrived, Mr. Browne said, she gave a recorded statement to prosecutors. She left about 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, Mr. Browne said. Steven Reed, a spokesman for the Bronx district attorney, Robert T. Johnson, said Ms. Hartley “made no complaint” to an assistant district attorney who was at the station house. Had she made such a complaint, it would have been relayed to the police, Mr. Reed said. “If the nature of Mrs. Hartley’s complaint is true, it would be highly insensitive,” Mr. Reed said. “Nobody should be forced to give a statement, let alone someone who had just lost a grandson in the way that Mrs. Hartley did.” On Friday , Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner, said he was unaware of any problems regarding Ms. Hartley’s treatment or if she had faced overly aggressive questioning. “Obviously, it is a very, very traumatic situation for the grandmother,” Mr. Kelly said. “She was present when this happened, and she certainly should have been shown a sensitivity to that issue. I would hope that she was. If not — I didn’t hear about that complaint — but if that’s the case, we’ll certainly investigate.” Mr. Kelly said that Ms. Hartley was “right there” when the shooting occurred, standing between the bedroom and bathroom doors, but he did not say whether she had a view of her grandson when he was shot. Also in the apartment at the time was Mr. Graham’s 6-year-old brother. Civilian witnesses to disputed police shootings are not always at hand for the police and prosecutors, and Ms. Hartley’s account is important not only for what she saw but also for what she heard and for any description she might provide about the officers, their demeanor and what they said, and did, before and after the shooting. On Thursday, officers kicked open the door to the apartment, on the second floor of a three-story house. The first officer inside was Richard Haste, 30, who has been on the force for three years, according to people with knowledge of the case. He told Mr. Graham to show his hands and then yelled, “Gun! Gun!” before firing, the police have said, citing the account of a second officer who followed him in. Ms. Hartley, however, did not hear the officer shout “gun,” said Mr. Berkley, who declined to discuss further details of what she saw or heard. Officer Haste and a supervisor, Sgt. Scott Morris, 36, who was in a stairwell between the first and second floors when the shot was fired, have been stripped of their guns and badges and placed on nonenforcement duty. Mr. Berkley said he went to the station house after being contacted by Mr. Graham’s father, Franclot Graham, whom he had known for many years. He added that he waited two hours without being able to speak to her. A colleague of his called Assemblyman Eric A. Stevenson of the Bronx, who also came to the precinct house and asked a man who he believed was an assistant district attorney if Ms. Hartley was being held against her will. The man disappeared, Mr. Stevenson said, and minutes later Ms. Hartley emerged, crying. Mr. Stevenson said Ms. Hartley’s lawyer, Jeffrey Emdin, had also been unable to speak to her. The city’s public advocate, Bill de Blasio, expressed his concern over the shooting in a statement on Saturday: “Part of the healing process for the Graham family, and for the city as a whole, derives from a fair, speedy and transparent investigation. That work should begin immediately.” At the National Action Network ’s House of Justice in Harlem on Saturday, the Rev. Al Sharpton and others denounced the actions of the Police Department. “Why would police break in a house and shoot a young man and kill him?” Mr. Sharpton said. “You cannot get to a conclusion without starting with the premise. The premise is wrong. They had no business breaking in the house.” | Graham Ramarley;Witnesses;Police Department (NYC);Bronx (NYC);Hartley Patricia;Murders and Attempted Murders;New York City;Police Brutality and Misconduct |
ny0137784 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2008/05/09 | Gunmen Kill Chief of Mexico’s Police | MEXICO CITY — Gunmen assassinated the acting chief of Mexico ’s federal police early on Thursday morning in the most brazen attack so far in the year-and-a-half-old struggle between the government and organized crime gangs. The Mexican police have been under constant attack since President Felipe Calderón took office in December 2007 and started an offensive against drug cartels that had corrupted the municipal police forces and local officials in several towns along the border with the United States and on both coasts. Since then, Mr. Calderón has sent thousands of federal agents and troops into those areas to establish law and order, provoking retaliation from drug cartels that have killed about 200 officers, among them at least 30 federal agents. The acting chief, Edgar Millán Gómez, was ambushed by several men wearing rubber gloves and carrying weapons as he entered his apartment building in the Guerrero neighborhood of Mexico City with two bodyguards at 2:30 a.m. He was hit eight times in the chest and once in a hand. He died a few hours later at Metropolitan Hospital. Commander Millán was the highest ranking official to be killed since Mr. Calderón’s campaign against drug dealers began. Intelligence officials said it was highly likely that he was killed in retribution for the arrest on Jan. 21 of Alfredo Beltrán Leyva, one of the leaders of a cartel based in Sinaloa State. “It was in response to his role in the arrest,” said one intelligence officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release classified information. “It’s the worst casualty we have suffered so far.” Commander Millán, 41, had served for the last year as the federal police official in charge of the antidrug operations throughout the country. A month ago, he was promoted to become the acting chief of the entire force. His death was the 10th assassination of a federal police official in the last two months. Last week, gunmen also shot and killed the head of the organized crime division in the public security ministry, Roberto Velasco Bravo. One of Commander Millán’s bodyguards, though wounded, managed to wrestle an attacker to the ground and arrest him. The man, Alejandro Ramírez Báez, 34, carried a pistol with a silencer, the police said. Shells from an assault rifle were also found at the scene. The police said Mr. Ramírez had a criminal record, having been convicted twice for stealing cars. It remained unclear who, if anyone, had hired him as an assassin, they said. Commander Millán started his career in Mexico’s intelligence service and switched in 2001 to the newly formed Federal Agency of Investigation, where he rose quickly to become the chief of the kidnapping division. He dismantled several notorious kidnapping rings and managed the successful release of Rubén Omar Romano, a professional soccer coach. | Police;Assassinations and Attempted Assassinations;Organized Crime;Mexico;Calderon Felipe |
ny0125655 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2012/08/21 | Michael Vick Is Again Knocked Out Early, but Philadelphia Still Prevails | Michael Vick keeps taking his lumps. His Philadelphia Eagles keep winning. Vick was leveled after throwing a long pass in the first quarter and had X-rays for the second straight game — they were negative again. Then Nick Foles led the Eagles to a 27-17 preseason victory over the host New England Patriots on Monday night. Vick had X-rays on his ribs after being knocked down by linebacker Jermaine Cunningham. Eleven days earlier, in a 24-23 win over Pittsburgh, he had X-rays on his left thumb after hitting it on center Jason Kelce’s helmet. Foles threw two touchdown passes for the second straight game for the Eagles. Tom Brady sat out the game for the Patriots. SEAU’S AUTOPSY RESULTS IN No alcohol or illegal drugs were found in Junior Seau’s system when he shot and killed himself in May, authorities said. Seau did have zolpidem, often found in the sleeping aid Ambien, and traces of the anti-inflammatory drug naproxen in his system when he died that were “consistent with therapeutic use,” the deputy medical examiner Craig Nelson wrote. The autopsy showed no underlying hemorrhaging or contusions on Seau’s brain, which appeared to be normal. STARTING JOB FOR TANNEHILL With his N.F.L. debut still more than two weeks away, Ryan Tannehill can already savor an achievement unprecedented among Miami Dolphins quarterbacks: he won a starting job in his first training camp. Coach Joe Philbin gave Tannehill the job, meaning the Dolphins will have a rookie quarterback start a season opener for the first time when they play at Houston on Sept. 9. Not even the Hall of Famers Dan Marino or Bob Griese started the first game of his rookie season. CHIEFS LINEBACKER SUSPENDED Injuries could already keep two defensive starters out of the Kansas City Chiefs’ season opener against Atlanta. Now, a suspension has sidelined their best pass rusher. The Pro Bowl linebacker Tamba Hali will miss the Sept. 9 game against the Falcons without pay after violating the N.F.L.’s substance-abuse policy. Hali will be fined an additional game check and can return in Week 2. The Chiefs are already missing Brandon Flowers, out with a foot injury, and Kendrick Lewis, who hurt his right shoulder Friday against St. Louis. YOUNG HELPS HIS CAUSE Vince Young has the inside track to win the Buffalo Bills’ backup quarterback job. Coach Chan Gailey said Young performed well enough to warrant more work with the second-team offense. | Vick Michael;Philadelphia Eagles;Football;Tannehill Ryan;Miami Dolphins;Seau Junior |
ny0133409 | [
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] | 2008/03/02 | Novice Finds Learning Curve Sobering, and Compromise an Art | LaGrangeville JOHN J. HALL spent his first 12 months as a United States representative helping to secure benefits for military veterans and pushing for energy reform. But navigating the corridors of Congress initially required a more literal approach, he said last month. Speaking to a group of seniors at Arlington High School in LaGrangeville eligible to vote in their first election, Mr. Hall, a 59-year-old Democrat, recalled the daunting task of learning to maneuver the labyrinth of corridors underneath the Congressional buildings when trying to find his way to vote. He relied on security personnel to point him in the right direction. The anecdote — recounted with humor — prompted Mr. Hall to use a favorite analogy to describe the challenge of being a new member of the House: “Your first year in Congress is like trying to drink sips of water from a fire hose going full blast. There’s so much information coming at you, it’s hard to absorb it all.” Negotiating the lay of the legislative land comes more quickly now for Mr. Hall, a Dutchess County resident who rode anti-Bush sentiment into Congress, narrowly besting the six-term incumbent Sue Kelly. That ended the Republican hold on the 19th District, which includes portions of Westchester and four surrounding counties. The reversal of power has led the National Republican Congressional Committee to count Mr. Hall as one of its top targets in 2008, said Ken Spain, a committee spokesman. The party has yet to declare a candidate and has until July to do so, Mr. Spain said. Seated in a coffeehouse in Dover Plains on Super Tuesday last month, Mr. Hall talked about his first year in office, in between meeting with young constituents and accompanying his wife, Pamela, to vote. His biggest disappointment, he said, has been Democrats’ inability to push forward on two of his major campaign issues: health care reform and an end to the war in Iraq. He calls Congress’s failure to expand eligibility of health insurance for low-income children (known as Schip) a significant loss. Mr. Hall said his “biggest frustration” had been “the inability of the House to bring about a change in Iraq and a quicker redeployment or withdrawal.” But Mr. Hall quickly pointed to what he considered successes. As a member of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming , he pushed for a bipartisan energy bill that, after rancorous debate, passed into law last year. The law requires auto manufacturers to increase fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. (It has been 27.5 miles a gallon for cars and 22.2 for light trucks since 1985.) A longtime proponent of alternative energy sources, Mr. Hall has conducted public forums throughout his district that explore biofuels, wind power, solar energy and small hydro and tidal power. He applauds Westchester County for incorporating ultra-low-sulfur diesel into the Bee-Line bus fleet. What he said he hoped he would most be remembered for, however, is his advocacy for veterans. The first bill for Mr. Hall as chairman of the Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs was a cost-of-living measure providing a 2.3 percent increase in benefits for all veterans. He also pushed for the release of $3.7 billion in additional veterans financing that will go toward health services, including screenings for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury for returning Iraq war veterans, and administrative support to reduce the growing backlog of veterans’ claims, which he said was 600,000. There are 70,000 veterans living in Westchester, said Andrew J. Spano, the county executive. “The claims backlog, I think, is a shameful scandal on the face of this nation,” Mr. Hall said. “We are so quick to send our men and women in uniform oversees to fight, but so slow to take care of them when they come home.” Dressed in a suit, with his head shaved, Mr. Hall bears little resemblance to the pop star image seared into the memory of fans who recall his ’70s band Orleans. But the worlds of music and politics have always overlapped, he said. He was a founder of the environmental group Musicians United for Safe Energy in the late ’70s, a period when he became a staunch foe of the use of nuclear power. Today, he opposes a license renewal for Indian Point power plant in Buchanan unless its owners adhere to stricter safety standards. The learning curve of the past year has been sobering, he said, an education in the art of compromise. He summed up another lesson culled from a year in office: “You learn quickly that it doesn’t work to be a generalist. So you become much more specific in what you want to accomplish.” | Politics and Government;House of Representatives;Hall John J |
ny0125825 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2012/08/09 | Germans Debate Possible Terror Threat in Midst | BERLIN — Revelations that a Tunisian man who is considered a “dangerous jihadist” and may have served as a bodyguard to Osama bin Laden in 2000 has been living for years in a western German city have ignited a debate over the difficulties faced by the German authorities in trying to curtail the activities of potential Islamic extremists. The man, identified only as Sami A., in accordance with German privacy laws, has been under observation by intelligence services in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for eight years, said a spokeswoman for the state Interior Ministry. He is idolized by young Muslims in the region for having attended a training camp of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said the spokeswoman, Birgit Axler. She denied news media allegations that the authorities had not moved strongly enough against the Tunisian, insisting that “we are using every possible law to limit Sami A.’s activities as much as possible.” So far, that has meant that Sami A., 36, is required to check in daily with the police in the western city of Bochum, where he lives, and must request permission for any travel. The Bochum immigration authorities failed in 2009 to revoke his residency permit when a higher court ruled that his relationship to his wife, a German, and three children was important enough to override concerns about his activities as a radical Muslim preacher. The city has challenged the ruling in the state’s highest court, which is expected to issue a final decision later this year, Ms. Axler said. A name similar to Sami A. does not appear on the United Nations’ current list of Qaeda figures, nor is one listed among the handful of men believed to have served as bodyguards to Bin Laden. But the local news media and members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right party still insist that stronger action be taken against him. Peter Biesenbach, the deputy chairman for the Christian Democrats in North Rhine-Westphalia, called Tuesday for an “offensive response from the relevant security officials,” the German news agency dpa reported. In its most recent report, released last month, Germany ’s domestic intelligence agency said it considered about 38,000 of the estimated four million Muslims living in the country potential extremists. Sami A., Ms. Axler said, falls into that group and is considered one of about 50 potential extremists in the state who preach an ultraconservative form of Islam known as Salafism and are under police observation. In May, a group of Salafist youths attacked the police during a demonstration in Bonn in which 29 people were injured. In May 2007, federal prosecutors, citing a lack of concrete evidence, dropped an investigation into allegations that Sami A. belonged to a foreign terrorist organization. Security experts point out that living with the threat of potential terrorist cells has become part of a new domestic security problem facing European societies in the post-Sept. 11 world. Unless the authorities can prove that individuals who are known or believed to be radical members of any group have broken the law, they have to be observed, but not arrested. “If we want to live in a functioning modern society that is based on the rule of law, we have to accept there are weak spots that some want to exploit,” said Michael Bauer, a terrorism expert at Munich University’s Center for Applied Policy. “If we don’t want to give up our system, this is simply something that we have to accept.” | Germany;Surveillance of Citizens by Government;Muslims and Islam;Terrorism;Al Qaeda;bin Laden Osama;Tunisia |
ny0190674 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2009/05/24 | Communist Becomes Premier of Nepal | KATMANDU, Nepal (Reuters) — Nepal’s Parliament elected a moderate Communist leader as the new prime minister on Saturday, hours after two people were killed in an explosion that ripped through a church near Katmandu, the capital. About three weeks ago the Maoist prime minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who goes by the name Prachanda, resigned , plunging the nascent republic into a crisis set off by his failure to fire the army chief. Madhav Kumar Nepal, 56, a veteran leader of the moderate Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist), or U.M.L., was elected unopposed after the Maoists refused to field a candidate and said that they would boycott the vote. “Since there is only one proposal to elect Madhav Kumar Nepal as prime minister, I declare him elected unopposed,” said Subas Nemwang, the speaker of the Parliament, as the Maoists stormed out of the Legislature. The former Maoist rebel leader Prachanda, whose name means “the fierce one” in Nepali, resigned on May 4 after President Ram Baran Yadav stopped him from firing Gen. Rookmangud Katawal. Prachanda accused General Katawal of undermining the civilian government. A loose alliance of 22 political parties later backed Mr. Nepal for the post of prime minister. A former bank clerk turned politician, Mr. Nepal is known for his ability to negotiate with rivals. The new government has a year to oversee the drafting of a new constitution, a central part of the deal that ended a conflict with Maoist insurgents, in which more than 13,000 people were killed. Hours before the election, a crude bomb ripped through a church near Katmandu, killing 2 people and injuring 12, highlighting continuing security concerns. “The wounded people have been rushed to a local hospital, and we are investigating,” said Kedarman Singh Bhandari, the police superintendent. Police cordoned off the area, which was strewn with shattered windowpanes. There was no claim of responsibility, but a little-known Hindu group, the Nepal Defense Army, threw pamphlets around the site that demanded Nepal be declared a Hindu state. Nepal became a secular state in 2006 after the end of a decade-long civil war. | Nepal;Elections |
ny0242665 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2011/03/26 | North Korea: 6 Million Are Hungry | More than 6 million people in North Korea urgently need food aid because of substantial falls in domestic production, food imports and international aid, the United Nations said on Friday. In a report released after a joint mission to the North, where a famine in the 1990s killed an estimated 1 million people, three United Nations agencies said North Korea’s public distribution system would run out of food at the beginning of the lean season that runs between May and July. | Food Aid;United Nations;North Korea |
ny0291805 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2016/01/12 | No Drug Charges for Lamar Odom | The former N.B.A. star Lamar Odom, who was found unconscious at a Nevada brothel in October with cocaine in his system, will not be charged with any drug counts, prosecutors said. Evidence in the case did not prove that Odom had used the drug during his three days in Nye County, District Attorney Angela Bello said. ■ Bulls center Joakim Noah returned, having missed nine games with a shoulder sprain, but John Wall had 17 points and 10 assists to help Washington win in Chicago, 114-100, despite playing without Marcin Gortat, Kris Humphries and Bradley Beal. (AP) | Basketball;Lamar Odom;Drug Abuse;Prostitution |
ny0161328 | [
"business"
] | 2006/04/07 | F.D.A. Plans to Intensify Oversight of Heart Devices | The Food and Drug Administration plans to strengthen how it monitors critical heart devices like defibrillators by appointing outside medical experts to help it review the safety of units already on the market, a top agency official says. The move would be the first time the F.D.A. would have outside experts regularly advising it about the safety of medical devices being sold, said Dr. Daniel G. Schultz, director of the agency's Center for Devices and Radiological Health. Traditionally, the F.D.A. has used its advisory panels to help it decide whether to permit the sale of a new device. The agency's decision comes as a medical group that represents doctors who implant devices prepares to release a report recommending changes in how data about heart units is collected and disclosed. Among other proposals, the group, the Heart Rhythm Society, may urge manufacturers to establish an outside panel to review product safety and help companies decide when to issue alerts, people involved in the group said. Both the agency's action and the medical group's report, which will be released in a few weeks, follow a controversy last year over decisions by the Guidant Corporation not to publicize life-threatening defects in some of its defibrillators. The episode also highlighted gaps in the F.D.A.'s oversight of such products, as well as a lack of uniform standards in the industry governing how and when device flaws are disclosed. For his part, Dr. Schultz said in a telephone interview that the F.D.A. plans to expand an existing advisory panel that reviews and approves new heart devices for sale, adding members who will help the agency oversee the safety of marketed products. Those experts will be asked to help the F.D.A. interpret data from device manufacturers and will also be available to advise the F.D.A. on how best to respond to immediate problems like recalls, he said. Dr. Schultz acknowledged that the agency's action was a response in part to the criticism it had received for how it oversees the safety of medical devices on the market, including defibrillators. To do that job, the agency relies on reports from manufacturers. But such data was not always quickly circulated within the agency, a situation Dr. Schultz said he was working to address. In the past, the F.D.A. has asked an advisory panel to review an approved device when questions have arisen, but that has happened only rarely, Dr. Schultz said. "We recognize that we need to do a better job and that we need to do a better job in leveraging outside expertise," he said. "This seemed like a logical first step in doing that." A defibrillator is a device that uses electricity to interrupt a chaotic and potentially fatal heart rhythm. The use of such units, which can cost up to $35,000 each, is growing; this year, more than 150,000 heart patients in this country are likely to get one. The units are generally highly reliable and save many lives but, as with any product, problems can develop. Guidant's failure to alert doctors and patients for years about electrical defects in some of its defibrillator came to light in May when The New York Times published an article about the problem. It was also only then that the F.D.A. began investigating Guidant, though agency records showed that regulators had received earlier reports of short circuits in the company's units. Seven patients are known to have died in episodes during which a Guidant defibrillator short-circuited, though the number of fatalities is probably higher because doctors only recently became aware of the problem. Dr. Schultz said the agency planned to start appointing new experts to the panel within the next few months and expected the process to be completed by October. He said that one problem the agency faced was finding experts who did not have financial ties to heart device manufacturers. The agency's action is apparently in line with a recommendation contained in a report that the Heart Rhythm Society plans to release May 2. Last fall, in the wake of recalls by Guidant and other device producers, the group appointed a task force to recommend ways to improve the gathering and dissemination of information about device performance. The F.D.A, Guidant and other manufacturers of heart devices, like Medtronic and St. Jude Medical, have been involved in developing the forthcoming proposals. The chairman of the task force, Dr. Mark D. Carlson of Case Western Reserve University, declined to comment on the group's recommendations, saying they were still being completed. In separate interviews, several other cardiologists on the task force also declined to comment, but they added that the group was strongly considering recommending that companies create independent safety boards. The proposal is striking because it mirrors a recommendation made last month by a separate panel of doctors and other experts appointed by Guidant to review its handling of safety issues and to suggest changes in company policy. According to that report, such an outside advisory board would regularly monitor the safety of a company's products and help it determine when it should alert doctors and patients and what it should say. Several doctors, including some working on the Heart Rhythm Society's report, said they were concerned that manufacturers, even when trying to do the right thing, faced an inherent conflict in making safety-related decisions that could affect sales. Officials of Medtronic and St. Jude said they were awaiting the publication of the group's report before commenting on it. A spokesman for Boston Scientific, which agreed earlier this year to acquire Guidant, said recently that the company was considering which of the Guidant panel's recommendations to adopt. In recent months, all those companies have started regularly disclosing more detailed data about product performance as part of their regular reports to doctors. The report by the Heart Rhythm Society is also expected to urge doctors and others to be more aggressive in reporting device-related problems and to recommend that a unit be checked at the time of a patient's death to determine if its failure might have been a factor. In addition, the group is expected to recommend that better guidelines be developed for doctors to use when determining whether to remove a unit that is the subject of a recall or an alert. One concern is that the risk of infection from replacement surgery can, in some cases, outweigh the risk posed by a device, especially for patients whose lives are not dependent on a heart unit. | GUIDANT CORP;FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION;HEART;DEFIBRILLATORS |
ny0238411 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2010/06/14 | Not Even Sand and Sea Are Luring Usual Crowds to Greece | RHODES, Greece — Faliraki, a resort in this island’s northeast known for its long sandy coastline and raucous night life, is a picture of calm these days as summer begins. The pristine beaches are sparsely populated, the bars are all but empty and Vassilis Minaidis’s gleaming new five-star hotel is distressingly quiet. “It’s a difficult time; we really need customers,” said Mr. Minaidis, 74, sitting on the hotel’s terrace, where a few couples picked at Greek salads and appetizers overlooking the turquoise waters of the Aegean Sea. These are new arrivals, attracted by last-minute deals, said Mr. Minaidis, who has cut his prices by 20 percent to fill the 350 rooms in his two hotels. Still, his bookings are down by the same rate. “It’s the battle of Greece ,” he said, referring to the country’s debt crisis, the repercussions of which now seem to be affecting tourism. Elsewhere on the island, countless hoteliers have the same story to tell. Many smaller hotels and guesthouses have not even bothered to open. Those that have look forlorn: empty terraces and balconies draped with fuchsia and bougainvillea, with the occasional towel on a railing one of the few signs of life. Hundreds of these businesses are struggling, according to Panayiotis Tokouzis, the head of the association that represents them. “The large hotels are squeezing us out of the market with their price war,” said Mr. Tokouzis, 47, noting that one guesthouse was offering rooms for 15 euros, or about $18. His own 12-apartment complex is vacant. Evidence of the slump is everywhere. Long stretches of coastline are dotted with rows of brightly colored lounge chairs, most of them empty. At sunset, the cobblestone courtyards of the medieval castle in the port capital echo under the footsteps of a few strolling couples. These are unusual scenes in Rhodes, an island of 117,000 residents that topped a list of favorite European vacation destinations compiled by TripAdvisor , the online travel guide, in 2008. But, after a weak 2009, it is one of countless Greek destinations to see a sharp decline. The Hellenic Chamber of Hotels said bookings were down this year by an average of 30 percent nationwide, and 20 percent in Rhodes. There are some exceptions: the island of Kos, near Rhodes in the southeastern Aegean, has had an 8 percent increase in bookings, while the cosmopolitan Mykonos remains at last year’s levels. But the outlook for the Greek tourism sector, which accounts for about 18 percent of gross domestic product and had been expected to contribute to the country’s economic recovery, is less than encouraging. Exactly why Greece is suffering so is a matter of some debate. Hoteliers in Athens and at seaside resorts are still smarting from some 30,000 cancellations last month, prompted by a string of general strikes and mass protests, one of which led to three deaths when a bank was firebombed . Workers protesting austerity measures imposed by the government are planning further nationwide strikes this month that threaten to disrupt air and sea routes, frustrating tourists on their way to Greece. Bookings from Germany and Britain, which account for a third of the 13 million tourists Greece typically receives every year, are off 20 percent, say travel agents, who suggest that tighter budgets are primarily to blame there. “British tourists are more concerned about the falling pound than about protests in Athens and are primarily looking for good deals,” said Shaun Pipton of the Association of British Travel Agents . He said Greek hoteliers must cut prices to compete with cheaper regional rivals like Turkey, which reports a 30 percent increase in foreign visitors. The Greek authorities insist the country is more competitive than ever. “Apart from beautiful beaches, we have lower prices — and an Acropolis free of scaffolding,” said Deputy Culture and Tourism Minister Giorgos Nikitiadis, 57, noting that years of renovation on the Athens monument were now finished. A falling euro makes Greece an especially good bargain for Americans, he added. Greek resorts are also being hurt by the cash-short government in Athens, which already owes foreign news media organizations 100 million euros, about $121 million, for past advertising campaigns. Cut off from the more traditional advertising outlets, officials are exploring alternatives, with an emphasis on the potential of the Internet and innovative road shows. One such initiative, planned by the authorities of Rhodes, aims to transform a sidewalk in central London into an artificial beach this month using several tons of sand. Another problem on Rhodes — where 70 percent of income is dependent on tourism — is that the traditional summer season seems to be shrinking from six months to three, with few bookings on either end of the June-August period. Some attribute this to the lack of infrastructure for alternative forms of tourism like conferences and religious and cultural tours. “We talk about marine tourism and cultural tourism, but we have no marinas and our ancient sites are not well maintained,” said the island’s mayor, Hatzis Hatziefthimiou , 66. The authorities have pledged to cut bureaucracy so stalled projects can resume and Greece can start catering to niche markets. But mass tourism — the sun-and-sea vacationers — forms the backbone of the sector, and that shows few signs of a revival. Mr. Minaidis, the hotel owner, said he had no doubts that the debt crisis and the attendant strikes and firebombs were to blame for the slump. “Our only publicity this year has been bad press,” he said. Still, a rash of new bookings from Russia has raised his hopes that the high season will bring a reversal of fortune. “There is still time for things to change,” he said. “Summer has just begun.” | Greece;Credit and Debt;Economic Conditions and Trends;Travel and Vacations |
ny0058274 | [
"us"
] | 2014/09/25 | Ohio: Justice Department Will Review Shooting of Man by Police in Walmart | An Ohio grand jury found that police officers’ actions were justified in the fatal shooting of a man holding an air rifle at a Walmart store in early August, a special prosecutor said Wednesday. But the Justice Department said it would review the facts and circumstances surrounding the shooting of the man, John Crawford III, 22, who the police say did not obey commands to put down what turned out to be an air rifle. Mr. Crawford’s family had wanted the federal authorities to investigate whether race was a factor; Mr. Crawford was black, and the officers are white. In a statement, the family said it was “extremely disappointed, disgusted and confused” by the grand jury’s decision. Store surveillance video released Wednesday showed Mr. Crawford walking in the aisles while apparently talking on a cellphone and then picking up the air rifle, which had apparently been unboxed. A short time later, the police arrived, and Mr. Crawford was shot twice while still holding the air rifle. | Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings;Ohio;Justice Department;John Crawford III |
ny0125865 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/08/31 | Democrats Back Sheldon Silver in Handling of Sex Case | ALBANY — Assembly Democrats rallied around Speaker Sheldon Silver on Thursday, as he faced an inquiry into his handling of sexual harassment allegations made against a prominent lawmaker and continued attacks from a lawyer who represented some of the women. In Brooklyn political circles, lawmakers were discussing how to force Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez , the central figure in the sex scandal, to relinquish his seat. He has already said he will give up his role as the borough’s Democratic Party leader. But even a longtime ally thought likely to succeed Mr. Lopez as chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, Frank R. Seddio, said it was time for Mr. Lopez to resign after new descriptions of sexual language and harassment in his office. In one indication of his precarious position, Mr. Lopez has not been calling around to other Assembly members to gauge his level of support — something he would surely do if he were maneuvering to stay, said one member who is close to him. For Mr. Silver, the fallout from the scandal continues. For 18 years, he has led the State Assembly, and presided as the Legislature’s most powerful Democrat. But he now faces an investigation by the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics, which is controlled by appointees and allies of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a fellow Democrat with whom he has had an uneasy relationship. Last year, state lawmakers approved the governor’s plan to expand the jurisdiction of the ethics commission to encompass the Legislature; the investigation of Mr. Silver’s office represents a largely unprecedented incursion by the executive branch into his chamber. More immediately, Mr. Silver continued to be attacked on Thursday by Gloria Allred , the Los Angeles lawyer who was part of a team that represented two women who brought claims against Mr. Lopez. In a lengthy statement, she said, “It appears that the Assembly speaker, in an effort to divert attention from the Assembly’s conduct, is attempting to blame the women who brought claims against Mr. Lopez and then agreed to a settlement.” New documents released Thursday night by the state attorney general’s office revealed that Ms. Allred and her co-counsels initially sought $1.2 million for the two women they represented, later offered to accept $600,000, but eventually settled for $135,000 and an unspecified amount of back pay and benefits. According to a draft agreement, one of the women was to receive a cash payment of $60,786 and the other woman $20,262. The two law firms involved were to equally split $54,032. Mr. Silver’s spokesman, Michael Whyland, said in response to Ms. Allred’s statement on Thursday, “At all times, the Assembly has acted to protect the privacy of the victims and has deferred to their preferences in this matter.” The scandal erupted last Friday, when the Assembly’s bipartisan ethics committee substantiated claims that Mr. Lopez had harassed two women. Mr. Silver censured Mr. Lopez, 71, one of the city’s last powerful political bosses, taking away his committee chairmanship and barring him from employing interns or anyone under the age of 21. A letter signed by Mr. Silver described “pervasive unwelcome verbal conduct” and said that Mr. Lopez had verbally harassed, groped and kissed two of his staff members without their consent. Over the next few days, The New York Times reported that Mr. Silver and Mr. Lopez authorized a secret payment of $135,000 in June, mostly with state money, to settle prior allegations against Mr. Lopez from two other women — allegations that were never referred to the ethics committee. Mr. Silver has said that that was a mistake that would not happen again. Assembly Democrats defended the speaker — saying he had been put in a very difficult situation by Mr. Lopez — and praised him for accepting blame. “I am a total supporter of the speaker as a leader,” said Shelley Mayer, a Yonkers Democrat who served as the counsel for the New York State Senate before winning a special election to the Assembly this year. “As someone who lived through some very difficult times in the Senate, I know how difficult leadership can be. I think he has exhibited great leadership.” Assemblyman Joseph D. Morelle, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Monroe County, said, “People in our conference not only have great affection for Shelly, there’s a lot of respect for his skills as a leader, as a speaker, and as an attorney.” Mr. Morelle, who is close to Mr. Cuomo, has been seen as a potential successor to Mr. Silver, but laughed off the suggestion on Thursday, adding, “He remains strongly supported.” The ethics commission has begun a preliminary review, though a vote of the full commission, including Mr. Silver’s appointees, will be required before a formal investigation can proceed. A formal complaint filed by Common Cause New York and the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women asked the commission to examine potential violations of two sections of the state’s Public Officers Law. One section relates to using one’s “official position to secure unwarranted privileges or exemptions,” while the other says an official should behave in ways “which will not raise suspicion among the public that he is likely to be engaged in acts that are in violation of his trust.” Another group, Citizens Union, is also expected to file a formal complaint. “One would hope that it would be without any political agenda, that it would simply look at whether there is a better way to address things,” said Assemblywoman Deborah J. Glick, a Manhattan Democrat, who also expressed strong support for Mr. Silver while calling the handling of the settlement “a mistake.” David Grandeau, the state’s former top lobbying regulator and a critic of the fledgling commission, said, “You passed this legislation a year ago because you wanted to get the public ‘atta boys’ for doing ethics reform,” adding, “Of course there was going to come the day when the governor’s handpicked investigators were going to be investigating members of the Legislature. That day is here.” In Brooklyn, much of the talk focused on whether Mr. Lopez would be forced to leave the Assembly. A few days ago, people who either talked to him directly, or were briefed by people who did, said that he fiercely maintained that the accusations were untrue, and that he would remain in office. But after several former Lopez female staff members were quoted in The Times on Thursday describing a hostile work environment and episodes of harassment, several Brooklyn Democrats said that Mr. Lopez’s days in office were numbered. One Assembly member, speaking on condition of anonymity, doubted that Mr. Lopez would ever return to Albany as an elected official. The Assembly member, who has spoken to Mr. Lopez in the last week, said one telltale sign that Mr. Lopez felt embattled was that “he hasn’t called around to members.” A second Assembly member said he and another member had even raised the possibility of initiating formal proceedings to remove Mr. Lopez, but that is not yet being broadly discussed. Mr. Lopez seems to have shut out even his closest allies. Mr. Seddio, who sat with Mr. Lopez Monday night urging him to relinquish his party chairmanship, said he was going to tell Mr. Lopez on Thursday afternoon he needed to resign his position in the Assembly as well. Mr. Seddio said he placed a call to Mr. Lopez on Thursday morning after he read the accounts in The Times and The New York Post. Mr. Lopez has not returned his calls. “If what you guys reported is true, it’s atrocious and unspeakable,” Mr. Seddio said. He acknowledged that Mr. Lopez considered him part of his inner circle. But he was not sure whether Mr. Lopez would listen to him. “I don’t know what leverage he has,” he added. “Even if stays as an assemblyman — once you are tarred with this brush, it damages your credibility with people.” | Silver Sheldon;Lopez Vito J;Allred Gloria;Sexual Harassment;Ethics (Institutional);State Legislatures;New York State |
ny0129960 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2012/06/24 | M.L.B. — Baseball Roundup | The Baltimore Orioles released 49-year-old Jamie Moyer on Saturday, parting ways with him at his request. Moyer started the season with Colorado, where he became the oldest pitcher to win a game in the big leagues. He went 2-5 before being designated for assignment by the Rockies on May 30. Moyer subsequently signed a minor league contract with Baltimore on June 6. The deal came with the stipulation that he would make three starts with Class AAA Norfolk, and after that the Orioles had to promote him or grant his release. After his third start Wednesday, the Orioles offered Moyer another start with the Tides. He opted to become a free agent. Moyer went 1-1 with a 1.69 earned run average over 16 innings at Norfolk. The Orioles liked what they saw, but the timing just wasn’t right to add him to the rotation. “We’re very appreciative of him giving us that opportunity to look,” Baltimore Manager Buck Showalter said. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see him pitch for somebody shortly. Personally, just out of respect for his career what he’s done, I hope it happens.” Moyer pitched in Baltimore from 1993-95, one of several stops during a big league career that began in 1986 and was interrupted in 2011 by elbow surgery. Insisting his left arm still had some life, Moyer signed with the Rockies in January 2012 and joined the big league club April 3. He had a 5.70 E.R.A. in 10 games. His lifetime record is 269-209. Unless another team signs him, that will be his final ledger. GIANTS 9, ATHLETICS 8 Brandon Belt hit a go-ahead two-run homer in the sixth inning, Buster Posey added a two-run drive in the seventh and visiting San Francisco backed Madison Bumgarner’s fourth straight win with just enough offense. WHITE SOX 8, BREWERS 6 Dayan Viciedo homered and drove in four runs, Alex Rios delivered a tiebreaking single in the seventh inning and host Chicago rallied to beat Milwaukee. DODGERS 3, ANGELS 1 Chris Capuano outdueled Ervin Santana with seven gritty innings, leading the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers over the Angels and helping end the National League West leaders’ four-game losing streak. RED SOX 8, BRAVES 4 Will Middlebrooks had a solo home run among his three hits and drove in two runs, and Franklin Morales gave host Boston another decent start in place of Josh Beckett. NATIONALS 3, ORIOLES 1 Edwin Jackson took a one-hitter into the seventh, Adam LaRoche homered and Washington beat host Baltimore. BLUE JAYS 7, MARLINS 1 Edwin Encarnacion hit a tiebreaking home run and Colby Rasmus had a grand slam later in the ninth, lifting visiting Toronto over Miami. PHILLIES 7, RAYS 6 Pinch-hitter Jim Thome hit a home run leading off the bottom of the ninth inning to lift host Philadelphia over Tampa Bay after Jonathan Papelbon blew his first save opportunity in 18 chances this season. Papelbon said he told Thome in the on-deck circle that he would give him $5,000 if he hit a homer. Papelbon said he wrote the check in the clubhouse. “That was a huge pickup by Jim Thome,” Papelbon said. PIRATES 4, TIGERS 1 Brad Lincoln allowed two hits and a run in six innings, Andrew McCutchen hit a three-run homer, and host Pittsburgh won for the sixth time in seven games. ASTROS 8, INDIANS 1 The rookie Dallas Keuchel pitched a complete game and J. D. Martinez and Jordan Schafer hit consecutive home runs in Houston’s four-run fifth inning, leading Houston over visiting Cleveland. REDS 6, TWINS 0 Johnny Cueto remained unbeaten in June by pitching seven innings and driving in a pair of runs with a squeeze bunt and a bases-loaded groundout, leading host Cincinnati over Minnesota. The Reds ended their season-high losing streak at four games. ROCKIES 11, RANGERS 7 Tyler Colvin and Chris Nelson had consecutive two-out, two-run singles in an early outburst for Colorado, and the Rockies held on for a victory that ended a seven-game winning streak for the host Texas Rangers. CARDINALS 8, ROYALS 2 Matt Holliday and Allen Craig paced another big game for the St. Louis offense, and Adam Wainwright took advantage of the robust run support in St. Louis’s victory over host Kansas City. BUCHHOLZ SICK The Red Sox right-hander Clay Buchholz will miss Sunday’s start against Atlanta because of an illness. ... Milwaukee placed starter Shaun Marcum on the 15-day disabled list; he has elbow soreness ... Arizona placed the left-hander Joe Saunders, who has a strained left elbow, on the 15-day disabled list. | Baseball;Baltimore Orioles;Moyer Jamie |
ny0057621 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2014/09/24 | Fall Television Season Opens With Strong Ratings | In as big an affirmation as the television business might be able to offer that strong programming still can draw a real crowd, the 8 p.m. hour of television Monday night attracted about 50 million viewers on the four broadcast networks, with another 14 million or so watching football on ESPN. Every network had some strong results to brag about: New shows like “Gotham” on Fox and “Scorpion” on CBS opened impressively. Returning hits like “Big Bang Theory” on CBS and “The Voice” and “The Blacklist” on NBC, still look like hits. And “Dancing with the Stars” on ABC, while still fading from its halcyon days, still draws a big, though notably older, audience. These are the impressions based on the initial numbers released Monday from the Nielsen Company, even though the networks now resist putting any credence on rating results until several days of delayed viewing is counted. The networks now offer projections of where the shows will end up in three or seven days, which is always with much bigger audiences. CBS, for example, projected that “Big Bang," which had two new episodes Monday, with well over 17 million viewers each, will climb to about 25 million by the time seven days of delayed viewing are counted. But for this night, anyway, the initial numbers — which measure the live viewing and viewing done later on the same night — were mostly impressive. Riding the coattails of “Big Bang,” a new CBS drama, “Scorpion,” averaged 14 million viewers, with a solid 3.3 rating among the 18- to 49-year-old viewers that many advertisers pay a premium to reach. (“Big Bang” had averaged a 5.3 and 5.4 for its two episodes in that category.) The one tiny red flag for “Scorpion” was that its audience dropped off slightly in its second half-hour. By contrast, “Gotham,” the new drama on Fox, went up slightly in its second half-hour, all the more impressive because it played in the 8 p.m. hour when the competition was toughest. “Gotham” averaged about 8 million viewers, with a strong 3.2 in the 18-49 category. A possible cautionary note for Fox came in the 9 p.m. hour when its returning hit, “Sleepy Hollow,” lost a chunk of that audience, falling to about 5.5 million viewers, and just a 2.0 rating in the 18-49 group. But that show may be especially helped by delayed viewing, given the competition, especially from football, at that hour. On NBC, its powerhouse singing competition “The Voice” returned to strong numbers: 12.7 million viewers and a 3.9 rating among the 18-49 crowd — it also grew every half-hour. And “The Blacklist” returned to 12.5 million viewers and the best 18-49 rating for any drama on the night 3.4. (That series also was among the biggest gainers last season when delayed viewing was added.) For ABC, the news was less buoyant. “Dancing” still attracts about 12 million viewers, but with only about a 2 rating for the 18-49 category. Viewership in the category was down about 17 percent from last year. A new ABC drama at 10 p.m., “Forever,” was the night’s only distinct underperformer, with just about 8 million viewers, but only a 1.5 rating in the 18-49 group. It also fell off at the half-hour point. | TV;Ratings;CBS;Fox Broadcasting;ABC;NBC;ESPN;Nielsen |
ny0022984 | [
"business"
] | 2013/09/15 | A Hire-a-Mentor Sampler | PivotPlanet connects prospective career-switchers with experienced pros, who — by phone, by Skype, or in person — can tell them what their dream jobs are really like. Such advisers can be hired for all kinds of fields, including these: ACTOR Price: $150/hour The pitch: A Los Angeles-based actor, known for his “ongoing stint on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ ” as “the Indian call center guy,” will offer “a unique perspective into the philosophical mind-set necessary to persevere in the highly challenging entertainment industry.” FITNESS TRAINER Price: $180/hour The pitch: Advice on issues like “how to lay out your gym and what equipment you’ll need for your new health club.” Image Espresso being made at the Fourteen Eighteen Coffeehouse in Plano, Tex. Credit Rex C. Curry for The New York Times ORGANIC FARMER Price: $114/hour The pitch: “Don’t expect to make a living from your farm right from the start,” according to the adviser, who is based in Oregon. “Build your financial resources and your gardening or animal care skills while you are planning your transition to farming.” HAIR SALON OWNER Price: $150/hour The pitch: “To be able to transform someone from Plain Jane to confident, Rockin’ Roxie is incredibly satisfying,” says this adviser, who is based in Wisconsin. PASTRY CHEF Price: $60/hour The pitch: This chef, who owns his own bakery in Grand Forks, N.D., says that “breaking bread is a spiritual experience in most parts of the world,” and can be one for you too. VOICE-OVER ARTIST Price: $90/hour The pitch: Advice on how to “find your ‘signature voice.’ ” | Mentor;Careers and Professions;PivotPlanet |
ny0111871 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2012/02/19 | As Old Francs Expire, France Makes a Small Mint | PARIS — Greece may be scrambling for revenue, but the French treasury has just banked some 550 million euros for doing nothing — simply letting the French franc, created in 1360, finally perish. Friday was the last day that French francs could be turned into the Bank of France, the central bank, in exchange for the common European currency, the euro, a little more than a decade after it was introduced as bills and coins. The approximately 550 million euros represents the francs still outstanding, somewhere, which are now worthless, and which will be registered as revenue for the French state. As the franc died, it is the future of the euro that seems at question now, an irony that hardly escaped some of those waiting in line at the bank to exchange the francs they had found stashed away in drawers, coat pockets and old purses. (Only bills were exchangeable; coins went out of circulation in 2005.) Emmanuelle Hamon, 47, said she was dubious about the fate of the euro. “I want to believe in it,” she said. “But I don’t know how, concretely, we’re going to make it.” A former advertising executive and journalist, she said she felt a bit betrayed, as if Europeans had been handed a bill of goods, now that floundering countries like Greece are causing troubles for the entire euro zone. “I was attracted to the notion of community,” she said. “We were all hoodwinked.” And like many, she believes that the euro brought with it higher prices. She had found 220 francs, or 33.54 euros at the fixed rate of 6.55957 francs to the euro. She is planning to give her bonus euros to a charity that fights hunger, she said. As for the franc itself, she said she had no special sentiments. “I thought they were pretty, that’s all I can say.” For some it was a sad day, to be sure. As Ms. Hamon noted, the franc notes and coins were varied and beautiful. The euro, on the other hand, seems like the product of an off-day at the design studio, made worse by the fact that the bills feature no recognizable buildings or portraits. The theory behind keeping some images off was that any European — even Beethoven, whose music was used for the European Union anthem — would be too national. Aurélien Duchene, an 18-year-old student, said that he liked the idea of the euro as a way to gather countries together, but that it meant prices went up. Pulling his earphones out to hear questions, he remembered that when he was 8 or 9 years old and the currency changed, he said, “For one franc you got a big bag of candy, and for one euro, one got less.” The current economic crisis had various causes, Mr. Duchene said. “But I think that changing from the franc to the euro is also a cause.” (Indeed, fixed rates and the common currency have meant countries cannot adjust the value of their currency in response to differing economic circumstances.) Shanel Maklouf, 17, said earnestly, while her friends giggled, that the euro had been “very bad for France ,” and had helped cause its economic difficulties, “which grow day by day.” Going back to the franc is impossible, she said, “even if it would be a good thing,” especially for the poorer classes. “My mother waits for only one thing, that the franc returns.” The far-right National Front candidate in the coming presidential election, Marine Le Pen, is the only significant politician calling for France to pull out of the euro zone — and the European Union — and return to the franc. More mainstream politicians and economists regard the idea as folly, even as some Greeks begin to consider returning to the drachma. The Greeks, by the way, have until March 1 to switch their old drachmas into euros. Tania Capo-Chichi, 30, is a hairstylist, currently unemployed. She waited in line at the bank with her 5-month-old son in a stroller and a small windfall — 1,000 francs, worth 152.45 euros — she found digging through various bags, she said. She had no attachment to the old franc, but no idea how the current euro crisis, which she said no one was really explaining to people, would end. “It won’t come to a stop overnight,” she said. But she was sure the euro would endure, one way or another, as Europe evolves. “It’s ours,” she said, “even if we don’t necessarily like it.” | Euro (Currency);Economic Conditions and Trends;Bank of France;France;European Union;Currency |
ny0054698 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2014/07/24 | Prime Minister Najib Razak’s Intervention on Flight 17 Pays Off | KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — It was not an aide or a diplomat on the phone with pro-Russian rebels, trying to get them to relinquish the bodies and the “black boxes” from the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine — it was the leader of Malaysia himself. Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia played an unusual personal role, holding a series of cellphone conversations with a rebel leader and then coaching a Malaysian colonel on what to say as he passed through nearly a dozen rebel checkpoints on his way to the crash scene, according to a person who was with the prime minister much of the time. Mr. Najib’s success has at least temporarily restored his standing at home, where his government was battered by accusations of incompetence after the disappearance in March of another Malaysia Airlines jet, Flight 370. The arrival of most of the bodies and the flight data recorders from Flight 17 at a Ukrainian military base on Tuesday brought an outpouring of relief and praise in Malaysia. Maps of the Crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 A Malaysia Airlines flight with nearly 300 people aboard crashed in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border on July 17. But Mr. Najib’s willingness to negotiate directly with Alexander Borodai, the rebel leader, has prompted disquiet outside the country about whether the prime minister had lent unwarranted legitimacy to a man the Ukrainian government has condemned as a terrorist. Malaysian officials say Mr. Najib established a rapport with Mr. Borodai over the weekend, and finally reached an agreement with him on Monday for handing over the remains and the recorders, which the rebels had taken from the crash site, in territory they control near the Russian border. The plane, a Boeing 777-200 with 298 aboard, was on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was struck by an antiaircraft missile on July 17. Opposition politicians in Malaysia who had excoriated Mr. Najib through the spring over Flight 370 endorsed his actions on Wednesday at a special session of Parliament and in a series of earlier statements. A senior opposition politician, Lim Kit Siang, wrote on his blog that the prime minister “is to be commended for the breakthrough with the handover of the two black boxes.” And Lim Guan Eng, the secretary general of the Democratic Action Party, a major opposition bloc, said his party was “willing to stand together with the federal government to support their efforts to bring back the bodies to their families.” Image Separatist soldiers in eastern Ukraine displayed the flight recorders from the downed Malaysia Airlines plane in a news conference with a Malaysian government delegation sent by Mr. Najib. Credit Robert Ghement/European Pressphoto Agency Officials in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, insisted that Mr. Najib’s arrangement with Mr. Borodai did not involve any promise of formal diplomatic recognition or payment to the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Political analysts said that Mr. Najib’s domestic political bonanza depended partly on that remaining true. “If it emerges that there are issues behind this deal, then things will be seen in a slightly different way,” said Bridget Welsh , a senior research associate at National Taiwan University who specializes in Malaysian politics. The Malaysian delegation in Ukraine incurred the anger of many Ukrainians by using the honorific “excellency” in referring to Mr. Borodai, who styles himself the leader of a breakaway republic. But, at least in public, Mr. Najib has not used the term, referring to the rebel leader only as “Mr. Borodai.” Wreckage Offers Clues on Why Flight 17 Went Down Photographs of a piece of wreckage from Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 offer evidence about what could have caused it to crash. Few Malaysians have followed the Ukrainian conflict in detail, so the question of legitimizing Mr. Borodai, who is a Russian citizen, has barely been raised here. The overwhelming priority has been recovering the bodies of the 43 Malaysians who were on Flight 17, including two infants — an especially delicate matter in a mainly Muslim country where prompt, proper burial of the dead is a strong religious imperative. “Over here, people don’t care how the deal was done,” said James Chin, a professor of political science at the Kuala Lumpur campus of Monash University. “All they care is that the bodies are coming back, so that the families have closure.” But, Mr. Chin said, Mr. Najib’s political boost might not last long. When he announced the deal early Tuesday morning, Mr. Najib predicted that the bodies of Malaysians would be in their families’ hands by the end of Ramadan, which in Malaysia will be Sunday. But Dutch and Australian officials now say that it could take weeks or months to identify the remains, which are first being flown to a laboratory in the Netherlands. Image Mr. Borodai, the self-proclaimed prime minister of Donestk, handed over the flight recorders to Malaysian officials. Credit Robert Ghement/European Pressphoto Agency “Now he’s smelling like roses, but I suspect it’ll end in tears,” Mr. Chin said of Mr. Najib. The prime minister sharpened his criticism of the initial difficulties in recovering the bodies and data recorders in a speech to Parliament on Wednesday, but he continued to refrain from assigning blame for the downing of the aircraft. For Mr. Najib, the loss of a second Malaysia Airlines jet in less than five months is an ordeal that began when he received a call at his Kuala Lumpur home late last Thursday telling him that Flight 17 had disappeared from the radar. The person who was with him for much of that night, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a ban on commenting publicly about the prime minister’s private activities, said Mr. Najib immediately summoned officials to meet him at an emergency response center at the capital’s airport. Airport guards outside the response center were not prepared for the appearance of the prime minister’s motorcade, with its escort of armed guards on motorcycles, and initially refused to let it pass, while they tried to check with superiors by telephone, the person said. The prime minister’s security detail cut the wait short by bodily lifting the guards and carrying them to the side of the road, and then pushing up the heavy gate blocking the entrance road. What Happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 An updated summary of what is known and not known about the crash. Mr. Najib was given Mr. Borodai’s cellphone number by someone whom Mr. Borodai trusted and who vouched for Mr. Najib, according to Malaysian officials. They declined to say whether the intermediary who set up the initial call was Russian. Malaysia has long sought to avoid conspicuously taking sides in the rivalries among the United States, Russia and China, and many of its citizens are wary of American influence. While the Netherlands is a member of NATO, which many pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine see as a threat, Malaysia is a distant Southeast Asian nation that has stayed largely silent on the turmoil there. Russia has invested years of effort in building up its relations with Malaysia, in which aviation has played a major role for more than a decade. Malaysia agreed to buy 18 Sukhoi fighter jets from Russia in May 2003, in a deal worth nearly $1 billion. In exchange, Russia agreed to train and transport to space Malaysia’s first astronaut, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor , an orthopedic surgeon by profession who traveled to the International Space Station in 2007 and became a celebrated national hero, not least because he observed the Ramadan fasts in space under the guidance of a large team of religious experts. At a meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin in Vladivostok in 2012, Mr. Najib noted that he personally oversaw the deal for the Sukhoi jets, and added, “The time has come for us to broaden the relationship and to look into new areas of cooperative relationship with you.” The deal to recover the recorders and remains from Flight 17 may be the richest political dividend Mr. Najib has yet reaped from that relationship. | Malaysia;Najib Razak;Malaysia Airlines 17;Plane Crashes and Missing Planes;Ukraine;Russia;Malaysia Airlines Flight 370;Malaysia Airlines;Alexander Borodai |
ny0238991 | [
"sports",
"golf"
] | 2010/12/02 | L.P.G.A. Will Allow Transgender Players to Compete | L.P.G.A. players have voted to eliminate the tour’s requirement that players be “female at birth” and to allow transgender athletes to compete, less than two months after a transgender woman sued the tour in federal court, arguing that the rule violated California civil rights law. “Steps will be taken in the coming weeks to make the appropriate changes in the language of the Constitution,” Commissioner Mike Whan said in a statement. The players made their decision Tuesday during end-of-the-year meetings in Orlando, Fla., at the L.P.G.A. Tour Championship. The L.P.G.A. was sued in October by Lana Lawless , a retired police officer who had sex reassignment surgery in 2005 and who won the 2008 women’s world championship in long-drive golf. Lawless sought to play in L.P.G.A. qualifying tournaments after Long Drivers of America, which oversees the world championship she won, changed its rules to match the L.P.G.A.’s. Lawless also sued Long Drivers of America. A lawyer for that organization declined to comment. “Ms. Lawless finds it regrettable that she had to bring a lawsuit to get somebody to follow the law, but is glad that the civil justice system in this instance worked,” her lawyer, Christopher B. Dolan, said Wednesday. The golfer Cristie Kerr told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the policy change was now a “dead issue.” “She can compete if she can qualify,” Kerr said. “We certainly don’t want to discriminate against anybody; that’s not what the L.P.G.A. is about. And if she can qualify, she’ll be able to play.” The L.P.G.A.’s policy shift follows similar changes made by other sports bodies to allow transgender athletes to compete, including the International Olympic Committee, the United States Golf Association, the Ladies Golf Union in Britain and the Ladies European Golf Tour. The N.C.A.A. has also said that it is reviewing its policies regarding transgender athletes. A member of the George Washington women’s basketball team, Kye Allums, came out this season as a transgender man. Allums has been permitted to play on the women’s team because he has not undergone hormone treatments or sexual reassignment surgery. Dolan said the L.P.G.A. players’ decision reached beyond golf. “I think it’s a victory for the transgender community,” he said, “and that hopefully other women won’t have to go through this just to have the right to play golf or any other sport.” | Transsexuals;Ladies Professional Golf Assn;Golf |
ny0284824 | [
"business",
"international"
] | 2016/09/27 | Audi’s Research and Development Chief Leaves as VW Inquiries Continue | BERLIN — Audi’s head of technical development, Stefan Knirsch, is leaving his job immediately, the carmaker said on Monday, as investigations continue into a diesel emissions scandal facing its corporate parent, Volkswagen. An investigation by the American law firm Jones Day, which was hired last year by VW’s supervisory board to look into the scandal, found no evidence of wrongdoing by Audi’s chief executive, Rupert Stadler. But the departure of Mr. Knirsch, who had been Audi’s head of engine and transmission development, adds to concerns that VW’s flagship luxury brand may be more deeply entangled in the scandal than previously thought. Audi said in a statement that Mr. Knirsch was leaving immediately in consultation with the supervisory board. It cited no reason for his departure, and it did not name a successor. How Volkswagen’s ‘Defeat Devices’ Worked Volkswagen admitted that 11 million of its vehicles were equipped with software that was used to cheat on emissions tests. This is how the technology works and what it now means for vehicle owners. Mr. Knirsch and Jones Day representatives in Germany did not immediately respond to requests for comment. “We have made clear from the start that we have no regard for big names and take action if necessary” to try to resolve the scandal, Audi’s deputy chairman, Berthold Huber, said in a separate statement on behalf of the 10 labor representatives on Audi’s 20-member supervisory board. “This departure underlines our position,” Mr. Huber said. Audi, the main contributor to VW’s profit, has admitted that its 3.0 liter V6 diesel engine was fitted with software that reduced the amount of pollutants emitted in tests, compared with normal road conditions. The software is illegal in the United States, where VW’s emissions scandal broke a year ago. Mr. Knirsch was appointed in January , replacing Ulrich Hackenberg, the former top engineer at Audi and the VW group. Mr. Hackenberg quit last year after being suspended with two other executives closely associated with the development of the VW engine at the center of the scandal. Mr. Knirsch is the fourth head of research and development that Audi has lost in four years, at a time when the carmaker is battling with German rivals such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz for leadership in developing new technologies. | Vehicle Emissions;Cars;Appointments and Executive Changes;Audi Division of Volkswagen;Volkswagen |
ny0239384 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2010/12/16 | Goodell Confident About Chances of Labor Agreement | FORT WORTH — Commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday that reaching a new collective bargaining agreement by the end of the postseason is “realistic,” although he declined to characterize the state of negotiations. Goodell and team owners spent their meeting focused primarily on labor issues, although several owners declined to reveal what was discussed behind closed doors. “The reality is there are discussions going on,” Goodell said. “It takes productive dialogue. We have to get to a kind of place where we’re making significant progress. I think it’s a positive sign that we’re having dialogue. It’s not just about meetings and dialogue. It’s about getting real, significant progress on key issues. I won’t be satisfied until we get it done.” Goodell said that the busy playoff season would not slow negotiations. “There’s no higher priority than getting a collective bargaining agreement,” Goodell said. “We will work night and day to get that done.” Later, he added: “I don’t have a deadline. I believe that this becomes harder after the agreement expires in early March. We don’t have a deadline other than to get this done as soon as possible.” Goodell said he hoped that the recent agreement between the league office and the union to postpone a union filing of a collusion claim — the league office lifted the deadline for such a claim — was an indication that the two sides could negotiate to solve their problems. “Obviously we’re seeing a lot of rhetoric and other tactics, including litigation strategies that I think are all distractions and attempts to get leverage,” Goodell said. “I understand that. But at the end of the day this will get solved at the negotiating table. That’s where we should be.” MORE SAFETY CHANGES PENDING The owners saw a video that showed how players have adjusted the way they are tackling in the wake of a crackdown on hits to the head. Goodell and the Giants owner John Mara, a member of the Competition Committee, said they expect more rules changes coming next off-season related to player safety. A BID TO ALTER PLAYOFFS Rich McKay, the president of the Atlanta Falcons and a member of the Competition Committee, said he would again raise the question of whether playoff teams should be seeded according to regular-season records, not according to whether teams are division champions or wild cards. In past attempts, the proposal failed to win the necessary 24 votes for passage, because many owners believed that division champions should be rewarded with a home playoff game. But McKay said he thought there would be greater support for it now. That may be because the N.F.C. West may have a division champion that finishes at .500 or below. “A team that wins their division with a .500 record or worse shouldn’t necessarily get a home game over a team that wins 10 or 11 games,” Mara said. “I can’t tell you I have a lot of hope for that. It’s been discussed and never gotten anywhere.” VIKINGS ASK FANS FOR HELP The Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf, making his first public comments since the Metrodome roof collapsed, said he was confident that Monday night’s game against the Chicago Bears would be played at the University of Minnesota’s outdoor stadium. On Wednesday, the university offered jobs to people willing to shovel snow out of the stadium, which had already been closed for the winter when the college season ended. “Hopefully, we’ll enjoy an outdoor game,” Wilf said. “We’re confident. We’re optimistic. A lot of people are working hard to get it done.” Wilf has long argued for the team to receive a publicly-financed new stadium. With the Metrodome out of use for the rest of the season, Wilf will soon turn his attention to renewing that quest. “I’ve always advocated to have a new facility,” Wilf said. “Right now we’re making sure we get this venue ready for this week, then we’ll talk about addressing those issues as they come up.” FAVRE DECISION EXPECTED SOON Goodell said he expected to have a decision on potential discipline for Vikings quarterback Brett Favre before the end of the regular season. Favre is under investigation for allegedly sending suggestive text messages and photos to a woman when both were employed by the Jets. Goodell received the final report on the league’s investigation last week, he said. | Goodell Roger;Labor and Jobs;Football |
ny0106443 | [
"science"
] | 2012/04/17 | College Students Opening Up Conversations About Sex | CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — For a table set up by a campus student group, this one held some unusual items: a gynecologist’s speculum, diaphragms, condoms (his and hers) and several packets of lubricant. Nearby, two students batted an inflated condom back and forth like a balloon. “This is Implanon,” said Gabby Bryant, a 22-year-old senior who had helped set up the table, showing off a sample of the implantable birth control . “Here at Harvard , you get it for free.” “Implanon?” said Samantha Meier, a fellow senior, who was viewing the wares. “No, you don’t.” “My friend just got it for free,” said Ms. Bryant, resolving the matter. It was Sex Week at Harvard , a student-run program of lectures, panel discussions and blush-inducing conversations about all things sexual. The event was Harvard’s first, though the tradition started at Yale in 2002 and has since spread to colleges around the country: Brown, Northeastern, the University of Kentucky, Indiana University and Washington University have all held some version of Sex Week in recent years. Despite the busy national debate over contraception and financing for reproductive health, Sex Week at Harvard (and elsewhere) has veered away from politics, emerging instead as a response to concern among students that classroom lessons in sexuality — whether in junior high school or beyond — fall short of preparing them for the experience itself. Organizers of these events say that college students today face a confusing reality: At a time when sexuality is more baldly and blatantly on display, young people are, paradoxically, having less sex than in generations past, surveys indicate. “I think there’s this hook-up culture at Harvard where people assume that everyone’s having sex all the time, and that’s not necessarily true,” said Suzanna Bobadilla, a 21-year-old junior. Students here seemed less interested in debating the Republicans’ social agenda than in talking about how sexual mores related to their own lives. One event, “Hooking Up on Campus,” got participants talking about perceptions that have been built up about casual sex — for instance, the idea that all women are so liberated that they are happy to have sex without commitment (a theme that is examined in depth in the new HBO series “ Girls “). The event had helped dispel that rumor, Ms. Bobadilla said, by presenting statistics showing that college students were having less sex than their predecessors and by “letting people come out with their own perspectives.” Such plain-spoken sex education is particularly important at a school like Harvard, she said, because “Harvard kids don’t want to admit they don’t know something that they feel like they should know.” As Sex Week has spread to more campuses, it has maintained a balancing act between matters of sexual health and pleasure. Unlike typical student-run college programs in the decades following the discovery of H.I.V. /AIDS, the campus events go beyond instruction on safe sex, rape prevention and sexually transmitted diseases to giving advice on how to feel more comfortable and fulfilled sexually, all, at least in theory, in a judgment-free atmosphere that embraces all lifestyles. The idea is to give the sex education that schools cannot — or choose not to. “I think that what our generation is doing is really trying to address these issues in a way that respects individual experiences and beliefs and identities,” said Ms. Meier, 23, one of the two student organizers of Sex Week at Harvard. “And I see Sex Week as a part of that.” Sex Week began life at Yale as Kosher Sex Week, an idea that the Yale Hillel had for generating interest in the group. But as more clubs and the faculty got involved, “one faculty member threw out the idea, why does this have to be a Jewish event?” said Eric Rubenstein, one of the founders. The decision was made to drop the kosher angle, giving birth in 2002 to what was then called Campus-Wide Sex Week. ”Everyone who was involved in it wanted it to be something relatable and real and challenging, and something that people have to consider,” said Mr. Rubenstein, 29, who now works as an oil strategist and trader for Citigroup. “It’s not just talking about your regular topics.” Sex education has always been a part of college, one way or another. And every generation of students has tried to fill perceived gaps in the formal curricula with their own initiatives, whether through the condom giveaways of the 1990s or the explosion of student sex columns — and even pornography magazines — in the last decade. Students call it education; parents and administrators may call it acting out. At Harvard’s first Sex Week, which ended March 31, there were panels on talking to your doctor about sex and on careers in sexual health, but also events about the ethics of pornography; sex and religion; kinky practices like bondage; and gay and lesbian sex. After every event, organizers raffled off vibrators. While some professors, chaplains and health care providers took part, the university itself was not a sponsor. At Yale, the name was changed this year from Sex Week at Yale to simply Sex Week because of administration pushback. Sex weeks have faced some opposition from colleges, alumni and students nearly everywhere they’ve been staged. Some people don’t like the idea of university resources being used to promote sexual activity. Others think the events promote an irresponsible, pleasure-first approach to sex. This year, a new group called Undergraduates for a Better Yale College began offering an alternative to Sex Week called True Love Week. In 2007, Chelsea Thompson, a Northwestern student who described herself as a Christian, formed a group called Women of Worth that hosted a spa night to give female students an alternative to Sex Week. According to the group’s blog, more than 100 women attended, including the entire softball team. “Education does not mean giving everybody every choice they could make,” said Isabel Marin, a member of Undergraduates for a Better Yale College. “It’s giving people the right information on how they should be pursuing relationships and sexual choices. It’s not a buffet.” But campus organizers say they are simply trying to acknowledge reality: that a lot of students have sex for the first time while they are in college, and this can muster many strong feelings and reactions. “College classes about sexuality are always fairly academic, they don’t necessarily reflect peoples’ personal experience,” said Aida Manduley, a chairwoman of Sex Week at Brown. “We try to balance out the situation.” In an era when explicit sexual materials are readily available by keystroke or remote control, some students found the week’s proceedings at Harvard surprisingly tame. Brenda Serpas, a freshman, attended a seminar called “Dirty Talk” and found it to be, well, not that dirty. “A lot of people just thought it was going to be tips on how to talk dirty,” she said, “but really it wasn’t. It was just like, being consensual and comfortable in expressing yourself with your partner.” Shana Kim, a sophomore, added: “That you have to have no shame. Be comfortable with yourself.” “And I think that’s what the whole week was about, basically,” Ms. Kim added. “Knowing what you want, knowing how to consent to what you want and allowing other people to do the same.” | Harvard University;Sex;Sex Education;Colleges and Universities;Science and Technology |
ny0151345 | [
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] | 2008/08/17 | A Politician Who Puts Her Beliefs on the Line | Sag Harbor EVEN while barefoot in her shady backyard, Anna Throne-Holst is carbon-footprint conscientious: that’s why this earnest sophomore member of the Southampton Town Board is radically shrinking her print. She is, somewhat reluctantly, moving from a gargantuan, gingerbready Colonial in the quaint heart of the village here, a rental with an in-ground pool and a guest house, to a modest oldie on Noyac Road, a rental without a pool or a guest house. To an extent, she is on trend by default. Not that she has any grounds for complaint about her lifestyle or the privileged place where she has chosen to live it. “I’m just another one of those Hamptons residents who can’t afford to buy,” said Ms. Throne-Holst, 48 and single following a divorce followed by a breakup. Her town salary is $60,000; sustainable, sort of. Two of her three children are off to college. So she is downsizing; the Dumpster in the yard confirms it. Each of her sons — 21, 19 and 14 — has been commanded to make at least one daily deposit. “I keep telling them they can’t bring everything with them,” she said. The same goes for her. She continually reminds herself of the liberating aspect of it all. One thing she will especially miss, though, is her trophy clothesline, a rope-and-wood creation that aspires to lawn sculpture stature. Yes, the councilwoman with the all-green political platform — she is the chief instigator behind Southampton’s bold “green code” legislation for new buildings and pools — installed the quadruple-line device (each family member rates a line, not counting the dog) to celebrate the June 10 passage of her so-called clothesline legislation. More accurately, it took the legalization, or vilification, of humble clotheslines off the legislation table. By a vote of 5 to 0, the Town Board, now composed of four Republicans and Ms. Throne-Holst, a self-described Blank with Democratic tendencies, opted to rescind a highly disliked, and oft-ignored, anti-clothesline resolution put on the books six years ago by a previous administration. (The town supervisor, Skip Heaney, came home shortly after the original vote to find underwear flapping from a clothesline that someone had strung across his front yard.) Legislation that appeased a contingent of Southampton aesthetes offended by the sight of their neighbors’ apparel, sheets and beach towels drying in plain sight offended Ms. Throne-Holst, who moved to the United States from Sweden with her family at age 15. “When we become so precious that we cannot bear to let our neighbors’ laundry — their clean laundry — flap in the wind, it’s time to take a good, hard look at ourselves,” she said. “When the town takes it upon itself to protect people’s property rights by telling them they can’t hang their laundry on their property, there’s an odd disconnect. “Hanging your laundry out to dry is a tried-and-true method that doesn’t cost a penny and doesn’t leave the slightest carbon footprint,” added Ms. Throne-Holst, who estimates that she does six or seven loads per week when all three sons are around. “Here we are in 2008 with global warming and high energy costs. Come on, if you can’t take 10 minutes to hang your laundry outside...” The clothesline reinstatement was her first official act as a board member. “Though in no way was it the reason I decided to enter town politics,” said Ms. Throne-Holst, a founder of the Hayground School and former director of the Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreation Center. After returning to school for a master’s in public administration and international affairs from Columbia University, she worked for six months at the United Nations before quitting, she said, because of “the killer commute.” Approached by the Southampton Democratic Party, she at first declined to join the five-way race for two open seats on the Town Board, then relented after being convinced that the town’s government needed an infusion of “people who are not part of the same old, same old.” “I entered the race with a social justice agenda rather than the business-as-usual agenda,” she said. “It’s been very clear while trying to pass this new green energy code that the resistance we’re seeing comes from the business-as-usual contingent that has run this town for so long.” It was simpler to erase the clothesline ban. “I thought, ‘That silly clothesline law, I’ll deal with that at some point,’ so I did, and, well, it received so much attention you would have thought I’d passed a resolution bringing the troops home from Iraq. I had calls from all over the country.” She found the no-clothesline law an embarrassing example of governmental overreach, the same charge that has been levied, in some not-so-green business circles, against the revised building codes the Town Board approved 4 to 1 on July 22 on the recommendation of the 12-person Green Committee formed three months ago. The board was, as of last Monday, still squabbling over and tweaking the green legislation. Ms. Throne-Holst feared it would be watered down to the point of nonrecognition, but so far it hasn’t. New home construction would adhere to stricter energy codes, new pool heaters would be solar, and, according to her, the bigger consumers would bear the brunt of the costs. “We live in a community where the average new home is 6,000 to 7,000 square feet,” she said. “That’s the American way, and I’m not saying they don’t have a right to build big or heat their pools to 90 degrees. I’m just saying do it in a way where there’s some community benefit, or at least less of a community hardship.” As for her supersize clothesline, she’s leaving it behind, a victim of downscaling. Her new place lacks a yard; a single line across the cozy terrace will, she said, have to suffice. | Law and Legislation;Hamptons (NY);Solar Energy;Environment |
ny0041702 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2014/05/18 | Events in Connecticut for May 18-24, 2014 | A guide to cultural and recreational events in Connecticut. Items for the calendar should be sent at least three weeks in advance to [email protected]. Comedy MASHANTUCKET Comix at Foxwoods Gordon Baker-Bone. May 21 at 8 p.m. $10 to $20. April Macie. May 22 through 24. $20 to $40. Comix at Foxwoods, 350 Trolley Line Boulevard. (866) 646-0609; comixatfoxwoods.com. UNCASVILLE Mohegan Sun Chelsea Handler. May 24 at 8 p.m. $45 and $65. Mohegan Sun, 1 Mohegan Sun Boulevard. (888) 226-7711; mohegansun.com. Film BRIDGEPORT The Bijou Theater The Laugh Out Loud Short Film Festival. May 23 at 7 and 9:30 p.m. $10. The Bijou Theater, 275 Fairfield Avenue. (203) 332-3228; thebijoutheatre.com. FAIRFIELD StageOne, Fairfield Theater Company “Inside Llewyn Davis,” directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. May 20 at 7:30 p.m. $10. StageOne, Fairfield Theater Company, 70 Sanford Street. fairfieldtheatre.org; (203) 259-1036. HARTFORD Cinestudio “Othello,” directed by and starring Orson Welles. May 18 through 22. “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” directed by Wes Anderson. May 23 through 29. $7 and $9. Cinestudio, 300 Summit Street. (860) 297-2463; cinestudio.org. HARTFORD Real Art Ways “For a Woman,” directed by Diane Kurys. “God’s Pocket,” directed by John Slattery. Through May 22. “Young and Beautiful,” directed by Francois Ozon. “The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden,” documentary by Daniel Geller. May 23 through 29. $4.50 to $10. Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor Street. (860) 232-1006; realartways.org. OLD SAYBROOK The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center A screening of “A Dancer’s Dream,” featuring the New York Philharmonic. May 18 at 3 p.m. $10 and $16. “National Theater Live: ‘Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,’ ” screening of the play adapted by Simon Stephens. May 22 at 7 p.m. $15. The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main Street. (877) 503-1286; thekate.org. RIDGEFIELD Ridgefield Playhouse “National Theater Live: ‘King Lear,’ ” screening of the play starring Simon Russell Beale. May 22 at 6:30 p.m. $15 to $25. Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge Road. ridgefieldplayhouse.org; (203) 438-5795. STAMFORD Avon Theater “State of Grace,” starring Sean Penn and Gary Oldman. May 21 at 1 p.m. Free. A screening of archival footage of the rock band Jethro Tull. May 21 at 7:30 p.m. $6 to $11; Carte Blanche members, free. Avon Theater, 272 Bedford Street. (203) 967-3660; avontheatre.org. For Children BRIDGEPORT Downtown Cabaret Theater “Aladdin,” British pantomime-style performance. Through May 18. $27. Downtown Cabaret Theater, 263 Golden Hill Street. (203) 576-1636; dtcab.com. NORWALK Maritime Aquarium “Food for Thought,” International Children’s Art Exhibition. Through Sept. 1. Free with museum admission. $12.95 to $19.95; children under 3, free. Maritime Aquarium, 10 North Water Street. (203) 803-4376; creativeconnections.org. NORWALK Stepping Stones Museum for Children “Healthyville,” exhibition on nutrition, fitness, hygiene and safety. Through Sept. 1. Daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Stepping Stones Museum for Children, 303 West Avenue. steppingstonesmuseum.org; (203) 899-0606. Music and Dance BETHEL Pizzeria Lauretano Ruth Ahlers Quartet with Joe Carter, jazz. May 18 at 6 p.m. $10. Trio Shalva, jazz. May 25 at 6 p.m. $10. Pizzeria Lauretano, 291 Greenwood Avenue. (203) 792-1500; pizzerialauretano.com. BRIDGEPORT Premier Ballroom, at Holy Trinity Greek Church Marko Urosevic and Ashley Mokris, ballroom. May 24 at 9:30 p.m. General ballroom dancing from 7 p.m. to midnight. $17. Premier Ballroom, at Holy Trinity Greek Church, 4070 Park Avenue. (203) 374-7308; premierballroomdancect.com. COLLINSVILLE Bridge Street Live Bill Kirchen and Too Much Fun, rock and country. May 22 at 8 p.m. $20 and $30. Loudon Wainwright III, folk. May 23 at 8 p.m. $50 and $65. John Hammond, blues. May 24 at 8 p.m. $27 and $40. Bridge Street Live, 41 Bridge Street. (860) 693-9762; 41bridgestreet.com. FAIRFIELD StageOne, Fairfield Theater Company The Main Squeeze, funk and jazz. May 18 at 7:45 p.m. $25. Eliot Lipp, funk. May 23 at 7:45 p.m. $15 and $18. StageOne, Fairfield Theater Company, 70 Sanford Street. (203) 259-1036; fairfieldtheatre.org. HARTFORD Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts Megan Hilty, with Seth Rudetsky, cabaret. May 18 at 7 p.m. $65. Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, 166 Capitol Avenue. (860) 987-5900; bushnell.org. MASHANTUCKET Fox Theater, Foxwoods Casino The Magic of Motown, R&B. May 21 at 2:30 p.m. $34.95. Fox Theater, Foxwoods Casino, 350 Trolley Line Boulevard. (800) 200-2882; foxwoods.com. NEW HAVEN Firehouse 12 Barry Altschul and the 3dom Factor, jazz. May 23 at 8:30 and 10 p.m. $12 and $18. Firehouse 12, 45 Crown Street. firehouse12.com; (203) 785-0468. NEW LONDON Garde Arts Center Hey Nineteen and A. Tequila Sunrise, tribute to Steely Dan and the Eagles. May 23 at 7:30 p.m. $24 to $36. Garde Arts Center, 325 State Street. gardearts.org; (860) 444-7373. NEW MILFORD Canterbury School New Milford Bucky Pizzarelli and Ed Laub, jazz. May 24 at 7:30 p.m. $30 to $75. Concert and reception is $100. Canterbury School New Milford, 101 Aspetuck Avenue. (860) 355-0300; hunthillfarmtrust.org. NORFOLK Infinity Hall A. J. Croce with Emily Elbert, jazz and blues. May 18 at 7:30 p.m. $25 and $35. The Oz Noy Trio, jazz and rock. May 21 at 8 p.m. $25 and $35. Popa Chubby, with Dana Fuchs, blues and pop. May 22 at 8 p.m. $30 and $40. Aztec Two-Step, folk. May 23 at 8 p.m. $35 and $50. Big Eyed Phish, tribute to the Dave Matthews Band. May 24 at 8 p.m. $34 and $49. The Country Jamboree, country. May 25 at 7:30 p.m. $30 and $45. Infinity Hall, 20 Greenwoods Road. (866) 666-6306; infinityhall.com. OLD LYME The Side Door Donald Harrison’s Berklee Quartet, jazz. May 22 at 7:30 p.m. $20. Benjamin Kopell Quartet, jazz. May 23 at 7:30 p.m. $25. Greg Piccolo Quartet, jazz. May 24 at 7:30 p.m. $15. The Side Door, 85 Lyme Street. (860) 434-0886; thesidedoorjazz.com. OLD SAYBROOK The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center Debra Mann, tribute to Joni Mitchell. May 23 at 8 p.m. $25. Zach Deputy, folk. May 24 at 8 p.m. $20. The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main Street. (877) 503-1286; thekate.org. Image GUILFORD “Wing and Wing, Indian Ocean” (2014), acrylic on canvas and board, is on view in “Sail Away,” an exhibition of paintings by Brechin Morgan, through June 15 at the Greene Art Gallery, 29 Whitfield Street. For further information: (203) 453-4162 or greeneartgallery.com . Credit Brechin Morgan RIDGEFIELD Ridgefield Playhouse The Wailers, reggae. May 18 at 8 p.m. $50. Ottmar Liebert and Luna Negra, jazz. May 23 at 8 p.m. $47.50. Blackmore’s Night, Renaissance and rock. May 24 at 8 p.m. $45. Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge Road. ridgefieldplayhouse.org; (203) 438-5795. STAMFORD Stamford Center for the Arts The Stamford Young Artists Philharmonic. May 18 at 4 p.m. $40 to $100. “Coppélia,” Stamford Ballet. May 23 at 7 p.m. $14 to $54.50. Stamford Center for the Arts, 61 Atlantic Street. (203) 325-4466; stamfordcenterforthearts.org. THOMASTON Thomaston Opera House “Slidin’ Into Spring,” Thomaston Jazz Orchestra. May 24 at 8 p.m. $19.50 and $23.50. Thomaston Opera House, 158 Main Street. landmarkcommuntytheatre.org; (860) 283-6250. UNCASVILLE Mohegan Sun Bruce Springsteen, rock. May 17 and 18 at 7:30 p.m. $98 and $118. Rod Stewart and Santana, rock and soul. May 25 at 7:30 p.m. $125 and $175. Mohegan Sun, 1 Mohegan Sun Boulevard. mohegansun.com; (888) 226-7711. WATERBURY Palace Theater of Connecticut Dana Lauren, jazz. May 23 at 7 and 9 p.m. $20.50. Palace Theater of Connecticut, 100 East Main Street. palacetheaterct.org; (203) 755-4700. Outdoors HAMDEN Sleeping Giant Park Introduction to Hiking in the Giant, guided walk. May 25 at 1:30 p.m. Free. Sleeping Giant Park, 200 Mount Carmel Avenue. (203) 789-7498; sgpa.org. HAMPTON The Edwin Way Teale Memorial Sanctuary, Connecticut Audubon Society Guided bird walk with sanctuary manager Andy Rzeznikiewicz. May 29 at 8 a.m. $5; members, free. The Edwin Way Teale Memorial Sanctuary, Connecticut Audubon Society, 93 Kenyon Road. (860) 928-4948; ctaudubon.org. POMFRET Connecticut Audubon Society at Pomfret Morning bird walks. Tuesdays at 8 a.m. through May 27. $5; members, free. Wednesday noon walks, guided hikes, with naturalist lessons. Through May 28. $3; members, free. Connecticut Audubon Society at Pomfret, 218 Day Road. (860) 928-4948; ctaudubon.org. STAMFORD Stamford Museum & Nature Center Spring on the Farm Festival Weekend, sheep shearing, live music, llama trekking and more. May 17 and 18, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. $5 to $10; members and children under 3, free. Stamford Museum & Nature Center, 39 Scofieldtown Road. (203) 322-1646; stamfordmuseum.org. STONINGTON New Haven Bird Club New Haven Bird Club Field Trip to the Barn Island Wildlife Management Area. Meet at the commuter lot at Exit 55 of I-95 to car-pool to the refuge. May 18 at 7 a.m. Free. newhavenbirdclub.org; (203) 389-6508. WETHERSFIELD Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum Revolutionary War Encampment, marching, musket firing, 18th-century open-fire cookery, music and more. May 24, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free. Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum, 211 Main Street. (860) 529-0612; webb-deane-stevens.org. Spoken Word BRIDGEPORT The Barnum Museum “Sneak Peek Back With Brinley: Circus in Miniature,” lecture. May 21 at 12:15 p.m. $3 suggested donation; children under 3, free. The Barnum Museum, 820 Main Street. barnum-museum.org; (203) 331-1104. NORWALK Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum “Mottos, Messages and Gem Lore in Victorian Jewelry,” lecture by Laura Johnson. May 21 at 11 a.m. $25 and $30. Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum, 295 West Avenue. lockwoodmathewsmansion.com; (203) 838-9799. RIDGEFIELD Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum “ Inspirations and Influences of 1960s Fashion,” lecture by Kate Irvin, Curator of Costumes and Textiles at Rhode Island School of Design. May 18, 3 to 4:30 p.m. Free with museum admission. $5 and $10. Members, K-12 teachers, active-service military families and children under 18, free. Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 258 Main Street. (203) 438-4519; aldrichart.org. Theater EAST HADDAM Goodspeed Opera House “Damn Yankees (Red Sox Version),” musical comedy by George Abbott, Douglass Wallop, Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. Through June 21. $27 to $75. Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main Street. (860) 873-8668; goodspeed.org. HARTFORD Hartford Stage “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” comedy by Christopher Durang. May 22 through June 22. $25 to $85. Hartford Stage, 50 Church Street. hartfordstage.org; (860) 527-5151. HARTFORD TheaterWorks Hartford “Love/Sick,” comedy by John Cariani. Through June 22. $15 to $65. TheaterWorks Hartford, 233 Pearl Street. theaterworkshartford.org; (860) 527-7838. MASHANTUCKET Fox Theater, Foxwoods Casino “Menopause the Musical,” by Jeanie Linders. May 24 through 26. $39 and $55. Fox Theater, Foxwoods Casino, 350 Trolley Line Boulevard. foxwoods.com; (800) 200-2882. NEW HAVEN Long Wharf Theater “The Last Five Years,” musical by Jason Robert Brown. Through June 1. $40 to $75. Long Wharf Theater, 222 Sargent Drive. (203) 787-4282; longwharf.org. NEW LONDON Flock Theater “Romeo and Juliet,” by Shakespeare. Through May 25. $10 and $15. Flock Theater, 10 Huntington Street. flocktheatre.org; (860) 443-3119. NEW MILFORD TheaterWorks “The Last Night of Ballyhoo,” drama by Alfred Uhry. Through May 24. $23. TheaterWorks, 5 Brookside Avenue. (860) 350-6863; theatreworks.us. SHERMAN Sherman Playhouse “See How They Run,” comedy by Philip King. Through May 18. $20. Sherman Playhouse, 5 Route 39 North. shermanplayers.org; (860) 354-3622. STRATFORD Square One Theater “Olive and the Bitter Herbs,” comedy by Charles Busch. Through May 31. $20. Square One Theater, 2422 Main Street. (203) 375-8778; squareonetheatre.com. WATERBURY Seven Angels Theater “Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?” Comedy by John Powers, James Quinn and Alaric Jans. Through June 15. $34 to $48.50. Seven Angels Theater, Plank Road, Hamilton Park. sevenangelstheatre.org; (203) 757-4676. WEST HARTFORD Playhouse on Park “The Trestle at Pop Lick Creek,” drama by Naomi Wallace. Through May 18. $18 and $20. Playhouse on Park, 244 Park Road. playhouseonpark.org; (860) 523-5900. Museums and Galleries COS COB Greenwich Historical Society “Enjoying the Country Life: Greenwich’s Great Estates.” Through Aug. 1. $8 and $10; members and children under 6, free. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Greenwich Historical Society, 39 Strickland Road. (203) 869-6899; greenwichhistory.org. Image ESSEX “Two Crows” (2012), a woodcut, is on view in the exhibition “James Reed: Works on Paper” through June 30 at Gallery19, 19A Main Street. For further information: (860) 581-8735 or gallery19essex.com . Credit John Heckman COS COB The Drawing Room “Ebb and Flow,” group show. Through July 28. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Drawing Room, 220 East Putnam Avenue. thedrawingroom.cc; (203) 661-3737. DARIEN Geary Gallery “Jim Grabowski: Inventing Abstracts.” Through May 31. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Geary Gallery, 576 Boston Post Road. gearygallery.com; (203) 655-6633. DARIEN The Darien Historical Society “Here Come the Brides: Grace and Elegance 1855-1950.” Through Aug. 31. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. The Darien Historical Society, 45 Old Kings Highway North. (203) 655-9233; darienhistorical.org. ESSEX Gallery19 “Nancy Lasar: Prints and Paintings” and “James Reed: Works on Paper.” Through June 30. Wednesdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Gallery19, 19A Main Street. (860) 581-8735; gallery19essex.com. FAIRFIELD Art/Place Gallery “Internal/External,” works by Diane Pollack and Dave Pressler. Through June 29. Thursdays through Saturdays, noon to 4 p.m.; Sundays, 2 to 5 p.m. Art/Place Gallery, 70 Sanford Street. (203) 292-8328; artplace.org. FAIRFIELD Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery, Fairfield University “Jason Peters: Refraction.” Through June 27. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery, Fairfield University, 1073 North Benson Road. fairfield.edu/walsh; (203) 254-4062. GREENWICH Bruce Museum Annual Outdoor Crafts Festival, ceramics, jewelry, wood, fiber, metalwork, leather, paper arts and glass. May 17 and 18, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. “Ed Clark: American Photojournalist.” Through June 1. “Pasture to Pond: Connecticut Impressionism.” Through June 21. “Tales of Two Cities: New York and Beijing.” Through Aug. 31. “Extreme Habitats: Into the Deep Sea.” Through Nov. 9. $6 and $7; members and children under 5, free. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive. (203) 869-0376; brucemuseum.org. GREENWICH Flinn Gallery “Other Worlds,” group show. Through June 18. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays to 8 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Flinn Gallery, 101 West Putnam Avenue. flinngallery.com; (203) 622-7961. GROTON Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art, University of Connecticut Groton Spring Exhibition, group show. Through June 7. $3 suggested donation. Members and students, free. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art, University of Connecticut, 1084 Shennecossett Road. averypointarts.uconn.edu; (860) 405-9052. GUILFORD Greene Art Gallery “Sail Away,” paintings by Brec Morgan. Through June 15. Sundays and Mondays, noon to 4 p.m.; Wednesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Greene Art Gallery, 29 Whitfield Street. (203) 453-4162; greeneartgallery.com. HAMDEN Arnold Bernhard Library “The Lady Sligo Letters: Westport House and Ireland’s Great Hunger,” more than 200 letters. Through April 30. Mondays through Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Arnold Bernhard Library, 275 Mount Carmel Avenue. (203) 582-8633; quinnipiac.edu. HARTFORD Real Art Ways “Allison Kaufman: Amplified Stages.” Through June 8. “Joell Baxter: Coverer.” Through June 27. $3 suggested donation; members and cinema patrons, free. Daily, 2 to 9 p.m.; and by appointment. Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor Street. realartways.org; (860) 232-1006. HARTFORD The Mark Twain House and Museum “At Your Service,” photographs and artifacts. Through Sept. 1. $6 to $18; members and children under 6, free. Mondays through Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Mark Twain House and Museum, 351 Farmington Avenue. marktwainhouse.org; (860) 247-0998. KENT Ober Gallery “May Day Parade,” paintings by Victor Skersis. Through June 15. Fridays and Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 4 p.m. Ober Gallery, 6 North Main Street. (860) 927-5030; obergallery.com. LITCHFIELD Wisdom House “Realms: Inner Light,” sculpture by David Colbert. Through Sept. 13. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wisdom House, 229 East Litchfield Road. (860) 567-3163; wisdomhouse.org. MYSTIC Maritime Art Gallery, at Mystic Seaport “Modern Marine Masters,” group show. Through June 15. Daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Maritime Art Gallery, at Mystic Seaport, 47 Greenmanville Avenue. (860) 572-5388; mysticseaport.org/gallery. MYSTIC Mystic Arts Center “The Blues,” group show. “The Elected Artists,” group show. Through May 31. Daily, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mystic Arts Center, 9 Water Street. mysticarts.org; (860) 536-7601. NEW BRITAIN New Britain Museum of American Art “Click! Clack! Ding! The American Typewriter.” Through June 1. “James Prosek: Wondrous Strange.” Through June 8. “NEW/NOW: Joe Fig.” Through July 20. “Science Fiction Pulp Art.” Through Oct. 6. $8 to $12; members and children under 12, free. Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. New Britain Museum of American Art, 56 Lexington Street. (860) 229-0257; nbmaa.org. NEW CANAAN Carriage Barn Arts Center “Absolut Kuba!” group show. Through June 1. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Carriage Barn Arts Center, 681 South Avenue. carriagebarn.org; (203) 972-1895. NEW CANAAN New Canaan Library “Figuratively Speaking in New York City,” paintings by Elinore Schnurr. Through May 18. Mondays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. New Canaan Library, 151 Main Street. newcanaanlibrary.org; (203) 594-5003. NEW CANAAN Silvermine Arts Center Galleries The 24th annual Juried Student Exhibition. Through May 21. Wednesdays through Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m.; and by appointment. Silvermine Arts Center Galleries, 1037 Silvermine Road. silvermineart.org; (203) 966-9700. NEW CANAAN The Philip Johnson Glass House “Fujiko Nakaya: Veil.” Through Nov. 30. Tours are $30 to $100. Thursdays through Mondays, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Philip Johnson Glass House, 199 Elm Street. philipjohnsonglasshouse.org; (203) 594-9884. NEW HAVEN City Gallery “Mixing Memory With Desire,” sculpture by Meg Bloom. Through June 1. Thursdays through Sundays, noon to 4 p.m.; and by appointment. City Gallery, 994 State Street. city-gallery.org; (203) 782-2489. NEW HAVEN DaSilva Gallery Paintings by Susan Nally. Through May 31. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. DaSilva Gallery, 897 Whalley Avenue. (203) 387-2539; dasilva-gallery.com. NEW HAVEN Giampietro Gallery “Will Lustenader: Approximating Continuity.” Through May 24. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and by appointment. Giampietro Gallery, 91 Orange Street. giampietrogallery.com; (203) 777-7707. NEW HAVEN Kehler Liddell Gallery “Oil and Water,” group show. Through May 25. Thursdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and by appointment. Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Avenue. (203) 389-9555; kehlerliddell.com. NEW HAVEN New Haven Museum “Nothing Is Set in Stone: The Lincoln Oak and the New Haven Green,” group show. Through Nov. 2. $2 to $4; children under 12, free. Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays, noon to 5.p.m.; first Sundays, 1 to 4 p.m. New Haven Museum, 114 Whitney Avenue. newhavenmuseum.org; (203) 562-4183. Image OLD SAYBROOK The National Theater’s production of the play “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” will be shown on May 22 at 7 p.m. at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main Street. Tickets are $15. For further information: (877) 503-1286 or thekate.org . Credit Brinkhoff/Moegenburg NEW HAVEN Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University “Tiny Titans: Dinosaur Eggs and Babies.” Through Aug. 30. $4 to $9; members and Yale ID holders, free. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, 170 Whitney Avenue. peabody.yale.edu; (203) 432-5050. NEW HAVEN Yale Center for British Art “Fame and Friendship: Pope, Roubiliac and the Portrait Bust in 18th-Century Britain.” Through May 19. “Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting.” Through June 1. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel Street. britishart.yale.edu; (203) 432-2800. NEW HAVEN Yale University Art Gallery “Byobu: The Grandeur of Japanese Screens.” Through July 6. “Five West Coast Artists: Bischoff, Diebenkorn, Neri, Park and Thiebaud.” Through July 13. “Jazz Lives: the Photographs of Lee Friedlander and Milt Hinton.” Through Sept. 7. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel Street. (203) 432-0600; artgallery.yale.edu. NEW HAVEN Yale-China Association “Paintings of Hong Kong Street Markets,” by Michael Sloan. Through June 30. Mondays through Fridays, 2 to 5 p.m., with appointment. Yale-China Association, 442 Temple Street. yalechina.org; (203) 432-0884. NEW LONDON Lyman Allyn Art Museum “Greasy Luck: The Whaling World of the Charles W. Morgan.” “Spirits of the Forest, People of the Herd: African Art in Two Worlds.” Through June 8. $5 to $10; members and children under 12, free. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Lyman Allyn Art Museum, 625 Williams Street. (860) 443-2545; lymanallyn.org. NORWALK Galerie Sono Paintings by Hunt Slonem. Through June 1. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Galerie Sono, 123 Washington Street. (203) 831-8332; sonogalerie.com. NORWALK The Leclerc Contemporary “Objective-Subjective,” group photography show. Through June 15. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Leclerc Contemporary, 19 Willard Road. (203) 826-8575; leclerccontemporary.com. OLD LYME Diane Birdsall Gallery “The Magnified Eye,” group show. Through June 15. Wednesdays through Saturdays, noon to 6 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 4 p.m. Diane Birdsall Gallery, 16 Lyme Street. dianebirdsallgallery.com; (860) 434-3209. OLD LYME Florence Griswold Museum “Lucien Abrams: A Cosmopolitan in Connecticut.” “Lyme Artists Abroad,” group show. Through June 1. $8 to $10; children under 12, free. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Florence Griswold Museum, 96 Lyme Street. flogris.org; (860) 434-5542. RIDGEFIELD Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum “Jack Whitten: Evolver.” Through July 6. “Standing in the Shadows of Love: The Aldrich Collection 1964-1974 Robert Indiana, Robert Morris, Ree Morton, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Smithson.” “Taylor Davis: If you steal a horse, and let him go, he’ll take you to the barn you stole him from.” “Jessica Jackson Hutchins: Unicorn.” “Michael Joo: Drift.” “Michelle Lopez: Angels, Flags, Bangs.” Through Sept. 21. $5 and $10. Members, K-12 teachers, active-service military families and children under 18, free. Tuesdays, free. Tuesdays through Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 258 Main Street. (203) 438-4519; aldrichart.org. RIDGEFIELD Seven Arts Gallery Works by Tom Bennett. Through June 15. Thursdays and Fridays, 4:30 to 7 p.m.; Saturdays, noon to 7 p.m.; Sundays noon to 4 p.m. Seven Arts Gallery, 54 Ethan Allen Highway. sevenartsgallery.com; (203) 278-3204. RIDGEFIELD Watershed Gallery Hans Fischer solo exhibition. Through June 1. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Thursdays and Fridays, noon to 7 p.m.; Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Watershed Gallery, 23 Governor Street. watershedgallery.com; (203) 438-4387. ROXBURY Minor Memorial Library “Ken Cornet: Art and Design, New Work on Paper.” Through June 7. Mondays, noon to 7 p.m.; Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, noon to 5 p.m.; Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Minor Memorial Library, 23 South Street. minormemoriallibrary.org; (860) 350-2181. STAMFORD Fernando Luis Alvarez Gallery “To Women Interrupted,” works by Fernando Luis Alvarez. Through June 22. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fernando Luis Alvarez Gallery, 96 Bedford Street. flalvarezgallery.com; (888) 861-6791. STAMFORD Franklin Street Works “The Sunken Living Room,” group show. Through May 25. Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, noon to 7 p.m. Franklin Street Works, 41 Franklin Street. (203) 595-5211; franklinstreetworks.org. STAMFORD Loft Artists Association “The Drawing on V,” group show. Through May 18. Saturdays and Sundays, 1 to 4:30 p.m. Loft Artists Association, 575 Pacific Street. (203) 247-2027; loftartists.com. STAMFORD P.M.W. Gallery “Suzanne Benton: From Paintings in Proust.” May 18 through June 29. By appointment only. P.M.W. Gallery, 530 Roxbury Road. (203) 322-5427; pmwgalleryplus.com. STAMFORD Stamford Art Association The 15th annual Vivian and Stanley Reed Marine Show. Through June 5. Thursdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 3 p.m. Stamford Art Association, 39 Franklin Street. stamfordartassociation.org; (203) 325-1139. STAMFORD Stamford Museum & Nature Center “Black - White - Color - Light: The Art of Rick Shaefer.” “The Sun as Art: NASA Photographs.” Through May 26. $5 to $10; members and children under 3, free. Mondays through Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Stamford Museum & Nature Center, 39 Scofieldtown Road. (203) 322-1646; stamfordmuseum.org. STORRS William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut “Ronnie Wood: Art and Music,” paintings, lithographs and pen-and-ink drawings. Through Aug. 10. “Stagecraft: 50 Years of Design at Hartford Stage.” May 23 through Aug. 10. Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 1 to 4:30 p.m. William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, 245 Glenbrook Road. (860) 486-4520; benton.uconn.edu. WASHINGTON Gunn Memorial Library and Museum “Over There: Washington and the Great War.” Through Jan. 18. Thursdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Gunn Memorial Library and Museum, 5 Wykeham Road. (860) 868-7756; gunnlibrary.org. WASHINGTON Stairwell Gallery, at Gunn Memorial Library and Museum “Arthur Carter: Studies for Construction.” Through June 21. Mondays and Fridays, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Stairwell Gallery, at Gunn Memorial Library and Museum, 5 Wykeham Road. gunnlibrary.org; (860) 868-7586. WASHINGTON DEPOT Washington Art Association “Art and Food,” group show. Through June 14. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Washington Art Association, 4 Bryan Memorial Plaza. (860) 868-2878; washingtonartassociation.org. WATERBURY Mattatuck Museum “Learn This! Why American Kids Went to School,” interactive exhibition. Through May 25. “Sphere of Influence,” Ira Barkoff and the Washington Art Association. “BroLab: Bevel and Rub.” “Stories and Journeys: Faith Ringgold and Aminah Robinson.” Through June 8. “Undefeated! The 1959 Croft High School Football Champions,” photographs and artifacts. Through July 12. “Fancy This: The Gilded Age of Fashion.” Through Oct. 19. $6 and $7; members and children under 16, free. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Mattatuck Museum, 144 West Main Street. mattatuckmuseum.org; (203) 753-0381. WESTPORT Westport Arts Center “Solos 2014,” group show. “Abstract Notes,” works by Smilow Cancer Hospital patients. Through June 1. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Westport Arts Center, 51 Riverside Avenue. westportartscenter.org; (203) 222-7070. WILTON Wilton Historical Society “Changing Times — Hand Tools Before the Industrial Revolution: Connecticut Tools of the Trades From the Walter R. T. Smith Collection.” Through Oct. 4. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wilton Historical Society, 224 Danbury Road. wiltonhistorical.org; (203) 762-7257. WINDSOR Windsor Art Center “Performance Scripts: The Babbletive and Scribbletive Arts by Edmond Chibeau.” Through June 21. Thursdays, 6 to 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Windsor Art Center, 40 Mechanic Street. windsorartcenter.org; (860) 688-2528. | The arts;Connecticut |
ny0138716 | [
"business",
"yourmoney"
] | 2008/05/25 | When the ‘I’ Word Replaces the ‘R’ Word | AT the end of last year, when conventional wisdom said the economy was headed for recession — and a severe one at that —a fixed-income strategy was simple: just shift into the lowest-risk investments you could find. The flood of money that poured into ultrasafe Treasury bonds sent the average long-term government bond fund soaring 10.6 percent between Oct. 9, 2007, near the peak of the credit crisis, and March 10 of this year. But in March, there was a noticeable shift in thinking. After the stock market began to stabilize — a move that, in past economic downturns, has often foreshadowed a rebound in business activity — investors started to contemplate the possibility that the economy, though still sluggish, might not be in as much trouble as they had once feared. Now, bond investors face some hard choices. As the most dire recession fears have started to abate, the bond market is beginning to fret about an equally dangerous development for its future: the growing threat of inflation. Soaring crude oil prices have added to these fears. Oil passed $135 a barrel for the first time last week. And the so-called core Producer Price Index, a measure of wholesale prices excluding volatile food and energy prices, is now growing at its fastest rate in nearly two decades, the Labor Department reported last week. Earlier this month, before this new batch of economic data, a survey by Merrill Lynch already found that a majority of domestic fund managers feared that inflation would accelerate in the coming 12 months. “If growth is not the issue, then inflation has got to be the thing to worry about — that’s been the shift in thinking,” said Mario D. DeRose, fixed-income strategist at Edward Jones, the brokerage firm based in St. Louis. Historically, fixed-income investments have done terribly in times of high inflation, because inflation eats away a large portion of bond returns. From 1926 to 2007, long-term government bonds returned 5.5 percent a year, on average, according to Ibbotson Associates. But in years when inflation rose at an annual rate of more than 4 percent, long bonds gained just 2.8 percent. Making matters worse, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities — a natural defense against inflation — have become extremely expensive in recent months, as investors have flooded into all types of Treasuries, aiming to hide from a weak economy. Although the value of TIPS is adjusted to reflect accelerating consumer inflation, many bond market strategists are wary of putting more money into them at the moment. “I would consider TIPS to be a fairly expensive form of insurance against inflation right now,” said George Strickland, portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management in Santa Fe, N.M. So what should bond investors do? For starters, they need to take a “balanced approach,” Mr. DeRose said. While inflationary fears are building, he said that investors must consider the possibility that these fears — much like worries over a severe recession — could be wrong, or at least overstated. So don’t completely overhaul your fixed-income portfolio to safeguard against rampant inflation, Mr. DeRose said. Still, this is a time for investors “to start taking selective risk,” said Carl P. Kaufman, manager of the Osterweis Strategic Income fund. “You’re not being paid to stay on the sidelines,” he said. For starters, Mr. Kaufman said, high-quality corporate bonds are much more attractively priced than government debt. And if rising inflation reflects not only soaring commodity prices, but also a strengthening economy, demand for corporate bonds may hold up even if inflation fears persist. Moreover, even though the economy has weakened, “the balance sheet of corporate America is still in very, very good shape,” said Christopher T. Vincent, head of the fixed-income group at William Blair & Company, the asset management firm headquartered in Chicago. Looking at corporate bonds, Mr. Vincent recommends that investors stick with intermediate-term securities maturing in 5 to 10 years, rather than locking money away for 20 to 30 years. So far, this bet has been paying off. From March 11 through Thursday, the average intermediate-term corporate bond fund returned 0.3 percent, while long-term government bond funds were down 2.5 percent, according to Morningstar. Even bigger values can be found in the municipal market, said Marilyn Cohen, chief executive of Envision Capital Management, a bond manager in Los Angeles. Tax-free municipal bonds took a hit amid recent credit fears, thanks to troubles that bond insurers ran into recently. As a result, municipal bonds, which traditionally yield 75 to 80 percent of what equivalent Treasuries pay out, are close to Treasury yields on a before-tax basis. Finally, if you are really concerned about inflation, instead of buying high-priced TIPS, consider a small allocation to bonds issued by foreign countries that benefit from rising commodity prices, said James D. Peterson, vice president of the Schwab Center for Financial Research in San Francisco. The simplest and safest way to do that, he said, is to invest in a diversified bond fund whose managers invest a portion of their assets in foreign bonds. A good example, Mr. Peterson said, is the Loomis Sayles Bond fund. According to Morningstar, this “multisector” bond fund held more than 10 percent of its assets in foreign bonds, with most of the remainder in domestic corporate securities. Investors might also consider a small position in a fund devoted to emerging-markets debt, because many of these markets are direct beneficiaries of rising oil and natural-resource prices. If you do that, though, play it safe. Move no more than about 5 percent of your portfolio into such funds, Mr. Peterson said. After all, this is your bond portfolio. | Economic Conditions and Trends;Stocks and Bonds;Recession and Depression;Prices (Fares Fees and Rates);Finances;Personal Finances |
ny0187816 | [
"science"
] | 2009/04/21 | Aerodynamics on Land: Aiming for 800 M.P.H. | SPANAWAY, Wash. — When Ed Shadle was growing up, you could buy a junker for a couple hundred dollars, pound out the dents, drop a big engine in it, paint it candy apple red, take it to the outskirts of town and race from stoplight to stoplight until the cops told you to go home. Mr. Shadle, a retired IBM field engineer, is 67 now, and he is still racing. So a bit over 10 years ago, he and his good friend Keith Zanghi bought a junker in Maine , pounded out the dents, customized the exterior, dropped a big engine in it and painted it red. Except this junker was a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. The real thing. The single-engine Mach 2.2 interceptor that ruled the skies in the 1950s and 1960s. “In a post-9/11 world we probably wouldn’t have been able to get one,” Mr. Shadle acknowledged. But in 1999 they drove this one away for $25,000. And next year — on July 4, perhaps — they intend to take the North American Eagle to the hardpan desert at Black Rock, Nev., and run it through a measured mile to set a new land speed record of about 800 miles per hour, 45 miles per hour faster than the speed of sound. Mr. Shadle is the driver. The Eagle has stiff competition. Late last year, Richard Noble and Andy Green of Britain , who broke the sound barrier on their way to setting the current record of 763 miles per hour in 1997, announced the beginning of Bloodhound, a new three-year project to build a jet-and-rocket car capable of 1,000 miles per hour. Bloodhound enjoys private-sector sponsorship, university technical support and the endorsement and some education financing from the British government. The Eagle, on the other hand, has about 44 volunteers giving up weekends and vacations to build the ultimate hot rod. Angels have contributed vitally important hardware and expertise to Eagle, but like the rest of the team, they do it mostly for fun. Mr. Zanghi said he and Mr. Shadle had bankrolled Eagle for about $250,000 over the last decade with one thought in mind: “What we want,” Mr. Shadle said, with a slow drawl and a near-grin straight from central casting, “is to go fast.” That was the idea on a recent wintry Saturday at Spanaway Airport, a small, privately owned landing strip a few miles south of Tacoma , Wash. The Eagle arrived around 10 a.m. in its customized tractor-trailer, and within an hour sat resplendent on the tarmac. From nose to tail, it is 56 feet long, weighs 13,000 pounds and is powered by a single General Electric LM1500 gas turbine, better known as a J79 when it flew in F-104s. The engine is a loaner from S&S Turbine Services, a Canadian firm that rebuilds J79s for repressurizing natural gas wells. The current engine has been souped up to generate 42,500 horsepower, but the one Eagle will get from S&S for the record run will top out near 50,000 horsepower. The rules are simple. Clock the racer through a measured mile, turn around and do it again, then average the two speeds. Mr. Shadle said Eagle would need 11 miles for each run: a mile to warm up to 250 miles per hour; four miles to light off the afterburner and get up to record speed; a mile in the speed trap; and five miles to stop. The vehicle must have at least four wheels — two of them steerable — and be back at the original start line within 60 minutes. And that’s it. “You race Formula One or Nascar , the rule books are as thick as the Bible,” Mr. Shadle said. “For this, the rule book is a half-page long.” But consider the challenges. Rubber tires turn to molten licorice at anything above 350 miles per hour, so the Eagle uses custom-built, single-billet aluminum alloy wheels, grooved for traction on soft surfaces. They will not work on asphalt or concrete. The brakes are special alloy magnets that generate 4,700 brake horsepower as the magnetized drum approaches the moving aluminum wheel, slowing it gradually without ever locking up. The big imponderable is the sound barrier. In the sky, the shock wave simply dissipates. But on land, it bounces off the ground and can flip a racer into the air. Since each car is unique, the problem has to be solved differently every time. Computer modeling is important — but only up to a point. Mr. Noble of the Bloodhound project is well aware of the challenge. “We’ve done it once, and now we have to do it again,” he said in a telephone interview. “The forces are huge — 15 tons were pressing downward on the front of the vehicle when we set the record. You spend an enormous amount of time on the aerodynamics.” There is no way that cozy Spanaway Airport, rimmed by evergreens and bathed in an icy drizzle, would accommodate an Eagle test run. In its fastest trial to date, Mr. Shadle reached 400 miles per hour last year at El Mirage dry lake bed in Southern California ’s Mojave Desert and almost ran out of track, and early this summer he expects to run at more than 500 miles per hour at Edwards Air Force Base. But for the record run, Black Rock, in Nevada , where winter rains puddle on a clay surface and dry in summer to a level hardpan, is the surface of choice. The dry clay is kind to aluminum wheels and will absorb a significant part of the supersonic shock wave. And there is plenty of room. The Spanaway visit, Mr. Zanghi explained, was a bench test to prepare for Edwards. The team needed to check recent fixes to Eagle’s electrical system, calibrate the turbine-powered “start cart” that gets Eagle’s engine up to idle speed and try out new pyrotechnics to deploy the drogue and deceleration parachutes. The chutes failed at El Mirage (the brakes did not), so the team has switched to air bag detonators from derelict cars — about $25 apiece at junkyards. Eagle sat at the end of Spanaway’s runway, about 50 yards from a line of fir trees separating the airport from the rest of the neighborhood. Team members ran a cable from Eagle’s arresting hook to the trees, and moored the racer to the biggest trunk — about 30 inches in diameter. When the engine gets up to speed, the big tree shakes like a rosebush in a hurricane. It has withstood this insult before, even though Eagle scorched the entire tree line last year, turning it brown for months. Mr. Zanghi explained all this as preparations unfolded. Wires ran from the Eagle to a custom-made van, where engineers monitored the electrical sequences. The start cart sat on the infield next to the tarmac, joined to Eagle by its air hose. The start cart gets Eagle’s engine up to about 30 percent power. Then Mr. Shadle pushes the throttle to 100 percent. Without the cable holding it to a tree and with enough running room, the racer could reach perhaps 400 miles per hour in this configuration. To go any faster, Mr. Shadle would need to light the afterburner. Mr. Zanghi is 54, a shortish, low-key man with a buzz cut and spectacles who caught racing fever as a 12-year-old when he saw Craig Breedlove’s Spirit of America, then the world land speed record-holder, on display in a Chevy showroom in Seattle . Mr. Zanghi started crewing for dragsters and funny cars after high school and even went to college for a while, but dropped out to start his own business building specialty trailers for heavy equipment. He met Mr. Shadle in the mid-1990s when he volunteered to work on a land-speed racer team. Mr. Shadle was a part owner. It was a discouraging moment. The Noble team, with Andy Green driving, had just gone supersonic with their racer, ThrustSSC, at Black Rock, and “the car we were working on became instantly obsolete,” Mr. Shadle recalled. “I told Keith, I want my money back, and we’ll just build our own car. We shook hands on it.” Mr. Shadle at that point had been racing for more than 50 years, starting with horses, then Soap Box Derby cars, hot rods, motorcycles, airplanes and anything else he could get his hands on. His wife made him quit motorcycles in the 1970s, but he still has an Ossa Stiletto in the garage. The partners thought an F-104 might do for the land speed record, and Mr. Zanghi became convinced after spending an afternoon gazing at one hanging from the rafters at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington , D.C. If you didn’t have enough money to build a racer from scratch, why not use someone else’s design? It took Mr. Shadle more than a year to find the one in Maine. The Air Force sold it to a Los Angeles company to use as a template for spare parts, and it was later junked. The engine had been removed, half the plates were ripped off and the rest were decorated with graffiti and bird droppings. “It was about two months from being turned into beer cans,” Mr. Zanghi recalled. The Eagle team clipped the F-104’s wings and ailerons, welded new plates, stitched the fuselage together with thousands of new rivets and hustled sponsors at air and auto shows. Mr. Shadle and Mr. Zanghi did not have the money to buy a J79 outright, but S&S Turbines leased one to them for almost nothing. Steve Green, a Canadian specialty machinist, made the team a set of aluminum wheels, and Jerry Lamb, an inventor, designed the brakes. Ed Drumheller, an engineer who for decades was a participant in the nation’s manned space programs, provided high-speed parachutes. Mr. Drumheller was at Spanaway, along with two dozen team members and an equal number of relatives, friends and passers-by. With Eagle ready to go, Mr. Shadle gathered everyone for a safety briefing. Nobody stands behind the racer, everybody wears earplugs, and “there will be no hats, no pens, no glasses,” he said. “If your glasses go in there,” he added, pointing at one of Eagle’s cavernous turbine intakes, “your head will follow.” He paused and smiled: “Let’s go make some noise.” And, after a few false starts, they did. The earth shook, trees wobbled, ears protested and the heat from a jet engine burning 80 gallons of kerosene per minute briefly turned a dreary Spanaway morning into springtime. And after the engine shut down, the chutes spit flawlessly from their containers with an anticlimactic “kapop.” Cheers and hugs all around. Mr. Shadle opened a soda and smiled: “We’re going to Edwards,” he said. | Car Racing;Engineering;Records and Achievements;Black Rock Desert |
ny0054050 | [
"us"
] | 2014/07/09 | Departure of Official Is Sought by Teachers | The long partnership between Democrats and teachers’ unions has frayed in recent years as the Obama administration has pursued policies that many teachers oppose, including performance ratings that link student test scores to evaluations and decisions about promotion or firing. But the dissatisfaction hit a new level late last week when the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, with almost three million members, passed a resolution at its convention in Denver calling for the resignation of the secretary of education, Arne Duncan. Dennis Van Roekel, the departing president of the union, said the resolution passed in a very close vote among the 7,500 delegates. Although delegates have presented similar resolutions in the past, this is the first time the measure has passed. “I really do believe this is about something much bigger than Arne himself,” Mr. Van Roekel said. He said “frustration and anger” has mounted at the use of high-stakes tests in teacher evaluations. Mr. Van Roekel added that teachers were angered by Mr. Duncan’s supportive response last month to a judge’s ruling in California that teacher tenure laws deprived students of their right to an education under the State Constitution and violated their civil rights. Analysts of labor politics said the resolution represented a watershed between the Democratic Party and teachers’ unions. “Who would have predicted 10 years ago that a Democratic administration would pursue an agenda and teacher policies that are so vehemently opposed by the union?” said Patrick McGuinn, an associate professor of political science at Drew University. “It’s a Nixon-goes-to-China kind of moment.” Mr. Duncan briefly answered questions about the resolution during a media briefing at which he released the administration’s proposal to assign more effective and experienced teachers to low-income schools. “I always try to stay out of local union politics and I think most teachers do, too,” he said, adding that the administration “had a very good working relationship with the N.E.A. in the past.” He said he looked forward to working with the association’s new president, Lily Eskelsen García. Since the National Education Association began endorsing presidential candidates with Jimmy Carter in 1976, the group has always backed Democrats. But at the state level, both the N.E.A. and the American Federation of Teachers, the country’s second-largest teachers’ union, have contributed to the campaigns of Republican lawmakers — even those considered quite conservative — who opposed tenure changes or test-based teacher evaluations. Ms. Eskelsen Garcia has indicated her interest in continuing to reach out to Republicans. She has also spoken out against using standardized testing to evaluate teachers. Teachers who oppose the administration’s proposals said Democrats had taken them for granted for too long. “We’re not getting anything for it politically,” said Anthony Cody, a founder of the Network for Public Education, a political action group, who retired after 24 years as a teacher and coach. The American Federation of Teachers meets for its annual convention in Los Angeles starting Friday. Local affiliates submit resolutions before the convention, and none currently call for Mr. Duncan’s resignation. The group’s president, Randi Weingarten, said in an email that “there’s plenty of opportunity for members to amend resolutions, so you never know what will happen on the floor.” Democrats who embrace the changes pushed by the Obama administration said the resolution showed the waning influence of the teachers’ union. “The Democratic Party used to outsource its education policy to the N.E.A.,” said Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, an advocacy group that supports test-based evaluations and changes to tenure. “The Duncan vote,” Mr. Williams said, “made them look like the lunatic fringe. It’s not exactly the way you convince the public that you’ve got a good, credible idea.” | Teachers;Labor Unions;National Education Assn;Arne Duncan;Tests;K-12 Education;Performance Evaluations;Denver;US Department of Education |
ny0289298 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2016/01/05 | In Cohen and I.B.M. Insider Trading Cases, Challenges for the S.E.C. | The government files insider trading charges with much fanfare, declaring that the traders will be brought to justice and investors protected. But it is often years before the cases ever reach a courtroom, and a change in the law in December 2014 is making it more difficult for the Securities and Exchange Commission to prove violations in two cases that will start in the new year. In the first case, filed in 2013, the S.E.C. brought an administrative charge against Steven A. Cohen over his failure to supervise two employees accused of engaging in insider trading at his hedge fund firm, SAC Capital Advisors. This came after the firm settled criminal charges by paying a $1.2 billion penalty and withdrawing from the management of outside money, leading to its change to a family office operating under the name Point72 Asset Management. The S.E.C. wants to bar Mr. Cohen from acting as an investment adviser for failing to properly supervise Mathew Martoma and Michael Steinberg, portfolio managers at SAC who were indicted on charges of trading on nonpublic information on behalf of the firm. Juries convicted both men in separate trials, with Mr. Martoma’s case involving what the government asserted was the largest amount ever involved in insider trading, totaling nearly $275 million in gains and losses avoided. The administrative proceeding was postponed until the criminal cases were wrapped up. The second case, filed in 2014, involved civil insider trading charges against Daryl M. Payton and Benjamin Durant III, who received information about I.B.M.’s plan to acquire SPSS indirectly from one of the lawyers working on the deal. That case was also halted until resolution of a parallel criminal case in which four defendants, including Mr. Payton, had originally pleaded guilty while Mr. Durant planned to go to trial on the charges. Image The S.E.C. brought an administrative charge against Steven A. Cohen over his failure to supervise two employees accused of engaging in insider trading at his hedge fund firm. Credit Justin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency Both cases looked like near-certain victories for the S.E.C. until the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan overturned the insider trading convictions of two hedge fund managers in United States v. Newman . That December 2014 decision made it harder to prove a case involving tipping inside information between friends because the government must meet a higher standard to establish the requisite relationship between the source and the recipient, called the tippee. No longer will mere friendship suffice to show that a benefit flowed from passing the information. The appeals court held that the government must offer proof of “a meaningfully close personal relationship that generates an exchange that is objective, consequential and represents at least a potential gain of a pecuniary or similarly valuable nature” between the tipper and tippee. The Supreme Court turned down the Justice Department’s request to review the lower court’s decision, leading prosecutors to dismiss charges against a number of defendants, including Mr. Steinberg. The S.E.C. also dismissed its civil insider trading case against Mr. Steinberg, undercutting one of the pillars on which it built its case against Mr. Cohen because the conduct could no longer be considered illegal. The S.E.C. plans to amend its charge against Mr. Cohen on Monday to eliminate the references to this trading, limiting the failure-to-supervise claim to Mr. Martoma’s transactions. Yet the agency still wants to use Mr. Steinberg’s trading to prove its charge. In a filing with the administrative judge shortly before Christmas, the S.E.C. said it still intended to offer evidence of Mr. Cohen’s supervision of Mr. Steinberg to show his “liability for failing to supervise Martoma and the need for appropriate relief,” which Mr. Cohen’s lawyer are sure to oppose. The S.E.C.’s Rules of Practice require that irrelevant evidence be excluded from the administrative proceeding. Conduct that is not illegal would seem to be extraneous to proving a supervisor fell short in his oversight responsibilities. The agency may argue that even if Mr. Steinberg’s trading was not illegal, it was still a “red flag” when he used confidential information in placing profitable trades, something that Mr. Cohen should have monitored more carefully. That is a bit of a stretch because it would allow evidence of any questionable transaction to be used to show Mr. Cohen’s negligence in not supervising employees, even if the behavior was not illegal. Without evidence of Mr. Steinberg’s purchases, it may be difficult for the S.E.C. to establish that Mr. Cohen ignored indications of impropriety at SAC Capital when the only instance of insider trading is by Mr. Martoma – one red flag may not be enough to prove a failure to supervise. Preet Bharara’s Key Insider Trading Cases The United States attorney in Manhattan oversaw a sweeping crackdown on insider trading in the hedge fund industry, but a federal appeals court upended the campaign. The trial on the administrative charge is scheduled to begin on April 11. Unless there is a negotiated settlement of the charge, one avenue open to Mr. Cohen is to file a constitutional challenge to the appointment of the S.E.C.’s in-house judges. A number of defendants in other cases have filed such challenges, and district court judges in Atlanta and Manhattan halted administrative proceedings because the judges were not properly appointed. So the S.E.C. faces the prospect that its case against Mr. Cohen could be delayed even further if he chooses to pursue this option. The civil case against Mr. Payton and Mr. Durant is likely to be the first one in which the full impact of the decision in the Newman case will be tested in court. Shortly after that opinion came out, a district court judge dismissed criminal charges against the defendants who traded and tipped on the SPSS acquisition, including those who pleaded guilty. But the S.E.C. persisted in pursuing the lawsuit, unlike its decision to dismiss the civil case against Mr. Steinberg. Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Federal District Court for the Southern District in Manhattan, who is presiding over the S.E.C. case that is set to start on Feb. 16, issued an opinion last week explaining that a jury had to decide whether the relationship between the tipper and the initial tippee, who were roommates in Manhattan, was close enough to find a benefit was conferred in exchange for the information. The roommates previously settled with the S.E.C. , but their relationship is the key to proving whether Mr. Payton and Mr. Durant should have known a benefit was passed to the tipper in exchange for the information about I.B.M.’s plan to acquire SPSS that they eventually traded on. The evidence the jury will consider about their relationship includes “that they together ate dinner, drank beers, played video games, watched TV, used drugs and discussed their respective days, current events and personal details of their lives.” It will be interesting to see whether the daily life of young Manhattan professionals will be sufficient to prove a “meaningfully close personal relationship.” Because this is a civil case, the losing side is almost certain to appeal, unlike a criminal prosecution in which a “not guilty” verdict would bring the case to a close. Judge Rakoff’s instructions on the elements of a violation and the strength of the S.E.C.’s evidence are sure to be crucial issues on any appeal, giving the appeals court a chance to explore further what kind of relationship is sufficient to prove a violation for tipping inside information. For the S.E.C., the cases provide a test for how much of an impact the decision in the Newman case has for proving insider trading. What started with great promise may turn out to be much more troublesome. | Insider trading;SEC;Steven A Cohen;Michael Saren Steinberg;SAC Capital Advisors;Point72 Asset Management;IBM;Jed S Rakoff |
ny0141197 | [
"us"
] | 2008/11/04 | Few Clues in Killing of 5 in California | LONG BEACH, Calif. — Five people who were found shot to death in a homeless encampment near a highway overpass may have been taken by surprise, a Long Beach police commander said Monday. “Maybe they were sleeping when someone came upon them,” Cmdr. Laura Farinelli said. “There’s a lot of freeway traffic noise there, and it would have been hard to hear someone approaching or even gunshots.” The Los Angeles County coroner has released the names of two of the victims, Lorenzo Perez Villicana, 46, and Vanessa Malaepule, 35, both Long Beach residents. They and three other victims — two men and a woman — were found clustered in the bushes under a tarpaulin. The authorities were tipped off by someone calling from a pay phone at 8:30 Sunday morning. The anonymous caller reported several dead people near Santa Fe Avenue and Wardlow Road near Interstate 405, Commander Farinelli said. None of the five people were related, Commander Farinelli said. She speculated that the encampment might have been occupied for a substantial period because of all the personal items found there. Investigators were searching other homeless encampments and shelters in the area for information about the victims and possible suspects. No arrests have been made. Commander Farinelli said multiple killings were rare in Long Beach, but Andy Bales of the Los Angeles Union Rescue Mission said violence against and among homeless people had long been a problem. Mr. Bales mentioned the case of John R. McGraham, a former hotel bellman who was doused with gasoline and burned alive in Los Angeles three weeks ago. No arrests have been made in that case either. “I often have policemen bringing me pictures of homeless people who have been beaten to death and asking me information about them,” Mr. Bales said. “But whoever did this sounds like they had a car and they took off from the scene. It appears the people who did this were not homeless.” Mr. Bales was referring to a witness’s account published in The Los Angeles Times that quoted a resident in a nearby apartment complex who heard a man shouting at someone to get into a car around the time of the killings. Commander Farinelli would not confirm that account. Joel John Roberts of People Assisting the Homeless, a Los Angeles advocacy organization, said the killings were a reminder of the vulnerability of the homeless. Mr. Roberts said that increasing police protection was not as effective as moving Southern California’s tens of thousands of homeless people off the streets and into housing. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, violence against homeless people increased from 1999 to 2006, even as overall violence decreased nationally. The coalition reported 142 attacks against homeless people in 2006, compared with about 60 in 1999. Most of the attackers were 25 or younger and about 40 percent were juveniles, the coalition said. | Murders and Attempted Murders;Homeless Persons;Long Beach (Calif) |
ny0188933 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2009/05/03 | Fewer Spots for Pit Bulls and Other Big Dogs In New York Public Housing | For the record, Dobie is perfectly welcome to make his home in one of New York City’s 178,000 public housing apartments, as he has for years. But others of his kind are not. Dobie is a miniature pinscher, all 10 pounds of him. Margarita Rivera, 61, took Dobie on a walk Saturday morning around the La Guardia Houses on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The day before, a new pet policy took effect for public housing residents : full-breed or mixed-breed pit bulls, Rottweilers and Doberman pinschers are banned, as are any dogs expected to weigh more than 25 pounds when fully grown. The ban applies to new pets only. Tenants who currently own a pit bull, Rottweiler or Doberman pinscher, or a dog that is more than 25 pounds, are allowed to keep the pet as long as they had previously registered it with the city’s public housing agency, the New York City Housing Authority. Ms. Rivera does not mind the ban. She registered Dobie, her daughter’s dog, with the management about eight years ago, and said the dog had never bitten any of her neighbors, though such a bite would be relatively harmless, since Dobie had most of his teeth removed when he was neutered. “I think it’s great,” she said of the ban. “In my building there’s a pit bull. He looks at Dobie like he wants to eat him.” The new policy has stirred passions among dog owners and others at some of the city’s 340 public housing complexes. Some residents say the ban is a kind of dog profiling that unfairly singles out three entire breeds and treats owners of those dogs as potential problem tenants. Others support the ban, saying that other tenants fail to control big dogs both inside and outside the buildings and encourage aggressive behavior in their pets. In numerous public housing developments where a gang culture predominates, an aggressive dog can be a kind of status symbol, particularly among youths who view their pet as a means of protection or intimidation. The three banned breeds are responsible for a number of vicious attacks around the country and the New York region. Last month, a 5-year-old Dutchess County boy was attacked by a pit bull and required 1,000 stitches. Last year, a police officer shot and killed a stray pit bull in the Bronx after it attacked the officer and a pregnant woman selling newspapers. And in June 1997 at a Brooklyn public housing complex, two pit bulls mauled a 12-year-old girl, who survived the attack. At the La Guardia Houses on Saturday, Lilliana Madonia, 17, said Coco, a pit bull and German shepherd mix, looks more intimidating than she really is. Coco is a service dog for Ms. Madonia’s mother, who is in a wheelchair. “She’s the most loving thing,” said Ms. Madonia, who was taking Coco on her morning walk. “Sometimes she thinks she’s a cat.” A man tried to walk by Ms. Madonia at about that moment, and Coco barked. Then she led Ms. Madonia on a chase — not after the man, but after a squirrel off in the distance. Ms. Madonia said the Housing Authority was unfairly taking aim at pit bulls like Coco. “They shouldn’t ban them,” she said. “Dogs will be dogs. It depends on how they’re brought up and trained.” Howard Marder, a spokesman for the Housing Authority, said in a statement that the policy was modified “to address the concerns repeatedly raised by our residents and resident leadership” and does not affect “those individuals who have demonstrated responsible ownership of dogs and who have registered their dogs.” Mr. Marder said the decision to ban the three breeds was based on the agency’s research and experience, as well as information gathered from other public housing authorities around the country about their pet policies. Relations between the agency and dogs have long been difficult. When the Harlem River Houses opened in 1937, dogs were barred from the premises. By the 1960s, tenants in all public housing complexes were prohibited from owning dogs or cats, except guide dogs for the blind, because of concerns about cleanliness, noise and the danger of dog bites . “It’s not that we aren’t sympathetic,” Gerald J. Carey, the agency’s general manager, told a reporter for The New York Times in 1964, after an effort to rescind the pet ban had failed in Albany. “But we have to consider the safety and comfort of the majority of our tenants, instead of the wishes of a few.” In 1994, managers responding to complaints about aggressive dogs mailed notices to all tenants urging them to get rid of their dogs, or risk losing the roof over their heads. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, the proud owner of Goalie, a yellow Labrador , took exception, and the notices were withdrawn. It was not until 1998 that Congress gave public housing residents nationwide a federal right to own pets. Since 2002, the Housing Authority has allowed tenants to have either a cat or a dog as long the pet is registered with the agency. | Dogs;Housing and Real Estate;New York City |
ny0293048 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2016/06/16 | Employee of Panama Papers Law Firm, Mossack Fonseca, Is Arrested in Switzerland | GENEVA — An employee of the law firm at the center of the leaks of the Panama Papers , which have revealed offshore wealth held in secretive accounts worldwide, has been arrested here on charges of data theft, one of the employee’s lawyers, Romain Jordan, said on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear what connection, if any, the person might have had with the Panama Papers, a trove of 11.5 million documents from a Panama-based law firm, Mossack Fonseca . A consortium of news organizations began publishing findings from the documents — some dating to the 1970s — in April, and the disclosures have prompted investigations of politicians and other prominent figures around the world. On Wednesday, the Swiss newspaper Le Temps reported that an information technology employee in the Geneva office of Mossack Fonseca had been arrested on suspicion of stealing confidential information. Computer equipment was seized as part of the inquiry, Le Temps reported. Asked about the report, a spokesman for Claudio Mascotto, the chief prosecutor in Geneva, declined to comment. The spokesman said only that the office had opened a criminal investigation based on a complaint filed by Mossack Fonseca. The employee’s name was not made public, and the lawyer did not give his client’s name or provide any detail about him. Le Temps quoted a lawyer for Mossack Fonseca, Thierry Ulmann, as saying: “What we know is that the data were removed from his computer in Geneva and that this I.T. worker had full access privileges.” The law firm filed a complaint against the worker for illegal removal of data and for violating the confidentiality of the law firm, Mr. Ulmann told Le Temps. Mr. Ulmann could not be reached for comment on Wednesday evening. Mr. Jordan, reached by phone, confirmed that his client had been charged with data theft but said only, “I can confirm that my client is denying all the charges made against him.” The Panama Papers leaks originated with an anonymous source who approached the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. Daunted by the volume of data involved, the newspaper turned for help to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a nonprofit group in Washington that has coordinated several global projects on financial data leaks. The New York Times, which was not initially part of the consortium but now has access to the documents, reported this month that Mossack Fonseca had at least 2,400 clients over the past decade who were based in the United States, and that it had set up at least 2,800 companies on their behalf in the British Virgin Islands, Panama, the Seychelles and other jurisdictions that help individuals or corporations to hide wealth. In a statement last month, under the pseudonym John Doe, the source offered to come forward if offered immunity from prosecution. Bastian Obermayer, an investigative reporter at Süddeutsche Zeitung who received the original leak on the Panama Papers, said on Wednesday that the man arrested in Geneva was not his source who leaked the documents, but left open the possibility that there might be more than one person behind the leaks. In a phone interview, Mr. Obermayer said of the man arrested in Geneva, “We can say that it is not the person that we have been in contact with,” a statement he also made on Twitter . It remains possible, Mr. Obermayer said, that the arrested man might have been involved in procuring the information — and that several people might have been involved in securing the information that was ultimately released. But Mr. Obermayer emphasized that this was speculation. He said that he only had contact with a single source and that he was confident that that source had not been arrested. “There is still a theoretical possibility that John Doe is many persons, and one of them might be this person,” Mr. Obermayer said. Marina Walker Guevara , the deputy director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, said on Wednesday that she could not comment on the arrest in Geneva. | Mossack Fonseca;Tax shelter;Panama;Panama Papers;Geneva;International Consortium of Investigative Journalists;Suddeutsche Zeitung;Tax Evasion |
ny0091978 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2015/08/29 | Now Playing Around the World, the ‘Trump Show’ | It is no secret that Donald J. Trump, who has dominated the race for the Republican presidential nomination for the past month, has become a reviled figure in Latin America for his inflammatory remarks about Hispanic immigrants. His statements have won him plaudits from nativists at home, but his showy candidacy has not gone unnoticed in other parts of the global village. In France, for instance, the “vulgar” Mr. Trump was described on Thursday as “a nutcase” on the front page of Libération, the left-wing daily, which pictured him in full flow above the headline “The American Nightmare.” A la une de Libé, jeudi : Donald Trump, le cauchemar américain http://t.co/Bh3ajn9uP9 pic.twitter.com/sUqOODlqSs — Libération (@libe) August 26, 2015 Then again, because he is vying for the candidacy of a party whose strategists seemed to suggest in 2004 that John Kerry was unfit to be president because he “ looks French ,” disturbing the editors of a newspaper founded in part by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre might be considered an achievement. Mr. Trump’s paternal grandparents were German immigrants, and his remarks have been welcome summer fodder for the tabloid Bild, which ran a dispatch this week on the success of the “ Trump Show ,” illustrated by a photo of an enraptured crowd in Alabama. Germany’s more highbrow press, meanwhile, has devoted quite a lot of energy to trying to explain the appeal of Friedrich Drumpf’s brash grandson. “Weird, egomaniac, racist … yet he leads in the polls; how can that be?” Süddeutsche Zeitung asked last month . While observing that the billionaire’s candidacy is “a perfect fit” for tabloids like Bild, Veit Medick, who is reporting on the campaign from Washington for Spiegel Online, the German news site, was quick to point out that the American presidential campaign was getting far less attention than the plight of Syrian refugees in most news outlets back home. That said, there is something of a “wow effect about Trump and his candidacy,” Mr. Medick said. “Someone like him would never even be close to being accepted as a politician in Germany, so it is an exotic phenomenon.” “Trump exposes a lot of what Germans particularly hate about the United States,” he said, “a rather narrow-minded worldview, a brutal form of capitalism and a militaristic approach to various crises in the world.” For Germans who have had little firsthand experience with Americans, Mr. Medick added, Mr. Trump appears to confirm their beliefs. “They say, ‘Hey, this is what we think of the U.S. and he doesn’t even try to hide it.’ ” And what of China, the country Mr. Trump speaks of so often with disdain on the campaign trail? After the candidate mocked the accents , and attitudes, of Chinese businessmen this week — by way of suggesting that he would “negotiate against” them better than Jeb Bush or Hillary Rodham Clinton would — a correspondent for Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported that while “not many Chinese Internet users picked up Trump’s controversial remark, those who did found it very offensive.” “I feel this guy is a racist,” one blogger observed on the Chinese social network Weibo, according to the newspaper’s translation. “I would not want democracy if men like him are elected.” Elsewhere on Weibo, Mr. Trump’s remarks about China as an economic rival drew angry rebukes. “George W. Bush must be hoping the guy could be elected,” one user wrote, “so he will be no longer the most stupid U.S. president ever.” Other threads on the site are devoted to sharing jokes about Mr. Trump’s hair , many of which were first made on Buzzfeed or “The Daily Show.” Image A screenshot from a thread on the Chinese social network Weibo devoted to jokes about Donald Trump. Credit Weibo On Friday, one popular subject of discussion on Weibo was a Chinese news report with video of Mr. Trump asking a woman to touch his hair, to dispel rumors that he wears a toupee. Image After Donald Trump asked a woman in South Carolina to inspect his hair this week, the video became a popular topic of discussion on the Chinese social network Weibo. Credit Weibo “This is not canvassing,” one blogger wrote, “but an entertainment show.” Mr. Trump’s frequent China-bashing has, however, elicited a more angry response on Friday from the editors of The Global Times, a nationalist tabloid, which, in an editorial with the headline “China Must Have the Hawks to Deal With the Trumps,” urged Chinese officials to respond in kind. “The West is not free of problems,” the editors suggested. “We can pick up on this. We should encourage people to speak up so as to exert pressure on the West to respond, instead of simply letting the West point its fingers at China without doing anything about it. Ideological accusations from the West come constantly, and being tolerant is not a wise strategy.” | Donald Trump;China;Germany;France;2016 Presidential Election;Social Media |
ny0025242 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2013/08/30 | Frank Pulli, First Umpire to Use Replay, Dies at 78 | Frank Pulli, who in 1999 became the first major league umpire to use instant replay to verify a call, nearly a decade before the league approved the practice, died on Wednesday at his home in Palm Harbor, Fla. He was 78. The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, Mike Teevan, a spokesman for Major League Baseball, said. After becoming a National League umpire in 1972, Pulli spent nearly 30 years in the majors, officiating in 3,774 games, including two All-Star Games, six National League Championship Series and four World Series. He was the first-base umpire in Atlanta on April 8, 1974, when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s record of 714 home runs (Barry Bonds later passed Aaron’s 755). In Game 4 of the 1978 World Series, Pulli ruled that Reggie Jackson of the Yankees did not intentionally interfere with a throw when he was hit on the leg while running the bases, allowing Thurman Munson to score. The Yankees won the game, 4-3, and the Series, four games to two. Pulli made baseball history on May 31, 1999, after Florida Marlins outfielder Cliff Floyd, in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals, smashed a line drive that struck the top of the left-field scoreboard and bounced back onto the field. The second-base umpire, Greg Gibson, initially called the play a double, but the crew changed the ruling to a home run after the Marlins argued. The Cardinals then protested, and Pulli, the crew chief that day, went to their dugout to study a replay on a television camera. The replay showed that the hit was a double. The Cardinals won the game, 5-2. Though it did not change Pulli’s call, the National League objected to the use of the camera in making it. “Use of the video replay is not an acceptable practice,” the league president, Leonard Coleman, said in a statement. “The integrity of the game requires that judgments be left to on-field personnel.” Major League Baseball began using instant replay for home run calls in 2008 and plans to expand its use next season. Frank Victor Pulli was born on March 22, 1935, in Easton, Pa., where he umpired as a teenager. He served in the Air Force and went on to umpire in the minor leagues before joining the National League. In 1989 he was put on probation for two years, along with the Chicago Cubs’ manager, Don Zimmer, and the umpire Rich Garcia, for betting on basketball and football games. An investigation found that they had not gambled on baseball. In 1999 he was one of 22 umpires who resigned in a labor dispute. He went on to work as an umpire supervisor in 2000 and helped introduce the QuesTec Umpire Information System, which records umpires’ performance and helps them hone their skills. Though he and most of the other umpires were later reinstated, he continued as a supervisor until he retired in 2007. His survivors include his wife, Kim; their daughters, Candice and Domenique Pulli; two sons, Michael and Frank Jr., and a daughter, Michelle Pulli, from his second marriage; a daughter, Vickie Pulli, from his first marriage; and a brother, Mickey. | Frank Pulli;Baseball;Referee;Obituary;Instant replay;MLB |
ny0103514 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2012/03/27 | Tunisia Says Constitution Will Not Cite Islamic Law | CAIRO — Tunisia ’s ruling Islamist party, Ennahda, said on Monday that the country’s post-revolution constitution would not mention Islamic law as a source of legislation, signaling a forceful break with ultraconservatives who have been demanding an Islamic state. Instead, a drafting committee will preserve language in Tunisia’s current constitution that refers to Islam as the state’s religion and Arabic as its language, according to Said Ferjani, a member of the political bureau of Ennahda, the Islamist party that leads Tunisia’s government. He and other Ennahda leaders framed the decision as a bid to unify the country’s disparate political factions during a delicate political transition. “There is a huge consensus within Ennahda. We have to show leadership,” Mr. Ferjani said. “We want everyone to get involved.” The move by Ennahda contrasted sharply with the actions of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which has angered leftists, liberals and other groups in recent days with its handling of that country’s constitution. Lawmakers associated with the brotherhood’s political wing and an ultraconservative Salafi party voted on Saturday to fill a panel that will write the constitution with Islamists, causing a walkout by members of several other parties. The debates in Tunisia and Egypt seemed to mark a critical phase in the evolving political life of both countries, as Islamist parties, forced to grapple with fundamental questions about the very nature of the state, started to reveal their intentions, after decades of often-theoretical debate about how such parties would govern. At the same time, the contrasting responses reflected distinct movements shaped by differing histories and emerging political realities. Ennahda rules in a coalition with other parties, while the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, along with Al Nour, the Salafi party, dominate the Egyptian Parliament. Both serve under a government backed by Egypt’s military rulers. In rejecting a mention of Islamic law, Ennahda appeared to be making good on promises to preserve Tunisia’s secular nature, forged under decades of authoritarian rule. And it distanced itself from the ultraconservatives known as Salafis, whose calls to build the features of a religious state have been marked by huge demonstrations in recent days and attacks on alcohol use or films that the conservatives deem to be blasphemous. Secular activists, already wary of Ennahda’s intentions, have in the past accused the group of turning a blind eye to the Salafis’s growing assertiveness. An Ennahda party leader, Ziad Doulatli, appeared to answer that criticism on Monday when he told The Associated Press that the decision to leave Islamic law out of the constitution was “aimed at strengthening the national consensus and helping the democratic transition to succeed by uniting a large majority of the political forces to confront the country’s challenges.” He added, “The Tunisian experience can serve as a model for other countries going through similar transformations.” It remains to be seen whether Ennahda abides by other promises it has made — not to ban alcohol, for example — as it tries to strike a balance between the demands of the Salafis and the concerns of its secular partners in government. Politicians in Egypt last week focused on signals from the Muslim Brotherhood that it might break some of its pledges, after statements by Brotherhood officials that they were considering running a candidate for president, a reversal of an earlier promise to back someone outside the party for that office. The decision not to field a candidate was often said to reflect the Brotherhood’s pragmatism and its fear of a backlash if the group quickly dominated politics. Officials have given varying reasons for a possible reversal, saying at first that they were unable to settle on a suitable outside candidate. On Monday, the chairman of the Brotherhood, Mohammed Badie, said the group was guarding against the possible candidacy of former government figures. In the last two days, the debate over the constitutional panel threatened to grow into a crisis, as more than two dozen members of the panel, including several well-known lawmakers, announced they would not participate. In a statement, a member of the Egyptian Parliament, Amr Hamzawy, cited the exclusion of women, youth, Coptic Christians and experts from the committee, suggesting the Islamists had chosen “loyalty” over “competence.” Another lawmaker, Emad Gad, who belongs to the left-leaning Social Democratic Party, said that Islamists were focused on “trying to write a religious constitution.” “They are controlling everything,” he said. “We can do nothing.” Brotherhood leaders struck back at the criticisms on Monday. Mohammed el-Beltagy, a member of Parliament with the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, said the selection of the government reflected a “keenness on ensuring pluralism.” “Certainly I wish there was a broader space of consensus that would turn the formation of the committee into a celebration in which all segments of the society participate,” he said. “But I believe that the exaggeration in portraying the issue as monopoly by a group or a party is completely incorrect.” Even so, Mr. Beltagy suggested that mistakes by the Islamists had contributed to some of the resentment. “Throughout the past year, the Islamic movement — and it’s widely spread — should have worked on uniting everyone,” he said. Instead, he said, the Islamists had chosen, at times, to act unilaterally, which isolated them and “created distance,” he said. | Constitutions;Shariah (Islamic Law);Tunisia;Politics and Government;Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt);Religion-State Relations;Ferjani Said |
ny0246680 | [
"sports",
"hockey"
] | 2011/04/22 | Blackhawks Rout Canucks to Stave Off Elimination | Marian Hossa was not sure if the Chicago Blackhawks had gotten back in Vancouver goalie Roberto Luongo’s head. But they are back in their series with the Canucks. Defenseman Duncan Keith had two goals and two assists and the visiting Blackhawks stayed alive in their Stanley Cup title defense, routing Vancouver, 5-0, on Thursday night to cut the Canucks’ series lead to 3-2. Marian Hossa, with his first two goals of the series, chased Luongo early in the second period as the Blackhawks have bounced back impressively after losing the first three games of the series. Since then, Chicago has dominated a Canucks team that it eliminated from the last two playoffs, outscoring them, 12-2. “I don’t know,” Hossa said when asked if the Blackhawks were back in Luongo’s head after he was pulled a second straight game. “I can’t see in his head.” Patrick Kane also scored his first goal of the first-round series for the Blackhawks, who return home for Game 6 on Sunday night looking to become the fourth team in N.H.L. history to overcome a 3-0 series deficit. Vancouver no longer looks like the team that won the Presidents’ Trophy with the best regular-season record. But there are lots of similarities to the squad that was knocked out the last two years while falling apart defensively. “After three games, you would have thought that we were in their heads,” Luongo said. “Now all of a sudden it’s 3-2 and people suggest the opposite.” Luongo, pulled in the third period of Game 4 after giving up six goals, did not make it through the second period this time. He was pulled after giving up his fourth goal on 12 shots 1 minute 26 seconds into the second period, but it did not make a difference. Cory Schneider was beaten by the first shot he saw, Keith’s point blast through traffic, the second like that for the Chicago defender. Chicago played a second straight game without rugged defenseman Brent Seabrook, who sustained a concussion when he was shouldered in the head by Raffi Torres in Game 3, a blow the Blackhawks felt deserved a suspension. They rallied behind Seabrook’s absence — and Torres presence — in Game 4, and again Thursday, with Seabrook’s normal defensive partner, Keith, leading the way. After Corey Crawford robbed Alex Burrows on an early power play, Hossa, who only had one assist in the series, walked untouched into the high slot late in a Chicago advantage and snapped a shot past Luongo’s glove 5:54 into the game. Keith doubled the lead 17 seconds later with a screened point shot, and a power-play point shot was tipped in by Kane — his first goal of the series — for a 3-0 lead six minutes after that. Hossa ended Luongo’s night on a breakaway early in the second period, and Keith added his second goal — and fourth in three games. BRUINS 5, CANADIENS 4 Michael Ryder scored 1:59 into overtime to give Boston a victory over host Montreal, tying the first-round series at 2-2. Ryder, the former Canadiens winger who also scored in the second period, took Chris Kelly’s pass from behind the net and shot past Carey Price to give Boston its second victory in a row at the Bell Centre after the Bruins dropped the first two games of the Eastern Conference series at home. Kelly brought Boston even for the third time in the game, scoring with 6:18 left in the third period. He put away a loose puck at his feet in the goalmouth for his second of the series. Patrice Bergeron and Andrew Ference added goals for the Bruins. Tim Thomas made 34 saves. Michael Cammalleri had a goal and two assists for Montreal, which blew leads of 1-0, 3-1 and 4-3. Game 5 is Saturday night in Boston. P. K. Subban, a rookie defenseman, gave Montreal a 4-3 lead 1:39 into the third on the Canadiens’ first power play after Bergeron was called for hooking at 37 seconds. Subban’s shot through traffic sailed past Thomas into the top of the net, touching off another ovation on a night of swings in a charged atmosphere. Price stopped 30 shots, including a sprawling desperation glove save on Johnny Boychuk moments after Subban’s go-ahead goal. SHARKS 6, KINGS 3 Ryane Clowe scored two goals, Jason Demers added another in the second period and visiting San Jose beat Los Angeles to take a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference series. Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski scored in a 54-second stretch early in the third and Torrey Mitchell followed with his first goal of the playoffs to extend the Sharks’ lead. They return to San Jose for Game 5 on Saturday night having swept the Kings on their home ice. The teams combined for five goals in the second — two fewer than they scored in the middle period in Game 3, when the Kings blew a four-goal lead to lose 6-5 in their second overtime defeat of the series. Antti Niemi made 35 saves while back in goal for the Sharks after being pulled for giving up four consecutive goals to the Kings before their collapse Tuesday. Clowe and Demers scored 1:14 apart before Clowe added his second goal. Clowe’s first goal capped a 2-on-1 when he scored behind Quick’s back at 3:58. Demers made it 2-0 when he beat a fully sprawled Jonathan Quick on the left side at 5:12. Both goals came with the teams skating 4-on-4 with Scott Nichol and Kings star defenseman Drew Doughty off for roughing. Brad Richardson, Justin Williams and Alexei Ponikarovsky scored for the Kings. DUCKS’ RUUTU SUSPENDED Anaheim’s Jarkko Ruutu was suspended for one game by the league for a late hit on Nashville’s Martin Erat on Wednesday night in Game 4 of the Western Conference playoff series. | Glavine Tom;Atlanta Thrashers;Hockey Ice;Boston Bruins;Montreal Canadiens;Playoff Games |
ny0035979 | [
"business"
] | 2014/03/16 | Income Gap, Meet the Longevity Gap | Fairfax County, Va., and McDowell County, W.Va., are separated by 350 miles, about a half-day’s drive. Traveling west from Fairfax County, the gated communities and bland architecture of military contractors give way to exurbs, then to farmland and eventually to McDowell’s coal mines and the forested slopes of the Appalachians. Perhaps the greatest distance between the two counties is this: Fairfax is a place of the haves, and McDowell of the have-nots. Just outside of Washington, fat government contracts and a growing technology sector buoy the median household income in Fairfax County up to $107,000, one of the highest in the nation. McDowell, with the decline of coal, has little in the way of industry. Unemployment is high. Drug abuse is rampant. Median household income is about one-fifth that of Fairfax. One of the starkest consequences of that divide is seen in the life expectancies of the people there. Residents of Fairfax County are among the longest-lived in the country: Men have an average life expectancy of 82 years and women, 85, about the same as in Sweden. In McDowell, the averages are 64 and 73, about the same as in Iraq. There have long been stark economic differences between Fairfax County and McDowell. But as their fortunes have diverged even further over the past generation, their life expectancies have diverged, too. In McDowell, women’s life expectancy has actually fallen by two years since 1985; it grew five years in Fairfax. “Poverty is a thief,” said Michael Reisch , a professor of social justice at the University of Maryland, testifying before a Senate panel on the issue. “Poverty not only diminishes a person’s life chances, it steals years from one’s life.” That reality is playing out across the country. For the upper half of the income spectrum, men who reach the age of 65 are living about six years longer than they did in the late 1970s. Men in the lower half are living just 1.3 years longer. This life-expectancy gap has started to surface in discussions among researchers, public health officials and Washington policy makers. The general trend is for Americans to live longer, and as lawmakers contemplate changes to government programs — like nudging up the Social Security retirement age or changing its cost-of-living adjustment — they are confronted with the potential unfairness to those who die considerably earlier. The link between income and longevity has been clearly established. Poor people are likelier to smoke. They have less access to the health care system. They tend to weigh more. And their bodies suffer the debilitating effects of more intense and more constant stress. Everywhere, and across time, the poor tend to live shorter lives than the rich, whether researchers compare the Bangladeshis with the Dutch or minimum-wage workers with millionaires. But is widening income inequality behind the divergence in longevity over the last three decades? Would an economy with a narrower gap between the haves and the have-nots lead to stronger life-expectancy gains, from the richest to the poorest? Might the expansion of insurance through the Affordable Care Act help close the gap? And might the policies that Congress is contemplating to ameliorate poverty — like raising the minimum wage — have a further effect on life spans, too? Those are questions that researchers armed with reams of data on mortality, poverty, health, social spending and income are struggling to answer. “The gaps continue to widen between the communities with the highest life expectancy and the lowest,” said Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, which produces the county-level life-expectancy figures. “There is nothing in sight that suggests that the 25-year trend is going to stop.” “Would that be different if the income inequality were reduced?” he added. “If you took a 30-year view, then yes. There does seem to be that long-run relationship between community income and these life-expectancy outcomes.” Living in Fairfax is different than living in McDowell. In Fairfax, there are ample doctors, hospitals, recreation centers, shops, restaurants, grocery stores, nursing homes and day care centers, with public and private entities providing cradle-to-grave services to prosperous communities. The federal government, especially security and military contracting, drives the economy. While cutbacks — through sequestration and reduced military spending — have slowed the rate of growth in recent years, the government nonetheless provides a steady base on which the region has flourished over the last decades. Currently, the local unemployment rate is just 3.6 percent ; the national rate is 6.7 percent. “We aren’t like Beverly Hills or some other place with lots of multimillionaires,” said Stephen S. Fuller , the director for the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University, in Fairfax County. “But we have more workers per household than just about any metro area in the country. We have more people working, and more people working in every age cohort.” The jobs tend to be good jobs, providing health insurance and pensions, even if there is a growing low-wage work force of health aides, janitors, fast-food workers and the like. “It’s a knowledge-based work force,” Mr. Fuller said. “And we have an economy built on services, technology-intensive services.” Social services — judged against those of poorer counties — are stellar, too. The local government, which runs some of the best public schools in the country, also offers its older citizens services as varied as rides to senior centers and “care and enrichment consultations” for those looking to adopt a pet rabbit. A retired home-health nurse, Tena Bluhm, heads the local Commission on Aging . “We were seeing a big change in demographics,” she said, “with the boomers aging and a trend where folks, as they aged, wanted to stay in this area.” On a cool weekday morning, John McGinnis, 57, emerged stiffly from a shallow pool at a public indoor facility, where there were also gleaming squash courts, a golf course and three bored-looking lifeguards. A water-exercise instructor had led him and nine others through a series of gentle movements with pool noodles. “I’ve had six back surgeries,” he said, shuffling toward an oversized hot tub after the class. “This is a lifesaver.” On a sunny weekend afternoon, 350 miles away, Chea Lockwood, a registered nurse with the Commission on Aging in McDowell County, visited Melissa Courtner, 38, who lives in one of McDowell’s few high-rises, a bare-bones facility for disabled and elderly residents. Coal miners still dig into and blast off the tops of steep Appalachian hills. But the industry that once provided thousands of jobs is slowly disappearing, and the region’s entrenched poverty has persisted. The unemployment rate is 8.8 percent, down from more than 13 percent in the worst of the recession. The current number would be even higher if more residents hadn’t simply given up looking for work. Where Income Is Higher, Life Spans Are Longer As incomes have diverged between the country’s richest counties, like Fairfax County, Va., and its poorest ones, like McDowell County, W.Va., so have the life expectancies of their residents. Government assistance accounts for half of the income of county residents. Social workers described shortages of teachers, nurses, doctors, surgeons, mental health professionals and addiction-treatment workers. There is next to no public transportation. Winding two-lane roads, sometimes impassable in snow and ice, connect the small population centers of trailers, small homes and the occasional minimart. “It’ll take you an hour to drive 15 miles,” Ms. Lockwood said. Ms. Lockwood has lived in McDowell County long enough to be widowed twice, and on this morning she first checked on two older patients in the housing project, cheerfully going through a checklist of questions. “Is your health aide on time?” “Do you need help washing that pretty hair of yours?” She checked in on Ms. Courtner, whom she had seen for her first evaluation earlier in the week. “I’m going to steal your man,” Ms. Courtner said with a whoop as Ms. Lockwood entered the room. “You can’t have him!” Ms. Lockwood said, reaching down to hug Ms. Courtner in her wheelchair before sitting down on a coffee table to talk. Ms. Courtner’s medical problems started early. She dropped out of high school and started smoking and drinking at 16. She had a stroke at 21, leaving her with partial paralysis. She has multiple sclerosis and bipolar disorder. A fistula, only partially repaired, makes a colostomy bag necessary. She is unable to work, she said, so she manages with disability payments and food stamps. Before moving into her housing unit, she lived in a shed without plumbing or electricity on the property of her parents, who are also disabled. Many people have similar stories. Ms. Lockwood notes that other residents have multiple woes: “Diabetes. Obesity. Congestive heart failure. Drug use. Kidney problems. Lung conditions from the mines.” Problems often start young and often result in shorter lives, she said. Earlier that day, she handed me a list of recent funerals with about half highlighted in yellow; they signified that the deceased was under 50. Since the 1980s, “socioeconomic status has become an even more important indicator of life expectancy.” That was the finding of a 2008 report by the Congressional Budget Office. But dollars in a bank account have never added a day to anyone’s life, researchers stress. Instead, those dollars are at work in a thousand daily-life decisions — about jobs, medical care, housing, food and exercise — with a cumulative effect on longevity. “Why might income have an effect on morbidity or mortality?” said David Kindig, an emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and an expert in longevity issues. “We have these causal pathways, through better jobs, better health insurance, better choice of behaviors, he added. On top of that, “there’s the stress effects of poverty and low educational status.” As such, the health statistics for Fairfax and McDowell are as striking as their income data. In Fairfax, the adult obesity rate is about 24 percent and one in eight residents smokes. In McDowell, the adult obesity rate is more than 30 percent and one in three adults smokes. And the disability rate is about five times higher in McDowell. In both counties, food availability matters. There are only two full-size grocery stores in McDowell; minimarts and fast-food restaurants are major sources of nutrition. “We don’t have gyms or fitness centers,” said Pamela McPeak, who grew up in McDowell getting creek water to flush her family’s toilet. “It’s cheaper to buy Cheetos rather than apples.” She now runs a nonprofit program that provides tutoring and helps high school students get into college. Education is also correlated with longevity, as it is with income and employment. Educated individuals are much more likely to work, and much more likely to have higher incomes. In McDowell, about one in 18 adults has a college degree; in Fairfax, the share is 60 percent. Finally, and perhaps most powerfully, researchers say that a life in poverty is a life of stress that accumulates in a person’s very cells. Being poor is hard in a way that can mean worse sleep, more cortisol in the blood, a greater risk of hypertension and, ultimately, a shorter life. As southern West Virginia has foundered, northern Virginia has flourished. But do the two counties’ diverging life expectancies relate to their diverging economic fortunes? And might that be true across the country? It is hard to prove causality with the available information. County-level data is the most detailed available, but it is not perfect. People move, and that is a confounding factor. McDowell’s population has dropped by more than half since the late 1970s, whereas Fairfax’s has roughly doubled . Perhaps more educated and healthier people have been relocating from places like McDowell to places like Fairfax. In that case, life expectancy would not have changed; how Americans arrange themselves geographically would have. “These things are not nearly as clear as they seem, or as clear as epidemiologists seem to think,” said Angus Deaton , an economist at Princeton. Further, there is nothing to suggest that, for a given individual, getting a raise in pay or moving between counties would mean outliving her peers. “The statistical term is the ecological fallacy,” Mr. Kindig said. “We can’t apply aggregate data to an individual, and that’s underappreciated when you’re looking at these numbers.” But, “having said that, I still think that the averages and the variation across counties tells us a lot,” he added. “We don’t want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good here.” Despite the statistical murk, many epidemiologists, economists and other researchers say that rising income inequality may be playing into the rising disparity in health and longevity. “We can’t say that there is no effect, just because we don’t have clear methods to test the effect,” said Hui Zheng , a sociologist at Ohio State University. In particular, changes in smoking and obesity rates may help explain the connection between bigger bank accounts and longer lives. “Richer people and richer communities smoke less, and that gap is growing,” said Dr. Murray at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Mr. Zheng has also posited that inequality, by socially disenfranchising certain groups and making them distrustful of public systems, may have a long-range effect on health. To some extent, the broad expansion of health insurance to low-income communities, as called for under Obamacare, may help to mitigate this stark divide, experts say. And it is encouraging that both Republicans and Democrats have recently elevated the issues of poverty, economic mobility and inequality, But the contrast between McDowell and Fairfax shows just how deeply entrenched these trends are, with consequences reaching all the way from people’s pocketbooks to their graves. | Longevity;Income Inequality;McDowell County W VA;US Economy;Jobs;Fairfax County |
ny0249976 | [
"business"
] | 2011/02/18 | Stocks Rise After Strong Manufacturing Report | Stocks finished higher on Thursday after a strong manufacturing report overshadowed a bigger-than-expected rise in the number of people applying for unemployment benefits. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said its index of manufacturing in the mid-Atlantic region nearly doubled between January and February. The surge in manufacturing was enough to offset a Labor Department report that applications for unemployment benefits rose 25,000 from the previous week. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 29.97 points, or 0.24 percent, to 12,318.14. The Dow has been rising steadily this month, with only three down days in February. For the month, it’s up 3.6 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index increased 4.11 points, or 0.31 percent, to 1,340.43. The Nasdaq composite gained 6.02 points, or 0.21 percent, to 2,831.58. “The initial jobless claims data look disappointing,” said Anthony Chan, chief economist at JPMorgan Private Wealth Management. “But from a longer-term perspective we’re seeing a pickup in employment.” Mr. Chan said the most recent data appeared to be bad compared with the previous week, when claims for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level since July 2008. But that was partly a result of winter weather in many parts of the country that closed government offices and kept people from applying for benefits. The government also reported that consumer prices in January were slightly higher than forecast, largely a result of rising food and gas prices. The Consumer Price Index rose 0.4 percent. The core index, which excludes food and energy costs, looked relatively tame, rising 0.2 percent. Forecasters had expected to see the price index rise 0.3 percent last month, and the core index inch up 0.1 percent. Barrick Gold, Duke Energy and J. M. Smucker all rose after reporting stronger earnings results. Barrick, a gold mining company, posted an increase in quarterly profit , helped by higher production and lower costs. Its stock gained 1.9 percent. Duke Energy’s net income grew 23 percent , helped by gains from selling assets and rising customer demand. Duke gained 2.4 percent. Profit fell at J.M. Smucker , maker of Jif peanut butter and Folgers coffee, but still beat analysts’ expectations. The company also raised its earnings outlook for the year. Smucker rose 4.2 percent. Coca-Cola gained 1.8 percent after it announced that it had increased its dividend. The increase in claims for unemployment benefits and the continuing turmoil in the Middle East attracted investors to the relative safety of United States government debt. In the credit markets, United States Treasury prices moved higher. The Treasury’s benchmark 10-year note rose 13/32, to 100 14/32, and the yield fell to 3.57 percent from 3.62 percent Wednesday. The dollar fell against other major currencies, however. The euro rose to $1.3604 late Thursday, from $1.3567 late Wednesday. The British pound rose to $1.6174, from $1.6092 Wednesday. The dollar index, which compares the United States dollar against six currencies, fell 0.28 percent Thursday. | Stocks and Bonds;United States Economy;Unemployment;Economic Conditions and Trends;Consumer Price Index |
ny0053375 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2014/07/29 | Donald Sterling Loses Bid to Block Sale of Clippers | LOS ANGELES — A judge issued a sweeping victory Monday for Rochelle Sterling, ruling that she had the authority to sell the Los Angeles Clippers to the businessman Steve Ballmer, who has agreed to pay a record $2 billion for the franchise. In the most significant parts of his ruling, Judge Michael Levanas of Los Angeles County Superior Court said that Rochelle Sterling had properly followed the directions of the family trust in removing Donald Sterling, her estranged husband, as co-trustee and that the sale of the team could be completed without waiting for what would be a lengthy appeal. Rochelle Sterling, who attended court most days during a trial that stretched over three weeks and was called a “pig” by her husband after she had left the witness stand, wept as she left the courtroom after Levanas’s oral ruling, which will not become official until he files it in writing. Rochelle Sterling’s team of lawyers and advisers embraced as they stood to leave the courtroom. Donald Sterling was not in court Monday. “This is a new day in Los Angeles and a new day for the Los Angeles Clippers,” Pierce O’Donnell, Rochelle Sterling’s lead lawyer, said. “And we want to go forward understanding that it was one woman who stood up against her husband, who had the courage to go to court and prevailed. So for the cynics out there, sometimes it works out O.K. This is a Hollywood ending.” Nevertheless, her lawyers conceded that this was not necessarily the end, given that Donald Sterling, who purchased the franchise in 1981, has two other lawsuits pending and can contest this ruling next month. Donald Sterling, 80, was barred for life from the N.B.A. and fined after an audio recording was released in April in which he made racist comments. “We expect that we’re going to continue to get grenades from all directions,” said Adam Streisand, a lawyer representing Ballmer. “But I’ve been confident from the beginning about how this is going to work out, and I’m still confident.” O’Donnell added: “He never met a lawsuit he didn’t like. We hope at this point that Donald realizes he can’t run out the clock forever.” Donald Sterling’s hopes of halting the Clippers’ sale rely on two legal maneuvers. The first could come in the next two weeks. The judge is expected to sign a statement of decision Tuesday, and Donald Sterling would have 10 court days to file an objection. If it is overruled by Levanas, as expected, Donald Sterling’s lawyers say that they would file a writ, essentially an expedited appeal asking to overturn Levanas’s decision to allow the sale to be completed while the case is being appealed. Image Steve Ballmer has agreed to pay $2 billion for the franchise. Credit Stephen Brashear/Getty Images The other is a federal challenge filed last week by Donald Sterling asserting that Rochelle Sterling no longer has the authority to complete the sale because Donald Sterling became the sole shareholder after he revoked the trust June 9. “Well it goes without saying that we’re deeply disappointed with this result and also deeply disappointed at the quality of the analysis that the judge engaged in,” said Maxwell M. Blecher, one of Donald Sterling’s lawyers who has represented him for many years. Blecher criticized Levanas’s ruling, saying the judge erred on several accounts, which would be the basis for an appeal. Levanas endorsed the theme, posited by Rochelle Sterling’s lawyers, that giving Donald Sterling the opportunity to scuttle the sale would torpedo the value of the franchise. Richard Parsons, the Clippers’ interim chief executive, testified last week that Coach Doc Rivers has considered leaving the team if Sterling remained as owner. Anwar Zakkour, Bank of America’s co-head of technology and media investment, testified that Ballmer’s sale price was 12 times the team’s revenue, an unheard-of ratio. Levanas outlined several possible outcomes of preventing the sale and concluded that it could cost the Sterling trust as much as $400 million — the difference between Ballmer’s bid and the next highest. “Under all these scenarios, there is a massive loss in value,” Levanas said. As Rochelle Sterling stepped before a group of television cameras and addressed the news media briefly outside the court, she expressed hope that her husband would drop his other legal challenges, and that she expected him to be happy with the decision. “I’m sure he’ll be happy,” she said. Rochelle Sterling said that she would attend Clippers games and hoped that her husband would join her one day in her courtside seats, saying she expected his lifetime ban to be lifted. The case had been stressful, she said. “All I want to do now is get some sleep,” she said. “I haven’t slept for weeks.” If the remaining obstacles — the writ and the federal case — are cleared, the sale to Ballmer could be approved by N.B.A. owners as quickly as Sept. 15. “We are pleased that the court has affirmed Shelly Sterling’s right to sell the Los Angeles Clippers to Steve Ballmer,” the league said in a statement. “We look forward to the transaction closing as soon as possible.” Image Rochelle Sterling with her husband, Donald, at a Clippers game last season. Credit Mark Terrill/Associated Press Earlier in the trial, Donald Sterling, with his characteristic bombast, testified that he would be a headache for the N.B.A. no matter how the case turned out. “Make no mistake today, I will never, ever, ever sell this team,” Sterling said then. “And until I die, I will be suing the N.B.A. to make them pay for the terrible violations of antitrust that they have imposed on my family.” The trial was narrow in scope, focusing on three issues: whether Rochelle Sterling had followed the directions of the trust in removing her husband as co-trustee; whether the probate court had jurisdiction over the matter; and if Rochelle Sterling won, whether the sale could proceed even if the decision was appealed. The case often focused on probate law, which is rarely in the news media spotlight. Levanas, who early on said he was loath to set any precedents with his ruling, was emphatic in his support of Rochelle Sterling on all counts. He ruled that the doctors who had examined Donald Sterling and ruled him mentally incapacitated had acted appropriately, and he shot down Donald Sterling’s contention that he was duped by a plan his wife and O’Donnell hatched to wrest control of the team from him. If there was any contention over how Donald Sterling’s provocative and antagonistic testimony had played out — Levanas at times had seemed humored by it — the judge answered with a stinging critique: that Rochelle Sterling’s testimony was “far and away more credible. Donald was often evasive and inconsistent with previous sworn testimony.” Levanas was no kinder to some of Donald Sterling’s witnesses. Dean Bonham, a sports marketing consultant, testified that the Clippers could command more than $2 billion, but his credentials were questioned under cross-examination. “The court gives it no weight,” Levanas said. The N.B.A. moved to strip ownership of the team from Sterling in April after TMZ published a recording of a phone conversation in which Sterling made racist remarks. Although Sterling has a history of discrimination — he settled a suit with the United States Justice Department for housing discrimination against African-Americans and Hispanics — the recording roiled the league, and several teams — including the Clippers — considered boycotting playoff games. Donald Sterling agreed to let his wife sell the team, but then reneged when he found out that his $2.5 million fine and lifetime ban that had been handed down by Commissioner Adam Silver would not be rescinded. That led Rochelle Sterling to remove her husband as co-trustee. “His reaction was very calm,” said Bobby Samini, a lawyer for Donald Sterling, who relayed Monday’s verdict to him. “He didn’t see this as a final battleground. This is one stage of a long war. This is one battle. We had hoped for a different result, but this is not the end.” | Basketball;Clippers;NBA;Donald Sterling;Rochelle Sterling;Steven A Ballmer;Michael I. Levanas;Decisions and Verdicts;Mergers and Acquisitions |
ny0061510 | [
"us"
] | 2014/01/20 | Juveniles Facing Lifelong Terms Despite Rulings | JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In decisions widely hailed as milestones, the United States Supreme Court in 2010 and 2012 acted to curtail the use of mandatory life sentences for juveniles, accepting the argument that children, even those who are convicted of murder, are less culpable than adults and usually deserve a chance at redemption. But most states have taken half measures, at best, to carry out the rulings, which could affect more than 2,000 current inmates and countless more in years to come, according to many youth advocates and legal experts. “States are going through the motions of compliance,” said Cara H. Drinan, an associate professor of law at the Catholic University of America, “but in an anemic or hyper-technical way that flouts the spirit of the decisions.” Lawsuits now before Florida’s highest court are among many across the country that demand more robust changes in juvenile justice. One of the Florida suits accuses the state of skirting the ban on life without parole in nonhomicide cases by meting out sentences so staggering that they amount to the same thing. Other suits, such as one argued last week before the Illinois Supreme Court, ask for new sentencing hearings, at least, for inmates who received automatic life terms for murder before 2012 — a retroactive application that several states have resisted. The plaintiff in one of the Florida lawsuits, Shimeek Gridine, was 14 when he and a 12-year-old partner made a clumsy attempt to rob a man in 2009 here in Jacksonville. As the disbelieving victim turned away, Shimeek fired a shotgun, pelting the side of the man’s head and shoulder. The man was not seriously wounded, but Shimeek was prosecuted as an adult. He pleaded guilty to attempted murder and robbery, hoping for leniency as a young offender with no record of violence. The judge called his conduct “heinous” and sentenced him to 70 years without parole. Under Florida law, he cannot be released until he turns 77, at least, several years beyond the life expectancy for a black man his age, noted his public defender, who called the sentence “de facto life without parole” in an appeal to Florida’s high court. “They sentenced him to death, that’s how I see it,” Shimeek’s grandmother Wonona Graham said. The Supreme Court decisions built on a 2005 ruling that banned the death penalty for juvenile offenders as cruel and unusual punishment, stating that offenders younger than 18 must be treated differently from adults. Image Shimeek shot at a man he was trying to rob, and was sentenced to 70 years without parole. The 2010 decision, Graham v. Florida , forbade sentences of life without parole for juveniles not convicted of murder and said offenders must be offered a “meaningful opportunity for release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.” The ruling applied to those who had been previously sentenced. Cases like Shimeek’s aim to show that sentences of 70 years, 90 years or more violate that decision. Florida’s defense was that Shimeek’s sentence was not literally “life without parole” and that the life span of a young inmate could not be predicted. Probably no more than 200 prisoners were affected nationally by the 2010 decision, and they were concentrated in Florida. So far, of 115 inmates in the state who had been sentenced to life for nonhomicide convictions, 75 have had new hearings, according to the Youth Defense Institute at the Barry University School of Law in Orlando. In 30 cases, the new sentences have been for 50 years or more. One inmate who had been convicted of gun robbery and rape has received consecutive sentences totaling 170 years. In its 2012 decision, Miller v. Alabama , the Supreme Court declared that juveniles convicted of murder may not automatically be given life sentences. Life terms remain a possibility, but judges and juries must tailor the punishment to individual circumstances and consider mitigating factors. The Supreme Court did not make it clear whether the 2012 ruling applied retroactively, and state courts have been divided, suggesting that this issue, as well as the question of de facto life sentences, may eventually return to the Supreme Court. Advocates for victims have argued strongly against revisiting pre-2012 murder sentences or holding parole hearings for the convicts, saying it would inflict new suffering on the victims’ families. Pennsylvania has the most inmates serving automatic life sentences for murders committed when they were juveniles: more than 450, according to the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia. In October, the State Supreme Court found that the Miller ruling did not apply to these prior murder convictions, creating what the law center, a private advocacy group, called an “appallingly unjust situation” with radically different punishments depending on the timing of the trial. Likewise, courts in Louisiana, with about 230 inmates serving mandatory life sentences for juvenile murders, refused to make the law retroactive. In Florida, with 198 such inmates, the issue is under consideration by the State Supreme Court, and on Wednesday it was argued before the top court of Illinois, where 100 inmates could be affected. Misgivings about the federal Supreme Court decisions and efforts to restrict their application have come from some victim groups and legal scholars around the country. “The Supreme Court has seriously overgeneralized about under-18 offenders,” said Kent S. Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation , a conservative group in Sacramento, Calif. “There are some under 18 who are thoroughly incorrigible criminals.” Image The man shot by Shimeek. Some legal experts who are otherwise sympathetic have suggested that the Supreme Court overreached, with decisions that “represent a dramatic judicial challenge to legislative authority,” according to a new article in the Missouri Law Review by Frank O. Bowman III of the University of Missouri School of Law. Among the handful of states with large numbers of juvenile offenders serving life terms, California is singled out by advocates for acting in the spirit of the Supreme Court rules. “California has led the way in scaling back some of the extreme sentencing policies it imposed on children,” said Jody Kent Lavy, the director of the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth , which has campaigned against juvenile life sentences and called on states to reconsider mandatory terms dispensed before the Miller ruling. Too many states, she said, are “reacting with knee-jerk, narrow efforts at compliance.” California is allowing juvenile offenders who were condemned to life without parole to seek a resentencing hearing. The State Supreme Court also addressed the issue of de facto life sentences, voiding a 110-year sentence that had been imposed for attempted murder. Whether they alter past sentences or not, some states have adapted by imposing minimum mandatory terms for juvenile murderers of 25 or 35 years before parole can even be considered — far more flexible than mandatory life, but an approach that some experts say still fails to consider individual circumstances. As Ms. Drinan of Catholic University wrote in a coming article in the Washington University Law Review, largely ignored is the mandate to offer young inmates a chance to “demonstrate growth and maturity,” raising their chances of eventual release. To give young offenders a real chance to mature and prepare for life outside prison, Ms. Drinan said, “states must overhaul juvenile incarceration altogether,” rather than letting them languish for decades in adult prisons. Shimeek Gridine, meanwhile, is pursuing a high school equivalency diploma in prison while awaiting a decision by the Florida Supreme Court that could alter his bleak prospects. He has a supportive family: A dozen relatives, including his mother and grandparents and several aunts and uncles, testified at his sentencing in 2010, urging clemency for a child who played Pop Warner football and talked of becoming a merchant seaman, like his grandfather. But the judge said the fact that Shimeek had a good family, and decent grades, only underscored that the boy knew right from wrong, and he issued a sentence 30 years longer than even the prosecution had asked for. Now Florida’s top court is pondering whether his sentence violates the federal Constitution. “A 70-year sentence imposed upon a 14-year-old is just as cruel and unusual as a sentence of life without parole,” Shimeek’s public defender, Gail Anderson, argued before the Florida court in September. “Mr. Gridine will most likely die in prison.” | Juvenile delinquency;Criminal Sentence;Prison;Supreme Court,SCOTUS;Lawsuits;US states;Mandatory sentencing |
ny0132319 | [
"sports",
"hockey"
] | 2012/12/30 | Russia and Sweden Advance at Junior Ice Hockey World Championships | Russia routed Germany, 7-0, for its third straight victory at the junior ice hockey world championships. Yaroslav Kosov scored a hat trick in the third period for the host Russians, who lead Group B with 9 points. Earlier Saturday, Viktor Arvidsson scored twice as Sweden beat Latvia, 5-1, to secure a spot in the knockout round. Sweden tops Group A with 8 points, while Latvia has none. | Hockey Ice;Amateur Athletics |
ny0099985 | [
"business",
"international"
] | 2015/12/04 | E.C.B. Announces Further Stimulus Measures, but Investors Are Unimpressed | FRANKFURT — Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, has been regarded as a master of the dark art of managing market expectations. But the reaction to stimulus measures the central bank announced on Thursday — steps more timid than had been widely expected — suggested that Mr. Draghi somehow miscommunicated with the traders, pundits and prognosticators who set the course of financial markets. Around Europe, stock prices fell on Thursday after the central bank said it would extend its program of buying bonds and other assets by six months but would not raise the amount of monthly purchases. The central bank also changed a key interest rate to encourage banks to lend more, but did not cut key borrowing rates. Based on recent statements by Mr. Draghi and other top officials at the European Central Bank, investors had thought there would be much, much more. “He typically has underpromised and overdelivered,” said Mujtaba Rahman, practice head for Europe at the consultancy firm Eurasia Group. “That is not the case this time around. What we’ve got is the bare minimum of what people were expecting.” It was either a rare case of Mr. Draghi failing to send clear enough signals, or a sign that his proposals had met unexpected resistance among the 25 members of European Central Bank’s Governing Council, which met in Frankfurt on Thursday morning. At a news conference explaining the new steps, Mr. Draghi would say only that the moves had been approved by a “very large majority’’ of the Governing Council. The central bank is trying to give the lumbering eurozone economy a shove at the same time the Federal Reserve is getting ready to risk slowing down the United States economy by raising interest rates. The eurozone economy grew at an annual rate of 1.2 percent in the third quarter — compared with a 2.1 percent rate in the United States. And unemployment across the 19-country euro currency union is 10.7 percent — more than double the United States’s jobless figure. Mr. Draghi rebutted reporters’ questions about why the new measures seemed more limited than what the economy might need. He described the steps as a recalibration of the central bank’s stimulus program, which he said had been a success since it began in March. “We are doing more because it works, not because it fails,” he said. “We want to consolidate something that has been a success.” But some analysts said that Mr. Draghi had probably been unable to win over members of the Governing Council who think more stimulus is unnecessary, or who want to keep some monetary weapons in reserve in case the economic situation gets worse. Mr. Draghi acknowledged that terrorist attacks in Paris, along with the European influx of migrants from Syria, presented risks to the eurozone economy that are not yet possible to gauge. “Draghi is now evidently coming up against more opposition,” Jörg Krämer, chief economist at Commerzbank, said in a note to clients. Mr. Draghi “does not have sufficient support within the E.C.B. Council to act on a grand scale,” Mr. Krämer said. The Governing Council did decide to extend monthly purchases of government bonds and other assets, a way of pumping money into the economy, at least through March 2017. The bank also said it would increase the penalty it charges banks to keep money in its vaults as a way of pressuring them to lend more. Banks will pay interest of 0.3 percent to keep money at the central bank, compared with the previous rate of 0.2 percent. And the central bank expanded its purchases of bonds to include debt issued by regional and local governments. But the central bank did not announce an outright increase in its monthly spending on bonds beyond the current level of 60 billion euros, or about $63.6 billion, as many analysts had expected. And though it said it would be spending more as it reinvests repayments of principal from the bonds and other assets it acquires, the central bank provided no estimate of how big those receipts might be. Nor did it take other steps on interest rates that might encourage commercial banks to increase lending that might help revive the nearly dormant eurozone economy. Some analysts had expected a cut in the rate that banks pay to borrow short-term funds from the central bank. Their hope had been that the rate would drop to zero from its current 0.05 percent. The bond-buying program was originally planned to run at least through September 2016. Mr. Draghi said on Thursday that it could be extended beyond March 2017, “if necessary.” The Euro Stoxx 50 index of eurozone equities, a key indicator, began falling even as Mr. Draghi was still speaking and ended the day off 3.6 percent. The euro rose more than 2 percent against the dollar, to $1.09, as investors raised their expectations of the returns they are likely to receive on money kept in European assets. A stronger euro is generally negative for the eurozone economy because it makes exports from the region more expensive for foreign customers. In addition, the central bank is trying to make market interest rates go down. A stronger euro means investors expect the rates to go up. Mr. Draghi had signaled in recent months that he was dissatisfied with the performance of the eurozone economy and that the central bank would intensify its already significant efforts to energize the economy and raise the region’s worrisomely low inflation to a healthier level. Whether the measures announced on Thursday will make a difference remains to be seen. Eurozone inflation, at an annual rate of only 0.1 percent in November, is far below the European Central Bank’s official target of just below 2 percent. Mr. Draghi and other members of the bank’s governing council had all but promised that more stimulus measures would be coming on Thursday unless there was a substantial improvement in economic data. To skeptical questions from reporters on why the central bank was not doing more, in light of the recent data, Mr. Draghi defended the measures and the effects of the stimulus program so far. He said that eurozone government bond yields, a measure of governments’ borrowing costs, had fallen since the stimulus program began, and that commercial bank lending rates were also lower. Economists are skeptical that the bank’s stimulus measures so far have had a substantial effect on increasing the availability of credit in the eurozone, which is one of the program’s goals. Many banks have other problems, like large numbers of troubled loans, that are keeping them from lending, no matter how cheaply they can borrow from the central bank. But on Thursday, Mr. Draghi could only urge the skeptics to wait and see. “All these measures have had an effect on the economy,” Mr. Draghi said. “I don’t think our communication was wrong,” he said. “These measures need time to be fully appreciated.” | Europe;Stocks,Bonds;Mario Draghi;European Central Bank;International trade;Euro;Banking and Finance;EU |
ny0047566 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2014/11/17 | Vice Hires Alyssa Mastromonaco, Former Official in Obama White House, as a Top Executive | Vice Media, the news and entertainment group, is expected to announce Monday that it has hired Alyssa Mastromonaco, a former Obama administration official, as its chief operating officer. The hiring signals how Vice, known for its renegade reporting and on-the-edge articles and videos, is seeking a new level of management as it navigates its next stage of growth. Ms. Mastromonaco, who officially starts in January, will oversee all of the company’s operations as well as take responsibility for expanding its global business. Vice, based in Brooklyn, started as a free punk magazine in Montreal 20 years ago and has since expanded into digital media, television and film. It now operates in 36 countries. In September, Vice closed a $250 million investment from Technology Crossover Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and an additional $250 million investment from A&E Networks, the television group owned by Hearst and Disney that is the home to the A&E, History and Lifetime cable networks. The group also recently announced partnerships with a number of media groups including Live Nation, and Rogers Communications in Canada. Ms. Mastromonaco succeeds Richard Waterlow, who will become president of Vice’s international business. Ms. Mastromonaco, 38, stepped down from her White House post this year. She started working for Barack Obama in 2005 after his election as senator, helping him set up his Senate office and assisting during both of his presidential campaigns. She worked as deputy chief of staff for operations at the White House from 2011 until this year and served as President Obama’s scheduling director before that. “She inspires her colleagues, moves fast, executes flawlessly and loves coming up with the new and better way of doing something,” the political strategist David Plouffe said in a statement. After she left the White House, Ms. Mastromonaco said, a mutual friend, Anne M. Finucane, the chief marketing officer at Bank of America, introduced her to Shane Smith, Vice’s chief executive. Ms. Mastromonaco said that she already had been a fan of Vice’s HBO series as well as its news reports, which she described as being “made for those things that you write down that you kind of understand but really want to understand more.” Ms. Mastromonaco said that she “completely clicked” with Mr. Smith’s passion and vision to expand Vice. She said that she was reminded of the beginning of the Obama campaign during a visit to Vice’s Brooklyn headquarters, with Vice’s hundreds of young employees and bureaus across the world. Her goal, she said, was to help structure Vice for growth but maintain the integrity of its rabble-rouser vibe. “My goal for Vice is for it to be exactly what Vice is, just make it a little bit better,” said Ms. Mastromonaco, who is married and in the midst of moving to Manhattan from Washington. Mr. Smith said in a statement that “good entrepreneurs sometimes do not the best managers make, which is a problem because Vice is exploding.” “It’s essentially a cult, and thus a nightmare for most status quo managers,” he said. “However, the only thing in this world crazier and more freaky than Vice right now is the U.S. government, and, as such, I believe that there is no one out there better or more uniquely suited in their skill set of managing chaos than Alyssa.” Ms. Mastromonaco is the second prominent Obama adviser to be hired in the tech and media start-up world in recent months. Uber, the private-car-sharing start-up, hired Mr. Plouffe in August to be its senior vice president for policy and strategy. | Vice;Alyssa Mastromonaco;Appointments and Executive Changes;Barack Obama |
ny0201378 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2009/09/08 | Hatoyama Stands By Campaign Vow for Sharp Cut in Japan’s Emissions | TOKYO — Japan ’s presumptive prime minister breathed new life on Monday into efforts to curb global warming , standing by a campaign pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent in the next 10 years from 1990 levels — a target that environmentalists said puts Japan at the forefront of the fight against climate change. Nonetheless, the incoming prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama , whose center-left Democrats swept to a landmark electoral victory last month, attached what appeared to be a new caveat to his pledge, saying it was contingent on similarly ambitious goals by other major polluters. That could become a major obstacle because of a deadlock between industrialized and emerging economies over who should bear the most responsibility for emission cuts. “Climate change is already upon us, and its effects are amplifying,” Mr. Hatoyama said at an environment conference in Tokyo. “Of course, Japan’s reduction targets alone cannot stop climate change. We will seek to build an international framework that involves all major countries and is fair and realistic.” He also said, “The condition for Japan’s promise to international society is that all major countries agree to ambitious targets.” Japan has been under pressure to set tougher climate policies after its emissions hit a record in 2008, putting the country 16 percent above targets set 12 years ago in the global-warming treaty known as the Kyoto Protocol . Even with Mr. Hatoyama’s caveat, environmentalists lauded Japan’s new reductions target as going significantly further than the goals set by the departing government of Taro Aso, which had been roundly criticized. They also said Japan could help build momentum ahead of a summit meeting on climate change in Copenhagen this year. The European Union has promised to cut emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels, and by 30 percent if other wealthy nations follow suit. In the United States, Congress is debating a bill that would reduce emissions to 6 percent below 1990 levels. Martin Kaiser, climate policy director at Greenpeace International, said Japan’s target under the new government was “the first sign of climate leadership we have seen out of any developed country for quite some time.” Yvo de Boer, executive secretary for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, also praised Japan, saying its emissions target “is commensurate with what science says is needed and will catalyze real change in the Japanese economy.” Still, Mr. Hatoyama’s pledge is expected to face stiff opposition from industrial lobbies, which argue that Japanese industry is already highly energy efficient, and that committing to such steep emissions cuts will hurt an economy struggling through its worst recession in decades. A government report issued earlier this year showed that pursuing a 25 percent cut from 1990 levels could hurt important manufacturing industries, threatening almost 90 million jobs and weighing on household incomes. Keidanren, Japan’s biggest business federation, has said it opposes any cut bigger than 6 percent from 1990 levels. Others call Mr. Hatoyama’s targets naïve and a threat to Japan’s competitiveness. “I don’t think Mr. Hatoyama realizes what he is committing Japan to,” said Tsutomu Toichi, managing director at the Institute of Energy Economics , a Tokyo-based research group. “He has to realize that this is not a campaign slogan. It’s an international pledge to which Japan will be held accountable.” Some critics have pointed to other policies in the Democrats’ campaign platform that seem to contradict their commitment to reducing greenhouse emissions. The party swept to power on a promise of wide-ranging measures to lift Japan out of recession. To help households, for example, the Democrats have proposed ending highway tolls and a gas surcharge. Environmentalists say such moves could lead to a shift away from public transportation and increase pollution. It is also not clear how much of the emissions cuts will come from real reductions in Japan, rather than so-called carbon offsets, which allow governments to pay others to make their carbon reductions for them. “We’ll have to monitor how the Democrats balance various policies going forward,” said Masako Konishi, climate policy adviser to the conservation group W.W.F. Japan. “But Mr. Hatoyama’s ambitions go far beyond anything we’ve seen in Japan.” Experts say Japan’s new climate change agenda should press other countries to prepare similarly ambitious targets before the meeting in Copenhagen. Almost 200 countries are expected to attend Dec. 6 to 18 to set worldwide goals for reducing carbon dioxide and other pollutants. There is concern, however, that the Obama administration, embroiled in a debate over health care, will not have time to win Congress’s support on emissions reductions before the conference. Deciding how much wealthy countries like the United States and Japan should cut emissions — and how much that burden should be borne by emerging economies like China and India, which are big polluters — will be a major issue in Copenhagen. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , a global scientific body, said the new Japanese government could play a leading role in those talks. “With leaders like Mr. Hatoyama attending,” Mr. Pachauri said, “there is every reason to believe that we will get a strong agreement in Copenhagen.” | Greenhouse Gas Emissions;Japan;Hatoyama Yukio;Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change;Global Warming;Air Pollution |
ny0283729 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2016/07/23 | Brooklyn Woman, a Correction Recruit, Dies After Collapsing During Training | A 33-year-old Brooklyn woman training to be a New York City correction officer died this week after collapsing during an exercise, the Correction Department said on Friday. The woman, Jessica Louis, was participating in a physical-training exercise on Thursday when she collapsed, the department said. The police said there had been a 911 call about an unconscious female officer at the West Facility on Rikers Island. Jim Long, a Fire Department spokesman, said emergency medical workers received the call at 5:50 p.m. and transported a patient to the Mount Sinai Queens hospital. Joseph Ponte, the correction commissioner, said in a statement that “the entire Department of Correction is deeply saddened by the death Thursday evening of recruit Officer Jessica Louis, and I extend my heartfelt condolences to the Louis family.” The department said it was investigating the circumstances of Ms. Louis’s death. She was one of 750 recruits who began a four-and-a-half-month training program at the New York City Correction Academy on June 27. Potential recruits undergo extensive physical and mental screening before being admitted to the academy. Julie Bolcer, a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner’s office, said Ms. Louis’s body was scheduled to be examined on Saturday. Ms. Louis’s brother, Dimitry Louis, said that doctors had told him his sister had died from a heart attack. “She was doing a running exercise,” he said. He said his sister was “heavily into church,” and worked as a hairstylist before deciding to pursue a career as a correction officer. “She wanted to do something different and exciting,” Mr. Louis said. Ms. Louis’s death comes as large numbers of Correction Department recruits have given hope to efforts to reform Rikers Island, the city’s troubled jail complex. | Correction Department NYC;Jessica Louis;Prison Guards,Corrections Officers;Rikers;NYC |
ny0229339 | [
"business"
] | 2010/07/13 | Absent-Minded Mishaps on a Big Day | I ALWAYS envisioned myself as one of those cool frequent fliers breezing through the airport. I’m not that person. In February, I took my first business trip to the Home Shopping Network’s headquarters in Tampa, Fla. This was the biggest moment of my career, so I was a nervous wreck getting ready for my flight. When I got to the airport, I wanted to check my messages so I fished around in my bag for my cellphone. I had used it in the car so I knew I had it. But I couldn’t find it. I had an immediate panic attack. I asked a young woman who was walking by if I could use her cellphone. I think she felt sorry for me because at this point I was sitting on the floor with the contents of my bag strewn around me. I dialed my number five times, but each time it went straight to voice mail. By this point, I was fully broken out in hives since my HSN schedule, and every number I needed, was stored in the phone. After my sixth try, the woman had to go to catch her flight and so did I. As I was standing in the security line, I heard my name being paged to the check-in counter. I ran there and found out that the car company had brought my phone back to the airport. Life was now good. I went back through security and everything went smoothly. Or so I thought. When I got to my gate I realized I didn’t have my carry-on. I am not making this up. I was so panicked about my phone that I left my bag on the floor by the belt. I must have put it down when I was looking for a bin. I realized I was an idiot. Now I had to run back to security and let some official-looking person know that I left my bag. Because I had left my bag unattended, both it and I went through a pretty complete security check. The agents also confiscated my cleanser and toner, both of which were in six-ounce bottles. They were only half full so I thought I would make the three-ounce rule. I didn’t. So on top of everything else, I just lost $200 worth of product. I just wanted to get on the plane out of New York. My flight was noneventful, but the landing was a bit bumpy. Once we landed, I immediately went for my phone, which I placed in my bag during the flight. It wasn’t there. I kid you not. I stayed on the plane until everyone got off and asked the attendant to help me find my phone. We were ripping off cushions and I was on my hands and knees scouring the floor. The attendant wanted to get off the plane, but she was stuck with me. I promised her a lip gloss. She didn’t want it. I finally found my phone about eight rows in front of me on the floor. It slipped out of my bag during landing and slid forward. I’ve gotten a lot better as a frequent flier these last few months. Except when I forget to take out the metal clips I use to keep my hair in place while I let it dry. Some are buried deep within my hair and I forget about them. That is, until the alarm goes off as I go through security. I did send the woman who lent me her phone a lip gloss from Purple Lab. She e-mailed me to say thanks and wished me well. But I’m sure she doesn’t want to run into me at an airport ever again. I’m pretty sure that flight attendant feels the same way. | Airlines and Airplanes;Cellular Telephones;Airports |
ny0136387 | [
"business",
"worldbusiness"
] | 2008/04/22 | UBS Faults Blind Ambition for Subprime Miscues | ZURICH — The Swiss banking giant UBS , which has written off more debt from the subprime crisis than any other bank, conceded in a report on Monday that a blind drive for revenue led it to take more risks than it should have. The 50-page report was released two days before a shareholder meeting where bank executives are expected to seek permission to shore up the balance sheet by another 15 billion Swiss francs (about $14.7 billion). Analysts said the finished product, which reads like a detective novel on reckless banking, could, in the end, help UBS by demonstrating transparency. “On the one hand, the report provides new ammunition for its critics,” said Dieter Buchholz, a fund manager at AIG Private Bank in Zurich. “But on the other hand, it may take some wind out of the sails of critical shareholders by answering some questions” pre-emptively. The report was posted on the bank’s Web site in response to shareholders who had demanded a special investigation at a tumultuous extraordinary shareholder meeting in February. It summarizes answers sent to the Swiss banking watchdog EBK, which is conducting an inquiry. UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, has written off about 38 billion Swiss francs (about $37.3 billion), since the subprime crisis began last summer, including $19 billion announced April 1. In effect, it has destroyed all the profits generated since 2004. But the Swiss watchdog has repeatedly stressed that UBS “has never posed a threat to its creditors.” In the report, UBS blames poor risk control, an overly fast build-up of its investment banking activities and a lack of clear management structures. Indeed, the chairman, Marcel Ospel, was known for his determination to make UBS one of the world’s top three investment banks. In 2007, UBS reported its first-ever loss and predicted more to come. The report attributes a sixth of the subprime losses to the hedge fund unit, Dillon Read Capital Management, which was closed last May, one of the first victims of the lending crisis. The bulk of the loss was generated at the fixed-income business of its investment bank. The report also cites an “insufficiently robust” risk control framework and says the oversight of investment banking “lacked effectiveness” and “focused too much on the maximization of revenue growth.” Meanwhile “senior management apparently did not sufficiently challenge each other,” the report said. It also noted “inappropriate risk metrics used in strategic planning and assessment” and a “lack of reaction to changing markets.” On Wednesday, the bank will once again be in the line of fire at the annual shareholders meeting in Basel. When Mr. Ospel, the heavily criticized chairman, announced he was stepping down in March, he proposed Peter Kurer, the bank’s general counsel, as his successor. But Olivant, an investment company and activist shareholder group led by a former president of UBS, Luqman Arnold, has publicly questioned Mr. Kurer, saying he lacks banking and risk management expertise. Olivant is demanding sweeping changes: an internationally acclaimed banker as a chairman; a focus on wealth management, after a sale of the investment banking arm; and better corporate governance. “We have not decided what exactly to do on Wednesday,” a representative of Olivant said Monday. After Mr. Kurer’s election to the executive board by shareholders at Wednesday’s meeting, directors intend to appoint him to succeed Mr. Ospel immediately. If shareholders agree to the latest proposed increase in capital, the bank will have repaired its balance sheet by 34 billion Swiss francs in the last two months. | UBS AG;Banks and Banking |
ny0201060 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2009/09/21 | In Upper Manhattan, DNA Match in Sexual Attacks Leads to Arrest | A 21-year-old man stopped for questioning and DNA testing last week in four rapes in Upper Manhattan was arrested Sunday night after his DNA matched evidence from all four attacks, the police said. The suspect was identified as Vincent Heyward, 21, of 281 Edgecombe Avenue, just blocks from where the last sexual assault took place, on Sept. 7, said Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the New York New YorkPolice Department. “He fit the description to a ‘T’ ”, Mr. Browne said. He said Mr. Heyward surrendered peacefully on Sunday night after six hours of negotiations with a relative. The arrest appeared to end the fear that has been stalking Upper Manhattan after the nighttime rapes of four women in little more than five weeks. Buildings and storefronts had beenplastered with police sketches of the suspect in a dark hoodie. The Guardian Angels had stepped up neighborhood patrols. Tenants had organized community watch rallies. Mr. Browne said that Mr. Heyward was stopped in the area on Tuesday about 12:30 a.m. by police officers because he resembled sketches of the rapist. “Yeah, that does look like me,” Mr. Heyward said, according to Mr. Browne, and volunteered to take a DNA test on the spot, swabbing his cheek himself to take a sample. At 3 p.m. Sunday, the chief medical examiner reported that the sample matched evidence from all four rapes, and officers went to Mr. Heyward’s home, Mr. Browne said. He was not there but surrendered after the negotiations, he said. Before the arrest, detectives had run down about 100 tips from the public and viewed 200 hours of video from 75 different cameras, said Mr. Browne, publicizing the best images in hopes that people would come forward with information. “This guy has the neighborhood in a panic frenzy,” said Milton Oliver, the porter in the building on St. Nicholas Avenue near 147th Street where the last victim, a 28-year-old Japanese woman, was attacked. In that case, the rapist, brandishing a knife, crept through her seventh-floor bathroom window from a fire escape. In the three previous attacks, on white women ages 59, 23 and 69, in the early hours of Aug. 1, 10 and 18, the victims had also been robbed. On Hamilton Terrace near 144th Street, where the 23-year-old woman was raped in an elevator on Aug. 10, becoming the attacker’s second victim, notices tacked to trees summoned women to a neighborhood meeting on safety on Sunday afternoon. “Come with ideas for protection while the rapist is still out,” the leaflets said. Many had already taken their own precautions. Larry Higgs, 35, a sneaker salesman who lives near the alleyway on 148th Street near Broadway, where the 59-year-old woman became the rapist’s first known victim, said he made a point of meeting his companion at the subway stop after work and walking her home. Tayry Vega, a mail carrier whose route includes the building on Riverside Drive near 158th Street where the oldest victim, 69, was raped and robbed in the elevator on Aug. 18, said she made sure the door latches behind her before she sorts the mail. On a building bulletin board, a tenant posted a “notice to ladies” offering his services as a late-night security escort, adding that he lives on the ground floor and “can run out quickly.” And a police officer from the 33rd Precinct offered concerned tenants “a security survey.” Jade Harris, 33, who sells software from her apartment in the building on St. Nicholas Avenue where the last attack occurred, said she spent more time looking over her shoulder. “If I see people holding the door, I’ll say, ‘O.K., I’ll wait,’” she said. She said she had mixed feelings about the police sketches papering the building entrance. “It’s like a red scarlet letter on the door,” she said. Another neighbor, Maria Perez, 48, a lawyer who lives next door to the woman who was raped, said she had started coming home earlier from work and leaving more lights on. “I’m consistently more alert,” she said. Mr. Oliver, the building’s porter, said the rapist in the Sept. 7 attack climbed to the roof of a neighboring building, which offered a view into the victim’s apartment, and jumped to the fire escape outside the woman’s windows. They were locked, Mr. Oliver said, but by dangling from the fire escape “like a daredevil or Spider-Man,” he gained access to an open bathroom window. He said building cameras caught images of the man leaving the lobby and at one point throwing off his hood. He said the victim of the Sept. 7 attack later told detectives that the night before she was attacked, she saw someone who may have been the rapist staring at her from the next rooftop, but did not report it. | Sex Crimes;Harlem (NYC);Police;DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid);Police Department (NYC);Guardian Angels;Manhattan (NYC) |
ny0020053 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2013/07/23 | Biden Arrives in India in Effort to Improve Relations | NEW DELHI — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. arrived in New Delhi on Monday as part of a continuing effort by the Obama administration to convince the country’s elite of its good will after decades of strong support for India’s archrival, Pakistan. Mr. Biden’s trip is the first by an American vice president in nearly 30 years, and it comes one month after Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to New Delhi, the capital, to discuss climate change and diplomacy. Mr. Biden’s itinerary calls for him to spend a day with political leaders before flying Tuesday night to India's financial capital, Mumbai. During his two days there, he is expected to voice growing concerns about India’s economy and its openness to foreign investment before leaving for Singapore on Thursday night. Investors from the United States and around the globe once flocked to India, drawn by its rapid economic growth, gradual economic liberalization and huge population. But in the last decade, many American companies have found the going far tougher than expected, and their complaints are beginning to resonate in Washington. The problems that companies confront here – endemic corruption, shifting government rules and poor infrastructure, among others — seemed less dire when the Indian economy was growing at a blistering rate. But growth has slowed to 5 percent over the past year, and those issues have become far greater irritants. Mr. Biden’s complaints about India’s investment climate are likely to be greeted with some sympathy in Mumbai, since even Indian companies have begun looking for growth outside their country’s borders. Investments by both foreign and domestic companies have fallen over the past five years to 31 percent of the country’s gross domestic product from nearly 38 percent, said Subir Gokarn, director of research at Brookings India, with crucial sectors like manufacturing and mining doing especially poorly. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acknowledged in a speech to a prominent business group here on Friday that the nation’s economy was under stress. “We, like most other countries, are going through a difficult period,” Mr. Singh said in his barely audible whisper. “I know that business is deeply concerned about the slowdown in our economy.” The Indian rupee has lost about 9 percent of its value against the dollar in recent months, a decline exceeded only by the Brazilian real among major emerging market currencies. India has substantial budget and current account deficits, and inflation is running at nearly 10 percent annually. The country’s central bank has been faced with the difficult task of defending the currency by trying to raise short-term interest rates without pushing up long-term rates, which would further slow growth. But the Reserve Bank of India took the unusual step last week of withdrawing a bond sale after investors insisted on interest rates that were higher than the government’s bankers wanted to pay. Ajay Shah, a professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy in New Delhi, said these problems guaranteed that India’s era of rapid economic growth would not return for many years. “There’s been a tremendous collapse in confidence,” Mr. Shah said. India’s government has taken steps to put its fiscal house in order by reducing fuel subsidies, a hugely expensive program that largely benefits the rich. And last week, the government announced a loosening of restrictions on certain foreign investments. But national elections scheduled for next year are likely to mean that the government will be loath to make additional cuts to popular welfare projects, said Sreeram Chaulia, a professor and dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs. A new food security bill could even expand such social spending significantly. “Right now, this government is concerned about winning the next election,” Mr. Chaulia said. Mr. Biden also intends to push India for further defense cooperation and more arms purchases from the United States, according to a senior Obama administration official. India has long resisted becoming too close to the American military. Recent border tensions between India and China have jangled nerves in New Delhi and made officials here strive to improve India’s defense manufacturing abilities, something the United States has said it could help achieve. | Economy;Joe Biden;New Delhi;India |
ny0242872 | [
"us"
] | 2011/03/09 | Rotunda Honor Blocked for Frank Buckles, Last World War I Veteran | WASHINGTON — Former presidents always make the cut. Ballplayers, never. Senators are case by case. The question of who, once dead, will lie in honor in the Rotunda of the Capitol is one that rises rarely and usually without the gossamer of political controversy. But the family of the longest surviving American World War I veteran, who died last month at 110, has been rebuffed by the leaders of the House and Senate, who have moved to deny the late soldier his day under the dome. The family of the veteran, Frank Buckles , assisted by lawmakers from his home state, West Virginia , keep pressing on. Their desire to see Mr. Buckles lie in honor — only federal officials or military officers lie in state in the Rotunda — is not just about him, they insist, but also his fellow doughboys, now committed to history books and fading photos. “The family has not had any confirmation, either official or unofficial, as to whether it will be possible for Mr. Buckles to lie in honor to provide a venue for recognition of all of the American World War I veterans,” David DeJonge, a spokesman for the family, said Monday in an e-mail. “It is still their wish that this take place in the Rotunda, an appropriate setting given the momentous nature of the passing of the last service member from that war.” The speaker of House, John A. Boehner , Republican of Ohio , and Senator Harry Reid , the Nevada Democrat and majority leader, who together rule the Rotunda, have denied the request without specific explanation, perhaps mindful that the honor has been given to only 30 people since the remains of Senator Henry Clay graced the elaborate setting in 1852. They have suggested instead that there be a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, a high honor not afforded to every veteran. “Everyone honors Mr. Buckles’s service to our country, and the extraordinary sacrifices made by every member of our Armed Forces who served in World War I,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner. Representative Shelley Moore Capito , Republican of West Virginia, took to the local airwaves on Monday morning to press the case for Mr. Buckles. “The congresswoman is strongly pursuing Frank Buckles to lie in honor in the Capitol,” said Jamie Corley, her spokeswoman. “This is a matter close to the hearts of many West Virginians, but everyone can appreciate the desire to come together one last time to respect and remember America’s last doughboy.” Others in the West Virginia delegation have concurred with Ms. Capito and pressed the case in their respective chambers. Public viewings in the Rotunda have largely been limited to elected officials and distinguished military figures — including 11 presidents — but some exceptions have been made. In 1998, coffins of two Capitol Police officers who died in the line of duty were on display in the Rotunda; Rosa Parks was the third private citizen to lie in honor in the revered spot, in 2005. Mr. Buckles did not see combat; he drove a motorcycle with a sidecar in England , and an ambulance in France . He also escorted German prisoners of war from France to Germany after the war, Mr. DeJonge said. Mr. Buckles’s remains are at a funeral home in Washington as his family awaits the outcome. Jon Summers, a spokesman for Mr. Reid, said in an e-mail that he and Mr. Boehner would be sending a letter asking Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to allow the Buckles family to use the amphitheater in Arlington. | World War I;Veteran;Obituary |
ny0018778 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/07/17 | As Spitzer Pursues a Comeback, His Wife Chooses to Stay Offstage | Eliot Spitzer spent this past weekend hopping from coast to coast, flying to Los Angeles to appear on “The Tonight Show,” then catching a red-eye back to Manhattan where he huddled for strategy sessions and hit the Sunday morning talk-show circuit. His wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, had quieter plans. She headed to the family’s 160-acre country retreat in the Hudson Valley, where she likes to paint and has been tending to a newborn calf. When he announced his unlikely return to political life, Mr. Spitzer said the approval of his wife, a stalwart presence in his previous campaigns, was essential before he chose to pursue a potentially career-salvaging run for New York City comptroller. But so far Ms. Wall Spitzer has been all but invisible, issuing no statement of support and not once appearing at her husband’s side. It is a stark contrast from her days trekking to Niagara Falls and Buffalo to rally voters to his cause. Mr. Spitzer’s attempted comeback has coincided with a difficult time for his marriage — the couple are currently living in separate apartments 18 blocks apart. Five years after Mr. Spitzer resigned as governor amid a prostitution scandal, friends say Ms. Wall Spitzer is deeply conflicted about her husband’s candidacy, offering assent but privately preferring he had not chosen to run. “To be honest, she’d probably rather he didn’t do it,” said Karen Finerman, a longtime friend of the couple whose new book was feted by Ms. Wall Spitzer at a party last month. “It opens up a whole chapter that was a difficult chapter,” Ms. Finerman added. “But it is not in her nature to say to him, ‘No, you can’t.’ ” Image Silda Wall Spitzer Credit Gary Gershoff/WireImage Besides inviting uncomfortable questions on the trail, Ms. Wall Spitzer’s absence has deprived Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, of the ally who could most potently make the case to voters that he has been rehabilitated: the woman whose ashen face at her husband’s resignation announcement remains a searing symbol of his ignominious downfall. Her silence is all the more striking when compared with Anthony D. Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, who has taken a prominent role in her husband’s mayoral bid, appearing in a campaign video and greeting voters in Harlem hand-in-hand with her spouse. Mr. Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011 after sending explicit messages to women he met over the Internet. Asked about his wife’s absence, Mr. Spitzer has offered explanations that range from awkward to evasive. In a televised interview over the weekend, he paused for a full two seconds when asked if his wife had forgiven him, before offering a halting reply. “We have both been hurt by what I did,” Mr. Spitzer said, spacing out the words. “Damaged by what I did. That exacts a price, an emotional price, in any relationship, and that is painful.” Neither Mr. Spitzer nor his wife would comment for this article. Friends said Ms. Wall Spitzer only agreed to her husband’s bid for comptroller over the July 4 holiday weekend, the same weekend Mr. Spitzer made his plans public. They have been observed coming and going from their respective apartments over the past week: she is currently residing at the family’s home on Fifth Avenue, while Mr. Spitzer is staying with his ailing parents, who live 18 blocks south. Mr. Spitzer has said that the couple is not separated and has indicated that his wife will join him on the trail. She, however, has not announced any plans to do so. Image So far in Eliot Spitzer's bid for New York City comptroller, Silda Wall Spitzer has not appeared even once at her husband’s side. Credit Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Much has changed for Ms. Wall Spitzer, a former corporate lawyer, since her husband resigned in 2008. She has grown more independent, relishing a return to her corporate career and working 60-hour weeks at a private equity firm where she helps guide investments in clean energy. She oversees her children’s charity, generationOn , which earlier this year honored Chelsea Clinton, and has pursued new business ventures, including an e-commerce Web site, New York States of Mind , that highlights products from businesses in the state. Carter Bales, the chairman of NewWorld Capital Group, where Ms. Wall Spitzer works, said she had given no indication that she would be taking a hiatus to help her husband’s campaign. “She’s here because she has a professional commitment to the work that we do, and I would expect that commitment to continue and to grow,” Mr. Bales said. Ms. Wall Spitzer has long been a somewhat reluctant participant in the political world, unlike Ms. Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton and a veteran of highly personal campaigns of absolution. Ms. Wall Spitzer once asked her husband, in the early days of his rocky term as governor, why he did not simply pursue his family’s real estate business. And she has been circumspect about her personal life since Mr. Spitzer resigned, telling Vogue magazine in a 2009 profile : “I value Eliot as a colleague. He is a wonderful human being.” Video Some women say the former governor’s sex scandal gives them pause in picking a candidate; others say it’s irrelevant. Despite her reservations, Ms. Wall Spitzer affixed her name last week to a nominating petition for her husband. One of the couple’s daughters, Sarabeth, helped her father canvass for petitions ahead of a crucial filing deadline. Asked if Ms. Wall Spitzer was excited about her husband’s new candidacy, Nancy Lieberman, a close friend for 20 years, paused a moment. “She’s, you know, she is supportive of it,” Ms. Lieberman said. “You know, she’s definitely there.” Still, Ms. Wall Spitzer’s unwillingness to play the public role of forgiving spouse has complicated her husband’s message and added a dose of dissonance to a campaign that Mr. Spitzer had hoped would follow the familiar arc of political resurrection. “She is going to be an important part of evaluating the credibility of his candidacy,” said Matthew Hiltzik, a communications executive and former Democratic strategist. “If she even provides minimal public support, that could go a long way.” Some friends of the couple say Mr. Spitzer will have to address the issue as the campaign rolls on. There is little doubt that Ms. Wall Spitzer, a North Carolina native with an easy charm, would make a compelling advocate for her husband on the trail. She has not lost the sense of humor that helped sustain her after her husband’s resignation. When she was hired by Ms. Finerman at a hedge fund in 2008, just as the economy was collapsing, her new colleagues often wrung their hands about the upheaval in the stock market. Ms. Wall Spitzer, months removed from her husband’s scandal, would laugh. “Ah, this is nothing!” she told them, according to Ms. Finerman. | Comptroller race;Eliot L Spitzer;Silda Wall Spitzer;NYC |
ny0064385 | [
"us"
] | 2014/06/20 | After Fire, Fritch, Tex., Fights for Its Existence | FRITCH, Tex. — A month after a fire roared through this Panhandle town, all that remains of Sam Jones’s house is its concrete foundation, a row of charred pine trees and the underground storm shelter where he now lives. The fire, which is under investigation, destroyed 225 homes and has left the town grappling with questions about its future as it struggles to find the money needed to help hundreds of displaced residents. Fritch, population 2,000, was already reeling from years of drought and a declining population that has strained local resources. City officials now predict that as many as half of the residents who lost homes in the fire will not return. “I’ve watched Fritch shrivel up,” Mr. Jones, who showers at his neighbor’s, said during a break from clearing rubble. His property overlooks Lake Meredith , a national recreation area and man-made reservoir that once measured more than 100 feet deep. The lake, which Mr. Jones said “looks more like a canyon” these days, hit a record low of 26 feet in August. As the lake dried up, so did much of the city’s tourism business. Along the main road, a faded boat storage facility lies empty, its windowpanes shattered. On a nearby lot that local residents call the “Fritch boat cemetery,” dozens of vessels are propped upright in the sand. Even neighborhoods that escaped the fire are peppered with abandoned trailers and houses with collapsing roofs. At the same time, prosecutors are investigating former city officials for possible theft and misuse of funds, said Mark Snider, the local district attorney who has referred the case to the Texas attorney general’s office. A year ago, Fritch was nearly $500,000 in debt, said the interim city manager, John Horst, who took over after his predecessor resigned. Government aid has been limited. The Texas Department of Transportation recently approved $15,000 to help residents car-pool to work, and a few residents have qualified for low-interest loans from the Texas Small Business Association . Most people are relying on friends and donations. The damage was not considered extensive enough for federal relief. “We’re in this kind of limbo right now” because charity organizations have been able to provide immediate aid but not long-term assistance, said Calvin Winters, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church. “The real work is ahead of us.” About 40 percent of the families affected do not have insurance to cover the damage, city officials said. “Homeowners don’t know what they’re doing yet,” Mr. Winters said. “Frankly, you have to have the funds.” Madeline Lyckman, a bartender who lost her home and is living with her parents across town, said she planned to remain in Fritch and hoped to receive a mobile home from a family friend. Ms. Lyckman is helping to organize a Redneck Olympics benefit for victims of the fire. Locals will play horseshoes with toilet seats and race lawn mowers in a charity fund-raiser, she said. “The people in the area are very, very drained,” she said. “We need outside help.” Fritch is continuing to depend on tourism, Mr. Horst said. “If we could attract more people to the trails and camping, I think that would be a big benefit,” he said. The drought has complicated the efforts. “We’re definitely seeing more boating activity” than during the most severe years of the drought, said Bob McGuire, superintendent of the Lake Meredith National Recreation Area . “But we still have a ways to go.” After a recent rain, thousands of yucca tree saplings began to sprout in the charred earth outside of town. Whether the local economy can achieve similar regrowth is still unknown. Asked about Fritch’s future, Ms. Lyckman gestured to the depreciated lake. “We’ll dry up,” she said. Then she reconsidered. “You know, we’ve made it through before,” she said. “We always have a comeback.” | Fritch;Texas;Drought;Fires |
ny0106607 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2012/04/19 | Images of G.I.’s With Taliban Remains Raise Fears on Discipline | WASHINGTON — A new revelation of young American soldiers caught on camera while defiling insurgents’ remains in Afghanistan has intensified questions within the military community about whether fundamental discipline is breaking down given the nature and length of the war. The photographs, published by The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, show more than a dozen soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division’s Fourth Brigade Combat Team, along with some Afghan security forces, posing with the severed hands and legs of Taliban attackers in Zabul Province in 2010. They seemed likely to further bruise an American-Afghan relationship that has been battered by crisis after crisis over the past year, even as the two governments are in the midst of negotiations over a long-term strategic agreement. The images also add to a troubling list of cases — including Marines videotaped urinating on Taliban bodies, the burning of Korans , and the massacre of villagers attributed to a lone Army sergeant — that have cast American soldiers in the harshest possible light before the Afghan public. Accordingly, combat veterans and military analysts are beginning to look inside the catchall phrase “stress on the force” to identify factors that could be contributing to the breaches. One potential explanation put forth by these analysts is the exhaustion felt by the class of non-commissioned officers that forms the backbone of the all-volunteer force: the sergeants responsible for training, mentoring and disciplining small groups of 18- and 19-year-old soldiers at the small-unit level, hour by hour, patrol by patrol. Another factor, they say, may be the demands of a counterinsurgency strategy that has distributed small units across vast distances to serve at primitive combat outposts. Self-reliance required in isolation may promote heroic camaraderie. But the rugged terrain, logistical challenges and the in-your-face violence of the insurgency may also present great challenges to the noncommissioned officers in charge of these small units, operating far beyond the more consistent senior supervision in past wars. Officers and analysts express concerns that some of these isolated units are falling prey to diminished standards of behavior and revert to what one combat veteran described as “Lord of the Flies” syndrome, after the William Golding novel portraying a band of cultured British schoolboys reverting to tribal violence when severed from society. “Some of these incidents certainly seem to be the fault of a breakdown in leadership at the small-unit level,” said Andrew Exum, a defense policy analyst at the Center for a New American Security who teaches a course on irregular warfare at Columbia University . “Where was the sergeant who is supposed to say: ‘Stop, boys. We don’t do that. We don’t disrespect the dead’?” said Mr. Exum, who led a light infantry platoon in Afghanistan in 2002 and then led a platoon of Rangers in both Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004. Early reports indicate that the soldiers had been sent to gather fingerprints or retina scans for identification of the suicide bomber. Mr. Exum noted how the horrific experience of being ordered to interact with bloody, severed body parts of an enemy may cause soldiers to develop self-defense mechanisms — in particular dark humor around corpses. “But the line is crossed when you disrespect the dead body,” he said. “It’s one thing to have a psychological release valve, and another thing to take trophy pictures.” Pentagon and military officials, noting that the proliferation of soldiers’ carrying camera phones has been involved in many of the cases, said that technology and a changing culture had presented new problems, as well. Troops have behaved badly since the beginning of warfare, of course. But now, those actions can be captured in real time, and spread rapidly without commanders’ control, via social networks. Army officials said Wednesday that the service had guidelines and rules for photos — basically, “think before you post” — but they also acknowledged that social media are evolving so rapidly that regulations were not keeping pace. Rules are set by commanders at the company, battalion and brigade level, but those standards are sometimes ignored by small units in the field. “Technology today presents definite challenges related to security and propriety,” said Col. Thomas W. Collins, an Army spokesman. “In this case, these photos are probably a manifestation of the soldiers’ relief that this insurgent no longer posed a threat to them or their fellow soldiers. That cannot excuse what they did. We are the United States Army , and the world rightly has very high expectations that our soldiers will do what’s right. Clearly, that didn’t happen in this case.” With more than a million military personnel having deployed overseas since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the recent cases represent only a tiny percentage of the force. Senior American officials responding on Wednesday noted that, even as they condemned the soldiers’ behavior. “This is not who we are, and it’s certainly not what we represent when it comes to the great majority of men and women in uniform,” Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said at a NATO conference in Brussels , calling the soldiers’ behavior unacceptable and promising a full investigation. President Obama said that those responsible for the actions would be “held accountable,” and Gen. John R. Allen , the senior allied commander in Afghanistan, sounded similar themes. But Afghan officials described an increasing skepticism among the public after case after case of misbehavior has come to light over the past year. Nadir Nadiry, an Afghan human rights activist in Kabul , said Afghans would likely react negatively because similar photographs had surfaced before and despite military investigations the latest pictures suggested that the actions continued to be perpetrated. “It gives them a sense of, ‘Oh they are continuing to do this,’ ” he said. “Each time they say they will conduct a thorough investigation, but these investigations are not being made public, so the results are not known to the Afghan people.” Some Afghan officials said the behavior shown in the images was deeply offensive given Muslim views of how to treat dead bodies. Hajji Baz Mohammed, a tribal elder and head of the development council in Qalat, the capital of Zabul Province, where the soldiers were operating, told of how residents were enraged last year after a similar incident involved Afghan security forces. “Eight months ago, Afghan security forces dishonored the bodies of two dead insurgents, which really infuriated the people here in Zabul,” he said. “People went to the streets, and three more went to the streets and three more died in the clashes between angry mobs and security forces.” He added, “In the past episode, it was Afghans who insulted the bodies and three people were killed as a result — one can imagine what will happen if the people got to know that non-Muslims are insulting the dead bodies of Muslims.” Several of the military analysts commenting Wednesday said the kind of lapses shown in the photos struck directly at the ability of American troops to perform their mission, given how important winning Afghans’ sympathies is to keeping the Taliban at bay. Mr. Mohammed raised the same issue: “These kinds of acts would further increase the already widened gap between the people and the government, and would drive some government supporters toward the Taliban. In the meantime, it’s not good for the Americans: these kinds of acts would generate more hatred and would motivate people to vengeance.” | Afghanistan War;US Military;Photography;Leon E Panetta;Ryan C Crocker;John R Allen;US Army;Afghanistan;Los Angeles Times |
ny0236083 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2010/01/14 | Tough Times for Suffolk County Laborers as Tents Are Leveled | HUNTINGTON STATION, N.Y. — It would be easy to miss the narrow trail into the patch of woods that runs along Fifth Street here. Chunks of ice and snow muddy the path; gnarled, bare tree branches leave a passageway only a foot or two wide. Venturing a little farther, one begins to see the remnants of a home crudely made in an inhospitable area: discarded mattresses, rusty pans, artificial flowers, stuffed animals, a picture of Jesus. Up to 30 men had called these woods home until Monday morning, when the owners of the 26.6-acre property had the men’s tents torn apart. Skinny tree branches, which the men had used as posts for their plastic tarps, were now strewn about. Some of the men, most of them illegal immigrants, had lived in the clearing for years. Its location, even in winter, was a natural: a quick-enough walk from a trailer that serves as a hiring center for day laborers , supported by the town of Huntington, in Suffolk County. But as of late, it had been a futile trip. “There’s no work,” said Pablo Cervantes, 53, who had been living in the clearing for a year. “Life isn’t easy here.” All of the residents hailed from Central America and Mexico. When the economy soured, the construction jobs they had relied on dried up. Since they could no longer pay rent, they made their way to what they called la montaña, the mountain, for its location on a hillside. As temperatures dipped last week, officials from Huntington, along with social workers, visited the site and posted signs warning that the structures were unsafe and ordering the men to leave or face up to $15,000 in fines, six months in jail, or both. After the visit, the town also ordered the owners of the property, Starlight Building Corporation, to clear it of garbage and debris. On Monday morning, the company did so, at least partially. While the tents were leveled, jumbles of clothes, unopened jars of peanut butter, shaving cream cans and furniture were left behind. The company’s owners could not be reached for comment. The expanding presence of Latino day laborers has become controversial in Suffolk County; last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center issued a report that suggested a pattern of hate crimes there had been fostered by anti-immigrant groups and some public officials. The most notorious episode took place in November 2008, when an Ecuadorean immigrant was stabbed to death in Patchogue by seven teenagers, the police said; two of the suspects have pleaded guilty, and the others are awaiting trial. Some immigrant advocates said that the removal of the tents in Huntington Station underscored how little compassion there was for illegal workers, especially because no viable alternative housing was offered. “This was just a form of intimidation to make sure the men left that place,” said the Rev. Allan B. Ramirez, a longtime advocate and the pastor of Brookville Reformed Church. Local officials countered that the men were on private property and had been directed to temporary shelters for their own safety during the bitter cold spell. But they could not be given more permanent housing because their immigration status precluded the county from being reimbursed by the state for housing expenses. “Even though undocumented folks are ineligible for public benefits, we would put them up for a night or two until they could make other arrangements,” said Edward Hernandez, the deputy commissioner for social services in Suffolk County. “It’s an unfortunate situation,” he added. “Until there is clarification on the federal level about immigration laws, and enabling people to come here and live and work, these kinds of questions are going to keep coming up.” Many of the men had planned to spend Tuesday night — as they try to do on most nights when the weather gets too cold to sleep outside — at shelters set up at local houses of worship through a program organized by the Huntington Interfaith Homeless Initiative. At 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, a small van pulled into a parking lot near the entrance to la montaña. Men climbed atop one another’s laps to get a seat. Mr. Cervantes waved from the front passenger seat. “This is the life they chose,” said Carlos R. Chevere, 41, who did not get a spot, as he watched the van rumble into the night. “They chose to come here and try to make a better life. But they can’t.” Mr. Hernandez said he was sympathetic to the workers’ situation, but added that the poor economy had made many people in the area confront tough choices. “Somebody has to make a decision whether the situation is worth riding out,” Mr. Hernandez said. “Anybody who is unemployed would have to make a decision whether they can ride it out or seek employment in other locations.” Mr. Cervantes, for now, is taking a wait-and-see approach. “We just have to be able to withstand the cold,” he said. “We have no other option.” | Illegal Immigrants;Day Laborers;Suffolk County (NY);Huntington Station (NY);Economic Conditions and Trends |
ny0127955 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2012/06/04 | Myanmar Leader May Be at Odds With Aung San Suu Kyi | MAE SOT, Thailand — The first trip abroad in more than two decades by Myanmar ’s opposition leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi , appears to have strained her crucial relationship with President U Thein Sein , who is leading the country’s transformation from military dictatorship to embryonic democracy. Soon after Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi returned home on Sunday from Thailand, an adviser to Myanmar’s president criticized her for lacking “transparency” in carrying out her trip and for her comments warning international investors against “reckless optimism” about Myanmar . “Personally, I really admire her, but I have a doubt,” the adviser, U Nay Zin Latt, said in an e-mail. Public criticism of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, even in its mildest forms, is rare, partly because she is such a popular figure in the country. Mr. Nay Zin Latt’s comments were the first by one of President Thein Sein’s advisers — who serve as spokesmen — since the president canceled a trip to Thailand on Friday. The Thai news media are portraying the cancellation as a reaction to Bangkok’s handling of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit. The fact that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed back into the country on Sunday was a milestone on Myanmar’s road to national reconciliation. During the periods when she was not under house arrest in the past two decades, she chose not to travel abroad for fear of being denied re-entry by Myanmar’s military rulers. Yet the discontent over her six-day visit to neighboring Thailand underlines the fragility of her country’s transition. The complicated and delicate relationship between the president and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a newly elected lawmaker , is in some ways the bedrock of the current reform process in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Their meeting in August accelerated the changes sweeping the country and helped persuade Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi to rejoin the political system. “Most of the improvements in Burma these days are because of the relationship between Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi,” said Win Min, a senior researcher at the Vahu Development Institute, an organization set up by Harvard-trained Burmese exiles that studies issues related to Myanmar. “I’m a little bit worried about their personal relations,” Mr. Win Min said. “If this relationship is strained, it could hurt national reconciliation.” The abrupt cancellation on Friday of Mr. Thein Sein’s visit to Thailand appears to have been a message to Bangkok — and other governments across the region — that Myanmar’s leader will not tolerate being overshadowed by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s star power. Thailand and its neighbors are jockeying to participate in the opening up of Myanmar, an almost virgin market that investors hope will offer good returns amid the global economic slowdown. Underlying the Thai government’s sensitivities toward Myanmar is a huge project for a seaport and joint economic zone in Myanmar that would connect to Thailand and provide access to the Indian Ocean. Thai Rath , the largest newspaper in Thailand, reported Sunday that Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said in an interview that she was concerned that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit had damaged Thailand’s relationship with Myanmar. Mr. Thein Sein was “irritated” by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s trip, the newspaper said, adding that Ms. Yingluck had ordered the Thai Foreign Ministry to “clarify” details of the visit to the public. Myanmar’s government appears to have been most annoyed by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit on Saturday to a refugee camp along the Thai-Burmese border, where Myanmar’s government has battled ethnic rebels for decades, and the opposition leader’s remarks at a business conference in Bangkok on Friday at which she urged potential investors in Myanmar to proceed with caution. Despite the turbulence caused by her trip, it is possible that relations between Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and the president will remain on an even keel. Many analysts believe that she and Mr. Thein Sein have a rapport, and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has said on numerous occasions that she considers the president to be sincere in his desire for political change. But the potential for discord between them worries people in Myanmar. So far, political change has been a personality-driven process rather than an institutional one, and as Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi told reporters during her visit to Thailand, Mr. Thein Sein does not have an obvious successor. Both she and Mr. Thein Sein are in their late 60s and have health concerns. (Mr. Thein Sein has a heart ailment, and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has been forced to rest by her doctors twice in recent weeks.) The changes in Myanmar have been sudden and with few parallels — military juntas rarely voluntarily yield to civilian control — so analysts hesitate when asked to predict the country’s immediate future. But it seems unlikely that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi will be placed under house arrest again or forced out of politics, because she retains considerable leverage. Her popularity is overwhelming, and sidelining her would be perilous for any government that tried. | Aung San Suu Kyi;Myanmar;Thailand;Thein Sein;Appointments and Executive Changes |
ny0189552 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2009/05/29 | On a Campus in Bulgaria, Every Reason for Optimism | BLAGOEVGRAD, BULGARIA — Back in late 1991, when things seemed very dark in the Balkans, I came to this nondescript town of 70,000 or so at the foot of the Rila and Pirin mountains, and found something rare, and inspiring. At the time, Serbs and Croats were dying by the scores — for their leaders’ delusions — in the ruins of the city of Vukovar. Journalists, diplomats and many Yugoslavs (as they then were) could just feel that the war was going to move on, soon, to Bosnia, and that it would be terrible. So it was trebly refreshing, on a wintry Balkan day, to talk to the pioneering souls who had then just set up the American University in Bulgaria. It was either necessity or uncanny good sense to situate this fledgling enterprise in the former regional headquarters of the Communist Party, with the occasional extracurricular activity in a residence built for Bulgaria’s longtime Communist dictator, Todor Zhivkov. The enthusiasm of the 13 American and 3 Bulgarian faculty, and the first 195 students, was hard to miss. “This is where the action is, this is where people are making choices that have rarely been made in history,” gushed Janet Connolly, then a 62-year-old law professor from Temple University. “We’re not just learning the ropes,” said John Fleming, another American faculty member. “We’re weaving them.” In the years since, the university has known ups and downs — visits from Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, but also disputes over authority and customary uncertainty over funding. But when Dimitri Panitza, a Bulgarian émigré who has helped the university, and his homeland in general, in all kinds of ways since the fall of Communism, asked if I wanted to attend this year’s graduation, I leapt at the chance. This newspaper and others have written plenty about the problems of Bulgaria — above all, the role played by a post-Communist mafia and the corruption that infiltrates daily life. Bulgaria has made strides and joined both NATO and the European Union — and yet. On the Blagoevgrad campus — at its very best for graduation weekend recently — such doubts are banished. Funded from the start by the Bulgarian government, the Blagoevgrad authorities, the U.S. government and the Open Society Foundation of George Soros, the Hungarian-born billionaire, the university has swollen to about 1,100 students. They live in gleaming residence halls and enjoy a 100,000-volume library, the largest such in southeastern Europe. Between 30 and 40 percent of the students come from outside Bulgaria — many from other former Communist countries as far east as Mongolia. Faculty, too, is international, with around 40 percent American. Instruction, of course, is in English. This year, the valedictorian of the 258 graduating students was a young man named Igor Letina. He turned out to have a perfect 4.0 grade point average, and he also turned out to come from the Bosnian city of Banja Luka. The circle of Balkan contrasts seemed complete. During that war that did indeed go to Bosnia, Banja Luka became synonymous with acts of terror perpetrated by one ethnic group — in Banja Luka’s case, by Bosnian Serbs — on others. It was in Banja Luka that an ancient mosque was destroyed. To the north lay the town of Prijedor, where Bosnian Serbs systematically turned pretty much every Muslim home into a roofless ruin. Near Prijedor were the notorious camps where Serbs incarcerated Muslims and Croats. In the war, Banja Luka itself remained a recognizably Habsburg/Communist town of faded glory, with a handsome tree-lined main street and clusters of intelligent people who would gather at a local cafe of an evening. According to Mr. Letina, the town is still a little bleak, “with a couple of decent people — I guess that’s just the way it is.” He said he ended up in Blagoevgrad almost by accident. Like other intelligent friends in Banja Luka, and generations of East Europeans before them, he had initially intended to study in Vienna. But he saw a poster about the American University, and “one thing led to another, and AUBG offered me a scholarship.” Last year, he spent five months at the Washington office of Representative Joseph Crowley of New York. This summer, he will intern with a humanitarian nongovernmental organization based in Berlin before starting graduate studies in economics in Milan. Mr. Letina was not the only eye-opener on the graduation stage in Blagoevgrad’s baking square. The salutatorian, with a 3.98 grade point average and acceptance letters from eight American schools for graduate studies, was Laila Zulkaphil, from Ulan Bator, Mongolia. She heads to Georgetown University in Washington this autumn to study conflict resolution. That is also the chosen subject of Margarita Dimova, the student speaker, a Bulgarian enrolled in Utrecht in the autumn — after a university span that included a year in Japan. To list all this sounds boosterish, and also misses the point that most of this university’s graduates stay in their home regions, declining to join the “brain drain” that took so many bright Balkan youngsters West. To someone all too familiar with the bad sides of the Balkans, it was simply very heartening. The global economic crisis was distant for a day. President David Huwiler mentioned it, along with military conflicts and increasing poverty and hunger. But he quickly added “our hope that you will take with you the determination to make a difference on our troubled planet.” Standard graduation fare, perhaps. But not so automatic if you emerge from Communism, or ethnic hatred, to twirl your tassel to the left and throw your cap in the air to mark the acquisition of that precious degree. As Slavenka Drakulic, the Croatian writer who gave the keynote address, noted: “Freedom is a rare and precious fruit in this part of the world.” | Colleges and Universities;Bulgaria;Balkan States;Bosnia and Herzegovina;Serbia |
ny0127481 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2012/01/31 | Girl Scouts Celebrating 100 Years With More Than Cookies | “I’D like to drop out of high school and get a meaningless job that makes me feel bad about myself,” says a young girl in a new public service announcement . “I’d like to fall victim to the old boys’ network,” says another. Others add: “I don’t want anybody to notice me,” “I want to splatter against the glass ceiling,” and “I want to be a straight-C student.” Finally, one girl says, “I’m going to be a biomedical engineer,” causing the others to laugh dismissively. “I mean, I want to succumb to peer pressure all of my life,” she adds. Then the girls are shown with parents and other adults, and the tone shifts. “I’m going to be a best-selling author, and win the National Book Award ,” says one girl with her mother. Others pipe in with such aspirations as, “I’ll be the president,” and, “Racecar driver.” The 60-second spot concludes with screen text that says, “The choices they make start with you,” and directs viewers to a new Web site, ToGetHerThere.org . On Tuesday, the spot is scheduled to go on the air and the site is scheduled to go live. Print ads promoting ToGetHerThere.org feature girls posing in professional settings with adults, such as at a debate with a male politician, in the offices of an engineering firm and in a boardroom with chief executives. Text highlights hurdles that girls might encounter. “Only 3.2 percent of C.E.O.’s of publicly traded companies are women,” begins the ad set in a boardroom. “If each of us gives a girl our time and support today, she can find the courage, confidence and character she’ll need to become a business leader tomorrow.” What neither the public service announcements nor print ads mention is the organization spearheading the effort: Girl Scouts of the USA . In observance of its 100th anniversary, Girl Scouts is shifting gears from typical promotional efforts, which tend to either encourage girls to join a troop or ask consumers to buy Thin Mints and Samoas . “People generally associate Girl Scouts with cookies, camping and doing crafts, but the reality of what our brand stands for is we’re the nation’s largest leadership development organization for girls,” said Timothy Higdon, chief of external affairs for Girl Scouts. “What we’re asserting is that the country would be in a much better position if women were represented in leadership all across the country.” The campaign is by Edelman , the public relations firm, with Ruth, a marketing agency within Edelman, producing the print ads. For the commercial, Ruth turned to Poptent , a company that takes a brand’s assignment for a commercial and solicits entries from its community of filmmakers. The winning submission came from the filmmaker Karen Erbach . The effort, which includes television, print, outdoor and online elements, has so far had advertising space valued at $76 million contributed by Time Inc., Time Warner Cable and USA Today, among others. Girl Scouts has a fund-raising goal of $1 billion within a decade for the effort, which will begin on Tuesday with a panel discussion in Manhattan that will include Jean Chatzky, the “Today” show financial editor; the figure skater Michelle Kwan; and Joanna Coles, the editor of Marie Claire. At an event in Washington on Wednesday, advocates will urge Congressional leaders to embrace the concept. A new study of girls ages 8 to 17 prepared for the Girl Scouts by GfK Roper found that 59 percent of them agreed with the statement, “Women can rise up in a company or organization, but they will only rarely be put at the very top.” “Research shows that girls look at leadership differently than boys,” said Anna Maria Chávez, chief executive of Girl Scouts, adding that her organization is uniquely situated to enlist adults to encourage girls. “Who better to do that than us?” Ms. Chávez asked. “And what better time than now?” While nonprofits historically have tended to promote themselves by name, in recent years they have undertaken efforts that emphasize specific initiatives instead. Promotional material for Go Red for Women , which began in 2004 to combat heart disease among women, for example, tends to feature its logo, a red dress, far more prominently than the logo of the organization behind the effort, the American Heart Association. Carol Cone, who helped create the Go Red for Women campaign as the founder of Cone Inc., a philanthropic marketing firm, now serves as managing director for brand and corporate citizenship at Edelman, where she is leading the new initiative for Girl Scouts. “Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding,” a book Ms. Cone wrote with three other women, urges an organization to go “beyond institutional survival to serve a higher purpose” by putting “a larger cause and the outcomes they seek ahead of its organizational needs.” As Girl Scouts celebrates its 100th anniversary, Ms. Cone said in an interview, the ToGetHerThere campaign is its response to, “How do we remain relevant and how can we play a bigger role going forward?” But Jen Drexler, a co-founder of Just Ask a Woman, a firm that specializes in marketing to women, found the ToGetHerThere print and television public service announcements to be less persuasive than viral videos for the Girl Effect , an effort begun in 2008 by the Nike Foundation and other organizations to raise money to lift adolescent girls in poor countries out of poverty. “The Girl Effect videos are super, superpowerful,” said Ms. Drexler, who now serves as a vice president at the Insight Strategy Group, a marketing and research firm. “But I can’t say that I feel a tremendous sense of urgency” regarding the Girl Scout campaign, she added. She also questioned depicting young girls so focused on careers. “What we’re seeing all over the place is that girls are being pushed into adulthood too fast,” Ms. Drexler said. “Do we really want her to want to be president or a biomedical engineer at 8?” | Girl Scouts;Advertising and Marketing;Women and Girls;Nonprofit Organizations |
ny0095236 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2015/01/26 | The Vatican Switches to Balloons for Peace | VATICAN CITY — Balloons, not doves, were released as a gesture of peace on Sunday in St. Peter’s Square, a year after an attack by a gull and a crow on the symbolic birds set off protests by animal protection groups. For years, children had joined the pope at a window of the papal studio overlooking the square to set free a pair of doves on the last Sunday in January. The Roman Catholic Church traditionally dedicates January to peace themes. But last year, the gesture of good will became a public relations disaster for the Vatican. After the children with Pope Francis tossed a pair of doves from the window, first a gull and then a crow swept down and attacked the doves. Information about the fate of those doves was not available. Advocates for animals who were demanding an end to the release of doves swiftly appealed to Francis. He is the first pontiff to adopt the name of Francis of Assisi, the saint who was famed for his love for birds and other creatures of the wild. “Here’s the balloons that mean ‘peace,’ ” Francis said Sunday when children in the square let go of their balloons. Gulls nest atop the colonnade of St. Peter’s Square, not far from the Tiber River, and scavenge for garbage. One animal advocacy group likened freeing doves in Rome to issuing a death sentence for the birds. Pope John Paul II began the tradition of releasing doves to draw attention to the need to work for peace in the world. The Vatican did not mention last year’s incident when it said in a statement on Sunday that children would release balloons, including a hot-air balloon containing messages of peace. One of the children at the window read a speech about peace. | Catholic Church;Balloon;Birds;Animals;Rome |
ny0239596 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2010/12/17 | Before Knicks, Heat Sought Stoudemire | GREENBURGH, N.Y. — There will be plenty of what-if scenarios at Madison Square Garden on Friday night, most of them concerning how LeBron James , Dwyane Wade or Chris Bosh might have performed in a Knicks uniform had one of them listened to the Knicks’ pitch with as much interest as Amar’e Stoudemire did. But one of those scenarios has a twist to it. Before the Knicks gave their recruiting pitch to Stoudemire, a Heat contingent that included the team’s president, Pat Riley , sat down with him in Los Angeles and preached the virtues of playing in Miami. Riley laid out his plans of signing James and retaining Wade. The implication was that Stoudemire could become the third piece. But the talks with the Heat did not advance and ultimately Chris Bosh became the big man teaming with James and Wade. And Stoudemire quickly signed with the Knicks after they presented him with a contract offer of $99.7 million over five years. Stoudemire then strutted to the news conference that announced his commitment and proclaimed, “The Knicks are back.” So far, he’s been right. The Knicks are a surprising 16-10, largely thanks to Stoudemire, as they prepare to take on the 19-8 Heat on Friday night at Madison Square Garden in their first meeting of the season. Stoudemire committed to the Knicks days before James picked the Heat, but at a team practice on Thursday, he said he did not spend much time during that period wondering if James might join him in New York. “To be honest with you, I wasn’t too concerned with LeBron at that time,” Stoudemire said. “I made the correct decision on my behalf and my family situation and I went from there.” Still, Stoudemire expressed surprise on Thursday that his name did not register a little more than it did when he decided to leave Phoenix. The pending availability of James, Wade and Bosh seemed to overshadow everything else — even though, as Stoudemire was willing to note to reporters, “I’ve been in a winning situation my whole career and it’s been somewhat opposite for Chris.” “But he’s playing well this year,” Stoudemire added diplomatically. “He’s been playing well his whole career.” Indeed, after some early-season turbulence, the Heat is riding a 10-game winning streak and resembles the all-conquering conglomerate first envisioned over the summer. Stoudemire, who might have been part of it all had the recruiting turned out a little differently, will instead try to get the Heat out of its rhythm on Friday night. And maybe he can. It’s just one more what-if scenario as the game approaches. REWINDING THE CLOCK A day later, you could still hear the ticking of the clock. After Paul Pierce’s jumper gave Boston a 118-116 lead with four-tenths of a second left in Wednesday’s game at Madison Square Garden, Amar’e Stoudemire received an inbounds pass and immediately hit a 3-pointer, igniting a momentary celebration. But Knicks 119, Celtics 118 didn’t last very long. Officials consulted instant replay and quickly confirmed that Stoudemire’s shot came after the buzzer sounded. Stoudemire didn’t disagree. “I saw enough replays to last a year,” he said at Thursday’s practice. But that wasn’t the issue. What intrigued fans and spread from blog to blog on the Internet via screen grabs was that there were still six-tenths of a second remaining when Pierce’s shot cleared the net, the point at which the clock is supposed to stop. Could those two extra tenths of a second have made the difference for Stoudemire? Maybe. But the elapsed time between the ball going through the hoop and the clock stopping was normal and accounts for human reaction by the timekeeper. In a twist, the Knicks would have benefited had the timekeeper reacted more slowly after Pierce hit his shot. If the final buzzer had sounded after Pierce’s shot, the referees would have had the option to consult video replay and put time back on the clock. In this instance, that would have meant six-tenths of a second for the Knicks to run a final play. But because the clock stopped with four-tenths of a second to go, the referees did not have the option to do a video review. So four-tenths was all the Knicks had when they inbounded the ball, and it proved too small of a window for Stoudemire to catch a pass and get a shot off. Of course, any inbounded shot with four-tenths of a second left is highly unlikely to succeed. The N.B.A. imposed a rule in 1990 that a player needs at least three-tenths of a second to catch the ball and shoot, a rule imposed after the Knicks’ Trent Tucker caught an inbounds pass and beat Chicago with a 3-pointer, all with one-tenth of a second on the clock. | Stoudemire Amare;Basketball;New York Knicks;Miami Heat;James LeBron;Wade Dwyane;Bosh Chris;Riley Pat |
ny0004304 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2013/04/10 | Baseball Creates Committee to Study Decline of Blacks in the Majors | Commissioner Bud Selig said Tuesday that he was creating a 17-member diversity task force to study and address the issue of on-field participation by African-Americans in Major League Baseball. “I don’t want to miss any opportunity here,” Selig said in a telephone interview from his office in Milwaukee. “We want to find out if we’re not doing well, why not, and what we need to do better. We’ll meet as many times as we need to to come to meaningful decisions.” The first meeting, Selig said, would be Wednesday in Milwaukee, with Dave Dombrowski, the president of the Detroit Tigers, serving as chairman of the committee. The committee includes several other front-office executives, but also Bernard Muir, the athletic director at Stanford; Frank Marcos, the senior director of baseball’s scouting bureau; and the former Mets manager Jerry Manuel. Only 8.5 percent of the players on the 25-man rosters on opening day were African-American. Several teams, including the World Series champion San Francisco Giants, had none. The highest percentage of African-Americans playing in the majors, according to new research by Mark Armour from the Society of American Baseball Research, was 19 percent in 1986. “I really think our history is so brilliant when it comes to African-Americans,” Selig said. “You think about the late 1940s, the 1950s — wow. And you look at that and you say to yourself, ‘Why did it not continue, and what could we do to make sure it does continue?’ ” Selig, who keeps a Jackie Robinson jersey near the desk in his office, said he was planning to see “42,” the new film about Robinson breaking baseball’s color barrier, on Wednesday night. | Baseball;Black People,African-Americans;MLB;Bud Selig |
ny0134975 | [
"business"
] | 2008/04/16 | J.&J. Results Are Sweetened by a Weak Dollar | Johnson & Johnson posted better-than-expected first-quarter earnings on Tuesday as the weak dollar and cost-cutting offset plunging sales of medicines facing generic competition and anemia drugs hit by safety concerns. Demand for the company’s wide array of consumer products, including a new over-the-counter form of the antihistamine Zyrtec and various other products recently acquired from Pfizer, bolstered results. But its two other major businesses, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, would have fared poorly had they not been propped up by the beaten-down dollar. “International sales and exchange rates in overseas markets that benefit from the weak dollar are the only things that are keeping Johnson & Johnson afloat,” said Steve Brozak, an analyst with WBB Securities. The company earned $3.6 billion, or $1.26 a share, compared with $2.57 billion, or 88 cents a share, in the period a year earlier, when it took several merger-related charges. Analysts polled by Reuters Estimates, on average, had expected a profit of $1.20 a share. Johnson & Johnson said global sales rose 7.7 percent, to $16.19 billion, above the average forecast of $15.85 billion. Revenue would have risen only 2.6 percent if not for the weak dollar, which increases the value of sales in overseas markets. Excluding the benefit of the weak dollar, sales of consumer brands like Band-Aids and Listerine rose 6.3 percent, revenue from medical devices increased just 1.4 percent and prescription drug sales fell 0.6 percent. Combined sales of the anemia drugs Procrit and Eprex fell 23 percent, to $629 million, in the quarter, hurt by concerns that overuse of such medicines can increase the risk of adverse events and death. The company raised its 2008 earnings forecast slightly, to $4.40 to $4.45 a share, reflecting growth of up to 7 percent. That represents a slowdown, however, from growth of more than 10 percent last year. Its previous forecast was $4.39 to $4.44 a share. Shares of Johnson & Johnson fell 9 cents Tuesday, to $65.65. | Johnson & Johnson Inc;Company Reports;Sales;Drugs (Pharmaceuticals) |
ny0003486 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2013/04/20 | Jury Cites Poor Medical Care in Death of Indian Woman in Ireland | DUBLIN (AP) — An Irish jury on Friday found that poor medical care led to the death of an Indian woman who was denied an emergency abortion while she was having a miscarriage. The jury ruled after a two-week coroner’s inquest into the death of the woman, Savita Halappanavar, at University Hospital Galway in western Ireland on Oct. 28. The six-man, five-woman jury agreed that Ms. Halappanavar, 31, died from “medical misadventure” involving the failure of the hospital’s staff to identify, document or address her development of blood poisoning . Ms. Halappanavar’s husband, Praveen, said the hospital staff refused to give his wife an abortion even though her fetus had no chance of survival, citing the country’s Roman Catholic social policies against abortions. The staff waited three days until the 17-week-old fetus had died. By then Ms. Halappanavar was in an advanced state of septicemia, and she died four days later. The six-man, five-woman jury ruled that Ms. Halappanavar, who was a dentist, died from “medical misadventure,” meaning incompetence in her care. At the conclusion of his fact-finding inquiry, the Galway coroner, Dr. Ciaran MacLoughlin, praised Mr. Halappanavar for his courage in protesting publicly against his wife’s medical care at the hospital, where doctors had refused to perform a termination while the fetus had a heartbeat. Outside the courtroom, Mr. Halappanavar said legal action would continue to try to hold particular staff members responsible for his wife’s death. He said the hospital’s inaction for several days while his wife’s health deteriorated during a drawn-out, painful miscarriage meant she might as well have stayed at home. “They could have intervened right from Day 1 because they knew the fetus was inviable, so why wait?” he said, adding that the testimony had pinned down systemwide failures but no personal responsibility. The case highlighted a two-decade problem in Ireland’s abortion law. A 1992 Supreme Court ruling declared that abortions deemed necessary to save a woman’s life must be legal, but successive governments have refused to pass any law to support the ruling, fearful of voter backlash in a nation where Catholicism remains the dominant faith. With the Constitution containing a blanket ban on abortions, doctors remain fearful of prosecution on murder charges if they perform a termination. The government of Prime Minister Enda Kenny has pledged to pass a law by July, with related medical guidelines, that defines when lifesaving abortions can be given. But Mr. Kenny’s own party is split down the middle, with Catholic conservatives pledging to vote against the measure amid lobbying by church leaders. Dr. MacLoughlin, the coroner, published eight recommendations for the hospital to improve how it records and shares patient information among staff members, and monitors the risk of infections and blood poisoning in patients. His other recommendation was for the national Medical Council to publish guidelines defining the exact circumstances when an abortion can be performed to save the life of the mother. These guidelines, long sought by Ireland’s maternity hospitals, “would remove doubt and fear from the doctor and also reassure the public,” he said. | Savita Halappanavar;Decisions and Verdicts;Abortion;Ireland;Miscarriage;Catholic Church;Malpractice;University Hospital Galway |
ny0213252 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2010/03/20 | In Canada, Real Estate Is Booming | OTTAWA — Marie-Yvonne Paint, a real estate agent in Montreal, has the kind of problem most of her counterparts in the United States can only dream about. “We have a shortage of inventory right now,” said Ms. Paint, who focuses on the exclusive and expensive municipality of Westmount. “It’s very annoying. We have buyers ready to buy and not much to show.” Ms. Paint’s experience is not an isolated example. Like most of the world, Canada’s real estate market slumped during the recession . But now, instead of worrying about the recovery of the real estate market, some Canadians are concerned about the prospect of a price bubble. The Canadian Real Estate Association reported that the average price of existing homes rose 19.6 percent in January compared with those in the month a year earlier, the latest in a string of substantial gains dating back through last autumn. By contrast, the average price of existing homes rose 2.6 percent in the United States in the same period, according to the National Association of Realtors . Such drastic percentage gains are not just a reflection of the market’s earlier depths. In some Canadian cities, particularly Toronto and Vancouver, prices appear to be heading toward record levels. “It’s no surprise the housing market responded to low interest rates,” said Craig Alexander, the deputy chief economist of the Toronto-Dominion Bank . “The real question is what’s going to happen in the next year. It can’t continue at the current pace, otherwise a bubble will form.” Canadian home buyers, of course, are not unique in having access to low-interest mortgages. But Mr. Alexander and others attribute the Canadian market’s revival to a series of measures that ensured that the recession in Canada did not turn into a real estate disaster. Perhaps chief among them is the country’s retail banking system, which is effectively an oligopoly dominated by five national banks, including Toronto-Dominion. Most of the time, that arrangement is less than popular among Canadians, who think that a lack of competition leads to, among other things, low interest rates on savings and high service fees. Public resentment has repeatedly caused politicians to block mergers between the banks. But in the lead-up to the credit crisis , the closed-shop nature of banking in Canada proved to be the government’s, and the economy’s, best friend. Mindful of government oversight, Canadian banks by and large avoided the structured debt products that imperiled many of their American counterparts. They also maintained comparatively tight controls on mortgage lending to consumers. When zero percent down payments on mortgages were widely available in the United States, Canadians were typically required to put down at least 10 percent. American-style amortization periods stretching beyond 25 years were also relatively unknown in Canada. “In Canada, standards got nowhere near as low,” said Timothy D. Hockey, the chief executive of TD Canada Trust, Toronto-Dominion’s Canadian retail banking operation. “When the crisis came upon us, the standards didn’t have to change.” One result of that, said Phil Soper, the president and chief executive of Brookfield Real Estate Services of Toronto, is that the slump in housing starts and existing home prices was delayed by about a year in Canada until late 2008. Then, when interest among buyers began to return last year, Canada’s still-healthy banks were able to provide mortgages, and housing prices were not depressed by a glut of defaulted properties in forced sales. “One of the things we see in American businesses that we don’t see in our Canadian businesses is a willingness to really push the limits,” said Mr. Soper, whose operations include Royal LePage, one of Canada’s leading real estate brokers. “When bubbles burst, sometimes the turtle wins.” While demand from buyers has returned, most real estate analysts agree that sellers have been slower to move. There are a variety of theories for that reluctance. Winter is not seen as a optimal season for selling homes in most parts of the country, given Canada’s climate. Some economists speculate that many sellers are holding out for more definitive signs of a market comeback. And others think that many sellers have delayed putting their homes on the market because they are undertaking repairs prompted by recently expired home renovation tax credits that were part of Canada’s economic recovery plan. But whatever the cause, the expectation — or perhaps the hope — is that the arrival of spring and the upward trend in prices will inspire increasing numbers of people to list their homes. The increase in supply, in turn, should prevent prices from escalating to bubble levels. January’s statistics, both for resales and housing starts, suggest that pattern may be developing. But Mr. Soper is among those who caution against reading too much into the current market buoyancy about long-term price trends. “Canadians in the financial and real estate sectors feel a little bit smarter than they should about the strength of the economy and industry over the last few years,” he said. “Certainly the underlying economy isn’t strong enough to support the prices we’ve seen over the last few weeks.” | Housing and Real Estate;Canada;Economic Conditions and Trends;Mortgages;National Assn of Realtors;Toronto Dominion Bank;Canada Trust;Alexander Craig |
ny0005535 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2013/04/12 | Perils for Swing-State Democrats on Gun Control | WASHINGTON — The families of the Newtown, Conn., shooting victims who have converged on Capitol Hill this week made a point of visiting Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a freshman Democrat known for the “North Dakota nice” of her home state, but on the main issue that brought them here — limiting the capacity of gun magazines and universal background checks — she curtly rejected their pleas for support. “In our part of the country, this isn’t an issue,” Ms. Heitkamp explained in an interview afterward. “This is a way of life. This is how people feel, and it is extraordinarily difficult to explain that, especially to grieving parents.” Bottom line, she said, “I’m going to represent my state.” For years, guns have been the issue that swing-state Democrats like Ms. Heitkamp have sought to bury. Leading Democratic strategists still believe the assault weapons ban and the creation of background checks were a driving force in the Republican landslide of 1994. Six years later — after the Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore lost his home state, Tennessee; once-reliably Democratic West Virginia; and Arkansas, home to Bill Clinton, amid an onslaught of advertising by the National Rifle Association — many of those strategists vowed to let the issue of gun control lie dormant indefinitely. But many Democrats insist the mass shootings in December at Newtown, after similar shootings in Aurora, Colo., Tucson and Virginia, have changed the politics of guns. “We’re letting our country be governed and dictated to by the extremes,” lamented Senator Joe Manchin III, a Democrat from West Virginia who once fired a rifle at President Obama’s energy bill in a campaign commercial, as he met with seven family members of children and educators slain at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. To other Democrats from rural Republican states, however, the landscape does not look all that different, especially if they are standing for re-election next year. Only two Democrats, Mark Begich of Alaska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, voted against Thursday’s procedural vote to break a filibuster to take up the gun legislation. But others are in question for the final votes. “We might feel good about passing something new, but what we need is already law,” Mr. Begich said after the vote, echoing the traditional gun-rights argument that greater enforcement of existing laws — not additional legislation — would suffice. Besides Senators Begich and Pryor, there are other Democrats in question for the final gun votes. Max Baucus of Montana, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Kay Hagan of North Carolina all face tough races next year — and tough choices now. “I don’t support the bill, but I support open debate,” Mr. Baucus, who won the endorsement of the N.R.A. in 2008, said after the vote. “Montanans are opposed to this bill — by a very large margin.” The political perils for such Democrats are real, said Vic Fazio, a former California representative who headed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 1994 when a four-decade Democratic House majority was swept away. There were other issues — tax increases, a failed health care overhaul — but gun control loomed large, he said. The N.R.A.’s power may have diminished since then, he said, but it has also concentrated in rural, conservative states. President Obama, until Newtown, had been a dutiful subscriber to the theory of avoiding the gun issue at all cost since the early days of his first presidential run. As recently as the second presidential debate with Mitt Romney in October, the president greeted a voter’s question on assault weapons with a meandering answer that started: “We’re a nation that believes in the Second Amendment, and I believe in the Second Amendment. We’ve got a long tradition of hunting and sportsmen and people who want to make sure they can protect themselves.” And supporters of the current push seem to accept that Democratic losses are inevitable. “It’s going to be a very tough vote for a small handful of Democrats,” said Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut and one of the bill’s shepherds. “Regardless of whether we get 52 or 55 Democrats, we’ve always known we need Republicans.” Image Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, said, “It’s going to be a very tough vote for a small handful of Democrats.” Credit Alex Wong/Getty Images Democrats like Ms. Heitkamp staked their conservative claims on guns. Her last campaign commercial of 2012 declared “schools and tractors and guns” to be “part of how we live.” Six days after the slaughter at Sandy Hook Elementary, she called the Obama administration’s gun proposals “way in extreme of what I think is necessary or even should be talked about.” Senator Pryor, one of the most endangered incumbents next year, stood up for expanding background checks to sales at gun shows in 2011. Now he is not so sure. “As a general rule, people in Arkansas do not want any gun control,” he said Wednesday. “It’s just sort of a blanket statement.” In 2008, after a close election, Mr. Begich, a former Anchorage mayor, cited his opposition to gun control and support for oil drilling as key to his success. In 2009, Mr. Begich, Mr. Baucus and another Democrat now in play, Jon Tester of Montana, wrote letters to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. saying he should enforce existing gun laws rather than propose additional ones. “We love our guns,” Mr. Begich said Wednesday. To vote for any gun safety legislation now will create a double trap for someone like Mr. Begich. Republicans will attack the vote itself, and accuse him of saying one thing to constituents and doing another when in the political hothouse of Washington. “It’s an issue that will reveal whether they are in touch or out of touch with the people in their state,” said Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has already begun goading the 2014 Democrats in their home states. As if to prove the political calculus, Mr. Tester, who does not face another campaign until 2018, is taking a very different line from the senior senator from his state, Mr. Baucus. The package is more a refinement of existing laws, not an expansion, he said Thursday, and he is inclined to support them. “I think there’s an opportunity to do some good things and ensure Second Amendment rights,” he said. Other swing-state Democrats are trying hard to counter the pressure being brought to bear against them. Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, was governor during the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech and pressed for expanded background checks. The effort fell short, but it earned him the enmity of the N.R.A., which had already opposed his run for governor. He still prevailed in his Senate run last year, and said he has concluded the power of the organization’s leadership is vastly overrated. He has been making that case to other members, he said. Mr. Manchin has been pressing as well. While meeting with Newtown families on Wednesday, he called on the rifle association to post the details of his background-check legislation on the group’s Web site “and let members of the N.R.A. like me vote on it.” One after another, the family members praised the burly West Virginian for what they called courage and perseverance. “I have no courage compared to you all,” he answered tearfully. But it was not clear whether emotional appeals can break through, even from Mr. Manchin. “I think the world of Joe,” Ms. Heitkamp said. “I think Joe’s worked very hard to forge a compromise, but in the end it’s not what any other senator believes. It’s about what the people of North Dakota believe.” | Gun Control;Senate;Congress;Heidi Heitkamp;Joe Manchin III;Mark Begich;Mark Pryor;US |
ny0159527 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2008/12/12 | Pakistan Detains Founder of Group Suspected in Mumbai Attacks | ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Hours after a senior American diplomat personally delivered a stern warning that Pakistan must act against a terrorist group, the authorities here on Thursday detained the founder of the militant group accused by India and the United States of conducting the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Pakistani officials said that the founder, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, was being held in Lahore on Thursday night at his headquarters for Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the charity that fronts for the militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba . About a dozen of its offices were shut down, the officials said. The detention of Mr. Saeed came after intense pressure from the United States, including a visit here on Thursday by Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte. Despite the appearance of Pakistani resolve, the detention of Mr. Saeed was orchestrated by the government in a way to minimize what many here expect to be an angry reaction from the public, and from a broad spectrum of Islamic militant groups sympathetic to Lashkar-e-Taiba. Just before the police surrounded his mosque and other buildings in central Lahore, Mr. Saeed, who claims he no longer has connections to Lashkar, was allowed to hold a news conference, unfettered by the authorities, in which he denounced a decision on Wednesday by the United Nations sanctions committee to place Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Lashkar on a terrorist blacklist of groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. “We will not accept any decision taken under Indian pressure,” a defiant Mr. Saeed told several dozen journalists. In another sign of the apprehension within the government about the domestic reaction to getting tough on Mr. Saeed and his groups, the foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, announced the United Nations decision on television at midnight when most viewers had gone to bed. The foreign minister said Pakistan would comply with the United Nations decision, but did not say the group had been proscribed, nor did he announce the house arrest of Mr. Saeed. The Pakistani police said Mr. Saeed would be detained for three months. The State Bank of Pakistan said it had frozen the accounts of Jamaat-ud-Dawa. At the heart of what Washington sees as Pakistan’s halting steps to stop the two groups is the profound change that such a shutdown would represent in Pakistan’s strategic policy toward India, its rival. Lashkar-e-Taiba was created in the late 1980s with the cooperation of the Pakistani Army and the powerful Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence to fight a proxy war against India in the disputed territory of Kashmir. Although the group was formally banned in 2002, it has been allowed to continue its training of militants, and has been kept as a kind of paramilitary reserve group by the Pakistani military and intelligence forces, American officials say. That year, Mr. Saeed was put under house arrest. He was released about a year later. Many members of Lashkar-e-Taiba were arrested, too, but subsequently released. To overcome the stigma of heading a banned group, Mr. Saeed switched roles and became the leader of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which was founded in the mid-1980s. The charity became a recruiting arm for Lashkar-e-Taiba, and in villages across Punjab Province, where poor young boys are drawn to the jihadist policies of both groups, Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Lashkar-e-Taiba are synonymous. Mr. Saeed appeared on a popular television talk show, “Capital Talk,” several days ago and outlined his anti-India platform to the approval of many people who called the show to express their support. Mr. Saeed said on the show that Kashmir, divided between India and Pakistan since 1947, belonged to Pakistan. At his news conference, Mr. Saeed threatened to pull out what he considered his trump card: popular support. “We believe the people of Pakistan will raise their voice in favor of us,” he said. Jamaat-ud-Dawa is popular in Punjab, the most populous province, largely because it fills a vacuum in social services that the government falls short on, providing schools, hospitals and several universities. A critic of the government’s backing of both groups, Ejaz Haider, said Thursday that the actions against Mr. Saeed would have little effect. “Lashkar-e-Taiba is already banned. Now you ban Jamaat-ud-Dawa, and you ban Hafiz Saeed and 30 others,” said Mr. Haider, a consulting editor of The Friday Times. “Does it take care of the problem? No. You have to make these people irrelevant, and you do that by changing the context in which all this is happening.” The only solution, Mr. Haider said, is find “some innovative solutions” to the problem of Kashmir. There was still uncertainty on Thursday about whether Maulana Masood Azhar, the leader of Jaish-e-Muhammad, another militant group, had been placed under house arrest, and whether the Lashkar commander suspected of running the Mumbai operation, Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi, had been arrested. In another sign of the hesitant approach to Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the administrator of the group’s campus at Muridke, outside Lahore, said the school and medical clinic there were operating. “There has been no crackdown here,” Abu Suhail, the administrator said. If members of the group were sent to jail, he said, its members would still proselytize. “If we are sent to jail we will bring Islam to the people in jail.” | Pakistan;Lashkar-e-Taiba;Inter-Services Intelligence;International Relations;Intelligence Services;Terrorism;United States International Relations;Lahore (Pakistan);Islamabad (Pakistan);Mumbai (India) |
ny0108500 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/05/27 | For C.B. Bucknor, Umpire, Sundays Mean Ballgames or Dinner at Mom’s | C. B. Bucknor, 50, was a physical therapist at what was then New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center when, on a whim, he used vacation time to attend umpire school in 1990. A career change ensued. Now, most of his Sundays involve ballgames and airline travel; he umpires 135 Major League games a season, not counting spring training and the playoffs. (He has worked the playoffs three times, but never a World Series, and his calls have sometimes been controversial.) In the off-season he spends time in his hometown, Savanna-la-Mar, Jamaica, where he helps run an annual “Treat 54” party (named for his uniform number) for local children. He lives in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, with his wife, who is a registered nurse, and their children, ages 9, 15 and 17; his mother lives upstairs. STRETCH AND DIP I get up by 8 or 9, and whether I’m at home or on the road, the first thing I do is exercise. You have to be in good shape for this job: We’re on a four-man crew and rotate the bases with each game. When you’re at home plate calling balls and strikes, besides having to constantly use your judgment, you’re doing around 300 dips. It’s tough on the knees. I spend an hour on stretching, push-ups, situps and dips. Before spring training, I run at least two miles a day in Prospect Park, but I’m not a treadmill guy. NO RED MEAT I’m not a big breakfast person, per se: I’ll shower up and have some fruit, juice and tea. None of that eggs and bacon stuff. I stopped eating red meat and pork almost 15 years ago. GAME FACE On Sundays it’s usually a day game, and we have to be at the stadium at least an hour early, so the morning is kind of rushed: I’m packing up, checking out of the hotel, and then the van takes us to the ballpark. When I’m home, I try and get to the 10 o’clock service at Bedford Central Presbyterian ; on the road, baseball has a chapel program. The chaplain comes to the umpires’ locker room. After that, it’s time to put on the uniform. DOWNTIME I’m not big on TV, but in the locker room we tend to watch reruns: “Seinfeld,” “Raymond,” “ The King of Queens. ” PLANES AND AIRPORTS After the game, we’re either trying to get to the airport to catch a flight to the next city, or maybe catch a flight home if we have the Monday off. We spend a lot of time in airports and on airplanes; the nice perk is our contract says we have to fly first class. The way the schedule works, they try to get every crew to hit all 30 teams, but it doesn’t always work out. This year we only have one series at the Mets, one at the Yankees. We don’t go to Boston at all, but we go to Arizona four times. A SUNDAY HOME If I’m home on a Sunday — we get four weeks off during the season — I like to go down to the Parade Ground , where I used to play and worked with the Bonnie Youth Club . I catch up with the guys and watch the kids play, but I make sure to get home for Sunday dinner at my mom’s. She makes Jamaican rice and peas, fried platanos, stewed chicken or steak, and for me she’ll do fish and vegetables. I love dessert: noodle pudding, that’s her specialty. It’s to die for. ROAD WARRIOR Everyone else watches TV after dinner. I figure out what to pack in my bag, one carry-on, and go to bed early so I’ll be ready to hit the road. | Bucknor C B;Officiating (Sports);Baseball;Prospect Lefferts Gardens (NYC) |
ny0069221 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2014/12/06 | Mexico: Police Chief Says He Is Stepping Down | Under fire over accusations of police brutality, Mexico City’s police chief, Jesús Rodríguez Almeida, resigned on Friday. He gave no reason for his departure, but the city’s human rights commission, along with social organizations, have accused police officers of using repressive tactics on largely peaceful demonstrators. The protest marches, which were initially touched off by the disappearance of 43 students in southern Mexico, have developed into a broader movement for an end to government corruption. During a large protest on Nov. 20, the police arrested 11 people; they were sent to maximum security jails, only to be released by a judge for lack of evidence. | Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings;Jesus Rodriguez Almeida;Mexico City;Mexico |
ny0252125 | [
"business"
] | 2011/11/27 | Letters: A Store of Their Own | To the Editor: Re “Buying Underwear, Along With the Whole Store” (Nov. 13), which described how residents of Saranac Lake, N.Y., bought and opened their own department store. Indeed, this town is an unusual place that believes that volunteers are what makes a community thrive. On the same day that the Community Store opened, the Friends of Mount Pisgah, a volunteer group of long standing, had a ribbon-cutting for its new ski lift at our local ski hill, where children can learn and improve their skills. The next day, one of the downtown merchants moved to a new location. At 8 a.m. on a Sunday, more than 180 volunteers formed a human chain to pass the vendor’s merchandise to his new store. In combination with good schools and involved parents, Saranac Lake is a fine place to visit but a better place to live. Jon Vinograd Saranac Lake, N.Y., Nov. 13 | Saranac Lake Community Store;Shopping and Retail;Economic Conditions and Trends |
ny0126966 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2012/08/25 | Sighs of Relief for Jeter and Sabathia as Yankees Beat Indians | CLEVELAND — The Yankees faced their most critical test of the season Friday night. They had been swept in Chicago, and their division lead slashed to two and a half games. So the thought of C. C. Sabathia being unable to respond after a bout of inflammation in his left elbow was frightening for them to contemplate. Any pregame fears, however, were forgotten in the second inning when the Cleveland Indians rookie Corey Kluber unleashed a wild 92-mile-per-hour fastball that hit the brim of Derek Jeter ’s helmet. For an instant everything in the Yankees’ world froze. The errant pitch knocked off Jeter’s helmet. He dropped his bat and staggered a few steps and then broke into a jog to first base. Unhurt but angry, Jeter remained in the game, and the Yankees went on to a 3-1 victory. The Tampa Bay Rays, who have been applying consistent pressure in the American League East, lost to the Oakland Athletics, and the Yankees’ lead rose to three and a half games. “We went to Chicago, and they put it on us,” Sabathia said. “We were able to come here and get a win, and hopefully we can get on a roll.” Sabathia pitched seven and a third dominating innings, allowing one run and four hits while striking out nine on 100 reassuring pitches. Jeter and Swisher provided the offense. In the first inning, they hit back-to-back doubles, and in the seventh Swisher hit a tiebreaking two-run homer with Jeter aboard. Rafael Soriano almost blew the game in the ninth when he put runners on second and third with nobody out after he got crossed up on a sign and threw a wild pitch. But he got Jack Hannahan to ground out with the bases loaded, giving him his 32nd save of the season and preserving Sabathia’s 13th victory. “That’s the first time it’s happened all year,” Soriano said of missing the sign to throw a first-and-third pickoff attempt. “I didn’t do it all last year. But I did it tonight.” The big test for Sabathia will be Saturday and Sunday when he will find out whether the swelling and soreness return. “It felt pretty good,” he said. “It felt good all night.” Sabathia last pitched on Aug. 8 in Detroit, but during that start he felt a recurrence of pain in his left elbow. He was placed on the 15-day disabled list. “He was very impressive,” catcher Russell Martin said. “It was like he never left.” Kluber, making his fifth major league start, entered the game with a 6.27 earned run average and an 0-2 record. He hit Jeter on the left brim of the helmet, causing a small crack. Manager Joe Girardi sprinted out of the dugout to attend to Jeter, who waved him off, saying he was all right. But he was clearly angered by the pitch and seemed to say to Kluber: “Don’t do that to me. Don’t do that.” “Of course you’re angry,” Jeter said. “Nobody wants to be hit in the head. When you do that, it’s kind of a dangerous area, so of course I’m upset. It’s over with. It’s history now.” Jeter, who said he had no tests for a concussion and said none were planned, did not think the pitch was intended to hit him. “I don’t think anyone throws at anyone’s head on purpose,” he said. “I’ve never faced the guy, I don’t know the guy. I don’t think it’s that. I think if you’re throwing up and in you’ve got to be careful. That’s a dangerous area to be throwing.” Sabathia sent a retaliatory message in the fourth when he threw behind shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera. Sabathia had set down the first 10 batters he faced, so he was not about to hit Cabrera, but he got the point across with a pitch that went behind the batter to the backstop, and both benches were warned by the home-plate umpire Fieldin Culbreth. “That one really cut,” Sabathia said with a straight face. Kluber allowed only one run in five innings. He walked two and struck out a career-high six batters. The most noteworthy thing he did was hit Jeter, but on a night when the Yankees were tested, it was something they were able to withstand. | New York Yankees;Sabathia C C;Cleveland Indians;Jeter Derek;Baseball |
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